Things You Should Do With Your Computer – How to Make Your Computing Experience Better

Things You Should Do With Your Computer – How to Make Your Computing Experience Better

By Mary J. Nolasco 4 weeks ago

It is often difficult to understand the actions of others. When you work on someone’s computer, you discover things. You often find out what they are doing wrong, so you advise them of the problems, hoping that this will help them to become more productive and improve their personal computer experience.

I have often worked on a computer, removing spyware and virus problems, only to have that same person contact me days later with another problem of the same type. The re-infection of the machine tells me that the person did not heed my advice, and I am at a loss as to why this happens, but it does happen frequently.

Here is a list, which I hope you will follow, to make your computing life much better. It might also help your favorite computer tech to keep some of his or her hair and sanity:

  1. Always go on the Internet with antivirus software turned on.
  2. Always go on the Internet with antispyware software turned on.
  3. Don’t use Instant Messengers.
  4. Always protect your login information for websites – don’t give this to anyone else.
  5. Do not give out your bank account info on a site that isn’t running the https protocol.
  6. Never go to porn sites.
  7. Always run a full virus scan at least once a week.
  8. Back up your data weekly.
  9. Monitor your child’s activity on the computer – especially Internet usage.
  10. Encrypt or password protect important information.
  11. Do a regular cleanup of your hard disk drive – remove unneeded files.
  12. Don’t blame anyone else for your computer problems if you fail to take the steps above.

Now, let us look at my list of suggestions more closely:

  • If you go on the Internet without antivirus or antispyware it is like leaving your front door open to your home – at some point, the bad guys will check the door, and you will suffer the consequences.
  • Instant Messenger can allow a hacker to drill a new port (an entry way) to gain access to your computer – this is bad for computer security. Email is much safer to use.
  • Giving out account information is bad. What happens if the person you gave it to loses the cell phone or piece of paper that the information is on? There are always folks out there that would love to have your private information.
  • Giving out information on a non-https site allows your transmitted data to be captured by hackers. This is really bad for you but very good for them.
  • Visiting porn sites is a guaranteed way to get in contact with spyware and virus threats. If you are on a site for very long, you can leave with a lot of malware from the website.
  • If you don’t run a virus scan weekly you are taking risks you shouldn’t take.
  • You do preventative maintenance to your home. Backing up data on a computer is the same – you are preventing the loss of data in the future.
  • Part of being a good parent is keeping your children out of trouble. They need to have adult guidance in using the computer. The Internet, like this world, has lots of bad stuff. You need to teach your child about what is good and bad and how to deal with it.
  • If someone steals your PC, what can they do with your unencrypted data?
  • Too much clutter is a bad thing. Regular computer file cleanup is a way to make the computer a tool that is easier to use and find things on. In addition, you will have more space to store data – always a good thing.
  • You should always take responsibility for your actions. Why blame someone else for a problem that you could have prevented with a few simple safeguards?