Recently, I had a Carrie Bradshaw moment when my beloved Mac went critical and just like Carrie, I had no idea why. However, unlike her, I was with my cat instead of my boyfriend upon this critical period. As a writer, my laptop has been my life line towards my career. Therefore, being without it for a day felt as if it was a whole eternity.
Pacing down the hallway, I prayed to God to help my computer. As a pragmatic person, I realize that one way to solve this issue is to take it to the nearby IT shop and get it checked. Fortunately, my warranty is still intact and the box’s tucked in safe above the attic.
Calling my friend to accompany me, I was bound to miserable news. My laptop has reached its end and the cause of it, in fact, was simple and often times avoidable. Soon later, I thought that my experience should be a lesson to others. Therefore, I’m here to give you 3 main pointers on maintaining a healthy laptop.
1. Update Your Antivirus
Antivirus is just as important in your laptop as it is in your body. An antivirus’ functions as a defense mechanism against malware and unmonitored sites, which prevents your computer from being contaminated. However, for those who don’t realize its importance, we often times ignore the fact of updating or upgrading our antivirus, which then leads to a surprise crash of your laptop.
Personally, I prefer to use Bit-Defenders to protect my computer. But, there are also many other soft wares such as Kaspersky or Windows Defender that provides the same adequate functions as Bit Defender; it depends on your preference and you could choose the best option. As how our bodies rely on white blood cells to provide antibodies and defend us from contamination; antivirus take upon the same role in protecting your computers against contamination.
Therefore, never forget to constantly keep them updated.
2. Have A Back Up
When my computer crashed, the biggest worry I had was losing all my datas and my works so far. Furthermore as an author, who’s in the midst of finishing a book, losing my years worth of work seemed as if my nightmares were coming true. I panicked and when I was in the store, my consultant asked me,“Miss, didn’t you have a back up?” Then I remembered my investment on Dropbox with my premium coupon. I was delighted.
There are many ways one could back up their data, some prefer to use the old school manner of having hard drives or even burning it on CDs. However, the evolution of the tech world has created avenue such as Google Drive and Dropbox for you to be able to store unlimited amount of details with a small investment.
For those whom assume these investments are costly, just wait for the right moment and most precisely Black Friday where sales makes the best of both worlds.
3. Dedicate Time To A Monthly Clean Up
Many of us have this particular habit of stacking our laptop with unnecessary details. It could be a picture or an assignment which was done years ago. We start hoarding unnecessary documents and items which then cause our laptops to be insufficient in space and polluted. I guess we can all relate to a polluted desktop and the chaos of finding items segregated in thousands of folders.
Take time every month to clean up your laptop and clear all the items which you find irrelevant. This process doesn’t only help you to have an organized laptop, but it also increases the laptop’s efficiency and speed. This prevents it from having constant lags or the inability to run a heavy program. However, the size of a program or software should be adjusted to the capacity of the laptop.
In the end, there are many ways that one can do to prevent their laptops from malfunctioning. These three methods I believe are the cores of our laptop’s longevity. Therefore, take care of your fellow companion as how you care for your body, because if you are a writer as well, then living a day without your laptop may be like an eternal loop of time.
