I wanted to wish everyone a very Happy New Year except politicians in DC getting a raise in their own salaries while taxing us even more. May this year be better than the past and everyone prosper and find bountiful happiness. I have spent the past week with my family and hiking in Southern Utah getting my mind clear for 2013 and all it’s potential awesomeness.
To start 2013 clean and fresh here are a few computer system tips to get/keep your system top performing and your data safe for the new year.
- Backup your system and also make sure you have regular data back ups planned so you can get your data back should something occur such as hardware failure, virus, or other event. I personally use multiple external hard drives including 1 that has a built-in network connection so everyone here at home can backup to the same drive.
- Review and delete files and directories from the Temp folder (%TEMP% from Windows Explorer) for the Windows user accounts on the machine
- Clean your Internet browser's temp files cache
- Clean up unused applications by uninstalling them
- Clean up old files and archive them to a backup CD/DVD, external drive or cloud storage service.
- Run Check Disk and Defragment of your hard drive from Start > All Programs > Accessories> System Tools
- Perform a full virus and trojan scan and make sure you keep your anti virus up to date. There are some free anti virus and firewall software out there so price is no excuse for your data being at risk.
- Check out some free diagnostics online from http://safety.live.com/
- Perhaps defragment your page file with the free PageDefrag from www.sysinternals.com
Remember don’t use the “I haven't done this or that the all year” on New Years Day as that is so 2012. Get started practicing to write the year as 2013 as that normally takes me about 3 months to get used to.
I hope to see you in 2013, if not you know you can find me right here.
Sincerely,
Shaan