3. Delete file-sharing programs. You’ve probably heard of Napster, Kazaa, Morpheus, and a dozen other programs used to trade music on Internet. These programs are also used to trade pornographic pictures and movies. They can find and download pornography more efficiently than any Website, and can be accessed even if you use a filter or a filtered Internet service provider. You might want to get rid of these anyway because music industry has started suing individual users of these programs who download pirated music files.

4. Choose an advanced Internet filter. The problem with many Internet filters is that there are so many new sites every day. Some filters just block out certain keywords, like “xxx”. The problem with this is, it blocks out sites that have nothing to do with pornography. It also doesn’t block out sites that are in different languages or that may not use certain keywords.

Choose a filter that updates dynamically or automatically, so it blocks out thousands of new sites set up every day. Another key component is to choose a filter that blocks more than just pornographic Websites. For example, blocking out file-sharing sites once you delete file-sharing programs from your computer will help keep your computer safe. Other categories you might want to block: alternative lifestyle, dating sites, lingerie, illegal activities (like how to make bombs, etc.) and crude or obscene sites.

Making your computer safe from Internet filth is easy. It only takes a little bit of up-front effort to prevent a lot of problems that can occur down road.

Avoid Instant Messenger - "Heresy! I must have my instant messenger" you cry! Keep a log of how much time gets spent mindlessly chatting on IM instead of doing something important. If you must IM, do it in moderation.

Filter Spam - Use a program to filter your spam instead of wading through it by hand. Even if you only get 25 spam messages a day (I'd love to be you) and only spend 10 seconds on each message, at end of a year that comes out to over 30 hours wasted on spam!

Filter your email messages before you take time to download them to your machine and you'll love spare time that magically comes your way.

** Slow Mouse? **

When I flick my wrist I expect that mouse to hop from one side of screen to other like house was on fire!

A slow mouse can steal seconds of precious time that add up to hours of frustration over weeks and months.

If you suffer from a "slow mouse," click then "Control Panel" then "Mouse".

Then you'll see a tab that says "Pointer Options" or "Motion" (or something similar) and you can adjust slider left or right to increase or decrease speed of your mouse's movement across screen.

** Use Windows Keyboard Shortcuts **

Windows has a number of nifty keyboard combinations that most people don't know about, but can save you incredible amounts of time, energy, effort and frustration. +Z - I call this "panic button."

Hold down "Ctrl" key and hit letter Z and you can often undo last action you took in Windows.

This comes in especially handy when you've deleted something (like a term paper or 500 word article) and want it back.

If you accidentally do something wrong, STOP hitting keys immediately and do +Z to undo what you just did.

+D - Ever wonder what little "flag" key is on keyboard next to "Alt?" (I sure have wondered.)

Well, it turns out that little key has some cool uses.

Hold down +D and you can minimize all open windows on your desktop.

Very handy when you keep many programs running and need to hit your desktop in a hurry. +F - allows you to search for any file on your computer immediately.

It will amaze you how much faster you can get things done just by understanding how to save little bits of time here and there using shortcuts, tools and better ways of doing things.