Did you know that January is ‘Clean up Your Computer’ Month? They suggest opening up the computer and clearing out any dust. I don’t dust anything unless I absolutely have to and I have a terror of opening up my laptop. What if it never works again? What if I accidently hack something? What if it all goes horribly wrong? There is stuff on my computer that is older than my teenage son and has followed me from machine to machine for years! I can’t risk losing that.
On the other hand, it isn’t a bad idea to have a sort of cyber clean up. I am desperately in need of it. I have three separate folders labelled ‘knitting patterns’ which lurk on my desktop or nestle within other folders. And I have all sorts of helpful snippets and useful guides stashed all over my desktop and in a swathe of folders. I wish I could remember to look at them. Perhaps I need a ‘clear up your memory’ month.
For example, I have a really cool guide about how to search using Google. I found it as I was rummaging. I wish that I had found it earlier when I was looking up the details for The King’s Silver (coming soon – watch this space!). It would have been a real help. It obviously looked good as I saved it in two different places, neither of which I checked when I was looking for the type of saddle used in Medieval Europe. I suppose I could create a new folder labelled ‘Useful Guides’. Then all I would have to do is remember to read it.
‘Create New Folder’ has not been as helpful as perhaps it could have been. I want to be organised, and I desperately need to be organised, but I end up having a gazillion and four folders nestling inside each other like Russian dolls holding ghosts of projects. Besides, which of these dratted folders holds the exact document I’m looking for?
An example is a story that’s been on my blog called ‘Cold Chills’. It features Rev Darren King, who has appeared in The Forgotten Village, Digging up the Past, Dinner at Dark, Tales from the White Hart, More Tales from the White Hart and Further Tales from the White Hart. He’s also in quite a few of the short stories that I use for my Monday writing gym session. I’m in the middle of collecting them into a book, so I can’t link anything, but I think that there’s around half a dozen stories where he is featured. This means that this short story could belong in any of five separate folders – I counted. Perhaps I need a folder that holds an index to folders?
When the nights draw in and it’s great to snuggle in with a mug of hot chocolate, scented candles, and some relaxing music, I suppose it is as good a time as any to spring clean the computer. I suspect that it could easily take me all month.
For those interested, I found while writing this that if I right click on the start button, I can go down the list and search for ‘file’. This is pretty good, especially if I can remember what I’ve called the dratted thing. And you can defrag my model of computer by going to the ‘Control Panel’ and following the instructions I found with an internet search. There are so many types of computers these days that I don’t feel qualified to give any more guidance than that, and I suggest that you take independent advice!
Happy ‘Clean up Your Computer’ Month!
And while I am here I thought I would add a copy of that guide for Google Searches before I lost it in the folders.
I really like the idea of a cyber clean-up. I try! I have so many photos on my computer – well organised I must say (about the only part of my life that is!) but they take up so much room. I save them to external hard drives as well as the cloud (a little paranoid). I did start transferring some today so maybe that will help free up space. Most of the space on my computer is taken up by apps that I never use but I don’t want to delete in case it messes something up! I wish my computer was more like my phone that puts apps to sleep if I don’t use them!
Your phone archives apps? That’s amazing! I know I’ve got stuff in folders all over the desk top of my computer, including one called GOK (goodness only knows). I don’t have many apps on mine. I don’t use a lot of space for pictures or art. My big space stealers are games but they are cheap little ones from Big Fish Games or Steam, which I can always re-download. Are any of your apps that sort of thing, where if they go, you can still get them back?