For your everyday laptop toting college students, your MAC or Windows PC is your life line, carrying your work, entertainment, and communications in all in one place. Unfortunately Murphy’s Law can happen anytime a theft, coffee spill, malicious software (malware) or hardware failure that could cripple or wipe out you life in seconds (believe me I’ve been there).
So it’s important to know how to do maintenance, troubleshoot, and backup you files if you like to avoid those costly fees from Computer Services, geek squad.
- CCleaner – makes it easy to wipe away your tracks from Internet Explorer, Firefox, Opera, and Google Chrome from various Windows system areas, and from some third-party applications.
- AVG Anti-Virus Free Edition – a combined antivirus and antimalware engine, LinkScanner, and e-mail scanning.
- Malwarebytes Anti-Malware – a surprisingly effective freeware antimalware tool.
- Ad-Aware Free Anti-Malware - One of the first applications built to find and remove malware and spyware, Ad-Aware’s reputation is well-justified.
Backups and file sharing:
- Dropbox – file sync, file sharing, online backup and more! Good article for more ways to use Dropbox:Â http://lifehacker.com/5358983/use-dropbox-for-more-than-just-file-syncing
- SyncBack Freeware – This straightforward backup utility makes it a snap to safeguard and synchronize your files, and its freeware price just sweetens the deal.
- Carbonite - (Paid) back up Photos, emails, music, financial records, documents, and so much more.
Disclaimer: I use these tools on my own systems daily and rarely have any problems, but like all systems everyone is different. So please use at your own risk, be sure to read the install, specifications, and usage instructions before you use on your system.
Also if you have any freeware or software apps you like to use share it with us in the comments!
