April Challenge: Spring Clean Your Computer
Spring has sprung and it’s time to take a look at clearing up your computer. Thanks to the guys at SimpleHop, we have a great calendar to follow to help us get our computer fighting fit during April
I don’t know about where you are but here in my part of England Spring truly has sprung. Usually at this time of year we turn to spring cleaning the house, having a general declutter and a sort of our physical spaces such as home, garden and garage – but what about our computers?
You know the ritual, you buy a new computer set up some folders and promise yourself that this time everything will be neatly filed away so you can find everything… until two weeks later your downloads folder looks like a small bomb has hit it, you have word documents in your pictures folder and goodness only know where that report you typed 3 days ago got saved!
Fear not though! Help is at hand from the guys at SingleHop who have produced a “Clean Computer Calendar”.
What is the “Clean Computer Calendar?
The calendar runs for 5 days over 3 weeks. On each day you have a different task to look at from creating a folder structure to store things, to sorting out that pile of downloads you seem to have amassed over the years months.
Click the image below to see a full size version of the “Clean Computer Calendar” .
Why Spring Clean Your Computer?
A clean computer doesn’t just mean that you can find files quicker, it can also speed up the running of it in some cases (see this post from tuts+ about how files on your desktop slows your Mac down and on a PC they may not be part of a System Restore point).
Having a set folder structure can also help speed up backups and you can backup or share your files to the cloud quickly and simply.
Backing Up Your Files
Once you have your files all neat and tidy, it’s time – according to the “Clean Computer Calendar” to organise your back-up solution.
Having had several hard drives go “kaput” over the years, or having had to reformat a drive thanks to a corrupt operating system, I can’t stress the importance of backing up your computer.
Whether you use something like Mac’s inbuilt Time Machine or Carbon Copy Cloner, Paragon on a PC or, as I do, save everything onto a NAS drive which automatically backs everything up onto a secondary hard drive, it’s important to have a solution in place that’s easy to use and something that (if it’s not automatic) is easy to run.
Another solution to consider is the use of Cloud Storage for backing up your files. This has the added advantage of meaning you have an off-site backup of the files in case disaster strikes and you have the flexibility of being able to access your files from any location. SimpleHop offers a variety of cloud back-up solutions and provide both virtual backup servers and dedicated servers. You can also check out my post on 9 online storage providers that offer varying degrees of back-up solutions.
How messy is your Hard Drive?
I’m doing quite well at the moment. I’ve rejigged my folder structure to help keep me more organised and I’ve started going through my downloads folder and sorting out what I do and don’t need. Next on my list are my photos, I use iPhoto to organise these on my Mac and these aren’t too bad, it’s the ones that have synced via my phone and DropBox which are a nightmare. I’ve been putting off sorting this folder out for ages, so wish me luck.
Are you going to take the April Spring Clean Your Computer Challenge?
If so, keep us up-to-date with how you’re getting on in the comments. I’ll let you know each Friday in my weekly round-up post how I’m doing.
Good luck!
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