Windows only: Tiny utility JavaRa cleans up older or redundant versions of the Java Runtime Environment (JRE) that might be littering up your PC, and optionally updates to the latest version. It’s a simple tool that just works. More »
Blog Archives
JavaRa Updates and Removes Old and Redundant Java Versions [Downloads]
Posted on April 9, 2010
Give Your Computer and Peripherals a Spring Cleaning [Computers]
Posted on April 9, 2010
Most of us are more concerned about the tidiness of our directories and files than we are about our physical computer. A dirty computer is a failure-prone computer, so let’s dig in with some spring cleaning tips. More »
How to Analyze, Clean Out, and Free Space on Your Hard Drive [Hard Drives]
Posted on April 8, 2010
Hard drive space is cheaper than ever, but as Parkinson’s Law dictates, your data (and, let’s face it, BitTorrent addiction) somehow expands to fill your space available for storage. Here’s a few simple but effective ways to clean out your hard drive. More »
Today Is National PC Cleanup Day, So Let’s Tidy Up Your System [Computers]
Posted on February 8, 2010
The Web Worker Daily blog reminds us that today is National Clean Out Your Computer Day. Want to do some serious PC cleaning but not sure where to start? We’ve got your back, so let’s get with the purging.
Photo by karindalziel.
Clean Out Your Inbox
One of the first places you’ll probably find bogged down with a bunch of junk you don’t need is your email inbox. If you use Gmail to manage your email, follow these simple steps to free up loads of space without losing important emails. Once you’ve wrestled your inbox into submission, assign a Trusted Trio of three folders to keep your inbox clean: Follow Up, Archive, and Hold.
Daring productivity mavens may want to take this tip a step further and try out our own Gina Trapani’s idea and eliminate the Archive folder:
Gmail comes with an archive area built in: click on the “All Mail” link to see it. When you archive a message in Gmail (either by clicking the Archive button, selecting the menu option or hitting the E key), the message gets yanked out of your inbox and archived in the “All Mail” view. That means there’s no need for the Trusted Trio’s Archive folder. That is, you only need Follow Up and Hold buckets.
Give Your Filesystem a Thorough Once-Over
Now that your inbox is looking svelte, let’s move on to the stuff going on around your PC’s system. If you think your computer may have been infected with some form of malware but have been putting off hunting it down, you’ll want to find a solid, deep-cleaning malware-removal tool and get rid of what ails you. Once you’ve done that, get a better deadbolt on your system with some reliable antivirus software. (In fact, around Lifehacker HQ we tend to think that Windows security tools are pretty great.)
Even after you’ve removed the malware, you may still have quite a few uninstalled-then-forgotten apps sitting around cluttering up your system. To completely get rid of your unwanted apps, try previously mentioned Revo Uninstaller (we’re happy with the free version).
Once you’ve relieved your PC of all the garbage that was weighing it down, make sure it stays in pristine condition with an automated Windows file cleaner like CCleaner (which you can automate to run nightly), and keep your oft-used folders organized with Adam Pash’s Belvedere. Use Windows’ built-in Scheduled Tasks, to make sure your hard drive performs regular health maintenance tasks.
Clean Out Your Hardware Dust Bunnies
Now that your PC’s brain is purring along, let’s give its innards a good cleaning, too. Don’t be intimidated at the thought of opening its case to evacuate PC dust bunnies. Grab a Phillips head screw driver, some mechanical oil with a dropper, and a can of compressed air, then get to work.
These are a few of our favorite ways for cleaning up our PCs in honor of National Clean Out Your Computer Day, but we know you’ve got your own great suggestions, too, so let’s hear them in the comments.
Feb. 8 is Clean Out Your Computer Day [Web Worker Daily]
Folder Vanity Remover Cleans Up Empty, Unused Folders [Downloads]
Posted on October 30, 2009
Windows only: Point tiny open-source application Folder Vanity Remover at a folder filled with empty directories, and it’ll check for and remove any empty folders. Cleanliness and something about godliness, right?
There’s nothing more to this app. It’s tiny and does this one, simple thing. There’s no fancy options, but if all you want is to quickly and easily clean out your file structure, it can certainly help. For a more feature-packed application with a similar bent, check out previously mentioned Remove Empty Directories. (These developers have gotten so creative with their names!)
Folder Vanity Remover is a free, open-source download, Windows only.
Use Vinegar and Baking Soda to Recharge Your Towels [Laundry]
Posted on September 18, 2009
Towels would seem to be such a utilitarian object that they could never need any sort of optimization. As your towels age however, their absorbency decreases. Boost them back to their glory days with this simple hack.
Photo by evelynishere.
If you’re in the habit of using the amount of detergent recommended on the bottle, which is almost always way more than you need, and then hitting towels with fabric softener or dryer sheets you’re setting yourself up for towels that lose their absorbency and can even begin to stink.
That’s right, most of the time stinky towels aren’t a result of failing to wash your towels enough but using too much detergent and fabric softener. The short of it is this: more isn’t better and over time soap residue can accumulate within the fibers of the towels ensuring that not only do they fail to absorb as much water as they can but they also don’t dry as effectively as they should. When your towels seem to get a funky smell immediately upon getting wet again, failure to dry completely thanks to soap residue is usually the culprit.
What can you do? Saving your towels is as simple as running them through two hot loads. Skip the detergent on both loads, run them through once with hot water and a cup of vinegar and then again with hot water and a half cup of baking soda. Your goal, whether washing brand new towels or old towels, is to strip the softener and detergent reside from the fibers of the towel and get them as absorbent as possible.
Read the full guide at WikiHow for more information and if you have your own laundry tricks, let’s hear them in the comments.
How to Make New Towels More Absorbent [WikiHow]
Use a Tea Bag to Freshen Small Spaces [Clever Uses]
Posted on August 29, 2009
Need to freshen a small space without a can of Lysol handy? Don't buy over priced sachets and fresheners—just grab a fragrant tea bag.
The aisles of your local grocery have all sorts of scented candles, sprays, sachets of scented material, and other items to mask smells and fresh areas in your home. Why spend money on over-priced and chemical-laden scents? While traveling, writers for the home-centric blog Apartment Therapy discovered a simple air-freshening hack:
Yesterday we were flying back to LA from Seattle and had to take a series of smaller airplanes with just the one compact bathroom in the back. Normally these get pretty…stuffy early on in the flight and the people sitting close to it definitely have a worse flight. But on one of the flights we noticed that upon entering the bathroom it smelled kind of nice, but not like an air freshener, it just smelled pleasant. Shutting the door, we realized what it was.
There, hanging on the back of the door were 4 tea bags (Good Earth Spiced Tea to be exact). Because of the spices they held, it filled the tiny space with a natural aroma that wasn’t overpowering but just enough to absorb/mask the other smells. One of the flight attendants must have put the tea bags there to make it more pleasant for everyone. We loved how simple a solution it was using what they probably already had on hand. We plan to raid our tea drawer and try out some mint or chai tea in a hall closet or our own bathroom.
Tea is cheap, the scent of most tea is mild and pleasant, and you can easily refresh your little tea-bag sachet by tossing it and putting a new one in or with a drop or two of essential oil.
Have a trick of your own for freshening up small spaces around the home? Let’s hear about it in the comments below.
Speed Up Firefox 3.5 Start-Up on Windows [Firefox Tip]
Posted on July 10, 2009
The image associated with this post is best viewed using a browser.Firefox 3.5 pulls data from certain file locations for randomized security purposes. Sometimes, though, that can lead to annoying slow start-ups in Windows. You can speed things up by cleaning out certain folder locations.
For whatever reason, having too many temporary, history, or recent document files sitting in your Windows locations slows down Firefox 3.5′s data generation processes, as has been reported as a bug. The Mozilla Links blog recommends cleaning out these folders to move the browser’s work along:
C:Documents and Settings*user*Local SettingsHistory
C:Documents and Settings*user*Local SettingsTemporary Internet Files
C:Documents and Settings*user*My Recent Documents
C:Documents and Settings*user*Temp
On Vista or Windows 7 systems, simply replace “Documents and Settings” with “Users.” Setting up Firefox to automatically clean out your temporary files after browsing, as explained at the link below, helps prevent the accumulation from building again, but users who trade browsing time with Internet Explorer may have to occasionally work this manual method to wipe out those files.
Workaround for Firefox 3.5 slow startups on Windows [Mozilla Links]
Clean Your Laptop to Keep It Running Smooth and Cool [Cleaning]
Posted on June 2, 2009
Taking time out to evacuate your PC’s dust bunnies is a must for keeping your computer running in tip-top shape. If you’re not the desktop sort, DIY site Instructables details how to banish dust from your laptop.
The more dust that collects inside your computer, the hotter it'll run. The hotter it runs, the sooner it'll die. What's more, that accumulated dust has probably caused your fan to run more often and louder than it needs to. As you can imagine, then, a clean computer is a happy computer—which is where this Instructable guide comes in handy.
Granted, the inside of one laptop may vary greatly from the inside of another, but—as the author of this Instructable points out—the same basic ideas apply, so if you practice a little common sense you should be fine. While you're at it, if you feel your desktop computer is in need of some serious cleaning, check out how to clean your PC for more.
Cleaning Your Laptop Cooling System [Instructables]
Don’t Clean Dishes Before Putting them in the Dishwasher [Cleaning]
Posted on May 26, 2009
For many, it’s a common sense thing, based on the name of the appliance itself. But those who do scrub down dishes before loading them in the dishwasher waste water, electricity, and may harm their more delicate items.
Even if you think having cleaner dishes in the dishwasher might make the device run more efficiently and give you spic-and-span results, you’re still wasting water, electricity, and detergent, as one appliance design consultant explains. Worst of all, one “senior dishwasher design engineer” (and, hey, who better to turn to?) says trying to beat your diswasher at its own game can lead to damage:
“Dishwasher detergent aggressively goes after food,” Mr. Edwards said, “and if you don’t have food soil in the unit, it attacks the glasses, and they get cloudy,” a process known as etching that can cause permanent damage.
The Q&A article this advice comes from has (no pun intended) loads more advice on how to get a better, more efficient clean from your dishwasher. Never load bowls upright, for example, because they'll carry dirty water between loads, and, in most cases, you don't need heat drying or the pots & pans cycle.
Why isn’t my dishwasher cleaning my dishes? [New York Times via Consumerist]