Just like a house needing housekeeping to keep it spick and span, your computer is your special workdesk that needs housekeeping too. Especially if you use your computer for all the necessities of city-living chores ie. paying bills online, applying passport online etc. If you're a Windows user, pay heed to this. If you're a Linux or a Mac user, please feel free to laugh at this article. Linux users like us don't have to waste another precious time in our lives to do something like this.

New computer

• Partition your new hard disk into two; you'll get a C: and D: drive. Your DVD or CD-writer will automatically be the E: drive. One is where you install your Windows and the other is where you keep your data. By data I mean Office documents - like your Word files, your Excel sheet, your PDF file, your digital camera photo, your emails, your homework, your work that you bring home. Reason being that should anything happen to your C: drive, your important data won't be compromised. You can always install your applications back but data loss is very difficult to salvage.
• Connect your computer to the Internet (preferably broadband, if you're still using dial-up, you're retarded), run Windows Update. Update whenever you're prompted. A default Windows system is very prone to malicious programs and security loopholes so the updates will patch it for you. Do not visit any other websites during windows update. You don't want to risk getting infected by virus, worms, trojans or spyware.
• Once your Windows system is in place, install a reputable anti-virus program. Security software are pretty complete these days, they're both anti-virus and anti-spyware. I recommend Eset NOD32. If your motherboard, ahem.. your computer comes with an OEM Norton Internet Security, install it. It's bloated, but it's good enough for home use, a bloated security software is better than no security software at all. Configure it to work with your home network. A good security suite has these minimum features: anti-virus, anti-spyware, anti-spam (plugin for your Outlook). Give full access to applications that's safe to use.
• Install all your applications that you're likely to use. In my case, Dreamweaver, Photoshop and a gazillion other open-source applications.
• Defrag your Windows! In Windows Explorer, right click on your C: drive, choose Properties/Tools/Defragmentation. Click Defragment Now. Choose C: drive, or D: drive and start defragging already. You don't have to do this if you're a non-Windows user. They have a totally different file system altogether.
• That's pretty much it.

Your computer (most likely it's greying and virus-infested hehe)

• Run defrag once a month
• Update your virus definitions
• Update your security suite
• If your hard disk has only one partition, u can use partitioning software from Norton or Paragon or Acronis. These softwares are smart enough not to erase your data. Backup your data anyway
• Backing up data is easy. Only backup your DATA files. Stuff in My Documents, My Pictures, browser history, browser settings (bookmarks, profiles etc) are just some obvious examples. Copying the whole Windows directory is NOT it. Use a thumbdrive or an external hard disk or burn those data into a DVD
• Periodically create a backup DVD of your system especially if it's in perfect working order. You never know when you need them.
• It's a great idea to copy your drivers files into a directory. I always have a D:/Drivers folder in my other partition where I keep all the drivers to my system. eg.
  D:/Drivers/Motherboard, D:/Drivers/Sound, D:/Drivers/Video
  Don't forget to keep a subfolder of your operating system if you plan to upgrade or downgrade, eg.
  D:/Drivers/Motherboard/WinXP/*.*, D:/Drivers/Motherboard/Vista/*.*
• Keep your system spam-free too. Do not open emails from strangers. Beware of phishing sites. Know the exact URLs and domains of sites that you frequent too, eg, DBS website is www.dbs.com.sg if you find an email asking you to verify your account number at www.dbsbank.com.sg, IGNORE it. It's a scam website waiting to catch your account number and siphoon money away from you. That's a reason why as a webmaster I remember sites by URL. Phishing and scam websites now use very similar names to confuse users.
• Be cautious of all the free softwares that you're going to download. They're probably bundled with trojan or malware. Go for open-source software. Sourceforge has plenty of nifty tools that's completely free for personal use and they're good enough compared to the more expensive commercial tools. How many times do we really need to use those advanced functions found in the commercial tools?