Bill Myers

As you probably know, many of the major computer sellers including Dell, Apple, HP and IBM, have announced recalls of millions of batteries used in their laptop computers.

Apparently, these batteries are prone to overheating - and a few have exploded in spectacular balls of fire.

Heeding the warning, I checked to see if the battery in my Dell laptop was affected. Fortunately, it wasn't.

But while checking the battery, I noticed that dust bunnies had set up housekeeping in all the cooling vents on the bottom and back of the computer.

It only took a minute to clear out the dust bunnies, and as a result the computer should run cooler and last longer.

Had I not been checking for the battery recall, I probably would not have discovered the dust bunny build up, and that could have resulted in serious overheating problems.

Moral: If you haven't checked your computer for dust bunnies or recalled batteries, you might want to do it now - else risk your computer going up in flames.