712 – Keep things running smoothly: Tom talks Computer Maintenance

Episode 712 – Computer Maintenance
[00:00:08] Welcome to Screw the Commute. The entrepreneurial podcast dedicated to getting you out of the car and into the money, with your host, lifelong entrepreneur and multimillionaire, Tom Antion.

[00:00:24] Hey everybody, it's Tom here with episode 712 of Screw the Commute Podcast. Today, we're going to talk about basic computer maintenance now. Oh, boy, isn't that a great topic? Well, this really isn't a tech show. But here's the deal, folks. The faster and more reliable your computer is, the more time you can spend making money. How about that? Just keep that in mind when you're doing all this boring stuff. All right. Hope you didn't miss episode 711 that was on cell phone tips again. I want you to not spending time fighting with your tablet and your cell phone. I want you to make money. So do some of these things. Go to episodes 711 and it leads you to a bunch of other episodes and you will thank me if you just do part of these tips because you'll be so much faster on your cell phone and tablets. All right. Make sure you follow me on TikTok at tiktok.com/@digitalmultimillionaire. And always make sure you you know, I'm again talking about automation. Pick up a copy of our automation book at screwthecommute.com/automatefree. And this is a serious e-book that tells you all the ways I use to really become lightning fast and get my work done.

[00:01:47] All right. Let's get to the main event here. And a lot of this I think most of this stuff works for both a mac and a PC. So it might be called a little bit different automatic than a PC. I'm mostly a PC guy, although I happen to be recording this on an iMac. The podcast runs on an iMac, but I work on a PC all the time. All right. Anyway, first thing is, keep your operating system updated. However, like, they're begging me to go to Windows 11 at the time of this recording when I'm on Windows ten, we don't even with our WordPress websites, we don't update anything until the bugs are out. I let some all the geeks and everybody else that updates immediately let them do that. Then they locate the bugs and then they fix the bugs and then I update. Okay, so I'm not the first one to update everything, but I don't let it go forever. Put it that way. So keep your operating system updated. Here's another thing uninstall programs you don't use, especially the ones the computer manufacturers force on you. When you buy a new computer, they call it like bloatware. All right. So identify the ones that came with the computer and decide if you're going to use them or not. If not, delete them. Get rid of them. All right, clean up your hard disk. So on a PC, it's called disk cleanup, and it finds all the junk and temporary files that are used to make things happen on your computer.

[00:03:22] But they're just laying there doing nothing now. You always generate new ones. So as the old ones build up, they just clog everything up for no reason. So run your disk cleanup. And then there's another thing called Defrag. Now, what defrag means is it reorganizes the data on your hard drive to find things quickly so that the hard drive can instantly grab stuff instead of looking all over the place for it and then finally showing it to you. Now, the newer Macs, from what I understand, don't need this because they have an internal one that does it automatically. However. You must not let your hard drive get too full. Because if it's too full, there's no room for them to reorganize. It's just like your house. If you decide to organize something, you pull everything out and throw it everywhere and then put it back in organized. Right. Well, in the meantime, when you were pulling it all out and throwing it everywhere on a hard disk, if you get the hard disk to full, there's no place to throw this stuff. So you can't do it. You have to do it manually then. So don't let and it's just not a good idea to let your hard drive get too full for lots of reasons. And now I think I get to that in the next section. Yeah. So the next thing is, is searching for large files on your computer.

[00:04:47] You can just search for all files and then organize them by size. And chances are the biggest ones will be videos. And if if it's a video you have it used or needed or watched for a long time, send it up to the cloud, or at the very least, get it on an external hard drive so it's off of your computer, although it's accessible to you if you need it. In the old days it was such a pain in the neck. But nowadays cloud storage is super cheap and easy and so you can get this stuff off of your computer so it's not clogging things up because if you get even close to 90% of your hard drive full, it just causes all kinds of things that me as a non techie can't even tell you. But I've, I've run up against them. So, you know, and as much work as I do, you know, seven days a week on a computer, it gets loaded up. And so I have to pay attention to this or it causes me trouble. So, so see how much room you have left on your hard drive. And don't let it get too full. Oc. I keep a can of compressed air sitting next to me where I work because the keyboard can get dirty and so I blow it out with compressed air.

[00:06:06] If you get something stuck down in there can cost a whole day to go get somebody to fix it for you. Keep a microfiber cloth clean for your screen. And another thing is people don't reboot regularly. They let their computer run for weeks at a time, and then they wonder why things are clogged up. Now, I admit that the Mac is better on this. A lot of times I let the Mac go for a long time, but on my PC, even the super great ones that I buy, you know, you got to reboot once in a while and that's my whole first thing. If something goes, it starts getting screwy on my PC. Like I might type and then. And the characters are delayed or something, or I click on something and nothing will click or, you know, just any number of things. The first thing I do, if things sound weird or act weird, is reboot the computer. And almost all the time I fixes it. How it does it, I have no idea. But it gets everything starting fresh. Empty your recycling bin, you know? You know, a lot of times those files that you deleted are just laying around, taking up disk space and everything. So empty your recycling bin. Now here's another one. Don't overheat. Let your computer get overheated. Like maybe the sun comes in and hits your desk and you love the sun, but it's hitting your computer.

[00:07:37] Computers don't like heat. When they get heated up. It causes them all kinds of trouble and it can reduce the life of the computer and everything. So don't let it get overheated. If you're if you have a laptop, don't sit it on something soft where all the airflow can't get underneath it. You know, it's okay to sit it on a couple of things that hold it up as long as airflow can get get under there. And food and drink. There's a rule around here is no drinks can be set on the table where a keyboard is none OC. That's the rule here. If I see that, I'm going to freak out on whoever's doing it because one little spill can just kill your whole, you know, your keyboard on you and there you're screwed. Now, I have seen it. The Mac store. They have these I don't know if they're like plastic, but they're soft plastic and they fit over your keyboard and you can still type beautifully. That's a worthwhile investment. I'll tell you what, especially if you've got kids or cats that are walking across your keyboard and stuff and the hair gets down in there. And I mean, you know, there's all kinds of bad things can happen. So easy to get rid of and then keep your antivirus stuff up to date.

[00:08:58] That way you don't want to get any viruses. Doesn't mean you still can't get one, but you're if you just ignore it and don't have it, at least auto updating, then you can get a virus. And then there you go, computer shop. It could burn up your hard disk, could do all kinds of bad things to you. So. So there are some things to do now. There's way more things you could do if you're a super techie to really you know, it's like the piston heads that work on cars and really scoop them up. Well, yeah, that's all doable. I don't know how to do it right and it's not necessary to do it. But there's more things that could be done to to keep your computer, you know, firing on all cylinders. But if you just did a portion of what I just told you, then you'll be way, way ahead of the game and you won't be suffering breakdowns and slow running and and all kinds of bad stuff by ignoring the computers. That's what brings money in for me and those of you listening this, I suspect you either do it that have money coming in because of your computer or that's what you're aspiring to. So you got to keep that thing running beautifully. All right. That's my story, too. I'm sticking to it. If you want help with this and all kinds of stuff, check out my mentor program at greatInternetmarketingtraining.com.

[00:10:17] And also, I have a program going right now that there's still seven spots left out of ten on being a great podcast guest so go to screwthecommute.com/greatpodcastguest. This can mean millions of dollars of free publicity for you bunch of sales repeat you know people asking you back over and over. I've been asked back as many as 13 times for doing the kind of stuff that you'd learn in that course. And also it's one on one. So it's myself, you know, just you and me teaching you, learning how to be a great podcast guest from somebody like me who's interviewed at least 500 people and I've been on a 1000 interviews. Sometimes I've been invited back as many as 13 times. So if you want that kind of thing for your business, there's nothing better because podcasting is still going crazy and they need guess there's I think they had 27 million episodes in 2022, had to have guests. All right. So so you could be one of them. You just get a couple of hundred of those on top shows and it just it'll change the course of your business. So check it out. It's through screwthecommute.com/greatpodcastguest and I will catch you on the next episode. See you later.