By Will Craig (updated October 2007)
1. Organize your files into folders. That way you can always find a particular file without digging thru all files. This works for email as well as documents. And you can have folders within folders. Create a new folder when the number of files becomes large, say, over 10.
a. Documents. To create new folders inside your My Documents folder, look under the File menu, then New (or right-click anywhere in the My Document window). You can name while you are creating it or later using the right mouse button.
b. Email. Use the same approach for creating new folders for email: Use New Folder under the File menu. Any incoming or sent mail can be moved to that folder using the right mouse button.
2. Throw unneeded files to remove clutter. CURA recommends you do this once a year for documents, say on January 1, sometimes throwing whole folders. For email, do it more frequently—say the first day of the month, keeping 1-month of Trash and 3-months of Sent messages.
3. Watch for Viruses. You have two layers of defense. You can further protect yourself by not opening suspicious email attachments: anything from an unknown person or strangely labeled attachments from anyone. The layers of protection are:
a. The University server checks incoming email and attachments.
b. Your CURA computer is set to run a Norton Anti-Virus scan weekly; this should catch other viruses. This software automatically contacts the Norton site, just before the scan each week, to get the most current virus information.
4. Speed Disk Access. Over time your hard drive gets disorganized, slowing down all operations. The following steps will reorganize and speed up your computer. This series should be run periodically, say January 1 and July 1. Do the steps in the order given below.
a. Scan for Viruses. This happens automatically every week, so you could simply start the process when it is done. Otherwise, double-click on the yellow Norton AntiVirus shield on your toolbar, click on Scan Computer, check the box before C:, and click the Scan button.
b. Compact E-mail. E-mail files can become particularly unwieldy. Within Mozilla Thunderbird, go to File, then Compact Folders.
c. Use system tools. Both of the following tools are found under the Start button of your task bar. Go to Start then Programs then Accessories then System Tools. Do Cleanup first, then Defragmenter.
i. Disk Cleanup. Removes temporary files and compresses old files. This will take some time, possibly as much time as your weekly scan; do not worry if things are going slowly.
ii. Disk Defragmenter. Speeds up your computer by rearranging all components of each file into a contiguous space on your disk.
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