Tip of the day (really a “reminder”) for your Friday
There’s just something about Fridays that you gotta love. :-)
We humans simply must have some light at the end of the tunnel, or we will flag, sag, and eventually quit trying. Friday (for most of us) is that light — the end of the work week is not only in sight, it’s mere hours away!
And Friday for a lot of us (me too… when I was younger) means that we will “go out”; we will “celebrate”; we will eat, drink, and (maybe) dance with friends, co-workers, and complete strangers. We will make merry. A joyous break in the routine.
Friday means the weekend is here. Isn’t that a magical word? “Weekend”. (I smile just thinking it.)
Sure, the weekend isn’t all fun-and-games.. there’s lawns to mow, and cars to wash-and-vacuum, and a “Honey-Do list” a mile long, and grocery shopping.. there’s church, weddings to attend, children’s birthday parties, friends-who-need-help-moving-to-a-new-apartment and,.. have you cleaned out your gutters yet?
Weekends are never long enough.
So today is Friday and it feels like Spring is here.
Here where I live, we’ve had several warm sunny days in a row. So.. the other day I gave my car a bath. Washed all the grime away. Guess what? It rained hours later.
Is that cliche, or what?
OK, this is a “tech” site..
Tip of the day: Springtime means Spring Cleaning (and pruning.. and planting.. and gutter-cleaning..) and so I am going to remind you that your computer needs an occasional cleaning too. (Nice transition, eh?)
1) Get rid of the dust and lint: Dust and lint can reduce your computer’s performance, cooling efficiency, and even cause fatal short-circuits.
* For desktop PCs, unplug your computer’s powercord from the wall and open your computer’s case so you can see all the neato circuitry inside. How, exactly your case opens will vary with make/model, but it is usually a side panel, and the side panel is held in place with two thumb-screws (the manufacturer’s website will have instructions, also).
Once the case is open, use the techniques I described in my recent printer maintenance article to remove the built-up dust bunnies. Pay special attention to air venting areas (and screens), such as by the power supply. (And, be careful and be gentle.)
* For notebooks, your cleaning is going to be a little different: you will want to get all the debris from out from under your keyboard keys, as I describe in this article. And you’ll want to wipe down your screen with an anti-static cloth (which may may require the slightest [just a drop or two.. in one corner..] moistening with plain water.
2) Get rid of disk clutter: Empty the trash that accumulates on your hard drive for a leaner, meaner file system. Fortunately there’s a one-button tool for that in Windows, https://techpaul.wordpress.com/2007/11/07/more-than-you-wanted-to-know-about-the-disk-cleanup-tool/
So let’s get busy and do some “Spring Cleaning”.. and don’t forget to notice the flowers.
Source post: 3/14/08
A little “preventative” care and maintenance goes a long way. I hope you will follow through (especially you folks whose PC sit on a carpeted floor) and make your machine happy. Happy machines run better!
Today’s free download: A great CD/DVD/Blu-ray authoring tool, Ashampoo Burning Studio 6, allows you to create easily installable backup archives (across multiple disks), handles most music formats, copies DVDs, and works with .iso files. Possibly the best free alternative to Nero.
Today’s quote: “Nobody grows old merely by living a number of years. We grow old by deserting our ideals. Years may wrinkle the skin, but to give up enthusiasm wrinkles the soul.” ~ Samuel Ullman
Bonus (for reading this far): The 20 most useful Android smartphone apps of 2011
Jason Hiner provides his list of the top 20 tried-and-true Android smartphone apps that are worth your time to download. Read more..
Copyright 2007-2011 © “Tech Paul” (Paul Eckstrom). All Rights Reserved.
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• About Tech Paul
I am a Retired computer & network technician. I used to think the machines were pretty cool. Now I don’t.
They’re anything but.
I regularly posted how-to’s and tricks & tips and general computing advice here starting in 2007. (Use the Search tool to find answers. But be aware, many are rather dated.) Sometimes I answered (your) specific questions in an article if I believed the answer was generally helpful to “everyone”. All the writing you see was my own, typos and all. There always is/was an implied “IMHO” in what you see here.
Note: You are responsible for using this blog and its content. I am in no way liable for any losses caused by user error, viruses and/or other malware, hardware or software failure, or any other conceivable reason.
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Another great article
I did not know about this little gem or what it meant.
Excellent info
1 question, would it be better to use this gem to find out what program that you seldom/never use and then uninstall with a Revo or something so that you get all the junk out?
I dl a lot of programs just to see if I like it and then forget what I dl. I think I need counseling. rofl
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ebony,
I am going to assume you mean the Disk Cleanup tool as the “gem” (let me know if I misunderstood). It has a different, though perhaps complimentary, purpose to uninstallers (such as Revo). I recommend running it 1/week. It empties the Recycle bin, and deletes “temp” files your machine downloads from the Internet (and caches) to make your web surfing appear faster.
In a case like you describe, opening Revo (or Control Panel > Programs and Features) and going through – yourself – the list of installed programs, and uninstalling the ones you know you installed and never use (do not uninstall something just because you do not recognize it – research it first, it may be something Windows needs) is the proper method.
Revo does a good job of finding and removing any ‘traces’, but if you want to make especially sure (for some reason) a program you uninstall is gone gone, you might (also) do the second part of this, Tutorial: Using CCleaner.
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Thank you Paul :)
I cannot believe I did not remember the CCleaner tutorial, after you mentioned it, I clicked on it only to realize I had booked marked it and used it when it was posted the first time. Checked my bookmarks and there it is. I need to find a better way of keeping these little gems. I ran CCleaner then checked the Disk Cleanup tool and it said that I would only gain 1 MB of space. Pretty niffty tool that CCleaner.
Good info and to answer your question, yes you understood the question just fine. I will try to be more specific when talking “techie”, I am still learning.
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ebony,
You’re very kind.
Thanks for the words of support!
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