End of the Year
Computer Clean-Up
Here’s a list of things
that you should do before you leave this school year so that
you will have everything where you need it when you return.
- Open My Documents on your computer
and delete anything that you don’t need to keep.
- Any files that are in My Documents
that you want to save for next year need to also be
saved elsewhere for safety’s sake. Each of your
schools should have a spot on the server where you can
save items. See your STC or contact me if you need
help.
- Space on the server may be limited,
so if you are saving things, make sure that they are
things you really want to keep. If you’ve been
using your user folder all year, you need to take this
time to clean it out as well and get rid of anything
that you don’t need.
- Of course, you can also save things
on floppy disks, but remember these can come out of the
box faulty or go bad at any time for no reason, so if
it’s really important and you are saving to a floppy
you need to save it somewhere else, too.
- Clean out your email inbox.
- Also in email you will need to go
through the Sent Items and delete all the old messages
you’ve sent that you don’t need a copy of.
(**You can quickly select adjacent items by clicking on
the first item, holding the shift key down and then
clicking on the last item. Or to select
non-adjacent items hold the Ctrl key down while you
click on the items you want. Then you can delete
everything that is highlighted at once.)
- Also check to be sure that your
Deleted folder in your email isn’t overloaded.
- If you have lots of email you want
to keep, you may need to set up Personal Folders to
store these somewhere other than your inbox. For
directions on how to do that, you can see my tips web
pages http://teach.fcps.net/trt2/Documents/tech_tip_14.htm
- I would also delete temporary files
and temporary Internet files (right click on your IE
icon, choose properties, then you should see a button to
delete files).
- Run scan disk. To do this
choose START -> PROGRAMS -> ACCESSORIES
-> SYSTEM TOOLS -> SCAN DISK.
- Run disk defragmenter. These
will just help your computer run more efficiently when
you come back next year. To do this choose START
-> PROGRAMS -> ACCESSORIES -> SYSTEM
TOOLS -> DISK DEFRAGMENTER.
- You can also back up your computer
using about 4 or 5 disks. To do this choose START
-> PROGRAMS -> ACCESSORIES -> SYSTEM
TOOLS -> BACKUP.
Thanks to Kim Overstreet for these great tips!