Richard Skorupski is a writer and author living in South Dakota.

avast! GrimeFighter cleaned "Grime" away and gave an author his beloved laptop back.

Writers have their rituals and their favorite ways to write. For example, author Truman Capote always wrote while stretched out on his couch or bed with cigarettes and drinks (mint tea in the morning; martinis at night) within reach. Philip Pullman, author of The Golden Compass famously writes in a shed by hand, using a ballpoint pen on narrow lined A4 paper (with two holes, not four). Douglas Adams typed Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy on his old Hermes 8 typewriter.

So it wasn't much of a surprise to hear from author Richard Skorupski about the decline of a trusty "old friend." The surprise was how avast! GrimeFighter brought that friend out of retirement. Here's the story Richard shared with us:

A story about an old friend

For a man I can compare it to a favorite tee shirt or faded work jeans. For a woman I can compare it to a favorite pair of comfortable shoes.

That’s right I love my old laptop. It has been with me and served me well through years of blogs, rants, surfing and (of course) the writing of my books. Both Flyover County and The Fred Weber Story were written entirely on that laptop. The two books together are more than a million words. Add that to the other things I have written over the years and there is no wonder why the letters are worn off the keys. It is like having a best friend at my fingertips. My fingers fell in just the right place.

Sure the case is scratched, the battery is shot and I’m on the second screen, but it was still my favorite writing tool. That is until it got too old. As time wore on the my old friend got slower and slower. I understood, this old XP machine was born nine years ago in 2005, that has to be at least one hundred thirty in computer years. It finally got to the point where I put it out to pasture. I kept it around for the files it remembered, and picture memories it held, but I didn’t ask it for hard work anymore.

Now the turn of events. I was with my wife at an Expo Vender show in Huron, South Dakota over the weekend. There was a guy there who sells repaired and refurbished used computers. I knew him because he sold me my replacement computer a few months back. I was talking to him about my old laptop and how it now took over forty five minutes to boot up. I told him I couldn’t play with my old friend anymore because it was simply too slow. He said he may be able to fix it, no guarantees, for a fifty dollar service fee.

That got me thinking. I have seen those commercials on television for speeding up older computers. I wasn’t sure about them enough to trust what they were telling me. I had another answer. I use Avast! Antivirus software on all my home computers. They have recently produced GrimeFighter. They told me that they could make my old friend run like new again. Since I had confidence in Avast! as a company, I bought their product.

I installed the software and (after a couple calls to a very helpful customer service) the thing was off and running. Grime Figher jumped in and started cleaning. The thing took two hours to clean up years of gunk. In the end the report told me I was good to go (other than a very old battery - something I already knew).

So here I am this morning, sharing quality time with my old friend. He is feeling much better, he is spry and chipper and faster than he has been in years. I’m looking forward to all the stories we will tell together in the months (and perhaps years) to come.

Thank you Avast! Now, if you could just find a rejuvenator for humans…

avast! GrimeFighter can help you bring your own "old friend" back from the dead. Read more about how GrimeFighter can speed up your old laptop. Scan your computer for free, then buy your own GrimeFighter license, and purge Grime from your PC.

It's been a few days since Richard let the minions clean "Grime" from his old laptop and he says, "I haven't touched the new computer since I ran Grime Fighter on this one."

Learn more about Richard and buy his first book from Amazon.

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