Greetings, traveler! Spring has arrived and with it, a return to the much-beloved Spring cleaning. “But Will, what is Spring Cleaning?” you may ask, if you are someone unfamiliar with American colloquialisms. Well Hans, Spring cleaning is a time once a year where everyone cleans the filth accrued from the three lesser seasons. Typically, this includes cleaning floors, dusting furniture, and de-molding your bathroom. But, my dear friend, what about your electronics?
Performing some basic maintenance on your devices even once a year is a great way to make sure things run smoothly. Here’s a checklist of what you can do to improve performance (note that specific references here are for Windows users, but the basic principles can be applied to Mac/iOS/Linux/etc as well):
- Run a full virus scan on your computer. If you have antivirus on your machine and it isn’t McAfee, go ahead and run it. If it IS McAfee, see item #1a.
a. Uninstall McAfee. It’s garbage. I typically recommend Windows Defender or Symantec for real-time virus protection and Malwarebytes for running scans.
- Organize your data. The number of times I’ve seen a computer where the desktop background isn’t visible due to a wall of random files is frightening. That Word doc from six months ago no longer needs to be there, so do yourself a favor and file that dusty tome somewhere out of sight.
a. This applies to everything tech-related. 50,000 items in your email Inbox is not doing you any favors when you have to go digging for that 2 ½ year old email from what’s-her-name.
- Uninstall unused/unknown programs. On at least half the machines I work on day-to-day, there is a minimum of one program that was installed unintentionally. On top of that, these programs are often the reason your computer is running so poorly. So open up that programs list and give it a once-over. If you see some obvious no-nos like Shopper Pro or Wizam Picture Buddy, blow those puppies to kingdom come.
a. For those particularly pesky programs that just won’t uninstall, I tend to favor ADWcleaner.
And there you have it! A deluge of wisdom straight from fount himself. Tune in for Part 2, where we’ll cover How to Figure Out Why Your Computer Runs Like Molasses Traveling Uphill in a Snowstorm.