It’s always a smart idea to lock your laptop screen if you are stepping away from your desk. Our staff is constantly interacting with important emails, software, and data on a daily basis. Protecting that data and making sure it is secure (especially data provided by our partners) should always be a top priority.

You can trigger the lock in a few simple ways:

WINDOWS Key + L, CTRL+ALT+DELETE > Select “Lock” or Start button > Click on your user icon > Lock.

You’ve probably heard me ask this question many times: “Did you reboot the laptop?” While this can be annoying to hear, it’s for good reason. Regular reboots of your laptop can help keep it running efficiently and can even help boost overall speed and performance. Flushing RAM, temporary files, and regular processes keep the laptop running at peak performance. Get in the habit of rebooting your laptop at least once every other day if possible.

It’s not an uncommon practice to find yourself multitasking during the day with a variety of programs open on your laptop. However, overloading your device can cause it to perform slow and sluggish. Try to limit the number of programs or files you keep open at once. Save that spreadsheet. Close those multi-tab PDF documents you aren’t reading. Save a draft of an email you started so you can come back to it later. These practices go a long way to increase speed.

This one is self-explanatory. Cold temperatures can permanently disable a Lithium-Ion laptop battery. Please bring your laptop indoors if you are heading home for the night or traveling. Leaving a laptop in a bag in the cold or heat outside can cause the chemical compound in the battery to slow down or straight up malfunction.