Tips - Equipment Maintenance
Monitor
Daily. Keeping the monitor screen free from greasy fingerprints, pen ink, and dust is an important part of feeling good about your workspace. Use a soft, lint-free cloth and be sure to do it before you start each day.
Disk Drives
Monthly. Removable drives contain delicate optics designed to read your precious data quickly and accurately. Keeping these units free from dust will not only increase their life, but the life of your disks. Floppy, Zip, Jaz, etc., they all need it. Invest in a proper CD cleaner also. These actually look like CDs but they have small brushes on the bottom side. The lens in a CD reader/writer is very sensitive to dust and smoke, and needs physical contact with a brush to keep clean.
Hard Drives
Weekly. Another excellent investment is a set of disk utilities like Norton Utilities. Although both Apple and Microsoft bundle some form of disk maintenance program with their operating systems, a third party disk maintenance package quickly becomes invaluable to any computer user because they are made to correct problems and hunt down issues that the built-in utilities don’t look at.
Computer Case
Monthly. Keeping the inside of the case free from dust has a number of benefits including, reducing machine heat and lessening the chance of a short. Use an air compressor or vacuum if available and be sure to blow all the dust out of the power supply.
Workspace
Daily. A cluttered, dusty workspace is not a nice place to spend eight hours of your day. Take 5 or 10 minutes every day and straighten and dust this area before you start.