Three Tip Thursday: 01/05/17

by Elizabeth Kricfalusi, Tech for Luddites

Today’s T3 includes tips for a general tech checkup, LinkedIn update, and $10 deal for online courses.

1. Tech Check

The new year is a good time to take care of a few basic tech tasks if you haven’t done them in a while. Here are a few things that will help you start 2017 off with a clean bill of tech health.

Cancel unused subscriptions. If you’ve signed up for services that have recurring payments, now’s a good time to evaluate whether they’re still worth paying for and cancel the ones that aren’t before you’re charged for them again. Look through your bank and credit card statements and also search through old emails for order confirmations. You may have signed up for a 2- or more-year subscription ages ago that will be coming up soon but that you won’t find on your statements if you don’t go back that far.
Get your email Inbox under control. Speaking of old emails, go through all your messages and delete the ones you don’t need at all and move ones you want to keep but have no current to-dos to other folders. While you’re doing this, you’ll probably find emails you had totally forgotten about that you do actually want to act on. It’s also a good time to unsubscribe from mailings you no longer want to receive, which will slow down the onslaught going forward. You don’t need to reach Inbox Zero, but it’s important to know what all’s in there and what you need to do with them.
Back up important files. Whether it’s documents for work on your computer or photos on your phone, make sure you move copies to a memory card, external hard drive, or an online service (Google Drive, Amazon Cloud Drive, Dropbox) to make sure you don’t lose them in the event something unexpected happens to said computer or phone.
Check your privacy settings. Go through your computer, mobile device, social media, and other online service settings to make sure you’re only sharing your personal info with people and companies you want to share it with.

2. Update Your LinkedIn Profile

Even if you’re not currently looking for a job, keeping your LinkedIn profile up to date is always a good idea. The service is also in the process of rolling out a new interface so now’s a good time to see if you’ve got it yet. I haven’t, so can’t comment on it, but this article provides a lot of useful information (ignore the “For Marketers” part of the title, since most of the info applies to anyone).

LinkedIn Changes: What Marketers Need to Know (Social Media Examiner, 01/02/17)

3. Learn a New Skill for $10

Earlier this week, I posted about how online courses are a great way to become more comfortable with technology. One of the largest online course providers, Udemy, has a sale on until January 10th where you can take any course on the site for just $10. Here’s a sampling of some of the tech courses they offer (they have other categories as well including business, personal development, music, and health and fitness):