Most of us have more than one thing we need to plug in when it comes to our computers.  Setting everything up the right way is a very critical part of the process, one that most people do not put much thought into in many cases.  This is a very important process from a safety standpoint as well as from a performance standpoint.  Many people get their computers out of the box, grab whatever surge strip is laying around and get going.  Then as they we add peripherals, or need power for lamps, or desktop calculators things get thrown together splitters get added, and before we know it there is a huge mess laying behind our computer desk.  Below we will share at least from our prospective what the best configuration for a computer and other devices are.

First when you are hooking up and computer make sure you take notice of what around it also needs power, it might be a table lamp, TV, or blender for that case.  When you are setting things up, make sure and take the time to plan ahead.  You need to count the number of outlets you will need and allow for expansion.  It is also important that you keep in mind that often times computer components and other devices require a large plug that will take up as many as three of your available outlets in the worst case.  Take a look at what you have to plug in, count two for any of those larger plugs, and allow for expansion.  Don’t put too many things on one surge strip, and never daisy chain two surge strips together.  If you can, try and avoid plugging too many things into a single outlet, it is just a best practice we recommend.

As far as what hardware to use, as usual we recommend the best.  For any computer, or any expensive electronic device for that matter we recommend using a nice personal sized APC UPS.  Their home models are available for under $70.00 and are by far worth the money.  They provide battery backup in case your power goes out, but more importantly than that provide clean power to your electronic devices.  Why this is important is because most cities have flux in their power supplies and availability and reliability can change.  Most of us never notice but high performance electronics so.  Imagine your car was running on 100% efficiency and then all of a sudden only 80% of the gas made it to the engine, odds are things wouldn’t run smoothly.  How does a battery backup fix this? Well it is because these changes usually are only a second or less long, and your computer or electronic device runs on a clean supply of battery power from the unit.  Call me crazy but I use them on my TV as well.

Sometimes there are budget constraints that don’t allow us to buy $70.00 power strips, sometimes you just need to get setup, and that case we recommend still going with a well known brand of surge strip and ALWAYS remember to make a copy of the paper work, and make sure you fill everything out.  In the event something goes wrong and you lose some hardware or electronics most companies will still honor their warranty albeit reluctantly but you have to make sure you have the paper work.  So remember plan it out, use a UPS (uninterruptable power supply) when possible or a well known brand like APC for the surge strip.  Send in the paperwork, and keep copies.  If you follow these rules you should be just fine.

Proper Use of Forums & Email Support-Get the Right Answers

We have all used support forums at one point or another, if not we have at least emailed asking for support on some issue at some point in time.  As someone who avidly uses forums I used to be one of the worst offenders, moderators hated me, and I learned a lot about getting the right answers to my questions and I wanted to share some tips with you to save time, and get the right answer from a forum or email question quickly.

Step 1- Look If the answer already exists!

I was one of the worst offenders of this in the forums early on in my life.  Before you ever make a post to a forum looking for support on an issue, make sure you take the necessary time to search the existing posts for an answer; odds are if you have the question, someone else has at some point or another and the answer might just be sitting out there.  In addition, there is no quicker way (other than spam) to anger a forum moderator by posting a questions they have already answered somewhere else.

Step 2- Post Your Request In The Right Thread!

Take your time when posting issues, make sure you put them in the right category.  Many forums spend a lot of time creating separate sections to better segment their community.  This is for two reasons, one, for people who are looking for answers can easily scroll through relevant categories and quickly find what they need.  On the support side of things, people looking to provide advice will navigate to their strengths, if your post is in the wrong place it will very likely be overlooked by most of the experts.  You want to make answering your question very easy.  My third point is that from a janitorial standpoint, forum moderators would prefer their forums remain clean, so stay on their good site.

Step 3- Tell the whole story be complete and concise!

This is pretty much the most important step in all of this.  You need to be complete, use proper grammar, explain the problem, and give all necessary information.  Your post needs to be clear, concise, and easy to read.  When you are posting to a forum or asking a question via email, the reader must be able to quickly understand the problem, the current situation, and what led to the issue.  This way people swinging through can get the picture quickly, and decide if they can help or not.  If you write a long rambling hard to understand post, or don’t take the time to include all the details it is unlikely you will get the answer you need.

When it comes to asking for support especially through free forums and email, always remember, these people are spending their time helping you at no cost, the least you could do is put some time into the post or question and make their job a little easier.  If you follow these guidelines you should always be fine when it comes to posting in forums for help, or asking for email support.

In today’s world of high speed internet, digital camcorders, and high quality digital cameras hard drive space is left at a premium.  Even on our newest computers hard drives can get filled up pretty quickly.  More often though the problem is with slightly older computers that have been upgraded to new operating systems.  For example, if you were running Windows XP and recently upgraded to Vista you may have experienced a drop in free hard drive space.  Most of us can uninstall unused programs, or delete temporary internet files, that is pretty basic stuff.  We want to offer a couple of alternatives to deleting things.  We will order the three in order of complication and cost.

Add An Additional internal Hard Drive

Hard drives have become so cheap that you could purchase hundreds of gigs of space for under $100.  The only drawback is that it will require a little more knowledge to install it.  If you want to replace your current hard drive that is a little more tricky since you will have to move all your files over and reinstall your operating system.  If you want to go the easier way you could simply install it as a “slave” drive essentially adding a drive to use as a mass storage device.  You can store all of your music, movies, and pictures on that drive.  The added advantage is you can install programs and games to the local slave drive and use them with no issues.

Add An External Hard Drive:

This is pretty much the easiest solution as today external hard drives have become so affordable.  Not until recently have external hard drives become such a viable option but now companies like Seagate and Western Digital seem to really be pushing the portable hard drives.  They work great because almost anyone can install them in under 15 minutes, add a ton of space on demand, and are totally portable.  The only drawback at least from our prospective is that they don’t run programs all that well.  trying to run a program via USB is problematic, and an external hard drive doesn’t really solve the issue of not having enough room to install new programs.

Use CD’s Of Flash Drives To Store Files:

This is by far the most affordable option.  If your computer has a DVD burner you can backup several GB at a time and catalog it elsewhere.  In addition, flash drives or USB sticks have become so affordable they are now a great option to use as a backup.  Just last week we saw an 8GB flash drive available for under $20.00.  Normally this wouldn’t make a ton of sense but now that flash memory is so cheap you could pick up a couple of sticks, label them and use them for pictures, music, or movies.  Even though this option seems a little crazy if you are just running a little short of available hard drive space and you have something like MP3’s or movies you need to store they come in perfect handy.

Honestly the best solution is to either add an internal hard drive or upgrade your existing hard drive but we understand this can be a daunting task.  The most widely recommended solution would be just to watch the sales ad’s and pick up a nice external hard drive, we like Seagate.

There are several reasons why people often experience nasty spyware infections even when they are running the latest and greatest spyware protection software.  Some of the reasons we can help control in how we use our computers, and others many times are simple out of our control.  For the purpose of this post we will take a look at 3 reasons people still get spyware even when they do everything possible to prevent it from a software standpoint.
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We often get asked in a variety of ways, how to keep a computer clean.  They are magnets for dust, grime, fingerprints, and in some cases grape soda, and that is just on the outside.  Inside your computer there are a lot of moving parts, parts that need to be clean and free of grime, dust, and debris to truly work properly.  It doesn’t really matter where you keep your computer, whether it is in a fancy desk or sitting on the desk next to you, or even the floor it will get dirty and even in the days of the “throw away” computer you still cannot replace lost data, pictures, or poems that you lose when your PC fails due to preventable causes.  We want to say the last thing we are trying to do is scare monger you into cleaning your computer everyday but there are a few things you can do every couple of months to keep things running in top form.
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It is hard to think of a situation, in today’s computing environment where someone wouldn’t be running a significant of virus and spyware protection.  That said you can over protect, and you can get to a point where the performance of your computer slows down significantly, often times worse than most spyware infections would.  Using the correct combination of Anti-Virus protection and spyware removal software is key to having a properly running computer.  Up until this point we have not found a single solution to trust for both anti-virus and spyware issues so there is some combination of both that most people need in everyday computing.
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Buying a computer is tough enough without dealing with the restrictions imposed when trying to remain mobile.  Laptops are as popular as ever and when you take into account the fact that they have finally, in a lot of ways caught up with traditional desktop computers in regards to performance.  To give you a good example of this, I was recently at my local computer retailer, and was looking for a desktop replacement.  What we mean by desktop replacement is for many users; they have the same demands in performance but also need portability.  Never before have we had the options we now do when it comes to performance in a laptop computer.  Laptops now come with 1GB video cards, 19 inch monitors, 1000GB hard drives, backlit keyboards and much more.  The problem this creates is choices, too many of them to be specific.  Below we will try and narrow down things for you, and offer some purchasing tips you can use when buying a new laptop or advising a friend or family member.
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Purchasing a new hard drive can be a pretty confusing task. There is a lot more to know about hard drives than just their maximum capacity, in fact we are going to share 2 things more important than size when it comes to buying a hard drive. Most of us fall into 3 categories when it comes to needing a hard drive, either you have run out of space, looking for better performance, or replacing a faulty hard drive. It is easy to get caught up in size, making the purchasing decision based solely on overall size of the drive.
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