I spent the weekend degunking my PC, the tech equivalent of spring cleaning. Did you get a mental vision of aprons, vacuums and soapy sponges? Guess what—that's exactly what it involves!
Joli Ballew and Jeff Duntemann have followed up their enormously popular manuals on removing clutter from your hard drives and operating systems with this winner, Degunking Your PC. In this manual, the authors take us through the 12-step process of physically cleaning and rationalizing the PC and its environment.
Like many computer users, I was unsure whether I needed to degunk. But a few quick tests revealed my gunked-up state.
- Can you vacuum under your desk?
- Do you need to clear space on your desk to write a check?
- Are there more cables under your desk than peripherals attached to the computer?
- Can you easily find the connectors for that rarely-used device?
- How many unusable devices reside in your office?
These questions helped me realize degunking was long overdue. (Not to mention that their "terribly-gunked-up workplace" example was a dream of organizational delight compared to my own desk.) Fortunately, I had a weekend to devote to this, so I was able to methodically follow the authors' advice to relieve the mess.
For those who don't have that kind of time, the book provides other plans for degunking within time limits. Ten-minute, half-hour, one-hour, three-hour and half-day degunking programs may not provide the radical overhaul this book advises, but they can help you use the time you do have effectively. There's even a "spare-moment" degunking option.
When you do have the time to devote to it, the 12-step plan will help you break the habits that got you gunked in the first place. The process is designed to be helpful for novice-to-intermediate PC users, whether you have a laptop or a tower PC. It takes you through four separate areas of gunk production: physical gunk like dust bunnies, key grease and extraneous devices and cables; connectivity and performance optimization for peripherals and other computers; backing up; and hardware optimization (including what to do with the old stuff).
Article comments
1 - Aaman
Which vacuum/cleaning kit do you recommend?
Nice book covers - very striking and evocative of 60s-type computer ads
2 - Victor Plenty
What I found under my keycaps a few months ago was so bad, I can't bring myself to put the keycaps back on my keyboard. Instead I taught myself to type directly on the little plastic buttons that the keys attach to.
It took some practice, but now my typing speed is almost back up to where it was before.
Plus I've grown to prefer the minimalist look of a keyboard with no keys on it.
3 - Temple Stark
Regarding the last comment - waaaah? If it was that bad - er, please do not share LOL
Great review DrP. I'm up for a review in the series, as well.
4 - Victor Plenty
Well, Temple, I'm sure others may have found far worse things under their keycaps.
The debris under mine was not much worse than, say, a dusty front porch. I just don't like the idea of that much dust accumulating a fraction of an inch away from where my fingers spend so much of their time.
5 - DrPat
Yes, Victor, it's not relaxing to debug a program, when you realize there are actual dead insects under your keycaps...
I had never cleaned this keyboard below the keycap level (in 4 years), so it was truely overdue. I found gooey droplets (port? soda? bug-caca?) and greasy crumbs (cookie? chips? cornmeal from Jalapeno Cheese bread crust?), all matted together with dead ant bodies and cat hairs.
In all, nearly a tablespoon of crud came off the keyboard base...
6 - Temple Stark
Oh, great, now I'm hungry.
:-)
7 - DrPat
I've got a great ragout simmering the crock-pot for dinner tonight. I'd definitely recommend it over potpourri d'keyboard!