I am Not a Computer GuruI Just Play One in this Post.

And I thought I was such a speedy typist that my computer just couldn't keep up. Hah! Just kidding around with you. My computer had slowed down so much that I was thinking I was going to have to take it and have it overhauled, revamped, and it would cost me. Or I would just buy a new one. It was taking many minutes to warm up when I turned it on and pages were loading so slowly I was able to get up and make a pot of tea while waiting. Okay, not every time, but sometimes? Yes. My complaints to Pete didn't get me very far, he'd just look up ask me how full my memory was and tell me I had too much stuff on my compter. Personally, my memory is losing data every day, and I didn't even know how to check my computer's. Pete showed me how to do that and this is what I saw:

Wow. My poor computer was approaching total overload. I had no idea how to fix it. My idea? Get a computer with a bigger hard drive. Heh. Pete's suggestion? "Get rid of some stuff." But what? And where do I put it? It was one of those decluttering jobs that seemed so overwhelming, especially because I had no idea where to begin. I have a lot of photos and music on my computer, so I started there. I dumped a lot of photos. If you are anything like me, you take tens of photos for every one or two that you actually use, yet all of those really big files were sitting around on my computer. I probably could have kept more than I did, but I got in the decluttering mode. No sentimentality, no mercy. Then I decided that I should save the other photos, along with the music and some other files somewhere else so I could delete them from my computer. There are a number of ways to do this, but I thought the best way for me was to get an external hard drive to back up and store some of my stuff. It was pretty easy, plugged it in, installed a little hardware and moved files. Then I went through and deleted most of them from my hard drive.

I deleted temporary internet files. I deleted emails. When it comes to emails I am a hoarder. Truly. I know I will never read them again, or find that one little bit of information that I read months ago, but I feel like I have to save them. I showed no favoritism here. I deleted everything. Actually, I deleted too much. (Lynn-I need your snail mail again so I can send you your prize from November-it's finally ready!)

While all of that did free up some disc space, I thought there must be more. I was recently in our local computer repair shop overhearing the owner explaining to a man that a disc cleaning and defragmentation was something that should be done fairly often on your computer and that it was something that you or I could do ourselves. (Actually, he also said that the compter should emptied of everything and all programs should be reloaded once a year, bringing it back to new.  Ummmmm.....that is too much for me.) I asked him about it and he told me where to look, so that was my next declutter move. In reality, the computer does everything, I just needed to push the right buttons. In my computer, a PC running on Windows XP I opened "My Computer", right clicked on "Local Disk (C)" which brought me to the screen you see above. Then I clicked on "Disk Cleanup." Make sure you have time that you don't need to use your computer as this took about two hours, but it cleaned up and compressed files which created even more space! And I did it!

The really nice computer man also told me that when you create files and remove them on your computer you sort of make a mess. Picture this: Your laundry is finished, clothes are hanging and put away in drawers, like with like. You go in to find an outfit to wear and you go straight to the underwear drawer and find the blue undies and bra next to each other, the sock drawer yields blue socks folded together and similarly, the shirts and pants and sweater are where they belong, easily found and put together. When your computer is nicely fragmented it can go look for the components it needs to load a page or program and quickly find and show them because they are near each other and quick to go.

Now picture this: The laundry may be clean, but some of it is in the dryer, some on the counter in the laundry room, the rest is unfolded and all over the bedroom floor. You look in that pile and find the bra and one sock, then down in the dryer you run to find the undies, the shirt-is it on the counter? In a drawer? Or the closet? That sock? Under the bed. It takes you so much longer to hunt for all of the components for that outfit and put it together. Much the same on a defragmented hard drive. When we move, create and delete files from our computer it leaves spaces and stores things wherever it can, not necessarily with "like" things. So, amazingly enough, your computer can fix this if you just hit the right button. Following the same path as above, when you get to the screen with the pie chart click on the "Tools" button on top. Then click on "Defragment now". A screen appears showing the arrangment of files and showing how much is defragmented and what can be compressed or moved. This takes a while. About three hours for mine which had never been done in three years. Set it at night, done in the morning. This is what that looked like (click to make big):

See how all of the red files get changed to blue and the blues move closer together leaving more white spaces open for free memory (no blue and red comments! This is not a political discussion after all)?  All grouped and organized.  So calming and pretty.  But, after all of that, what was I left with?  Well, I'll show you:

See all of that space?! I know, it isn't really that impressive, but computer is working so much faster. So fast that when I type, it actually gets ahead of me. Next thing, it'll be just composing things for me. It is awesome. Now, if I can just do this monthly it will take less time and keep my computer clean as a whistle. I'm loving it and I'm open to suggestions to clean up even more.

And because I am feeling generous, another little contest for you: Take a guess at how many emails I deleted. Go ahead, I'm giving no hints, but let us just say, the delete key and my finger have not been total strangers, but not the best of friends up to now. I deleted a lot. Good luck! There will be a nice little prize for the person that guesses closest by Sunday night at midnight.

Hard drive is too full?
Delete, Compress and Defrag
You can fix yours too!

Three hundred forty-nine to go. Disclaimer: I am no computer guru. Everything I know is in this post. If you don't find it here, go somewhere else with your questions. :)

Comments

[Lynn]

5,239 emails.

Was I close?

Snail mail address to come tomorrow, when I'm near a computer that behaves itself.

[margene]

I totally love to defrag. Wouldn't it be great if we could defrag our bodies!?
My guess 3,843.

[Carole]

Whaaaaa?

[Paula]

Good for you! I would love to delete and defrag the contents of my home, especially my kids bedrooms!

[Danielle]

Umm, yeah. I use a Mac :) If you're anything like me, you've probably got 3700 emails to delete!

[claudia]

1964 emails. A wild guess.

[--Deb]

Um.... 5,432

[Sandy]

Defrag, baby! I love that you haiku-ed about computer maintenance!
My guess, 4023
Oh, and sign me up for the home defrag. *isn't it ironic that this computer spell check does not recognize a computer word like defrag? Is it just me??

[Laurie]

5,123

[Vicki]

Awesome post, Terry!! Maybe I'll do computer maintenance while I make soup this weekend (baby, it's gonna be COLD outside).

6,023 emails

[Stephanie M]

I would say 3,000 emails. My computer is also misbehaving, however i convinced my brother the computer wiz to come over tomorrow and help me clean it up!! I use to defrag my old computer but couldn't find that featuer on my new one! I never understood what it did until now.

[Manise]

Well sounds like I need to do the same. I too am an e-mail hoarder. I have 5150 saved and another 329 unread. So I'll guess you deleted at least that much. So I'll say 5,479.

[maryse]

hey mac users out there -- do we defrag macs?

i'm going to guess 4,732 emails.

[Susanne]

I say you deleted almost 7989 emails, since you had over 10,000 unread...let's hope I am close to being right!!