COMPUTER TIPS FOR A NEW YEAR.
Hey everyone! This time of year has always made me think of new beginnings and the usual January stuff……. You too I expect. New Year’s Resolutions, change battery in the smoke detector, etc. I like to clean out closets and storage spaces and get rid of the “old” or some of it anyway, to make room for the “new”. Or maybe just make room period. Donating the things you clear out is always a good idea. Anyway sort of get a fresh start vibe going.
Today, specifically, I want to talk about some basic computer cleanup. (much of this will translate to any of your electronic devices, laptops, smartphones, tablets and what have you.) With a computer even though you have a large hard drive and think you have enough storage to keep everything, and you probably do, remember that when your hard drive gets about 1/2 full it starts to slow down and at about 75 or 80% it gets noticeably slower. Draggy with increased file load times.
As you use your computer stuff accumulates; old files, outdated programs, unneeded backups and temporary files so I like a little clean up and refresh for it. I use a three prong attack and start with just going through and deleting any and all files you know you don’t need. And by the way!!! make a fresh backup of your hard drive. I know you get preached at about this but I’m going to say it again and want you to believe it people!!! You don’t want to accidentally delete an important file while you’re cleaning up and not be able to get it back. That’s not good.
So. All that being said, here’s my attack/solution.
# 1: Go through your computer manually and get rid of files, pictures, programs you know you don’t need. One program I find invaluable for photos for instance, is Pixima, a Google program that will literally find every picture on your computer, duplicates and all. Microsoft Office Picture Manager from Office 2010 on does the same thing. Either one will find and let you move or delete or organize all of your pictures, all of them! Now programs and software can be found and removed with Windows Control Panel >Programs and Features. (That is also a good place to start to get rid of malware, but that’s another Post we will address at a later date.) You can use Windows “Search” to find other stuff you want to get rid of.
# 2: Download and use a “Clean up” program to find and get rid of other unnecessary files on your computer. Things you don’t think of or even know are there. My favorite is C Cleaner. It’s free and easy to use and automatically goes through all of the storage on your computer and finds unneeded temp files and backups and what have you. Then it will show you and let you decide what to do with what it’s found. You can also examine each drive or storage space and maybe find things you’d missed in # 1.
# 3: Lastly, in your Systems Utilities you will find a Defragment program. Your computer stores your files in bits and pieces and doesn’t always put all the bits and pieces of a file in the same place. It will put some here and some over there and while it always know where to find all the bits and pieces when you call up the file, it takes longer to go here to get some of it and there to get more of it and all over the hard drive gathering up the whole file. Defrag goes through and gathers all the pieces and puts each file all back together in the same place. It takes a while but is well worth it. And be sure to do this last since there’s no point in spending the time putting together files that you’re going to delete in numbers 1 and 2 anyway.
When you are done I know you’ll have a leaner and faster computer to use. Kind of like [early] Spring house cleaning.
Thanks for reading. I hope it helps. If you have any questions let me know………..Kirk