Reining in Outlook What do I do when my Mailbox is overfull? Create a local archive to hold items I don’t need immediate access to. [Launch Outlook] Real Quota messages look like this:

New – Outlook Data File:

Choose the default file type, give it a file name and save, label the archive and give it a password (if you can remember it)

Manually moving folders

o Click and drag o Edit, Move to folder

Manually moving files

o Control A to Select All o Shift Click to Select sections o Control Click to selectively choose items

Auto Archiving Tools- Options – Other – Auto Archiving

Set a time and the prompt Expired items are Bulletin articles Pick a date Choose the outlook data file

Folders that shouldn’t be autoarchived or that should have different schedules can can be changed by right clicking on the folder and choosing Properties, then choosing the Auto Archive tab.

Rules for deleting files: Tools – Rules and Alerts, New Rule

Individual Delete: Shift Delete will permanently delete mail. Tools – Recover Deleted Items (they don’t stay there forever) Setting Trash to empty on close Categories: Organization without folders

Clean Up Your Computers Remove Temporary Files and Other Downloaded Files You Do Not Need

If you downloaded files from the internet, chances are that you might have lots of the downloaded files you no longer need. Here is how to clean them:

Go to Windows Explore, then right click on the letter that is associated with your hard drive, normally, it is C: and choose Properties, and now click on Disk Cleanup.

See screenshots below:

The result:

Clean your Downloads folder

The disk clean up does not clean your Downloads folder. To take care of that folder, you have to manually delete the files there. Go to Windows Explore and then choose Downloads. You can now delete the files you do not need there.

See screenshot below:

Clean Cache, Cookies, and History

We use Internet Explorer, Chrome, or Firefox or other browsers every day. These browsers retain certain amount of data that we should clean up from time to time. Among them, you should periodically clean cache, cookies and history files.

Cache:

Each time you access a page through your web browser, the browser caches it. The benefit of it is that when you use the Back button or Forward button on the browser, the browser does not have to travel over the internet to get the same pages again. The bad part of it is that the pages are not refreshed each time you access them, even when new information might be made available. So you should periodically clear the cache to allow your browser to function more efficiently and accurately.

Cookies:

A Cookie is a tiny file. This file is created by a web browser, at the request of a web site, to be stored on your computer. It typically store user-specific information such as selections in a form, shopping cart contents, or authentication data. The benefit of the cookies is that the site you often access can remember who you are so you do not have to enter the same authentication again. The risk is that it can pose security risk. It is a good practice that you from time to time to clear the cookies, also.

History

Browser remembers where you visit by keeping a log of the sites you visit. If you are discreet about where you visit, you can clean your history files.

Different browsers have different paths to clean caches, cookies and history. I will mainly talk about Internet Explorer, Firefox and Chrome.

Internet Explorer

Delete these three files on IE is straight forward. Choose Tools, and then Options and the under the Browsing history, click on Delete. You can choose the kinds of data to delete.

I am using IE9 so the screenshots are from IE9:

Firefox:

To clean the files, choose Tools and then Clean Recent History and then click on the Details button to choose the different data to delete:

I am using Firefox 3.5 to capture the screenshots:

Then Detials arrow:

Select the data to delete:

Google Chrome:

Click on the little ranch Icon and then choose Options.

Click on the Under the Hood and then choose Clear browsing data button:

Choose the type of data to delete:

There is also a short cut if you are a sophisticated user. First, type “chrome://settings/clearBrowserData” in the URL address bar and enter, see below:

You will get the same screen as you get through the Tool Bar option:

Finally, Empty Your Recycle Bin Frequently

Right click on the Recycle Bin and choose Empty Recycle Bin.

When you delete a file, you simply trash it; you do not really delete it until you finally empty the trash. The true geek will tell you that even if you trash it, you do not really delete it until the

space that is occupied by the deleted file is filled up again, but for most of us, this is good enough.