AMDave
05-21-2006, 04:24 PM
It's good form, if you respect your insurance policy, to do a regular check on things about the house. This does not exclude your lean-mean-online-machine! You can regard this as just a courtesy invite to my spring-cleaning party:
Is a wooly jumper appropriate dress for spring?
Your CPU may not be hot, but is the fan a bit louder than you remember it? Check for any dust build up in the heatsink under the fan. I use an old toothbrush to get between the heatsink vanes and clean the fan blades and check the airflow before putting the case-lid back on. I was quite stunned how much quieter my machine was yesterday after a slightly overdue spring-clean. If you run a liquid cooled system, remember to "flush" otherwise you'll be calling the plumber when it all gets "backed-up".
Is there time for a quick garage sale?
I keep a clean house on my hard drives, but even I was surprised today to find half a Gigabyte of unwanted log files, old programs, cached web pages, faxes, emails, etc. and files left behind by programs that I had tried or tested and then removed. The worst culprit of all was me! I like a well structured folder system for storing programs and files, but I still found duplicates that I had put in different directories. Take the time to clean it all up, defrag the blazes out of it (5 times works nicely for me) and then back it all up (But, of course!)
Is your pad future-mother-in-law tidy?
I never used to pay much attention to the cables down the back of my desk, but I have come across more and more faulty cables. If we treat them well they should last longer. I have removed the "nest" from behind my desk and now have easier access to all the plugs and cables and have made sure there are no kinks and all the plugs are in properly. Don't leave any gaps for lint to get into live connections and possibly start a fire.
We forgot to invite some of the guests!
Check for updates - on everything that allows updates. Many of us like to have lots of uninterrupted up-time which can take some planning. If you *plan* for up-time, you should also plan for updates. Can you imagine my surprise when my Adobe Acrobat Reader went from v 5.0 to v 7.0.7 !!! Crikey !!! Has it really been that long since the last party?
Can you remember all this gossip?
The right time to backup is always right now. The wrong time is always too late. I also keep a second copy somewhere else. This time, I took some time out to create a "Setup" DVD with all of the GNU and open source programs that prefer as well as my hardware drivers, so that even if the worst happened and my backups were all junked, I could still get back up and running from 1 disk. I have taken a copy off-site so if I got robbed I'd still be able to rebuild my preferred environment on whatever hardware I could lay my hands on. Don't forget your email files are not usually where the rest of your files are. It pays dividends to find out where your email program stores the files and include them in your regular backup tasks.
The photo album looked so professional, on the outside.
If you have a scanner and use it a lot, check the glass to see if there is any dirt or blotching on it. A very-slightly damp lintfree cloth will help you remove any dirt and a dry one will remove any streaking that the damp cloth left behind. (BTW - that was just "damp" - not "sodden").
Is that the twins or am I seeing double?
I used to recheck my printer alignment very frequently, but the cost of ink didn't justify the number of test pages. So don't forget that after a couple cartridge changes you should still do an alignment check to keep your printouts nice and clear.
Is that a furball or is your cat choking?
Ball-mice pick up everything. And I mean everything. Open it up and clean it. You have a ball-less mouse, you say? fancy that! Does it squeek in a really, REALLY high voice? LOL. check the "slide pads" and ensure they are clean too. Dirty slide pads can put up resistance and result in a frustrated on-screen experience. But, most people forget to clean the most important mouse related piece of equipment - the mouse pad. Where do you think your mouse lives? Clean it or treat yourself to a new one. Go on! Your mouse will enjoy it too.
Junior, get that bag off your brother's head!!!
As we need to breath so does your PC. Now that the fans are clean and whizzing away quietly, take a moment to check that nothing is obstructing the airflow in or out of the case. It may be the star attraction but a full day under the spotlight will make anyone sweat. It's a nice idea to place it in the room where it will be out of the sun all day.
At last, they've all gone!
Well. It was an effort. But it's worth it. Your duty is done. Crack open a tinny, kick back and enjoy the fruits of your labours until the next time around.
Are there enough biscuits for the next party?
Of course once you've blown out the cobwebs, burned half a dozen CD/DVDs and poured enough ink into the printer to churn out your next Pulitzer novel, you'll want to be prepared for the next time. Before you head down to the shops and grab your swag of goodies, check out the prices on the web. My favourite provider changed this month. You don't need to fight through a wall of gushing sales people for a bunch of consumables. Find the best price for the same goods, pure and simple, and if you have to walk another block, enjoy the excercise. You'll be healthier and we'll enjoy your company a while longer.
Oh, and the next one is B.Y.O. everything ;)
:lol: AMDave
Is a wooly jumper appropriate dress for spring?
Your CPU may not be hot, but is the fan a bit louder than you remember it? Check for any dust build up in the heatsink under the fan. I use an old toothbrush to get between the heatsink vanes and clean the fan blades and check the airflow before putting the case-lid back on. I was quite stunned how much quieter my machine was yesterday after a slightly overdue spring-clean. If you run a liquid cooled system, remember to "flush" otherwise you'll be calling the plumber when it all gets "backed-up".
Is there time for a quick garage sale?
I keep a clean house on my hard drives, but even I was surprised today to find half a Gigabyte of unwanted log files, old programs, cached web pages, faxes, emails, etc. and files left behind by programs that I had tried or tested and then removed. The worst culprit of all was me! I like a well structured folder system for storing programs and files, but I still found duplicates that I had put in different directories. Take the time to clean it all up, defrag the blazes out of it (5 times works nicely for me) and then back it all up (But, of course!)
Is your pad future-mother-in-law tidy?
I never used to pay much attention to the cables down the back of my desk, but I have come across more and more faulty cables. If we treat them well they should last longer. I have removed the "nest" from behind my desk and now have easier access to all the plugs and cables and have made sure there are no kinks and all the plugs are in properly. Don't leave any gaps for lint to get into live connections and possibly start a fire.
We forgot to invite some of the guests!
Check for updates - on everything that allows updates. Many of us like to have lots of uninterrupted up-time which can take some planning. If you *plan* for up-time, you should also plan for updates. Can you imagine my surprise when my Adobe Acrobat Reader went from v 5.0 to v 7.0.7 !!! Crikey !!! Has it really been that long since the last party?
Can you remember all this gossip?
The right time to backup is always right now. The wrong time is always too late. I also keep a second copy somewhere else. This time, I took some time out to create a "Setup" DVD with all of the GNU and open source programs that prefer as well as my hardware drivers, so that even if the worst happened and my backups were all junked, I could still get back up and running from 1 disk. I have taken a copy off-site so if I got robbed I'd still be able to rebuild my preferred environment on whatever hardware I could lay my hands on. Don't forget your email files are not usually where the rest of your files are. It pays dividends to find out where your email program stores the files and include them in your regular backup tasks.
The photo album looked so professional, on the outside.
If you have a scanner and use it a lot, check the glass to see if there is any dirt or blotching on it. A very-slightly damp lintfree cloth will help you remove any dirt and a dry one will remove any streaking that the damp cloth left behind. (BTW - that was just "damp" - not "sodden").
Is that the twins or am I seeing double?
I used to recheck my printer alignment very frequently, but the cost of ink didn't justify the number of test pages. So don't forget that after a couple cartridge changes you should still do an alignment check to keep your printouts nice and clear.
Is that a furball or is your cat choking?
Ball-mice pick up everything. And I mean everything. Open it up and clean it. You have a ball-less mouse, you say? fancy that! Does it squeek in a really, REALLY high voice? LOL. check the "slide pads" and ensure they are clean too. Dirty slide pads can put up resistance and result in a frustrated on-screen experience. But, most people forget to clean the most important mouse related piece of equipment - the mouse pad. Where do you think your mouse lives? Clean it or treat yourself to a new one. Go on! Your mouse will enjoy it too.
Junior, get that bag off your brother's head!!!
As we need to breath so does your PC. Now that the fans are clean and whizzing away quietly, take a moment to check that nothing is obstructing the airflow in or out of the case. It may be the star attraction but a full day under the spotlight will make anyone sweat. It's a nice idea to place it in the room where it will be out of the sun all day.
At last, they've all gone!
Well. It was an effort. But it's worth it. Your duty is done. Crack open a tinny, kick back and enjoy the fruits of your labours until the next time around.
Are there enough biscuits for the next party?
Of course once you've blown out the cobwebs, burned half a dozen CD/DVDs and poured enough ink into the printer to churn out your next Pulitzer novel, you'll want to be prepared for the next time. Before you head down to the shops and grab your swag of goodies, check out the prices on the web. My favourite provider changed this month. You don't need to fight through a wall of gushing sales people for a bunch of consumables. Find the best price for the same goods, pure and simple, and if you have to walk another block, enjoy the excercise. You'll be healthier and we'll enjoy your company a while longer.
Oh, and the next one is B.Y.O. everything ;)
:lol: AMDave