Tagged With: maintenance
How to Wrap up Tech for the School Year
Wrapping up your school technology at the end of the school year 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 back up, 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 will be more numerous but really, not more complicated.
Here’s a list. Skip those that don’t apply to you and complete those that do. I won’t take time in this article 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:
End-of-year Maintenance: Image and Back-up Digital Devices
This week, I’m sharing three holiday activities that will get your computers, technology, and social media ready for the new year. Here’s what you’ll get:
- Update Your Online Presence
- Backup and Image your computer
- 19 Ways to Speed Up Your Computer
-
A note: The links won’t work until the articles publish!
Today: Image and Backup Your Digital Devices
Two critical maintenance tasks that lots of people skip are:
- image your computer
- back up your documents
Image your computer
Every computer must be reformatted eventually. Every time you download from a website or open an email attachment or update one of your online tools or software, you collect digital dust and grunge that affects the speed and efficiency of your computer. Performing the cleanup items suggested in 19 Ways to Speed Up Your Computer helps, but eventually not enough. The only way to return your computer to its original zippy youthful self is by reformatting.
End-of-year Tips: Image and Back-up Digital Devices
This week, I’ll share three holiday activities that will get your computers, technology, and social media ready for the new year. Here’s what you’ll get:
A note: The links won’t work until the articles publish!
Today: Image and Backup Your Digital Devices
Two critical maintenance tasks that lots of people skip are:
- image your computer
- back up your documents
Image your computer
Every computer must be reformatted eventually. Every time you download from a website or open an email attachment or update one of your online tools or software, you collect digital dust and grunge that affects the speed and efficiency of your computer. Performing the clean up items suggested in 22 Ways to Speed Up Your Computer helps, but eventually not enough. The only way to return your computer to its original zippy youthful self is by reformatting.
Tips For Selecting The Best And Most Efficient Web Hosting Provider
Most prospective buyers start by going to the seller’s website before purchasing. An online presence has become a vital importance for not just business owners or service providing companies, but teacher-consultants who offer online classes, mentoring, and lesson plans to fellow educators. Thanks to a plethora of reliable and affordable web hosting companies, you no longer need ‘weebly’ or ‘wordpress’ appended to your online profile.
The problem is: There are too many web-hosting companies. How do you qualify them? Which one delivers great service at a reasonable price with reliable features that aren’t confusing to figure out? What you need is a web hosting review site (like the link above) that evaluates the critical services without relying on customer comments and their placement in a Google search.
Below are tips to help you evaluate services before you make your selection:
How Do You Backup Your Data
Probably, of all computer functions, backing up data is the most critical and the most likely to make you tear your hair out. Hard drives crash, files get corrupted, your computer is lost or stolen, a virus and malware forces you to reformat (which can lose all of your data), what you thought you saved you didn’t–I could go on. There are dozens of reasons why you should–really–backup your data.
And as a teacher, it’s even more critical because it’s not just you who suffers if you can’t find student projects or report card comments. It’s parents, students, and your colleagues.
Despite that, backing up is a step too many of the educators I know skip. The top reasons:
- it takes too long
- I forget
- I’ve never had a problem
The only reason I hear from those who lost data because they didn’t back up:
“Because I’m an idiot!”
It’s as G. Silowash said while participating in his school’s disaster drill to a faculty question about forgotten report card files:
“Don’t worry, your data is securely burning inside with the rest of the building.”
Let me make it easy for you. Here are the top four ways I back-up data–and I do all of them:
Automatic back-up service
By far, the most reliable approach to backing up your data files is with an automatic cloud service. These are easy to access, safe, and quick. There are many options, but a new one I just met is Windows-based Cloud Backup Robot (when they responded to my donation request). Considered by some as one of the best data backup software, it’s easy to use, intuitive,, backs up everything from files to SQL databases, and can zip and/or encrypt files. You create an account, download a bit of software, configure the back-up schedule for automatic or manual, and then push the button to get started. You can back-up data to your computer, a network, or the cloud. One feature I particularly like is that you can store to any number of familiar clouds–Dropbox, Box, Google Drive, OneDrive and Amazon S3. Price varies between a highly-affordable lite edition to a fully-featured professional version. When you’re ready to sign up, pick the version best suited to your needs.
End-of-year Tech Tips: Image and Back-up Computer
This week, I’m providing tips for end-of-year technology maintenance. These are activities that could (or should) be done once a month if you’re active on your computer, but AT LEAST do them yearly.
Like today.
Two critical maintenance tasks that lots of people skip are:
- image your computer
- back up your documents
Image your computer
Every computer must be reformatted eventually. Every time you download from a website or open an email attachment or update one of your online tools or software, you collect digital dust and grunge that affects the speed and efficiency of your computer. Performing the clean up items suggested in 18 Steps to a Speedier Computer helps, but eventually not enough. The only way to return your computer to its original zippy youthful self is by reformatting.
I hate reformatting my computer. I lose all the extras I’ve added (like Jing, cookies, Printkey 2000 which is out of production). I forget which software I have (sure, I remember MS Office, but what about Google Earth and Celestia?) And then there are all the personalizations I’ve added that get lost with the reformat. It takes me hours–days?–to return my computer to its prior user-friendly state. As a result, I resist reformatting for as long as I can. Usually, until a virus has made my computer unusable. Then, I have no choice.
Then I discovered imaging. When you image your computer, you take a picture of what your hard drive looks like, including all the programs and extras, and save in a secure back-up area. When you reformat, all you have to do is 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 what you do:
- Click the start button.
- Go to Control Panel
- Select ‘Backup and Restore’
- On the left sidebar, you’ll see an option for ‘create a system image’. Select that.
- Follow directions (it’ll ask which drive to use for the image–stuff like that)
Get Ready for the New Year!
Next week, I’ll share three holiday activities that will get your computers, technology, and social media ready for the new year. Here’s what you’ll get:
- Is Your Online Presence Up to Date?
- Back up and Image your computer
- 15 Ways to Speed Up Your Computer
A note: The links won’t work until the articles publish!
Join me! You’ll come away feeling ready, re-energized, and geeky.
12 Spring Cleaning Steps for Your Computer
It’s time for Spring Cleaning. Of your computer.
If you followed my suggestion over New Year’s, this will go faster than you expect, but still, plan to set aside a couple of hours. Grab a coffee or tea, get a comfortable chair. Put on your problem-solving hat, and get started:
- Make sure your firewall is working. Windows comes with a built-in one. Maybe Mac does too. Leave it active. It’s under Control Panel-Administrative Tools. Sometimes, they turn off by themselves (I have no idea why). Check it to be sure it remains active.
- Run Spybot or a similar antispyware program. Spybot is free, which is why I like it. I’ve had good luck with it. Download.com says this about Spybot: The program checks your system against a comprehensive database of adware and other system invaders. The Immunize feature blocks a plethora of uninvited Web-borne flotsam before it reaches your computer.
- Keep your antivirus software active. If you’re paranoid like me, run an antivirus scan weekly to be sure nothing is missed.
- Run Ad-aware once a week to keep malware and spyware off your computer. It has a stellar reputation and is still free to all (although there’s an upgrade you can pay for).
- Sort through your My Documents files and get rid of those you don’t need anymore. That includes pictures, videos, faxes, all that stuff. It’s intimidating, like a file cabinet that hasn’t been opened in months–or years. Do it, though. You may not need the hard drive space, but you don’t need the computer fingering through unnecessary files every time it searches.
- Back up all of your files to an external drive or cloud storage. If you have an automated system like Carbonite (see my sidebar for a link), skip this. If you don’t have one, consider getting one. They not only automatically back up your work, but they make it accessible from wherever you are–home, work, your accountants, the soccer field. If you use Windows, try their ‘backup’ program. It’s easy to find: Click the Start Button and search ‘backup’.
- Empty the trash folder. Don’t even look in it. If you haven’t missed a file by now, it won’t be in there.
- Learn to use that program you’ve been promising you would. Evernote is a great example. Use it (and you won’t be sorry) or delete the email from your best friend exhorting you to. Move on.
- Go through your programs and delete the ones you no longer use. Here’s what you do:
- go to Control Panel>Programs and Feature
- Peruse the list and pick the programs you downloaded by mistake, meaning to use, or used to use and no longer do
- uninstall
- don’t look back
- Update any software that needs it. I don’t mean BUY a newer version. I mean click the free update that’s been nagging at you (Adobe Reader and Windows, for example)
- Clean the junk off of your desktop. Put it in folders or create a folder for ‘Working on’ or ‘Desktop Stuff’. Don’t know how to create a desktop folder? Here’s what you do:
- Right click on the desktop and select ‘New>folder’
- Clean up your Start Button. Remove shortkeys you no longer use (with a right click>delete). Add those that are now your daily go-to sites. How? Right-click>add to Start Menu.
End-of-year Tech Tips: Image and Back-up Your Computer
This week, I’m providing tips for end-of-year technology maintenance. These are activities that could (or should) be done once a month if you’re active on your computer, but AT LEAST do them yearly.
Like today.
Two critical maintenance tasks that lots of people skip are:
- image your computer
- back up your documents
Image your computer
Every computer must be reformatted eventually. Every time you download from a website or open an email attachment or update one of your online tools or software, you collect digital dust and grunge that affects the speed and efficiency of your computer. Performing the clean up items suggested in 13 Ways To Speed Up Your Computer helps, but eventually not enough. The only way to return your computer to its original speedy youthful self is by reformatting.
I hate reformatting my computer. I lose all the extras I’ve added (like Jing, cookies, Printkey 2000 which is out of production). I forget which software I have (sure, I remember MS Office, but what about Google Earth and Celestia?) And then there are all the personalizations I’ve put on that get lost with the reformat. It takes me hours–days?–to return my computer to its prior user-friendly state. As a result, I resist reformatting for as long as I can. Usually, until a virus has made my computer unusable. Then, I have no choice.
A few years ago, I discovered imaging. When you image your computer, you take a picture of what your hard drive looks like, including all the programs and extras, and save in a secure back-up area (I have Carbonite do it for me on a regular basis). When you reformat, all you have to do is 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 what you do:
- Click the start button.
- Go to Control Panel
- Select ‘Backup and Restore’
- On the left sidebar, you’ll see an option for ‘create a system image’. Select that.
- Follow directions (it’ll ask which drive to use for the image–stuff like that)
End-of-Year Tips: 13 WaysTo Speed Up Your Computer
This week, I’m providing tips for end-of-year technology maintenance. These are activities that could (or should) be done once a month if you’re active on your computer, but AT LEAST do them yearly.
Like this week.
That’s right. It’s a new year, which means Pre-Spring Cleaning. Set aside the brushes and mops. Grab a comfortable chair, put on your problem-solving hat, and get started. The goal: To make your computer faster, more efficient, and more reliable for all the work you’ve promised to complete over the holiday break.
Here’s what you need to do:
- Make sure your firewall is working. Windows comes with a built-in one. Maybe Mac does too. Leave it active. It’s under Control Panel>Administrative Tools. Sometimes, they seem to turn off by themselves (I have no idea why). Check to be sure it is active. This will keep viruses and malware out that slow your computer.
- Defrag your computer. To quote Windows, Fragmentation makes your hard disk do extra work that can slow down your computer. Removable storage devices such as USBs can also become fragmented. Disk Defragmenter rearranges fragmented data so your disks and drives can work more efficiently. Never mind all that geek speak. Here’s what you need to know: Run Disc Defrag by going to Control Panel>Administrative Tools>Advanced Tools.
- Run Spybot or a similar spyware programs. Spybot is free, which is why I like it, and I’ve had good luck with it. Download.com says this about Spybot: The program checks your system against a comprehensive database of adware and other system invaders. The Immunize feature blocks a plethora of uninvited Web-borne flotsam before it reaches your computer.
- Run Ad-aware once a week to keep malware off your computer. It has a stellar reputation and is also free (although there’s an upgrade that you can pay for).
- Keep your antivirus software active. If you’re paranoid like me, run an antivirus scan weekly to be sure nothing is missed.
- Sort through your Documents 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 dust, even spider webs. Do it, though. If you don’t, every time you search, the computer must finger through those unused and worthless files. It doesn’t understand the difference between ‘unused’ and ‘important’.
- Back up your files to an external drive or cloud storage. If you have an automated system, skip this. If you don’t, consider getting Carbonite or similar. If you use Windows, try their backup program. It’s easy to find: Click the Start Button and search ‘backup’.
- Empty the trash. Don’t even look in it. If you haven’t missed a file by now, it won’t matter if you throw it out.
- Learn to use that program you’ve been promising you would or delete it. Evernote is a great example. Use it (and you won’t be sorry) or delete the email from your best friend exhorting you to try it. Move on.
- Go through your programs and delete the ones you no longer use. Here’s what you do:
- go to Control Panel>Programs and Features
- peruse the list and pick the programs you downloaded by mistake, meaning to use, or used to use and no longer do
- uninstall
- don’t look back
- Update any software that needs it. I don’t mean BUY a newer version. I mean click the free update that’s been nagging at you (Adobe Reader and Windows, for example)
- Clean the junk off your desktop. Put it in folders or create a folder for ‘Working on’. Don’t know how to create a desktop folder? Just right click on the desktop and select ‘New>folder’
- Clean up your Start Button. Remove shortkeys you no longer use (with a right click>delete). Add those that have become daily go-to sites
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