5 Worthwhile Tech Projects to Tackle While You’re Stuck Inside All Weekend

There has never been a better time to clean out your laptop’s crowded disk drive, get your photos in order, and more.

free ways to be more productive on a mac gear patrol full lead.Photo by Chase Pellerin for Gear Patrol

Tech can make your life easier but it also generates its own chores that you can catch yourself putting off week after week. But now, since you’re going to be stuck inside all weekend thanks to your friendly neighborhood global pandemic, it is a great time to catch up. No, it might not be thrilling to back up your hard drive or get your photo library in order, but future you will be glad you took the time to finally knock it off your todo list.

Here are 5 places to start.

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6 Ways to Make Your Old Laptop Feel Like New Again

That fresh-out-of-the-box performance you get when you first boot up a new laptop doesn’t last forever unfortunately. But you can claw a bit of that lightning-fast joy back with a few little tweaks.

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How to Use Google Photos To Rein In Your Photo Library

Google Photos is free, powerful, available on all platforms, and even comes with free cloud storage, all of which makes it the easy go-to choice for consolidating and organizing your photo library.

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How to Clean Up (and Back Up) Your Laptop’s Hard Drive

A few tips for clearing out the junk data that’s built up on your hard drive, and how to back up what matters.

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The Most Important App You Don’t Have on Your Phone (Yet)

You probably know about two-factor authentication, but there’s one crucial step you likely haven’t taken yet.

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Why You Need a Password Manager (And Four to Try)

Writing down passwords on a notepad, or just using the same password for everything, may have served you well so far, but these are high-risk strategies that are going to leave you exposed sooner rather…