{"id":7995,"date":"2016-01-04T00:01:25","date_gmt":"2016-01-04T08:01:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.wambooli.com\/blog\/?p=7995"},"modified":"2016-01-02T11:25:02","modified_gmt":"2016-01-02T19:25:02","slug":"new-year-pc-chores","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.wambooli.com\/blog\/?p=7995","title":{"rendered":"New Year PC Chores"},"content":{"rendered":"

It’s a new year! Things are slowly getting back to normal, with the chaos of the extended Saturnalia finally concluding. I mean, nothing gets done the last two weeks of the year, right? So why not take advantage of the lull and do some computer cleaning?
\n
\nAs an organized person, I keep related files together inside folders. The folders are aptly-named, which helps me locate things. And for items that might belong in multiple folders, I create file shortcuts or aliases. That way I don’t have to rely upon the Windows Search command to locate my stuff.<\/p>\n

One of my end-of-year tasks is to organize my files by tossing some of them into annual folders.<\/p>\n

For example, I save my PDF bank statements, bills, and other email attachments. These files are automatically saved by my email program into the Downloads<\/code> folder. From there, I have several shortcuts to other folders on the hard drive: Bills<\/code>, Bank Statements<\/code>, and so on. Figure 1 illustrates my PC’s Downloads<\/code> folder, where you can see the other folder shortcuts.<\/p>\n

\"Figure

Figure 1. My Downloads folder has shortcuts to other folders, to help keep my downloads organized.<\/p><\/div>\n

I regularly copy the files from the Downloads<\/code> folder to the other folders; drag-and-drop is all I need to do. But this time of year, I go into those other folders and move all of last year’s files into a new folder. For example, I created a 2015<\/code> folder in my Bills folder and dragged all of last year’s bills into that folder.<\/p>\n

Another year-end activity I undertake is to clean out my email program.<\/p>\n

I use a traditional email program, which gathers all my email from online sources as well as my ISP and other accounts. Every year, I perform several activities that keep my email program from going insane.<\/p>\n

First, I archive all my messages. The Archive function exports various mailboxes, saving the messages as files. And, yes, I save those files into a folder that’s named after last year, 2015<\/code>.<\/p>\n

Second, after the messages are all archived, I go through the email program and delete any message older than 6 months: I sort the mailbox, then select messages from June 30 and earlier. Because the mailboxes are archived, it’s okay to remove those messages; I still have copies in the archive. By removing the messages, the email program gains some speed, but only when I do the third task:<\/p>\n

Finally, I rebuild the email program’s index. Email programs are databases. Like any database, when the number of records gets large, the database’s efficiency suffers. All decent email programs feature a command that rebuilds the index, which helps optimize the program’s performance. Especially after archiving and deleting messages, rebuilding the index is a must. In fact, I may perform this task several times a year just to keep the email program running well.<\/p>\n

Sometimes I may not catch all the end-of-year file management chores that I intend to do. That’s fine: If I stumble across a folder that has files I can shove into a new 2015<\/code> folder, I’ll do so. That activity happens a lot. It’s just my own way of starting the new year and keeping all my computer stuff organized.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Start the year afresh by cleaning up some PC junk.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[16,15,17],"class_list":["post-7995","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-main","tag-laptop","tag-pc","tag-troubleshooting"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wambooli.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7995","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wambooli.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wambooli.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wambooli.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wambooli.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=7995"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.wambooli.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7995\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8002,"href":"https:\/\/www.wambooli.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7995\/revisions\/8002"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wambooli.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=7995"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wambooli.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=7995"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wambooli.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=7995"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}