We’re all guilty of being a tad lazy when it comes to our tech habits – whether it’s using one password for everything, never shutting down your computer or forgetting to back up your precious photos. Try breaking these top four tech habits today to make life a little easier tomorrow.
1. Only using one password for multiple sites
If you tend to set up all your online accounts with the same password, you could find yourself in hot water. In the event that one of those sites is hacked, your privacy is compromised across all your accounts, and any information you provide can be easily accessed and used against you. If the convenience of a single password sounds alluring, it’s worth giving LastPass a try. LastPass is a secure password manager that solves the problem of managing and remembering passwords by storing all your passwords in one place in the cloud. Your passwords are protected by a master password of your choice, so you only need to remember one password.
2. Forgetting to back up your photos
We all get snap-happy on our smartphones, taking and storing 100s of precious memories anytime, anyplace. But what happens if you lose your phone or accidentally delete all its data? That’s why, in order to prevent this crushing disaster, it’s strongly recommended that you regularly back up your photos onto your computer, an external hard drive or a free online account. For iPhone users, there’s an auto-backup option that uses wifi to sync your phone’s photos to the iPhoto app on your Apple computer. Android and Apple users also have the option of manually setting up auto-backup through Google+ and Flickr.
3. Not tweaking your Facebook settings
Facebook will automatically set your privacy settings to be open and public. It’s great to visit Facebook and interact with your friends, but you should be aware of how visible the content you’re posting is to others. Are your Facebook statuses and photos visible to the public, friends of friends or just your friends? Do you want to allow everyone to be able to send you a friend request, or just your acquaintances? To check your privacy settings, go your Facebook profile and click on the tiny padlock symbol in the top right of the screen. There you’ll see a dropdown menu with four options, allowing you tailor your privacy settings –i.e. Privacy Check-up, Who can see my stuff?, Who can contact me? and How do I stop someone from bothering me? – to your liking.
4. Never restarting your computer
It’s a myth that leaving your computer in stand-by mode all the time can damage it in some way – but it can cause the computer to slow down. Giving your computer a restart once a week helps to fix all sorts of problems because it gives the device a chance to clear off any current background processes that could be making it sluggish. Try to make it a habit of doing a complete shut down and reboot every once in a while too.
Are there other tech habits you want to break?
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