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Post date: Feb 5, 2018 9:06:35 PM
It’s a New Year: Time for a Tech Tune-Up
It’s a snowy January day in Iowa and the wind is howling outside as you contemplate how to spend your day off: it’s tempting to head to the couch to check out Netflix for a binge of The Crown or grab your iPad and see who is posting on Facebook. However, as tempting as it is to just relax, this is also a great time for a home Tech Tune-up, with six suggestions from techlicious.com and Popular Science.
First, think about how technology dominates your family’s daily routine, including bedtime. With mobile devices, it is easy to move from one screen to another one all day and into the evening. Experts recommend that you avoid screen time before bed: screens emit blue light which can disrupt sleep, especially in children, so ban screens for the hour before bedtime. If that isn’t possible, follow the guidelines from a recent study at Mayo Clinic which recommends you switch to night mode on your phone and then hold the device at least 14 inches away. If you have children using mobile devices, use a ruler to illustrate how far away they should be holding those tablets and phones, and check their settings: under settings and brightness, you will see night shift set from 10 pm to 7 am. If you use your PC late at night, download the program f.lux which adjusts the brightness of your display according to the time of day.
Second, think about your backup strategy. If you have multiple computers, and several people creating documents, downloading photos, or creating presentations, you need more than a flash drive to archive files. Your important files and photos should be backed up with a two-part approach. First, invest in an external hard drive for each one of your computers (Seagate and Western Digital are great picks) and then use a cloud-based storage service such as Drop Box, Google Drive, or iCloud. You might also use Google Docs or Microsoft Office 365 which allows you to create documents and presentations online and store them online, which also means you can access them from any device, anywhere. If you use a smartphone to take photos, your photos are backing up to iCloud if you use Apple and Google Photos if you use Android (https://photos.google.com/). However, do you ever look at your photos online and delete blurry photos? You may be taking up space with photos you don’t need. You can also share photos, do minor edits, and create photo projects.
Third, clean up your computer by taking out the trash and deleting files you don’t need anymore. I have a teacher friend (who will remain unnamed) who used the trash can icon on her first Mac laptop to store her files: don’t be like my friend. Spending an hour looking at your documents, creating file folders to make it easier to find things, and deleting older drafts or duplicates is time well invested. Decluttering your computer will do wonders for your morale and make you more productive.
Once you’re done with your computer, tackle your mobile devices and clean them up as well. You may have an iPad, Kindle Fire and iPhone or Galaxy and have a number of apps taking up space that you never use. When was the last time you synced those devices? Do you have a dedicated place to charge your devices and does it need some attention, with a tangle of half a dozen charging cables? While you’re at it, grab a microfiber cloth and treat all of your screens to a nice swipe.
Fourth, protect your computer with an antivirus program like Windows Defender to avoid losing your data, and protect yourself from malware with a program like Malware Bytes. Malware can wreak havoc with your computer and data after you visit a website, download software or install software. Unfortunately, not all anti-virus programs detect malware.
Fifth, please stop using the same password for every account! That is simply an invitation to get hacked. You might use a document or spreadsheet to track passwords, or rely on luck, using the same password for all of your accounts (hopefully, it is not “12345” or “password”). Take time to look at your list of accounts and change passwords from time to time, and weed out the accounts you no longer use. Consider using a password manager like Last Pass, or if you already have a Gmail account, check out Google’s Smart lock, which tracks your passwords. To see your list of accounts and passwords on smart lock, visit www.passwords.google.com. How do you use Smart Lock? First, you need to use the Chrome browser: then, when you logon to a website like Facebook, a little popup window will ask if you want Smart Lock to save your login info: if so, click on save.
Finally, is an upgrade in your future? Think about the best use of your old technology: can you repurpose it, should you use it for a trade in, or is there someone in your family or circle of friends who could use it? For years, I kept my old iPhone handy for shopping trips with my daughter in law and grandsons: if we go clothes shopping, I could play a game or watch a video with one grandson while his brother was trying on clothes. I have also taken it with me to read an eBook while waiting at a hospital or airport, to save my phone’s battery. An article on the Popular Science website listed several other ways to use an old phone: as an alarm clock, a security camera, e-reader, radio, music player, or media library, using apps and features built-in to those devices. In addition, older laptops and tablets can generally be used for word processing. If you decide to discard devices, first get any pictures or data copied off, and then wipe it, using the settings for each device, and contact the manufacturer for where to recycle it.
This tech tune-up will help your 2018 be more productive, protect you from malware and viruses, and safeguard your documents and photos. Starting the year off with good tech habits just feels good: maybe you can reward yourself with an episode of The Crown after all.
F.lux – available for Windows and Mac
https://www.techlicious.com/tip/tech-resolutions-for-2018/?
Stokes, Natasha. 10 Tech Resolutions for 2018. December 29, 2017.
https://www.popsci.com/tech-new-years-resolutions
Nield, David. 12 bad tech habits you need to resolve to stop doing this New Year.
December 29, 2017
This article appeared in the Waterloo Courier, on Jan. 19, 2018
http://wcfcourier.com/lifestyles/time-for-a-tech-tuneup/article_c806ac03-fdb6-5ffa-8166-4988ce66a573.html
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