Wed 30th July - What small DFW things will you be doing today?

Morning DFW-Jedis,

I am up early-ish again to have another shot at my Masterplan For World Domination. Basically I have a huge list of stuff to over the next five days; some of it fun and some of it essential. I did well yesterday with the list, only being thwarted by the weather and if I can get to lunchtime today I'll be half way through my epic quest to deal with all the things that make me sigh with despair. So here I go:


Masterplan For World Domination Day Three:


Check online banking. Done.

Keep an eye on the book I'm trying to sell on eBay.

Do Nectar AdPoints. Done

Do i-Say surveys. None available.

Make own Tortilla wraps. Deferred from yesterday. Here's the recipe. (Link) Done. Total disaster. I made a new dish: Fried Cement. The rest of the dough has been converted into cheese straws and is currently baking. Looks ok.

Do some photography with OH when it gets dark tonight. Too poor visibility last night.

Clear up an issue with OH's Self-Assessment. Deferred from yesterday. Done. Industrial action at HMRC, limited number of advisers available.

Continue knitting hot water bottle cover. It's coming along nicely.

Deep clean the pantry using minimal products and washable cloths. I don't mind the odd cobweb but this is a gothic art installation. Oh my! That took a lot of cleaning.

Go for a free run with OH to coaching me. I run downhill like Usain Bolt and uphill like Old Granny Rickets. Done. I'm not built like a "runner" so I'm never gonna be great at it, but we had a good laugh videoing me for analysis.

Go kite flying if we get enough wind.

Entering another photographic competitions on OH's behalf. Done. Thanks Ziggy for that idea.

Decide whether to eBay any more books or DVDs. Decided not to.

Make Toad-In-The-Hole for dinner. Batter prepared.

Free and Easy Computer Clean-Up

I expect everyone has seen adverts on the internet for software that "makes your computer run faster" or "improves computer efficiency". Many of these programs are just an excuse to try to sell you something you don't need and a small minority are actually programs that will harm your pc. Did you know you already have these speed and efficiency programs built into your computer if you have Windows? They're called Disk Defragmenter and Disk Cleanup. You've already bought them and they're not difficult to use, I promise.

Defragment all computers to increase speed and space. Why should you do this? Well, if you run a computer on Windows files are automatically filed away for you in a really messy fashion. This means when your computer is running sometimes files get split up from their friends and this means when you ask your computer to do something very often the little robots inside your computer can't find what their looking for easily and have to hunt around for a file to do the simplest thing. If you use Window's built in Disk Defragmenter tool it will tidy up these broken and split files for you at no extra cost to yourself making your computer run quicker and more efficiently. How do you do this? If you have Windows XP or Windows 7: Start> All Programs> Accessories > System Tools > Disk Defragmenter > Click Analyse. This will start the process for you. After a little while it will tell you whether your system is so messy that it needs a to be Defragmented or not. If it says "You should Defragment" just click "Defragment" and it'll do it for you and after a few minutes it'll tell you it's finished. Simples! This can take a little while depending on how un-tidy your computer has got itself so don't start the program just before you want to shut down your computer. You can continue working on your computer while this utility is running. Done. Reunited over 8000 file fragments with the files they belong to!

Use Disk Cleanup on all computers. Why should you do this? Disk Cleanup is a free computer maintenance utility included in Microsoft Windows designed to free up disk space on a computer's hard drive. The utility first searches and analyses the hard drive for files that are no longer of any use, and then removes the unnecessary background files. This makes your computer run more quickly. How do you do this? If you have Windows XP or Windows 7: Start> All Programs> Accessories > System Tools > Disk Cleanup>OK This will start the process for you. After a little while a box will pop-up showing your how mcuh space you can save. Click "OK" to delete the clutter. That's it. It's best to run Disk Cleanup after you've run Disk Defragmenter, by the way. I just run it on our home computers and deleted 3150MB of rubbish off one and 267MB of rubbish off the other.

Back up my Finances Spreadsheet by sending myself a copy in my email. Done

Update Virus Scanner and scan all computers. I use Avast, it's free and friendly and it has served me well for three years. (Link) Done. Fine. Phew!

Well that's me for today. Good luck on your quests, Jedis.


MONEY MAKING AND SAVING SITES AS OFTEN MENTIONED IN THIS FORUM:

• A Girl Called Jack, cheap recipes ( Link )
• Benefits check-up ( Link )
• Birthday Bingo, daily free game ( Link )
  
• eBid ( Link )
  
• Freecycle ( Link )
• Free Postcode Lottery (Link)
• FreeStuff ( Link )
• FreeUKStuff ( Link )
• i-Say Surveys (Link)
• List of online newspapers. At bottom of the linked page. ( Link )
• MSE Boost Your Income page. Gateway to lots of money-making links. ( Link )
• MSE Abbreviations Explained ( Link )
• MSE Deals and Vouchers ( Link )
• MSE Wow Offers ( Link )
• My Supermarket ( Link )
• Nectar Points, AdPoints, Search Toolbar ( Link )
• OnePoll ( Link )
• Quidco ( Link )
• Reclaim PPI at no cost to yourself ( Link )
• SayNoTo0870 cheap phone number finder ( Link )
  
• Survey sites that pay for your opinions ( Link )
• Swagbucks ( Link )
• Swapit ( Link )
• Tesco Clubcard Free Movies and TV Shows Online ( Link )
  
• Toluna ( Link )
  
• TopCashBack ( Link )