Tech Tune-up: Reclaim the Peformance You Need with What You Already Have.

• Author: Stephens, Thomas G. Jr.
• Position: Tech Talk

Technology is great. until it isn't. When your technology doesn't perform well, your productivity and security suffer. Further, technology glitches impair your ability to serve customers and clients both internal and external. Fortunately, when your technology doesn't perform well, you're not necessarily looking at a "rip-and-replace" situation. Much like tuning up a car, you may find that a technology tune-up is all that's needed to reclaim the performance you need.

Remove Unnecessary Programs

These may include demonstration software or trial versions of software you chose not to work with on an ongoing basis. Keeping unnecessary programs installed can hinder your computer's performance, clutter your hard disk and even potentially compromise security. A great way to identify unused and unnecessary software is to download the Belarc Advisor tool (belarc.com/products/belarc-advisor) and use it to scan your computer. Among other things, this tool, which is free for personal use, will scan your computer and let you know all the software titles installed and the last time you used them. With this information, you can quickly determine which ones you should uninstall.

Get a Grip on Your Passwords

Passwords remain a necessary evil for most business professionals and their technology. Yet, many of these same professionals do not follow best practices for creating and using passwords and often reuse the same password across multiple accounts. This practice generates significant security risks and can be corrected easily by using a password management tool. Tools such as Zoho Vault (zoho.com/vault), LastPass (iastpass.com), RoboForm (roboform.com), and others all offer inexpensive options to assist you in creating, managing and using your passwords. If you're not using a password management tool, now is the time to start.

Address Your Monitors Many business professionals use multiple monitors to improve their efficiency by seeing and working with more data at any point in time. Unfortunately, sometimes a multiple monitor arrangement consists of monitors of different sizes, which can hamper productivity. If you're using multiple monitors, ensure they are all the same size to realize the efficiency of multiple monitor environments. Further, you may even consider replacing multiple monitors with a single large monitor for even greater productivity, with fewer issues associated with arranging windows.

Pay Attention to Ergonomics Ergonomics matter, and...