This week marks the first day of Spring, although the weather sure does still feel like winter. When Spring rolls around, people get renewed energy and typically start cleaning up all the dust and rust that has been building up throughout the Winter. In the effort to make everything around you shiny and new, your devices may get neglected, as they don’t typically show the wear and tear on the outside. It is still a great time to make sure your devices get the TLC they deserve as well. Here are a few ways you can spring clean your devices.
Digital Cleaning
Since hard drive space or cloud storage is so cheap these days, it is easy to save files you will never use or need again. A file you downloaded temporarily, just to upload somewhere else or a photo you want to share can take up space and may cause problems for you in the long run. We especially see this on desktops. You stick something on your desktop just for a minute, and then it lives there for years to come. When you have junk stored on your computer, it can actually slow your computer down.
Think of it this way, if you are looking for one thing in a closet, but the closet is filled with things that you no longer need, it is harder for you to find the one thing you are actually looking for. The same thing can happen to a computer. The more files and programs your computer needs to scan through to find the one you need, the slower it will be to respond.
Go through all of your files and delete ones you no longer need. Then go through your programs, and anything you don’t use anymore, uninstall! Once your computer is cleaned up of these files and programs, you can run the manual disc defragmenter to get your computer running optimally. The disc defragmenter will take all the holes in the hard drive you just created by removing the junk and fill them with content that used to reside elsewhere, making the hard drive faster in responding to requests.
You can also remove apps and programs you no longer use from your phone and tablet. Doing this will also help those devices to run more quickly, as those apps could be taking up a lot of space.
Physical Cleaning
Not only do the files and programs in your computer need cleaning up, but the physical insides and outsides of your devices could use a once over as well. Too often as Managed IT Support providers, do we go to open a computer to replace a part and find dust caked on every component. This dust can not only cause parts to function improperly, it can do long-term damage to the device.
Open up your computer every once in a while and use a dust blower to clean off all of the internal components. You may even need to grab a handheld vacuum to get the dust off your desk once it is out of the computer.
Also, flip your keyboard over and give it some light taps to loosen any crumbs or dirt lurking in between the keys. Take the dust blower and make sure go over your keyboard a few times as well (this is best done with the computer turned off). Then take some disinfecting wipes and squeeze out any excess liquid. Wipe the keyboard down really well, making sure to get the oils and dirt on the tops of the keys. Also, wipe down your phone and your tablet with another disinfecting wipe, again making sure to squeeze out any excess liquid.
Getting your devices back to the way they ran when you first obtained them can actually be fairly simple. Just make sure you give them a little love every now and then!