Each year, the second Monday of February is Clean Out Your Computer Day. You could call it an annual reminder to have a good look at your computer, both inside and outside. This is only logical: you take your car to your garage for a regular check-up, so why not have a thorough check-up and clean-up of your digital devices?
What you need to remember, though, is that you computer need cleaning on the outside as well as ‘on the inside’. This does not just mean: opening the side panels and getting rid of the dust inside. You also need to perform some regular ’digital cleaning’ as well.
No, don’t run away just yet: this is a lot easier than it sounds, specially if you follow the tips and tricks below.
Fuel your fans
Inside your computer, you can find a number of fans which ensure that all components stay as cool as possible. Unfortunately, these fans also collect quite a lot of dust. When the dust gets piled up, this may cause the computer to slow down or even to break down completely.
Power down your PC, unplug it, and remove the side panels. Carefully remove most of the dust using your vacuum cleaner (preferably in the lightest position). To remove dust in the tiny corners, you can use a can containing compressed air. Such cans are available in computer or DIY retails stores. Make sure that the fans on your graphics card and your processor are entirely dust-free.
Storage space
On your hard disk, you can perform quite a lot of cleaning too. Just like any physical storage room, your hard drive can can store lots of unneeded items which take up valuable storage room. Have a critical look at these old holiday pictures and remove all doubles, poorly framed and other useless photos. Check which programs or documents are never used and never will be. Empty your garbage bin. And remove all files that are stored on two or more different locations on the same disk.
Using an application such as CCleaner, this cleaning operation becomes a lot easier. This handy tool scans your disk for superfluous, double, unused or invalid files. The resulting list allows you to delete them quickly and easily.
When all unwanted/unused/unneeded files have been deleted, you can start organizing the remaining files and folders. More specifically, your desktop and your download folder may turn out to be very messy. If you still need to use the files you find there, we advise you to store them in folders such as ‘My Pictures’ or ‘My videos’. If not, just throw them in the garbage bin.
Manage your backup
When all redundant files have been removed and all others have been nicely organized, it is the ideal time for a full backup of your PC. A perfect spot to safely store your backup is the Seagate Backup Plus Ultra Slim, a compact hard drive featuring a huge storage space of no less than 2 terabyte.
2 terabyte means: half a million songs, 320.000 photos, or more than 240 hours of high-quality video images. So, of you have some files that you don’t really need but hate to get rid of permanently, there will be plenty of space keft to store them. So go ahead and do leave some room for that cheesy movie and that guilty pleasure music. You can still throw them next year, when you’re having your next Clean Out Your Computer Day!
