Spring Clean

Sitting for hours in front of your computer — whether you're at an office or working from home — is bad enough, but throw in the poorly positioned monitor, a chair that's not supporting your back, and a desk that's too small for your stature, and you have a cocktail for body aches and pains. Check with your HR department to see what kinds of ergonomic assessment services are available to you so you can get your desk in tip-top shape. Working from home? No sweat — let this Osha ergonomic evaluation checklist help you set up a healthy home office.

Keep up with all of our Spring cleaning tech tips here or at our 31 Days of Spring Cleaning Pinterest board!

Aah, Facebook. The place where all of our photos, comments, monumental moments, and information are shared online. Ever stop to think about what would happen if Facebook went down — or worse, got hacked? Your Facebook profile most likely holds tons of your most precious photos and videos, and like your computer, you should back up all of that data just in case. Here, I'll tell you how to download all of your Facebook content, from wall posts to photo galleries.

You can download a copy of all of your Facebook data right on the social network. Just head to Account > Account Settings > Download a Copy of Your Facebook Data (this link will be in the bottom left-hand corner of the Account Settings window). Included in the download is your contact info, photos, videos, notes, and wall posts as well as chat conversations, friend lists, events, and comments made on your wall posts. If you do choose to back up your Facebook data (it's recommended!), then be sure to keep it in a safe place, like a password-protected file on an external hard drive.

You've been so busy organizing your digital library and backing up your photos for safekeeping that you may have forgotten to do one thing: clear out your SD card! There's nothing worse than getting set up for the perfect shot only to be told by your camera that there's no more space on your memory card to capture the moment. Unless you always have a spare SD card on hand to switch out, routinely clear out your photos from your camera's memory card after you've backed them up to your external hard drive, so you're never without space.

Keep up with all of our Spring cleaning tech tips here or at our 31 Days of Spring Cleaning Pinterest board!

You did a great job ensuring the household didn't miss a single laugh of the current 30 Rock season, but do you still need to save already-viewed episodes and those from seasons past? Take today to finally accomplish one simple task that always gets put off: clearing the DVR queue. Finally, space on the DVR to start discovering new BBC sci-fi or a secret guilty pleasure!

Keep up with all of our Spring cleaning tech tips here or on our 31 Days of Spring Cleaning Pinterest board!

Sign online in the morning and it's likely your first stop of the day is a social network. We pour our lives into these digital communities, sharing party photos, funny videos, and clever status updates. Do you know who's looking at all these updates, though? Take today's Spring cleaning tips as the chance to finally update your social media privacy settings and take charge of the online image you're sharing with the world. Perform a social media audit by following these tips to put your best profile forward.

• Search yourself — Sign out of every social media account and view how your profile looks to a stranger. Does any embarrassing or questionable material show up that you'd rather future employers, family members, or anyone of significance not see? First, secure your public accounts if you prefer to control who sees your tweets and "likes." Update account privacy settings to further secure your profile from people you are already linked to, or play it safe and delete the material entirely. Go an extra step and Google your name to ensure there's really nothing wild out on the Internet you don't want others to see.
• Use a pseudonym — If you're looking to keep your online activity private, don't sign up for accounts under your full name. Also avoid usernames you used before privacy was a concern, you know, like that AIM handle from high school that's just slightly inappropriate for anyone over the age of 16.
• Use an alternate email — In addition to the alias, separate your social media accounts from your work and personal email by using a secondary email account in your profile information. This way people searching for your profile via your personal email address won't find you as easily. Don't worry if your Facebook or Pinterest account have already been created, you can change the default email address.
• Prevent future offenses — Avoid future online embarrassing moments by keeping your social record clean. Don't add photos of you raging at a party to Facebook or bite your digital tongue when it comes to ranting about a current work situation. Even with hypersecure privacy settings, a good rule of thumb is just never share images or thoughts online you wouldn't want forwarded to someone else, since anyone can screen capture your content.

Spring shouldn't be just an excuse to clean out your closets. It's also a great time to get your digital photos in order. I'm guilty of just tossing my pics into one jumbled and disorganized file (which makes it a pain to find a specific pic), but we can all start fresh and clean from here on out, thanks to some helpful tips from the pros. Bradly Treadaway, digital media coordinator and faculty member at the International Center of Photography in New York, shares how easy it is to keep your photos in order with just a little bit of proactive work.

Make it your mission this Spring to keep your photo library in order with the helpful tips below.

• Store on a dedicated external hard drive — Instead of storing your photos on your computer's hard drive (which takes up lots of space), buy a dedicated external hard drive to use as your digital photo library. Store it in a safe place, and you'll never be without your precious pics.
• Label your pics as you save them — Instead of dumping all your pics into one file and saving them, take the time to go through your images, keeping only the best of the bunch, and label with names, dates, and events.
• Stay organized with labeled folders — Create folders for each event you shoot, specifying the event name and date for each label. If you're taking random pics, create seasonal folders (like Summer 2011) so you can stay on top of your one-off photos.
• Routinely empty your SD card — By routinely moving your photos off of your camera's SD card, you'll ensure that you will never run out of space when trying to capture a family event, party, or video. Try moving photos and video files off your SD card at least once a month or, better yet, after every major event.