By Carl Weiss
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| Image courtesy of edibunya.com |
Every year at this time we
break out the rakes, the weed whacker and the lawn mower to do a little spring
cleaning. So why should we treat our
technology any different. After all, a
year is a long time online. A lot can
happen to your technology in a year. You load new apps, write and save
documents, browse the web thousands of times and save and delete files right? All
of this activity effectively rearranges the information stored on your hard
drive and begins to slow down our machines. Websites, free apps, adware and other
programs can easily clog our tech with accumulated junk until they slow to a
crawl. The number one complaint of any computing devices is ”my computer is really
slow” So I thought I’d take the time to
show you how to shake out the bugs in order to clean up your computers, tablets
and smartphones.
Step #1: Clear out the Cobwebs
If you’re a Windows user,
start off by opening the control panel and accessing Programs and
Features. This will bring up all the
programs that are currently running on your desktop or laptop. Presented in alphabetical order, the first
thing I do is click on the “Installed On” tab at the top of the page. This causes the programs to be listed by the
date of install, which is a much better way to clear out the cobwebs. You’d be amazed at the number of unused
programs, add-on programs and all sorts of other digital detritus that can make
its way onto your machines without your knowledge. Many times when you install a program, other
add-ons are installed as well. By date
sorting you can forensically trace when and where these programs made their way
onto your system. Then it’s just a matter of weeding them out.
On Android tablets and
smartphones, you need to peruse the apps that populate it and decide where to start
trimming. You’d be surprised at how much
faster your smartphone or tablet will run once you have weeded out little used
apps. To edit and/or remove unwanted
apps, hit the app icon and the “Edit” tab.
This will highlight your apps and allow you to uninstall them by
clicking on the app.
Step #2: Beef Up Your Security
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No matter the device, you can
never have too much security. Every week,
millions of cyber attacks take place.
This results in the loss of data and dollars. If your virus protection has expired, you
need to renew it. If you are only running
one form of protection, you need to augment it by adding anti-malware
software. I personally have three layers
of protection on all my devices, including my smartphone. That’s because the hundred dollars or so that
I pay in antivirus/anti malware software is a small price to pay to protect my
business and financial data.
Some programs such as
Advanced System Care 8.1 not only help you protect your system, it also clears
out junk files, optimizes your hard drive, checks and fixes shortcuts. Just make sure that you buy it direct from
iobit.com.
Another thing you should do
at least twice a year is change your passwords.
Make your passwords at least ten characters long. Eight character passwords are all too easy to
crack.
Step #3: Backup Your Data
You wouldn’t drive a car or
own a home without insuring it, would you?
The reason you pay your premiums month in and month out is to protect
two of the biggest investments you possess.
Then why don’t more people backup their data? Especially when you consider the small cost
of storing your data on an external drive or on the cloud, making a backup of
your hard drive is one of the cheapest insurance policies around. Or, you can wait until some hacker
compromises your system or the hard drive crashes before you start backing up
your drive.
Step #4: Break out the Rake
A couple of months ago my
laptop started sounding like a Boeing 757 winding up for takeoff every time I
started it up. Then it simply stopped
working one afternoon, leaving me with a “Cooling Fan Disabled” warning that I
heeded immediately by shutting down the system and driving it over to a local computer
repair shop. An hour (and $100) later I
got a call from their technician.
“I’ve got good news and I’ve
got bad news,” he told me.
“What’s the good news?” I
asked.
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“Your laptop is running as
good as new and I didn’t even have to replace the fan. All I
did was pop open the case and
blow out a warren of dust bunnies. When
I plugged it in, it fired up right away.
The dust had pilled in the cooling fan enough that it jammed.”
“Then what’s the bad news?” I
wondered out loud.
“I still have to charge you
the one hundred dollar laptop service fee.”
When I considered the fact
that I not only didn’t have to sweat the cost of replacing the cooling fan, but
the time it would take to ship the part, I considered the $100 cleaning a
bargain. As soon as I got back to the
office I popped the case off my desktop as well and gave it a thorough dusting
as well. (All it takes is a screwdriver and a can of compressed air.)
Step# 5: Time to Defrag
If it has been more than
three months since you last defragged your hard drive, then spring cleaning is
definitely time to perform this chore.
While it could take an hour or more to do, it will speed up your drive’s
response time considerably.
Step# 6: Update Your Drivers
If you are using out of date
drivers, especially those associated with your system’s operating system, then
you are leaving the door wide open to hackers.
The reason that companies spend so much time and money tweaking their
drivers is predominantly due to the fact that there are millions of hackers who
spend billions of man hours searching for vulnerabilities in systems and
software. I have known users who
intentionally disabled the automatic updates, or who don’t allow updates to
take place when notified by their system.
Then they complain when their system gets hacked.
While all these tasks could
collectively take you the better part of a day to perform, when you consider
the increase in speed and security that a little hi-tech spring cleaning can
provide, you will more than make up for it in added productivity.
Carl Weiss is president of Working the Web to Win, an award-winning digital marketing agency based in Jacksonville, Florida. You can listen to Carl live every Tuesday at 4 p.m. Eastern on BlogTalkRadio
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