It is Spring in Chicago and I am loving it!

Why Spring should be tied to cleaning and organizing and throwing out and repairing and decorating, I don’t know. Over the years, I have come to accept that Spring is the time for starting-fresh and doing-my-taxes. At the same time, I have become a bit better at maintaining things throughout the rest of the year. Today, I want to start to talk about those two notions as they relate to our Apple systems: periodic “cleaning up” and their ongoing maintenance.

The spring cleaning process starts at my home by creating a list (not necessarily created by me, but I do have input into its final content and you will have input into this one, as well). So, for this discussion about spring cleaning and ongoing periodic maintenance of your Apple computers, let’s begin with a list.

The list that I will use as the starting point is one that has been complied by Luis Giraldo. He is also a member of the Apple Consultant Network (ACN) and polled at least the members of that group for input into creating his maintenance checklist. Go ahead, click the link to his website and take a look at the list. The arrow icons indicate sub-items. Click on all the arrows and you will see quite a complete list of items that need to be considered. We are going to use this list as our starting point, but any changes or additions that are generated here will be passed back to Luis Giraldo for inclusion—or not—in his list.

Does your computer need all of these checkpoints reviewed? No.

Do you want to consider whether each is appropriate to your situation? Yes.

The way you use and where you use your computer will determine which of these items need to be part of your spring cleaning and how frequently they need to be done throughout the rest of the year. Your skill, interest, time, and the value of the information stored on your computer will determine which of these you perform, or whether you want to contract with someone like me to take care of these maintenance tasks.

If you take your car to an auto dealership for periodic maintenance, somewhere in their shop area you’ll find a sign that offers a set price for a tune-up or a maintenance checkup or whatever-they-call-it, and they will say that they will, as part of that package, check 19, 29, 59, or what-ever-number of points on your car. Are they doing something to each of those points of inspection? No, but they are verifying that nothing needs to be adjusted or replaced at each of those points. That is one way of thinking about this list.

Before we proceed in coming weeks to take a look at each section of this list, let’s verify that this list includes all the points that we think should be on a generic checklist. If you see something that you think ought to be added or changed, please use the Comment field to make that known.

To begin, I am excited to see that Luis, prior to proceeding with any work on the computer, starts with a checkpoint to see that there is a backup of the computer’s data. If it hasn’t been done prior to my arrival to work on your computer, it can take a good deal of time and add considerably to the cost of my visit. Some customers, given that cost, are prepared for me to proceed without that preparatory backup. Before we are done with such an appointment, let’s make a plan for having a backup system in place, so that the next time I come, or if your computer needs to go in for warranty repair, the backup has already been done.

Many customers think that they are comfortable with the risk they take of losing data by not backing up their computer. Some don’t know the risk level they have inherited from improperly doing their backups. Others live with the fear that they will lose data, but aren’t doing anything about it.

Let’s at least talk about the risk level that you accept. Yours may be a perfectly rational risk, given the value of data you store and the way that you use your computer. However, it is also possible that the accepted risk level is uninformed. Or, you may simply have forgotten about the possible loss of data.

This discussion about data loss prevention is a great starting point for any discussion about maintenance! Have it with yourself, with me, with someone else, but don’t ignore it. Know that the level of risk assumed by your backup procedures is one you fully considered.

In future posts, I will be looking individually at each section of Luis’ list: Backup, Power and Cooling, Cables and Connections, Network and Security, Software Updates, Disks and Various, Hygiene, Troubleshooting, and Record Keeping. It may be that other current topics are inserted between posts, but my plan is to cover each of these nine sections over the next several months.

Do let me know of sections that you think should be added to this list, as well as sub-items that should be added to any section. You may have different perspectives or facts about how to think about and schedule preventative maintenance tasks. If so, please register and add your comments.

To prevent spamming this website and its blog, all Comments will be reviewed before being published. That may take up to 24 hours. (I have customer needs that I need to attend to and a life to live, so please be patient.)

So, what do you want to add or remove from our Spring Cleaning list?