Computer Tips from Online Little Rock

Computer Tips

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Computer Tips are presented to help you get the most enjoyment out of your personal computer. Numerous little things can easily make your personal computing a much more pleasurable experience.

Computer Tip # 1 -- Save your work. Since computers use electrical power and that power is subject to interruption for any number of reasons, it is always to good idea to save your work every five minutes. There should be a "save" icon at the upper left of whatever software program you are using, and it's just a simple matter of clicking the icon. Or, you can click on the word File and then click on Save from the drop-down list.

Computer Tip # 2 -- Backup your work. Saving your work is of little value if your computer crashes or your house burns. Those two reasons alone are sufficient for you to make two backup copies of your important documents. If you're like me -- if it's on the computer, it's important.

Most computers today come with a writable CD burner. That provides an easy way to back up your data since most CDs will hold approximately 750 megabytes of information. Depending upon how often you create new information on your computer should be your backup guide, but you should probably back up at least once a week.

Backing up your data on a CD or zip drive or zip disk will protect you in the event of a computer crash. But what about the burning house. Explore your FREE options first. Does your ISP (Internet Service Provider such as AOL, MSN, Comcast) provide a free storage area for you?

Comcast provides 25 megabytes of FREE SSL storage for its customers. SSL (Secure Socket Layer) means the storage space is secure from intruders or, in other words, your data is protected from prying eyes. Need more than 25 megabytes?

Iomega Corporation provides an excellent service. You can get 50 megabytes of 128-bit encrypted SSL storage for just $24.95 per year. That's less than seven cents a day. Iomega offers additional packages up to 1000 megabytes. You have access to your data all the time, from anywhere in the world. Click Iomega to learn more.

Computer Tip # 3 -- Speed up your Internet surfing. Every time you log onto the Internet your computer stores information about where you've been and what you saw. It keeps that information handy so it doesn't have to think very hard should you return to that same place. It keeps that information if a place called cache (pronounced like trash).

Even though the purpose for keeping all that information is so the computer doesn't have to think so hard, it does have to look through all its stored information to find the reference files it kept. Okay, think of it this way. Suppose you wrote a sticky note about everything you did during the day and kept all your stickys in a file cabinet.

And let's suppose one of those sticky notes is the address of a friend. Okay, it's time to send Christmas cards so you open the file cabinet and begin rummaging through all those sticky notes to find the correct one. Hey, wait a minute. You bought a computer to keep all that information so you don't have to go to all that trouble. Exactly!

Computers can think faster than they can sort through all the sticky notes they've kept about your Internet surfing habits. So get rid of the stickys and let the computer think.

Internet Explorer users should open their computer's Control Panel and click on the Internet Options icon. In the middle of the page that opens you will see a Temporary Internet section. Click on Delete Files and Delete Cookies to get rid a lot of those sticky notes.

Look at the History Section. How many days are you telling the computer to keep a history log of your surfing activities? Do you need a history of more than 3 days? You can set the number of days you want your Internet surfing history maintained on your computer, and click apply. Okay, that got rid of a lot of stuff, but let's take this one step further.

Windows users should click on the Start button in the lower left corner of your screen. Hold your mouse over Program Files and a big screen will appear. Now hold your mouse over Accessories and another screen appears. Hold your mouse over System Tools and another screen appears. Click on Disk Cleanup. This will eliminate a few temporary files that remained after you cleaned Internet Explorer.

When was the last time you defragmented your disk? The last time I what? The Disk Defragmenter is list immediately under Disk Cleanup in the System Tools. Heavy users should probably defrag once a month. If you don't do a lot of downloading and file creation and deletion, once every six months is probably sufficient.

Defragmenting your disk simply puts like files together and eliminates as much as possible empty space between the files. It allows your computer's brain to find the files faster.