Tips and Tricks!

Computers are a wondrous thing. I’m sure you have heard the saying, “We can’t live with 'em, and we can’t live without 'em.”

I will give some suggestions on how to keep you from seeing the “Blue Screen of Death!” (If you don’t know what that is and have never experienced it, you are a very lucky duck)

1. Always turn off your computer during a thunder storm. Even if you have surge protection it is no match for Mother Nature, and is not a guarantee of protection. The best protection is to unplug completely.
   


2. Your phone lines and network cables are subject to surges as well and a storm can fry your modem or network card.
   


3. Make sure your Anti Virus software is installed and up to date.
   


4. If you are using Windows XP or Vista, Microsoft has a free spyware protection program you can use . It is called Windows Defender
   


5. I recommend using FireFox as an Internet Browser. It has great add-ons and checks your spelling as you type.
   
   
6. When was the last time you defragged your hard drive? Right click on your drive and click Properties - Tools -Defragment Now. Close all open programs, and do this at the end of your day because it can take some time. Click here for explanation of what a fragmented drive is.
   
   

7. Why you might want to reformat your hard drive.

   
   

   Over the years we tend to download and install a myriad of things into our computers. We install and uninstall many programs, create and delete many documents, images, music files, etc. And with all the Internet surfing we do there usually comes a time when our computer does not act or perform as well as it did when it was new and pristine. It slows down. Some things don't seem to work right. If it is not a critical issue we tend to work around it, or just ignore the little corruption that is occurring. But what often happens is that the corruption gets to the point where we can no longer ignore it, or at its worst we face the 'Blue screen of death' – meaning the total failure of the operating system to do its job.

   
   

   At this point we are forced to reinstall the operating system. To do a clean reinstall of the OS it is necessary to reformat the partition on the hard drive where the OS will be reinstalled. This brings up the reason I always recommend having more than one partition on your hard drive. If your data (documents, photos, music, etc) is stored on a separate partition or separate hard drive than your operating system, then your data is safe when having to reinstall..

   
   

   After reformatting the hard drive and reinstalling the OS, the system drivers (Motherboard, Video Card, Sound Card, Network Card, USB etc) have to be reinstalled, then the drivers for your peripheral equipment (printers, scanners, etc). Then your OS updates have to be downloaded and installed. Once that is done then all of your programs have to be reinstalled and updated. It's a big job, but once completed you have a computer that will perform like new again.

   
   

   You can see why it is important to keep all installation disks handy for any programs that you may need to reinstall in the future. I would also like to note that if your operating system is Microsoft it is important to have an authentic Microsoft operating system on your computer. If you do not, then Microsoft will not allow updates to your computer. Without the updates your operating system will not perform correctly.

   
   

   Now that you know why you may want to reformat your hard drive and reinstall the OS - I suggest that you don't try this yourself if you have never done it before. As mentioned, it is a big job and the sequence of events need to be performed in a certain order for the final result to come out as intended.