Lunches packed. Check! Homework completed. Check! Orchard visited. Check! Computer backed up… Check?
The days of pens and crayons have been replaced by laptops, tablets, and smart phones. But what happens when they stop working correctly?
It’s easy to be shaken when your devices suddenly start misbehaving—especially if you’re scared about losing important files. There are some things you can do to help keep your electronics running smoothly…and avoid that sinking feeling you’ve lost hours of work:
1. Shut off your device.
Give yourself and your tech a break! Turning off your phone, laptop or computer gives the device a chance to reset and may also help the battery life. It’s recommend that you turn off your tech or at least reset it once a week at a minimum. To rest a tablet or phone, shut it off for 30-60 seconds. For a laptop, go ahead and turn it off overnight.
2. Install updates.
It sounds easy but it’s often forgotten in our busy lives. Taking the few minutes to get the updates installed will help improve dependability and security. Many updates are to fix bugs or security flaws in the previous version and so it may also improve your device in other ways. Most devices will notify you when an update is ready or auto-update when the battery is charging.
3. Back-up, back-up!
The above two strategies fail to keep your electronics behaving, there’s one other thing you should do…
Ever lost a research paper at 3 a.m.? Not fun! Having your documents, pictures and/or videos backed up are a must! You can try to back up manually with an external hard drive or invest in boxes of USB drives. However, the disadvantage is you must manually save the information and hope nothing happens to the location it is stored. Sadly, storms and house fires happen.
The solution is a backup system. A good backup system will include automatic uploads (so you don’t have to think about it) and will store the information offsite—meaning in a different location than your device. Some devices include free options such as iCloud or Google Drive but the amount of space you’ll get is limited and can be rapidly used up by a few large files such as videos.
Technology is wonderful and makes our lives easier in many ways. Just remember to follow these few tips and you’ll avoid blaming the dog for eating your homework.
Guest blogger: Heather B.
