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A Few Tips:
Computer problems, to the uninitiated, can seem
overwhelming at best- When your computer starts to run more slowly than
it ever has, or maybe you're seeing more popup windows than you should
(provided they haven't gotten out of control, that is...) it may seem
easier to teach the computer how to fly and start from scratch than to
fix it, but with a few simple steps, you can keep your computer clean
and your sanity intact. In this case, and ounce of prevention is
definately worth a pound (or two) of cure!
External hard drives, CD's and flash drives are not your only options when it comes to backing up your files. There are several online storage sites that will hook you up with some free storage space to get you started,
with reasonably priced paid upgrades that give you more storage space and other features! To back up your files, you just go online, log in, and upload the files you'd like to back up! 2 good ones are iDrive.com and FreeDrive.com. If you give them a try, feel free to email and let us know how they worked out! We're not making any money by promoting them, so if your experience is less than perfect with one of these, or you know of one that works as good or better, we'd like to hear about it!
It would seem to be an obvious
thing to point out, but once in a while, back up the important files on
your hard drive! There are a lot of ways to do this,
and range from burning your important files to cd's or dvd's, storing
them on external hard drives, or even saving them on keychain flash
drives... The advantage with external and USB flash drives is that they
can be erased and rewritten many times, so if you only need to keep
backups of certain files for a set length of time, you can constantly
change what you have on them.
Use a virus protection
program, and KEEP IT UPDATED! This one seems pretty obvious, but it's
easy to overlook. Virus protection programs are useless if they are not
updated regularly, even though they will still "go through the motions"
and look like they're working just fine. The good news is this: Virus
protection need not be expensive or elaborate to be effective; there
are some very good programs that are FREE for home use, including the
one I personally use, Avast Antivirus, which can be found here.
Don't put all your trust in one program to catch
everything that my try to sneak into your computer. It's a good
practice to install a good antispyware/antiadware to work with it, and
as before, KEEP IT UPDATED! One of my new favorites is Spybot Search and Destroy, which can
be found here.
This is the fine print, however- If you have an
antivirus program that has been working well for you, and you'd rather
not change that, check for compatibility before installing any
additional anti-malware programs, because some programs will not work
well together! In these cases, if they are both installed, they may
conflict, causing both programs to be inefficient, making your system
run slow and even allowing the programs into your computer that you're
trying to keep out!
If a popup window opens and informs you that your
computer may be infected, and offers you a free scan if you'll just
"click here", DON'T CLICK ON IT! The program that will be installed
will run a fake "virus scan", tell you that you have infections, and
give you another link to a website to purchase the full version of the
software to clean the infections. The full version of the software is
adware or worse (and fairly difficult to completely remove,) and the
publishers of the program will also have your debit card information.
If you use a file sharing program like Limewire or
Napster to download files, be careful of what you download. One tip
here is to look at the file size- if you're downloading .mp3's for
instance (of course assuming the file doesn't break any copyright
laws), an average song file should be about 4MB, give or take a little
bit. A feature-length movie file, between 500 and 750MB.
More tips to come, so check back often!
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