Merry New Year!!

Yeah I know it should be “Happy New Year”, but if you ever saw the movie “Trading Places” with Dan Akroyd and Eddie Murphy and Jamie Lee Curtis, “Merry New Year” would just make you laugh.

I hope everyone has had an enjoyable holiday season.  Time with the family or with friends or just goofing off.  Now it is back to the grind and working with your gadgets.  If you have had a week or so off from your job, you might want to go in a check a few things before really diving into work.  After all, your computer has had some time off too, and just like you have to check your email and messages and IM’s and such, your computer needs to check out some things as well.

1.  When you first log into your machine, run a virus scan.  And make sure the definitions are up to date as well.  Santa elves were probably NOT the only ones busy this holiday season.  Check for viruses and malware.  Those can ruin your return to work more so than a calendar full of appointments!!

2.  Run a system check using a utility program.  Check for temp files that can be removed, and even your registry to make sure it is not cluttered and slowing you machine down.  I use CCleaner and Glary Utilities to check out my machine before getting down to the heavy workload.

3.  Check your email, but DO NOT just randomly click on links thinking someone sent you a holiday greeting.  Someone MAY have sent you something, but you might not be smiling after clicking on it.

4.  Take a few minutes to archive, or at least move content from 2012 to a location you can find it easily.  Probably would not be a bad idea to actually back it up to an external drive somewhere.  I generally buy an external hard drive and back up my photos, videos, audios, presentations, and documents I created in the previous year.  With the cost of external drives coming down, it is cheaper than buying DVD’s as backup medium.  If you would like to read a little more on backup medium, click here.

5.  Take time to clear out your email.  I am guilty of not doing this.  When my IT guy stops by for a cup of coffee and a chat, he always comes and looks at how many emails I have not only in the system, but how many of them are unread.  If you don’t read them, delete them.  If you have read them, either file them or delete them.  A large email cache can slow your machine down.

So with that, I am off to do my Merry New Year maintenance, and prepare for a great and prosperous 2013.

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