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PC storage space is a valuable commodity for businesses, but it’s one that many take for granted and, as a result, fail to maximize and use correctly.

And, despite the seemingly huge size of modern hard drives, many businesses discover that the huge amounts of data they’re dealing with soon eat up all their digital real estate. This can lead to an inability to handle new data and even runs the risk of affecting the system’s performance.

This is why all businesses need to understand that it’s a common problem which can easily be addressed as we’ll discover in 4 quick solutions to maximize your PC storage space.

  1. Run Disk Cleanupimage88

Windows comes bundled with a number of system maintenance apps and one of the most useful is Disk Cleanup. By analyzing the hard drive, Disk Cleanup is able to determine which files are essential for the system to operate and which are likely to be dispensable.

Files such as temporary internet files and those still lurking in your recycle bin will be identified as potential trash and you’re given the option of either deleting or compressing these files to create space. Depending on how long since you’ve had a clean out, vast gigabytes worth of data can be found by Disk Cleanup, so it’s recommended you run this app at least once a month.

  1. Uninstall Unused Apps

We all download apps, use them a few times and then discard them in place of something else, but we also forget to uninstall these original apps. And these apps can take up huge amounts of your storage space.

That’s why it’s crucial that you regularly check through your installed apps in Control Panel to identify which apps are still essential for your needs. Once these are uninstalled, you could suddenly find yourself with more than enough room for all those important files.

  1. Delete Duplicate Photosduplicate-content-image

As digital cameras have become more and more sophisticated, the resulting image files have come larger and larger. Therefore, for businesses involved in publishing and photography, this can put a huge drain on your storage space. And it’s made even worse when duplicate photos are present, they serve absolutely no purpose apart from eating into your hard drive space.

Mistakes happen, though, and with so many edits being necessary when working with photos it’s no surprise that duplicate photos are created. However, given the sheer number of photos present, it can be labor intensive to track these photos down. Thankfully, a number of apps are available such as Duplicate Photo Cleaner and Easy Duplicate Finder which are able to round up duplicate photos and delete where necessary.

  1. Invest in External Drives

Perhaps the most obvious way to maximize your PC storage space is to invest in external hard drives to help cope with the increased demand for space. And, with the cost of storage space reducing almost every year, it’s no possible to pick up an external drive with 1 terabyte (that’s 1,024 gigabytes) of space for around $60. This is more than enough space to help with your storage needs and provides useful storage for documents and photos which aren’t crucial for running apps on your system.

For more ways to secure and optimize your business technology, contact your local IT professionals.

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typingshortcuts

Keyboard shortcuts are an overlooked feature of the modern OS. Here are 28 shortcuts to keep your hands on the keyboard and to keep your productivity high.

Most of these actions can be easily done with keyboard shortcuts. The shortcuts have you press a combination of two keys at the same time to perform the action. Investing some time into learning these shortcuts and getting used to using them on a daily basis will significantly increase your work efficiency no matter what field you are in. Once you learn this way of navigating the UI there will be no going back! The following shortcuts are for computers running a Windows OS.

Action controller

  • CTRL+Y, Redo the last section
  • CTRL+Z, Undo the last action

For creating, opening, saving, and printing

  • CTRL+N, Creates new file or web browser window
  • CTRL+O, Open a file or document
  • CTRL+S, Saves a file or webpage
  • CTRL+P, Print all the selected areas

Format shortcuts

  • CTRL+B, Bold
  • CTRL+I, Italic
  • CTRL+U, Underline

Browsers

  • CTRL+T, Open a new tab in opened browser
  • CTRL+Shift+T, Reopen previously closed tabs
  • CTRL+H, Open browser history
  • CTRL+W, Close window
  • CTRL+F, Word search page

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Screen Capture

  • ALT+Print Screen, Capture screenshot of currently open window
  • CTRL+Print screen, Capture the entire screen

Function keys

  • F1: Open the Help Page
  • F2: Rename file
  • F3: Find or Search
  • F4: Shows the address bar in browser
  • F5: Refreshes the current browser page

Windows Shortcuts

  • CTRL+Alt+Delete,Open the Windows Task Manager
  • Alt+Tab, to move to the last working window
  • WIN+D, Show desktop
  • WIN+L, Lock desktop

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  • CTRL+Shift+N, Create new folder
  • Shift+Delete, Permanently Delete file
  • Alt+Enter or Alt+Double click, Go to properties screen for file or folder

For more ways to increase your office productivity, contact your local IT professionals.

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Make Windows 8 Look Like Windows 8

Are you disappointed with the new unfamiliar Windows 8 or 8.1 interface? Here’s how you can make Windows 8 look like Windows 7.

Fortunately, there are ways to get Windows 8 to act like the Windows interface you know and love.

Probably the most off- putting aspect of Windows 8 is the lack of a Start Menu. With that in mind, the first order of business is installing a third- party  Start Menu program. We recommend Classic Shell. Aside from being free, it offers one of the closest approximations to the Windows 7 Start Menu obtainable from any third- party app. It can be downloaded here.

When setting up Classic Shell, go to the Start Menu Style tab and select Windows 7 Style.

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Under the Basic Settings tab, check the Skip Metro Screen box.

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This will ensure that you will go straight to the desktop without having to view the media saturated greeting screen that looks like this:

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As annoying as that greeting screen is the charms bar shown below.

Windows-8-Charms-Bar

To disable this, download the free Winaero Charms Bar Killer. Launch the application. It will go to the notification area. Right click the program’s icon in the notification area and select Kill Charms Bar.

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This will disable all those annoying charms and allow your computer to behave like a desktop rather than a tablet.

For more information on this or other things affecting your PC, consult your local IT professionals.

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What a NAS typically looks like.

NAS (not to be confused with NOS) is an essential tool for sharing files, doing backups and many other common functions between computers in your home or office.  Network Attached Storage, or ‘NAS’, isn’t the first thing you will think of when you’re shopping around for a computer.  As your home or office PC’s, tablets and smartphones build up, the term NAS will likely come up somewhere.

How can you use a NAS for your Home or Office?

Once you have several computers in your home or office, you’ll realize that it’s an inefficient use of time to constantly duplicate files from one hard drive to the next just so you can access them from all your devices.  That’s where NAS come in.  It’s an external hard drive with a light operating system (OS) to help make ‘sharing’ easier.

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Another look at a different NAS model.

Most of us pull information directly from the cloud, or huge datacenters scattered all over the world, but the issue with this is many people are not yet connected to a high speed connection.  A typical image (i.e. JPG or PNG) will download in just a few seconds if you’re retrieving it from a server, but large files like HD videos will require several hours.  The proximity to a server and the connection quality become limiting factors when we want to share any type of digital content.

So instead of uploading huge video files to the cloud (i.e. DropBox) and then sharing them via this route, people on the same network can share information using a NAS.  The biggest benefit of having a NAS for your home or office network is that you don’t need to run a dedicated PC at all times for people to access files.  As we already pointed out, the NAS is a computer on its own, with the exception that it possess just enough horsepower to carry out what it’s intended for.

More features already built in

Most NAS devices also have built-in printer sharing, so a single household can have access to the printer’s feature at all time from any supported devices.

You may also notice that your computer has a ‘back-up’ feature, which allows you to restore or retrieve lost files should there be some sort of software complications down the line.  While this method is completely acceptable for most cases, people who are even more concerned about their data should find a secondary source to back up their files to, such as a NAS.

Lastly, NAS is also extremely useful for pulling up information on-the-go.  If configured correctly, a NAS can act like a server so any user can pull up whatever is stored on the server from any location with an internet connection.  Just keep in mind that once you’re out of range of your own network, how fast you can retrieve these files from the NAS will depend on the connection you’re currently using.

To learn how your office can benefit from a NAS device, contact your local IT support.

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Outside of Japan, the VAIO brand is no more.

Sony is ditching the PC business in an effort to restructure amidst a declining PC market.  The Japanese tech-giant has been struggling in recent years to keep up with the evolving consumer tech segment, and this latest move away from the PC is just a small step forward for the company.

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