Tag: maintenance

March 31st is called World Backup Day. At least once a year, backup your data files to an external drive (like a flash drive). This is one that isn’t connected to your local computer so can’t be compromised if you get a virus. It’s good to always backup data to cloud drives or a different drive on your computer but once a year, do the entire collection of data files to what is called an ‘air gap’ drive–one that is separated from any internet connection.

How to do this 

There are various ways to back up your data. You can back up your data to an external device or a cloud-based backup service, or to both. You might even make more than one backup to external storage devices and keep the two copies in different places (providing protection and access to your data even if one of the backup devices is destroyed or inaccessible. Preserving your valuable documents and images for future access and use requires planning, as well as the use of automatic backup services.

To back up PC/Windows, use Windows Backup:

• Click the start button.
• Go to Control Panel
• Select ‘Backup and Restore’
• Select ‘Backup Now’

From there, select a drive with sufficient space and start. Be forewarned: If you have a lot of data, it takes a while. You can work on your computer while it’s backing up; it’ll just be slower.

Mac: Use the Time Machine tool.

Chromebook: No need. Everything is saved to the cloud. Now if you want to backup your cloud, use a service like Backupify.

#WorldBackupDay

This week, I’ll post updated suggestions to get your computers and technology ready for the blitz of projects you’ll swear to accomplish in New Year resolutions. Here’s what you’ll get (links won’t be active until the post goes live):

1. 8+ Ways to Speed Up Your Computer — December 13th
2. 9 Ways to Update Your Online Presence — December 14th
3. Backup and Image your computer — December 15th

Regular readers of Ask a Tech Teacher know these are updated each December. New readers: Consider these body armor in the tech battle so you can jubilantly overcome rather than dramatically succumb.

Today: Image and Backup Your Computer

Two maintenance tasks lots of people skip are:

• • back up your documents

• • image your computer

Backup Data Files

Every teacher I know has lost critical work because they didn’t back up on a regular basis. There’s no reason for that. Backing up is easy, fairly quick, and usually free. For details on backing up your computer, check out LifeHacker, PC World, and Windows online help.

A reminder from Janet over at Focused on Story:

“…check your external hard drive to make sure it actually has the computer backed up files on it. Unfortunately we backed up to it, but all of the files weren’t getting backed up. We’d had the back-up a long time, so when the tech checked it, he heard something rattling inside. It was broken! sigh.”

Yep–I had that happen once, too!

Another suggestion from Andrew over at Andrew’s View of the Week:

“On a Mac, use an external USB drive and time machine to backup and consider using iCloud for remote backups.”

Image your computer (more…)

This week, I’ll post updated suggestions to get your computers and technology ready for the blitz of projects you’ll swear to accomplish in New Year resolutions. Here’s what you’ll get (links won’t be active until the post goes live):

1. 8+ Ways to Speed Up Your Computer — December 13th
2. 9 Ways to Update Your Online Presence — December 14th
3. Backup and Image your computer — December 15th

Regular readers of Ask a Tech Teacher know these are updated each December. New readers: Consider these body armor in the tech battle so you can jubilantly overcome rather than dramatically succumb.

Today: 8 Ways to Speed up Your Computer

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I posted this a few years ago, skipped the topic with all the craziness of the pandemic, and am updating it this year in articles about how to wrap up your school year.:

Wrapping up your school technology for the summer is as complicated as setting it up in September. There are endless backups, shares, cleanings, changed settings, and vacation messages that — if not done right — can mean big problems when you return from summer vacation. If you have a school device, a lot of the shutdown steps will be done by the IT folks as they backup, clean, reformat, and maybe re-image your device. If you have a personal device assigned by the school but yours to take home, the steps may be more numerous but really, not more complicated.

Here’s a list. Skip those that don’t apply to you and complete the rest. I won’t take time in this article (I’m over 800 words right now) for a how-to on each activity so if you don’t know how to complete one, check with your IT folks or Google it:

Make sure your firewall and antivirus programs are working.

Many computers come with a built-in one to keep viruses and malware out that slow your computer. Sometimes, they seem to turn off by themselves (I have no idea why). Check to be sure yours is active. If you have a Chromebook or an iPad, don’t even worry about this.

Clean out your documents.

Sort through the documents you collected this year and get rid of those you don’t need anymore. It’s intimidating, like a file cabinet that hasn’t been opened in months –- or years — and is covered with spider webs. If you don’t do this regularly, the computer must finger through these unused files every time you search. If you hate throwing anything away, create an ‘Old’ folder, toss them all in it, and save that to a flash drive or in the cloud.

(more…)

In these 169 tech-centric situations, you get an overview of pedagogy—the tech topics most important to your teaching—as well as practical strategies to address most classroom tech situations, how to scaffold these to learning, and where they provide the subtext to daily tech-infused education.

Today’s tip: How to Add Zip to a Slow Computer

Category: Maintenance, Security

Q: I have a netbook (or a PC, a desktop, or a laptop—pretty much any computer except for a Chromebook) that starts incredibly slowly. What can I do to speed it up?

A: Here are ten suggestions:

1. Run malware programs.
2. Uninstall unnecessary programs.
3. Uninstall unnecessary fonts.
4. Get rid of documents you don’t need anymore.
5. Empty the trash.
6. Clean the junk off your desktop.
7. Clean up your Start Button.
8. Clean out your subscriptions.
9. Slim down your start-up process.
10. Add more RAM.

Sign up for a new tip each week or buy the entire 169 Real-world Ways to Put Tech into Your Classroom.

What’s your favorite tech tip in your classroom? Share it in the comments below.

(more…)

Wrapping up your school technology for the summer is as complicated as setting it up in September. There are endless backups, shares, cleanings, changed settings, and vacation messages that — if not done right — can mean big problems when you return from summer vacation. If you have a school device, a lot of the shutdown steps will be done by the IT folks as they backup, clean, reformat, and maybe re-image your device. If you have a personal device assigned by the school but yours to take home, the steps may be more numerous but really, not more complicated.

Here’s a list. Skip those that don’t apply to you and complete the rest. I won’t take time in this article (I’m at about 1000 words right now) for a how-to on each activity so if you don’t know how to complete one, check with your IT folks or Google it:

Make sure your firewall and antivirus programs are working.

Many computers come with a built-in one to keep viruses and malware out that slow your computer. Sometimes, they seem to turn off by themselves (I have no idea why). Check to be sure yours is active. If you have a Chromebook or an iPad, don’t even worry about this.

Clean out your documents.

Sort through the documents you collected this year and get rid of those you don’t need anymore. It’s intimidating, like a file cabinet that hasn’t been opened in months –- or years — and is covered with spider webs. If you don’t do this regularly, the computer must finger through these unused files every time you search. If you hate throwing anything away, create an ‘Old’ folder, toss them all in it, and save that to a flash drive or in the cloud.

(more…)

In these 169 tech-centric situations, you get an overview of pedagogy—the tech topics most important to your teaching—as well as practical strategies to address most classroom tech situations, how to scaffold these to learning, and where they provide the subtext to daily tech-infused education.

Today’s tip: 16 Spring Cleaning Steps for Computers

Category: Maintenance, Problem-solving

It’s easy to ignore basic computer maintenance. Heck—it’s as likely you’ll mess up your computer in a misguided effort to ‘clean things up’. Here are sixteen painless tips to try whenever your computer just doesn’t seem to work right:

1. Make sure your firewall is working.
2. Run an antispyware program.
3. Run a malware program.
4. Keep your antivirus software
5. Delete My Documents files you no longer need.
6. Backup files to an external drive or cloud.
7. Empty the trash folder.
8. Delete programs you no longer use.
9. Update any software that needs it.
10. Clean the junk off of your desktop.
11. Clean up your Start Button.
12. Clean out your subscriptions.
13. Make notifications weekly instead of daily.
14. Change your browser to Chrome.
15. Delete that program you never managed to learn.
16. Slim down your start-up process.

For more detail,  visit Ask a Tech Teacher and the article, “15 Ways to Speed up Computer Use”.

Sign up for a new tip each week or buy the entire 169 Real-world Ways to Put Tech into Your Classroom.

What’s your favorite tech tip in your classroom? Share it in the comments below.

(more…)

In these 169 tech-centric situations, you get an overview of pedagogy—the tech topics most important to your teaching—as well as practical strategies to address most classroom tech situations, how to scaffold these to learning, and where they provide the subtext to daily tech-infused education.

Today’s tip: Image Your Computer Often

Category: Maintenance, PCs, Chromebooks, Macs

Q: I hate reformatting. I lose the personalizations I added and the extra programs. Is there any way to make that process easier?

A: Yes. Create an image–a picture of your hard drive including system files, drivers, software and program updates, software and downloaded programs, docs, files, and extras—and save it in a secure backup area. When you reformat, copy the image back to the computer. Mine is on a terabyte external drive. Even if my two internal drives explode, I’m good.

Here’s how to do this if you have a PC:

• Click the start button. Go to Control Panel. Select ‘Backup and Restore’
• On the left sidebar, select the option ‘create a system image’. Follow directions.

Mac owners: Use a cloud-based third-party service (like Carbonite).

Chromebook folks: Because no data or programs are stored to the device, rather than re-image, try a power wash to reset everything to factory settings. You’ll lose shortkeys and programs installed to the shelf, but that’s it. If that doesn’t work, there are more involved steps (still not too difficult, though) to re-image using third-party utilities.

Alternatively, you can use a cloud-based service like Carbonite. Be forewarned: If you have a lot of data, it takes a while. You can work on your computer while it’s backing up; it’ll just be slower.

Sign up for a new tip each week or buy the entire 169 Real-world Ways to Put Tech into Your Classroom.

What’s your favorite tech tip in your classroom? Share it in the comments below.

(more…)

In these 169 tech-centric situations, you get an overview of pedagogy—the tech topics most important to your teaching—as well as practical strategies to address most classroom tech situations, how to scaffold these to learning, and where they provide the subtext to daily tech-infused education.

Today’s tip: Backup Your Computer Often

Category: Maintenance, Security, PCs, Macs, Chromebooks

Q: I’ve had some virus problems and it reminds me that I need to backup my computer. What’s the easiest way?

A: For PC/Windows folks: Use Windows Backup. Here’s what you do:

• Click the start button.
• Go to Control Panel
• Select ‘Backup and Restore’
• Select ‘Backup Now’

From there, select a drive with sufficient space and start. Be forewarned: If you have a lot of data, it takes a while. You can work on your computer while it’s backing up; it’ll just be slower.

Mac: Use the Time Machine tool.

Chromebook: No need. Everything is saved to the cloud. Now if you want to backup your cloud, use a service like Backupify.

Sign up for a new tip each week or buy the entire 169 Real-world Ways to Put Tech into Your Classroom.

What’s your favorite tech tip in your classroom? Share it in the comments below.

(more…)

In these 169 tech-centric situations, you get an overview of pedagogy—the tech topics most important to your teaching—as well as practical strategies to address most classroom tech situations, how to scaffold these to learning, and where they provide the subtext to daily tech-infused education.

Today’s tip: Backup Your Work Often

Category: Maintenance, Security, Email

Q:  How often should I backup my project? How about my whole hard drive?

A:  I teach students to save early save often (Tech Tip #15), when working on a project. You decide what you can tolerate losing: ten minutes or ten hours. After all, if the computer loses your work, you’re the one who has to start over.

Me, I save each project I’m working on constantly and then save-as to a backup location when I’ve completed the document. A lot of people skip the backup process. Don’t!

More options for backing up:

• Email it to yourself. Then, save it to an email file called ‘backups’.
• For files too large to email, save it as an attachment to a message that’s stored in ‘Drafts’.
• Use an automated service like Carbonite that works in the background, daily. These may charge a fee (Carbonite is about $60 a year), but takes the guesswork out of whether you’ve saved a file as a backup.
• Rely on the program you’re using to back your files up. This is a good option for many internet-based programs (like Canva) and Google Apps, but sketchy for others.

As for the entire computer, once a week is good.

Sign up for a new tip each week or buy the entire 169 Real-world Ways to Put Tech into Your Classroom.

What’s your favorite tech tip in your classroom? Share it in the comments below.

(more…)