Computer Spring Cleaning February 11, 2010

Spring cleaning isn’t necessarily the most fun thing you do in your life, but at times it becomes a necessity. I have proposed that teachers do spring cleaning on their computers as well.

Essentially, spring cleaning your computer has just a few steps to it and you can make your computer much more friendly to use because of it. Now these steps should work with either a Windows or Mac computer. I have both types of computers and so following these steps will be easy. (Here’s to hoping!)

Step 1- Big Items

The first thing to do, just like cleaning your house, is to fix up or get rid of the big items. It makes you feel successful and motivates you to go ahead with the next steps. So on the computer your big items are your applications. Over the course of a year or so (depending on the last time you went through a clean-up),  you have inevitably downloaded various programs on your computer that are not used anymore. If you need a little help in determining which programs you don’t use just check the properties for the program. There is most likely a last used or modified date. This should help steer you in the right direction. Now, Macs and Windows differ in how you can delete the programs. Windows has the Add/Remove Programs utility in the control panel. Mac doesn’t have a program built-in to do the same thing, but there are programs out there to help.  I have used AppDelete before, and it works really well and as a plus, is free. The benefit of this program is that it will delete all associated files of the application when you delete it. Ideally just freeing up more memory.

Step 2- Your temporary files

You have accumulated a long list of temporary files from the Internet on your computer. This can be downloads that you viewed once or just the long list of images that are downloaded from websites you have visited. Depending on your Internet browser the steps to follow differ. However, a simple help search in your browser should lead you to your temp file location. This step is actually something you should do on a regular basis, and many browsers have settings to automatically delete thing after a period of time.

Step 3- Your files

This is going to be the most difficult of all the steps because you have try to remember what the file actually was before you can determine if you want to delete it or keep it. If by chance you find files that were from some of the programs you deleted it might make the situation easier to decide to delete it. I am a believer in never delete anything. That doesn’t however mean not move anything. I start by creating a new Documents folder and create a new set of folders inside of it as I decide to move some files over that I want to keep available to me at all times. What is left in my original Documents folder is going to become archived and locked. Both Windows and Macs have built-in archive creation programs, but you might want to use WinZip for the Windows if you want more simplicity. Then rename the archive so you know what it is and lock the file so nothing can accidentally happen. Then you can put this somewhere in your Documents folder or “C” drive.

Congratulations! Your computer has gone through a basic spring cleaning! There are more in-depth cleaning tactics you can take on your computer, but sometimes just going through those 3 steps it can clear up a lot of problems.

Throw a Computer Cleaning Party

Get a group of teachers together can see how far you can get. You will be surprised at how many laughs there are. You will hear things like, “When did I download that?”, or “I have looked for this forever.” Maybe teachers will also be able to share some programs or files that they wouldn’t have known about before. Kind of like having a garage sale and buying stuff from other people’s garage sale at the same time.

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