Computers are now in almost every home, either for personal use or for business use. It is important to know how a computer works and what it can do for you. You can think of your PC as an office, and so it should be organized like your office.
Organization
Ignoring a cluttered computer will slow down the computer’s performance and make it hard for you to find things. The desktop, email and favorite web sites are the main areas to keep organized on the computer.
Phone Lines
When hooking up a computer, you should have a dedicated phone line so that you can get a high speed Internet to be able to get on the World Wide Web (www) to search for information that is wanted. The computer is an opening with eyes to the world. Getting bored with what you get on the computer is highly unlikely. You can get as many email addresses as you want, but only a couple are necessary for business.
PC Protection
Before you ever go online, it is very important that you have an antivirus, something like Norton or McAfee, and that it is up to date with virus definitions so your computer won’t catch a virus and cause it to shut down. A Spam filter is also a good thing to have on your computer. The only problem with a SPAM filter is that it decides what it thinks is Spam and keeps it from going to your email, while some of the things may not be Spam, and you miss important emails.
Organization
Like an office, your computer can accumulate a lot of unnecessary files, so to keep this clutter under control a utility called a disk cleaner is used. This only takes a few minutes, and should be done periodically. It helps your computer to run faster. Another thing that needs to be done is to defragment files. Defragmentation can be scheduled just as backup and maintenance is on the computer.
Shortcut Keys
On your computer, you can create a shortcut from your folders to your desktop for the files you use the most, to access them quickly. Keeping your desktop in order and getting the icons off that you don’t use helps also.
Software- Keep it Up to Date
Software is something that we need, but aren’t really sure which one to buy. Obtaining the right software for your computer depends on what you’re looking for. Your computer comes with an operating system, usually Windows. Then you have to go from there and find what you need. In business one of the main software programs that you need is Microsoft Office. This program includes Microsoft Office Word, the word processing program, Microsoft Office Excel, a bookkeeping program, Microsoft Office Outlook, an email program, Microsoft Office Power Point, a program that you can make programs in for presentations and slide shows, and much more in the Microsoft Office program.
There are so many programs out there and depending on what you have in mind depends on the program you will get for your computer and download. The advantage is that there are a lot of programs that can also be downloaded from the internet. If you don’t like the program, you can go to Add/Remove in the Control Panel of your computer and Remove the program. This is highly recommended so that you’re not using a lot of space for no reason.
Until you decide what programs you want on your computer, a lot of them are already in your Windows Operating System. Be sure and check it out to see what you have, and then get your computer organized with the files, etc., so you know what all you have on it.
