5 Tips for Spring Cleaning your Computer

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Ah, springtime. The birds are chirping, the flowers are blooming, and spring cleaning has commenced! The spring season has long been a time to start fresh and cleanse your life of the clutter and chaos that bogs us down—why stop at your home? While you’re decluttering your closets and ridding your life of disorder, why not do the same for your computer? Here are 5 simple tips to clean up your digital life:

1. Keep your Machines Up to Date

Your top spring cleaning priority should be keeping all web-connected devices—PCs, smartphones, and tablets—free from malware and infections. Having current software for things like security software, web browsers, document readers, operating systems, and any other software you use regularly is one of the best security measures you can take. On our phones, most of us have apps we no longer use and ones that need updating. By deleting the apps you no longer use and updating the apps you do use, you free up storage space and extend battery life—it’s a win- win!

2. Delete the Duplicates

I don’t know about you, but when I work on a project, I end up so many copies of the same file, it’s hard to distinguish which version is the one that I need to keep.  For example, not only do I have a number of versions on my computer, but I’ve probably saved a couple on a network drive, OneNote, or Dropbox to share them with others, and that’s not including the copy I sent to someone via email.  Before I know it, I’m left with multiple copies and don’t know which is which. Sound familiar? If you go through and delete the redundancies once the final document has been completed, you can save hard drive space and make your life a lot easier when it comes to finding the files you need again in the future!

3. Put Things in Folders

Cleaning a computer isn’t just about deleting the extra files, but it can also be about organizing them. While it is not essential to how your computer runs, organizing files into folders can increase productivity by reducing the amount of time you take searching for documents in your file explorer. It’s much faster to find things in a folder dedicated the topic it pertains to, rather than searching through a long list of unorganized files.

4. Clear History and Cookies

Clearing your browser history and all the data that has been collected can speed up your system and give you that “fresh start” feeling. These are small files stored, but overtime they can significantly slow things down. Worried about losing your frequently visited pages? Just create a bookmark for your favorite sites and they will not get erased when you clear your history. How simple is that?

5. Clean your Hardware

You work hard to keep your computer systems free of viruses and bugs every day.  Keeping the exterior of your electronics clean is important too.  Monitors, notebooks, smart phones, and tablets all require alcohol and ammonia-free screen cleaner to proper clean and prevent damage to their screens.  At NETiMAGE, we’ve tried many screen cleaners over the years and like the WHOOSH! Screen Shine the best (http://whoosh.com/ ).  It’s safe for all of our electronics, it cleans really well, and it doesn’t leave a smeary residue like some screen cleaners.  And for our travel-bound friends, there’s even a TSA-approved size.