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computers
101
Keeping
your computing house in order
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By
Rob Pegoraro
Washington Post
Housecleaning
on a computer resembles that in a home, but there's no exercise
benefit to it, and I've yet to hear of any records described
as good soundtracks for the chore of cleaning up around the
computer.
Like the analog kind, though, computer housekeeping is both
necessary and often overlooked. Instead of dust bunnies collecting
underneath the bed, you run the risk of more hazardous tenants
taking up residence - viruses, obsolete programs and those
insidiously evil "bad clusters" on hard drives.
And sooner or later - whether it's guests coming or a system
upgrade to install - you eventually have to suck it up and
get your chores over with.
What to tackle first?
The usual computing wisdom starts with backups - every day,
of everything on the computer. I've yet to meet a single home-computer
user who bothers to do that.
What's more important is to back up the important files -
your Quicken or Microsoft Money files, your address book,
your Web bookmarks, your e-mail and so on. Use a Zip disk,
use a CD-RW drive, use a file-storage Web site, even use floppies
if you must - just get some place away from your own hard
drive to park the data.
After that, virus protection is the big one - it's the computer
equivalent of keeping the kitchen utensils clean.
"The most important housekeeping chore today for home users
is vigilant virus protection and prevention - staying updated
and advised on security issues," said Howard Sobel, executive
director of the Windows User Group Network. "Every day brings
a new update, patch or security alert."
Almost all PCs ship with virus-protection software enabled,
but many users neglect to update virus database files or switch
off virus protection entirely.
"Getting nailed with a virus is a common thing," noted Randy
Farwell, a director of product marketing at Gateway Inc. "Even
if it's not a malicious virus, it can be an annoyance."
Don't be one of those victims. Keep your anti-virus software
up to date. Learn how to use its auto-update tools. And although
it's annoying to have to pay an update tax to McAfee or Symantec,
ante up anyway - the alternative, unless you can bring a near-religious
degree of devotion to the rituals of safe computing, is eventually
losing data.
Mac users face a much lower danger of virus infections, but
they aren't immune. (It can help if you don't use Microsoft
Word, but how are you supposed to do business with the rest
of the world that way?)
The next chore to attend to is running a disk-repair tool
- ScanDisk on Windows, Disk First Aid on a Mac. Both operating
systems normally run these tools when the computer reboots
after a crash, but that may not be often enough - especially
if, by some miracle, your computer isn't crashing every other
day. So run either utility every couple of weeks. ScanDisk
lives in the Accessories directory's System Tools folder,
off the Start menu; Disk First Aid usually hides in the Utilities
folder on the hard drive.
Then comes making sure your software is up to date - the biggest
pain of them all. If you're running Windows Me or Mac OS 9,
it's much easier than it used to be: Both can be set to pluck
new system-software updates automatically from Microsoft and
Apple's Web sites, respectively.
But older versions of these operating systems leave users
in the lurch. The version of Windows Update included with
Windows 98 is arguably worse than nothing, as it can overwhelm
users with too many updates. And finding individual software
developers' updates at their Web sites is, well, just work.
The computer-maintenance chore most like regular housekeeping
is cleaning up around the hard drive, where old, unused files
can accumulate, wasting space and possibly causing problems
for other applications. In Windows, break out the Add/Remove
Programs control panel every month or so and look through
the programs it lists. If you remember loading a piece of
software but can't remember the last time you used it, think
about tossing it.
Mark Croft, Microsoft's lead product manager for Windows,
recommends using Windows' Disk Cleanup utility, which tosses
out old temporary files and other "collected, unwanted files,"
once a month. (It's in Win 98 and Win Me; right-click on your
hard drive's icon in My Computer, select Properties, then
click on the Disk Cleanup tab.)
On a Mac, just snoop around the computer for things - outside
the System Folder - that you're not using. Said Ted Landau,
who runs the MacFixIt troubleshooting site: "Similarly, you
may have alias icons that no longer lead anywhere, or you
may simply have many saved files (such as old movie trailers,
etc.) that you no longer want."
One frequently mentioned chore that you don't need to stress
out about is disk defragmentation. The idea behind this ritual
is that, by making sure individual programs and files are
in one place on the disk instead of scattered across it, your
machine will run faster.
But defragmenting itself takes time, and the speed boost may
not always be dramatic. Sobel, with the Windows User Group
Network, advises weekly defragging; Microsoft's Croft suggested
once a month; Gateway's Farwell suggested it's optional for
many home users.
Which opinion you agree with is probably a matter of how much
you attention you want to devote to your computer in the first
place.
Why so much attention must be paid to a household device often
marketed as just another appliance is a question best left,
to use an old saying, as an exercise for the reader.
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