Jtalk4456

My maintenance technique

1. Dust once a year or so or whenever I upgrade and notice an issue.
2. I reinstall the OS whenever I screw something up badly. More common on linux, less common on windows.
 
 
FYI running CCleaner can do more harm than good. Screwing with the registry can go wrong.

I do my home maint the same time i do the PM at work (Once a month is the main PM)
I made an excel sheet that has all the items broken down by type (Server, NAS, Network, etc)
Then I have all the tasks listed, and if they are done monthly, quartly, yearly etc
 
- From your list I would skip the CC cleaner every week, and look at each month.
- Add in driver updates once a month
- Run OS updates once a month (So you control when your PC decides to reboot)
- Check AV is running once a month
- Check your backups once a quarter at least, not just they are running but test a restore. People seem to rely to much on the report saying it backed up and not actually testing them
- Empty Recyling once a month
- Check HDD space, make sure its not getting to full, and that space matchs use. So if you experiance about 1 GB growth a month, and then see a 100 GB growth something is wrong. (I know my excample is odd, but you get the idea of rapid unknown growth is bad)
- Reboot router/ap/switchs once a month. Is it needed? Maybe not but I don't experiacne network issues at home because of this
- Reboot PC once a month
- Check your logins work on your devices, Also this test makes sure you can login to your devices. Checks for lock ups
- Do a test print once a month, checks if printer has any issues
 
I do more stuff, but generally just think of all the little things you have in your house, doing a 5 second check saves you later head ache if a device fails to work right when you need it.

Over the years, I've found that Ccleaner cause more issues than it fixes, not worth it over simply running built-in disk clean up.
 
My "routine" is basically just :
-set up automatic defrag/trim and never touch it again
-set up automatic browser history clean up and never touch it again
-run AV once in a blue moon
-empty out the recycling bin.
-clean the filters on my case whenever I remember
-backup to external drive twice a week.
-reinstall windows 10 at every major release... Which is probably never again now that Windows 11 is out.
 
That's pretty much it.

Too much work for me even if they are necessary, not to mention most of these are totally pointless.
I don't do weekly, monthly or quarterly maintenance in any form, hardware or software. I just clean the dust off if it is visible and apparently clogging something, replace thermal paste after maybe 3 years if I haven't got a new PC by then.
I leave all software optimization/cleanup/update on automatic schedule and that should do more than enough for my usage scenario. I only do proactive update if I know the new version has something I want.
All service troubleshooting for me is incident triggered, I don't check if they work. The only exception is storage SMART status.

This has happened to me now TWICE...
 
Screwed up something (deleted something I suppose) and Windows would not update anymore...
 
I would download the updates just fine - but then when installing them - all of the updates would fail.
 
Had to do a backup of folders and reinstall Windows - and then it worked fine.
 
Then stupidly, I used another program (Bitdefender One Click Optimizer) and it screwed up my LAN/wireless.
 
Had to do a restore from disk image that I made...
 
These programs today seem to be not smart enough yet to not delete files, etc. that are needed.

All I do is update my system and reboot every couple weeks or so, nothing else really (although I don't use windows).
 
I don't even check for temps or anything like that, I trust the hardware to thermal throttle if needed lol

You've got some ambitious plans, there. Here I am with a custom water loop that's been running for 2.5 years without draining. 😅

haha, yeah you have ocd man. i would just monitor the cpu / gpu temps, when its out of bound, then i would check the coolers.
i kept regular backups of my C drive, when something goes down, i would just load the latest backup and try to fix it from there.
that's why i try to have the smallest size possible for my boot drive (512gb currently), to reduce backup space, move private docs and big apps from it so in the worst case, i wont loose anything important.

Only dusting when needed, like 6 months to a year.
Those thing would only f-up your pc even more.
if you have bsod, fixing the problem manually is the best solution.
no need automated process.
 
defragging is no longer needed post windows 8, windows will automatically defrag in the background.
especially for SSD, defragging is no point.

IDK if there's any reason other than me wanting to feel like I'm keeping it clean and running at it's best. That's why I'm wanting feedback, I'm just guessing here. That one is more for my OCD, so even if that's a bit much, that one is for my brain, not practicality XD

Interesting  Weekly CCleaner?  What do you use your machine for that you need to do weekly or even monthly maintenance outside of virus/malware scanning?
 
Malware Bytes and Windows Defender are all I do for the past 5 years.  
 
 

So here's what I could find with some quick research:
Resources from the NHS - IDK how the healthcare system works in UK, but this page has lots of links for requesting grants, talking to local council, groups to help you find equipment for these needs, etc. could be a good place to start
https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/social-care-and-support-guide/care-services-equipment-and-care-homes/household-gadgets-and-equipment-to-make-life-easier/
this one seems a bit more geared to mobility, but also mentions telecoms and home adaptations, so can't hurt to check
https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/social-care-and-support-guide/care-services-equipment-and-care-homes/care-and-support-you-can-get-for-free/
This one seems more general info, but has some links that might be useful
https://www.verywellhealth.com/ms-technology-5225481#:~:text=For those with nonstandard speech,and other smart home devices.
Here's the MS foundation page for their assistive tech program. Not sure if they operate in the UK, but found a few similar programs specific to the UK too
https://msfocus.org/Get-Help/MSF-Programs-Grants/Assistive-Technology-Program
Here's the UK specific ones
https://ms-uk.org/#:~:text=We are here for people,diagnosed every week on average.
https://www.mssociety.org.uk/care-and-support
https://mstrust.org.uk/life-ms/your-finances
https://mstrust.org.uk/life-ms/your-finances/grants-and-financial-help
https://mstrust.org.uk/life-ms/your-finances/benefitshttps://mstrust.org.uk/life-ms/home-and-travel
https://mstrust.org.uk/life-ms/home-and-travel
I also found this small piece about alexa and netflix integration. hopefully it's of some help
https://www.lifewire.com/connect-alexa-to-netflix-4783118
 

For me the recent ones have been very good. I've used a 5500 XT for nearly 2 years with 0 issues and an RX 6600 for a few weeks, with 1 minor issue (power limit resets sometimes when booting pc). Honestly in the month I used an Nvidia card I had more (minor) problems than the 2 years with AMD.
 
Have you tried rolling back drivers? 21.10.2 has been good for a lot of people from what I've heard.

Not really an issue anymore.

Ran a 5700 for a year, 0 issues.
 
Been running a 6800 for a year, 1 issue, related to the ultra-low power state feature (meant for SLI and which AMD really should just remove now), fixed by disabling ulps.
 
AMD drivers haven't always been great in the past but any problem people have with AMD cards now becomes part of a memetic narrative whereas any problems people have with Nvidia cards are just treated as random isolated anecdotes. 

Bullet notebooks also just look cool as well, always fun to pull one out of your jacket pocket

I love the small details you've put into the notebooks and how you've had fun with it. But as someone with ADHD, I use my 3 bullet journals for everything. 1 for health, 1 for projects, and my main one for everything else. This will later be condensed, but that's not the point. Point being a lot of people with ADHD are very good at analytical thinking and tend to end up in the tech field, like me. I'd wager a decent amount of your audience is neurodivergent to some degree. Bullet journals are really good for people like me, where I can customize how I want to use everything inside. I can draw charts and graphs as needed, I can make them look good with the bullets and a ruler cuz I can't draw nice on my own. Bullet journals are really a phenomenal thing. I would love not only to support you guys again, but also to have a really awesome journal that matches my personality better and makes me enjoy using it more. If you can add a bulleted journal variant to the 2 designs you showed, I would love to get one. As it stands, I just don't use lined notebooks anymore because the bullet style is so much easier for my brain to work with.

I live in a town of about 16K, and I love it as is. I'm not fond of cities and prefer more space and trees.

IDK if calling a whole country pretentious because a company offers a stupid product makes sense, and more importantly, this supposes that behavior is particularly in korea. I see this as an American stereotype. We literally spend bookoos of money buying clothing brands where the entire design is the company logo. We're paying to be walking billboards. And apple phones actually have a higher market share in the US than in Korea.

IDK if calling a whole country pretentious because a company offers a stupid product makes sense, and more importantly, this supposes that behavior is particularly in korea. I see this as an American stereotype. We literally spend bookoos of money buying clothing brands where the entire design is the company logo. We're paying to be walking billboards. And apple phones actually have a higher market share in the US than in Korea.

Haha, the one with the receipt strap is a nice touch. Cute. I'd get it if I had one of the supported phones. 
 
Generalizing an entire race of people is a pretty stupid thing to do. 

IDK if calling a whole country pretentious because a company offers a stupid product makes sense, and more importantly, this supposes that behavior is particularly in korea. I see this as an American stereotype. We literally spend bookoos of money buying clothing brands where the entire design is the company logo. We're paying to be walking billboards. And apple phones actually have a higher market share in the US than in Korea.

Oh there's a talk to be had about opt in vs opt out, but saying hidden is a different issue. 

IDK if calling a whole country pretentious because a company offers a stupid product makes sense, and more importantly, this supposes that behavior is particularly in korea. I see this as an American stereotype. We literally spend bookoos of money buying clothing brands where the entire design is the company logo. We're paying to be walking billboards. And apple phones actually have a higher market share in the US than in Korea.

I love the small details you've put into the notebooks and how you've had fun with it. But as someone with ADHD, I use my 3 bullet journals for everything. 1 for health, 1 for projects, and my main one for everything else. This will later be condensed, but that's not the point. Point being a lot of people with ADHD are very good at analytical thinking and tend to end up in the tech field, like me. I'd wager a decent amount of your audience is neurodivergent to some degree. Bullet journals are really good for people like me, where I can customize how I want to use everything inside. I can draw charts and graphs as needed, I can make them look good with the bullets and a ruler cuz I can't draw nice on my own. Bullet journals are really a phenomenal thing. I would love not only to support you guys again, but also to have a really awesome journal that matches my personality better and makes me enjoy using it more. If you can add a bulleted journal variant to the 2 designs you showed, I would love to get one. As it stands, I just don't use lined notebooks anymore because the bullet style is so much easier for my brain to work with.