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SIMPLIFY YOUR
WRITTEN BY KIM KOMANDO
In our increasingly high-tech households, your hard drive, phone, or tablet may need as much attention as your broom closet and stove. It’ s not just stuff. Your privacy needs aclean-up, too. You’ d be shocked at how much Google tracks about you, including when and where you have been. Here are five tools that can help you organize your virtual( and real) environments.
REMOVE ALL REDUNDANT IMAGES
Digital photos are easy to shoot, upload, and copy, which is handy in almost every respect, especially if you grew up lugging rolls of film to the one-hour photo lab. The downside is that you may end up with multiple copies of the same picture. If you’ re shooting withadecentcamera, each shot could take 10MG or more of space. This volume adds up. The trick is to safely delete redundant photos without losing the original image. This is the premise behind DUPLICATE PHOTO FIXER, which is designed to filter through yourphoto collection in search of double-takes. The program is compatible with Windows, iOS, and Android. Not only can Duplicate Photo Fixer find identical photos on your harddrive, but it will also match similar photos— so don’ t worry if you cropped an image or tinkered with its brightness and contrast.
SPEED UP YOUR SMARTPHONE
Most of us already know about cluttered desktops, but what about smartphones? Our phones are essential handheld computers, and when they overflow with useless information, their operations can also slow down. These aren’ t necessarily apps, but overburdened call logs, search history, and saved texts. For Android users, there’ s 1TAP CLEANER, an app that earns its name. The app gathers that data in one place, letting you decide what to keep. Most of us are surprised how many outdated messages and URLs get archived, a data stream that we will probably never refer to again. Then again, you do want to make sure irreplaceable bits( landmark texts, unsaved photos) survive the deep clean. iPhones don’ t have an equivalent app to 1Tap Cleaner, so you’ ll have to remove the surplus manually. Luckily, iPhone makes it pretty easy.
SELL YOUR SECOND- HAND STUFF ONLINE
There are several online markets which are considered more trustworthy than Craigslist, but are still free and user-friendly.( Note: Scams can happen just about anywhere, so keep an eye out, even on these sites). Like eBay, OFFERUP lets you sift through commodities and make an offer. Unlike eBay, it isn’ t an auction site, and you don’ t have to wait for a clock to tick down. OfferUp also uses the TruYou system, which confirms the identities of buyers and sellers. Some folks would balk at the idea of purchasing used clothes. But others have made acareer out of browsing vintage stores for incredible finds. THREDUP is much like those stores, because qualified fashion experts determine whether items fit their quality standards. If you have a leather jacket or pair of dress shoes, you might consider putting them up for sale.
CLEAN UP YOUR BROWSER
Cookies are like the gunk in your roof gutters: you can’ t see them, but they’ re there, clogging everything up and keeping your computer from running fluidly. The same goes for download history. Afree program called CCLEANER helps you sort out the cookies and archives you don’ t really need. When you download the app, you can focus on aspecific browser that you would like to clean up. CCleaner analyzes its backlog of information and lists the data that seems unnecessary.
CATALOG ALL YOUR
PHYSICAL BELONGINGS
We see household objects every day, but what do we actually own? You may be the type of person who likes to keep track of every ironing board and lampshade in the house, or you may want to compile areport for insurance companies, so there is no question whether something has been stolen or lost. THE ENCIRCLE app works on both iOS and Android and was created to take inventory of your worldly possessions. Just take aphoto of each valuable object, then attach notes to the image, including its original cost, relevant serial numbers, and even appraisals. It makes the process super easy. ■
20 FALL 2018 MILLBURN & SHORT HILLS MAGAZINE