Introduction
A quick preparation of your computer to make sure you have the best design and development experience in this course. Here are some things you should check.
Storage
Your computer has a storage component that holds all of your files. As you generate and download content to your computer, this component fills up. When your computer’s storage nears capacity it can struggle to launch programs, read/write files, and perform memory intensive tasks. Here is how you find out if this problem is affecting you.
Check how much storage you have available.
How to check available storage on macOS
How to check available storage on Windows
Anything less than 20% available storage can hurt performance. Here is how you can free up space.
Use built-in tools to free up space. There are often more than a few files you no longer need that you can delete.
Or, use Microsoft OneDrive (free for UNC Students) to offload files that you would like to keep but do not need on your computer.
Free up space with OneDrive on macOS
Free up space with OneDrive on Windows
Memory
When run an application on our computer, any unsaved or temporary data is stored in memory. If a computer is running many applications, it can run out of memory, forcing it to write application data to the storage compontent. Writing and reading this application data from storage is slower than from memory, which can make applications feel like they are lagging.
The solution to running out of memory is simple: do not keep applications open if you are not actively using them. This frees up memory, which can be consumed by applications that are actually in use.
Window Management
Back in the before times, when we actually met in the classroom, I would often see students struggle to efficiently switch between applications on their computer. The application windows wouldn’t be the size of the screen and students would have to drag one out of the way to focus the other.
It does not have to be this unpleasant and this slow. Here are some tips to make navigating between applications faster.
- Maximize your window so you can use every last pixel of your screen
- Use [Alt Tab] on Windows to switch focus between apps
- Use [Command Tab] on macOS to switch focus between apps
- Use Spotlight on macOS to quickly search files, search the internet, or launch an app