How to clear space on your laptop, and what we’ve been up to…

By | January 23, 2023
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Today I’m going to give you a quick tip about clearing space on your computer, then I’ll fill you in on what we’ve up to here at Helpful Books over the last few months…

A quick way to clear a bit of space

My boys play a lot of computer games – and by that, I mean a lot of different ones. You can pick up so many free and very cheap games these days, they’ll often get a new one every week. But that doesn’t mean they want to get rid of the old ones – they just want more games to choose from. Fair enough.

But that does give me a bit of a headache when it comes to storage space.

If you find yourself in a similar pickle, whether it’s apps and games, or something else that’s taking up a lot of space, I’ve got a quick tip for you – check your “Downloads” folder.

You’d be amazed by how much builds up in there. For example, if you download a piece of software from a website, you’ll end up with an “installation” file in there. These can be huge files, but once you’ve got the app or program safely installed on your machine, you don’t need it any more. It’s just taking up valuable space.

Another very quick tip is that if you’re clearing files out of your Downloads folder to free up space, don’t forget to empty the Recycle Bin afterwards. (Or just hold down the “Shift” key as you delete files – that deletes them permanently without ever sending them to the Recycle Bin.)

What we’ve been up to over the last few months

As you probably know, we’ve written lots of books over the years about using various devices and gadgets – phones, tablets, PCs… 

Then a few years ago we brought out our first online course – about using Windows 10. Swiftly followed by a course on how to use an Android tablet or iPad, a third about using a smartphone and a Windows 11 course just last year.  They’ve been really popular… and we’ve had some lovely comments from people saying how much they’ve helped.

But with technology being technology – new features are coming along all the time and so the way you do things on a PC, tablet or smartphone changes all the time too.

Over the last few months, Ellen, Kathryn and I have been working our little socks off to bring all four courses bang up to date with all those changes.

We’ve just got the last few finishing touches to make, but the courses should be ready to re-open early next week.

If you ever find your PC, tablet or smartphone awkward or frustrating to use – or think there might be more you could do with it if only someone showed you in a simple, easy way – then look out next week for more information about the courses.

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