It’s not often that a company releases industry tricks! But today is an edification day. How can you as a business owner save money, while tweaking and maximizing your IT equipment? Whether you have one computer or ten, it doesn’t matter. Computers are machines, and as such require maintenance. Think of these tips as proactive preventive measures your dentist might take to ensure you don’t develop any dental issues. How many 6 month cleanings have you missed?… Computers operate within that same lane. Have you ever experience slowness after a period of time? Or crashes of your systems? If you haven’t, I know you’ve had to restart your machine. Because it decided to do something other than what you prescribed it too. Here are a few tips to put your systems back in the fast lane.
You’ll feel like this after, minus the whiskers.
1. Run software updates
Subtle, yet vitally important. Often times computers tend not to respond because of efficient use of resources, or faulty programming from software developers. Updates are critical to ensuring you have the latest and greatest security fixes and software tweaks. Whether it is Microsoft Windows, Quicken, or a specialty program update your software, and be aware of when updates are released. As an added bonus, the second Tuesday of each month is “Patch Tuesday” at Microsoft. They release updates for the Windows operating system. Mark this day on your calendar, and make sure you get these updates!
2. Run pre-installed utility tools
If you are using Windows, you can run the disk cleanup and disk defragmenter utilities. I won’t get into a super technical explanation about what each does, but essentially the disk clean utility removes unnecessary files that occupy needless space. While the disk defragmenter utility takes your current files, and arranges them in a more efficient and logical way. Think about it this way, imagine your desk being covered with files from over the past year. You can find files from February, but it’s going to take some digging. If you file these records in a centralized ordered matter though, you’ll reduce the time it takes to locate the files. Working in that same stroke, computers get “unorganized.” They must have their data “refiled” to maintain order. I would suggest executing these utilities monthly.
3. Reinstall your operating system
This in many cases, fixes any issue you are having. Yes, yes I know, “I have all my files and documents saved on this computer.” Well that was your first mistake. As a business owner you should have your data stored in more than one location. Remember, if it can go wrong it will go wrong, make sure you cover yourself. We will provided solutions to this issue in another article. With that I digress… Reinstalling the operating system is easy as booting up your computer, and accessing software on the partition already on your machine. Follow the prompts, and within an hour you have a fresh install of Windows. This method is meant for speed and functionality. If you have spent innumerable hours attempting to fix an issue.It may be in your best interest to cut your losses, and install a fresh copy of your operating system.
Knowledge equals power. Once learned the information captured here today cannot be dislodged from your mind. So go on! Practice makes perfect. We hope we were able to fortify you in some way, even if only a bit.
We would like to hear your thoughts! How do you normally deal with day to day computer issues?
