I'm a computer programmer, I know a multitude of languages and have coded some pretty complex
poo poo, but I'll be the first to admit that I don't know spoon about computers. For a long time now
my laptop has been accumulating garbage and junk and poo poo and I didn't care, well now about 50 Gigs
has gone missing, and everything's all cluttered, so I've decided to re-format and start anew. But, not
knowing anything about computers aside from hardware and programming, I dunno what this entails, and
would appreciate any help.

First off, re-formatting itself. What will I lose? Naturally all files, word doc's, movies, etc. I'll be transferring those
to an external hd. But will I also lose my programs, e.g. Acrobat reader, firefox, apps like that, etc?

Next I want to make my laptop as efficient as possible, meaning when I reinstall Office and Firefox and Adobe,
I don't want all the extra spoon tearing up my processor time, I want everything lightweight and fast. I'd also like
any suggestions on security applications, e.g. McAffee, AVG, etc. I currently have McAffee, but, gawd, that's
soo freakin slow, It makes my lappy crawl. I'm not afraid to pay for protection, but I want something powerful
and fast.

I think that's it, any suggestions would be appreciated, I know Zinga gave a list over at 'hacks and I'll follow it
as I see fit, but I'd liek some other help too. Thanks.

-V