Start 2018 With A Clean Slate

 

 

Well, let’s at least start 2018 with a clean digital slate.  Now is a great time to get rid of those old text messages and e-mails, delete old search histories, and clean up your social media accounts. Here are a few things that you can do to get rid of digital clutter and start the new year with a clean slate.

 

Clear Your Facebook Search History
Go to your Facebook timeline page and click View Activity Log.
Then click More (below Comments) and choose Search from the list.
Once you’re on the search history page, you can delete individual search queries.
To delete a search, click the edit button next to lock. Click Delete.
A delete confirmation dialog box will appear. Click Remove Search.
To delete all the searches at once, look for Clear Searches option.

Delete Facebook Messages and Chat History on Your Computer
Open Facebook.
Click Messenger at the top right of the screen.
Select See All in order to bring up the full-screen view of Messenger.
Click Actions (cogwheel icon at the top right of the screen) to see the menu.
Select Delete Conversation to delete the entire conversation with a given contact.
Select Delete Messages if you'd prefer to delete one (or more) specific messages.

This will bring up an interface which will allow you to select specific messages to delete.
Click the checkbox next to each message that you'd like to delete.
Click Delete.

Clear Your Google Search History
On your computer, open Chrome.
At the top right, click More.
Click History and then History.
On the left, click Clear browsing data. A box will appear.
From the drop-down menu, select how much history you want to delete.

To clear everything, select the beginning of time.
Check the boxes for the info you want Chrome to clear, including "browsing history".
Click Clear browsing data.

Use a Search Engine That Does Not Track You
Set your default search engine to one that does not track your search history.
Consider using DuckDuckGo or StartPage.

Delete Old G-mail
In the G-mail inbox search bar, if you type older_than:6m, G-mail will list your e-mails older than six months. You can use "y" for years or "d" for days, in the above formula, as well.
If you want to delete all selected messages, click the Check all box, followed by the Delete button.
As a best practice you should never store messages older than 180 days (6 months) in your e-mail account. The content of e-mail older than 180 days is considered a "stored communication" and does not have the same protection under the law as newer e-mail.

Automatically Delete Old Text Messages on Your iPhone
On the iPhone, you can set the device to automatically delete all old messages. The only problem is that you can't make any exceptions - you can't change a setting that would allow all messages from a particular sender to stay even past the expiry date. If you want to save any information from a message, clip it and save it to a separate file.

To set up automatically cleaning old messages:
Open Settings > Messages.
Scroll down to the section labeled MESSAGE HISTORY.
Tap Keep Messages.
Choose either 30 days or 1 Year. This will delete messages older than one month or one year.

Delete Unused Social Media Accounts
If you have old social media accounts that you no longer use, take time to delete them and remove your personal information on-line. The web-site Account Killer https://www.accountkiller.com/en/ provides guidance on how to delete a large number of social media accounts.

Clean Up Your Current Social Media Accounts
Look through your current social media accounts to identify profanity, mentions of drugs or alcohol, check-ins at strip clubs, and questionable photos. Of course, the image you choose to portray on social media is entirely up to you, but does that profanity filled rant, or photo of you drunk and passed out at a party that you posted a couple years ago fit in with how you currently want to be seen on-line.  Remember, security clearance investigations include reviewing your social media activity, and a study from CareerBuilder revealed that 70 percent of employers now use social media to screen job candidates before hiring them.

Wipe the Drives of Old Computers
When disposing of an old computer, be sure that you securely wipe the hard-drive.
To do this I recommend using DBAN (Darik's Boot and Nuke).
Visit http://www.dban.org and click on the Download DBAN option.

Once the software is downloaded (it will be a .iso file), you'll need to burn it to a CD, DVD or USB storage device so it can run without booting up your operating system (which will be deleted in the wipe). Once you have DBAN on a CD, DVD, or USB, boot from that media and follow the instructions to wipe your hard-drives.