When you work on a deadline each week, a la, getting newspaper to the printer on time, you would like all of your computer/laptop programs to function properly and quickly.

As I turned on my laptop Monday morning to start getting the articles proofread, edited and ready for publication, it was as though my machine was still in sleep mode. Nothing was getting accomplished as fast as I am used to, so frustration set in.

At least I didn’t have the problem faced by two of my co-workers last week. One of the company’s laptops wouldn’t turn on and another experienced a hard drive crash. Luckily, our crack technician had a couple of spares on hand and my co-workers continued their jobs the next day.

Can you relate?

My laptop finally “woke up” but I had to continue to push it, like a stubborn donkey, the rest of the day on Monday. Tuesday was a bit better but I have a feeling it had something to do with my WiFi connection here at home. And I think I have to defragment my hard drive and either get rid of/back up some of my hundreds of photos and articles to make the machine work more efficiently.

Technology is great and we would be lost without it. But like a car, tune-ups on your machines should be done regularly if you want to get where you want to go in the amount of time you are used to.