2024-02-12

National Clean Out Your Computer Day 2024

There really shouldn't be a "day" for this, but today is ostensibly designated for the clean out of your computer.

I construe this to mean:

  •   cracking the case and blowing it out nicely then
  •   cleaning the exterior — as well as
  •   going through the file system if your skill level permits and getting rid of the temporary work files and any other obsolete files such as core dumps and caches
 


computer cleanup    
I typically handle this on a three to six month flex schedule and there is no real set "day" for it all. I have to be particularly cognizant of those temporary work files and cache depositories due to the heavy graphics and writing I do over the course of a week. This is primarily due to the increased time requirement when maintenance which is handled on a less frequent basis.

The organization comes along with all this — and I have even purchased and installed a terabyte in two Sandisk Ultra Luxe flash drives for tertiary backup and storage of those things I don't want all over the hdd or sdd. The old set exist as archives and are hanging on the deer antlers in my bedroom.

So the inside of the machine gets cleaned out. The outside gets cleaned off. The dust gets blasted away and I am particularly vigilant regarding dust bunnies in the heat sink fins, fans, and so forth. My vacuum cleaner and it's crevice tool comes into play frequently.

I hope you will take the time to give your workstation the once over periodically. I believe it will add years to the functionial life of your machine. A cluttered desk may be the sign of a genius but a chronically dirty computer will be shorter lived than it might be otherwise.