Well, we’ve been warned that this time would come – probably from the earlier eighties on. Yes, computers have finally taken over and if you doubt it, we’re here to convince you – but not because we want to or because we can. We want to convince you that if you don’t take the necessary steps to control that reign, you’re going to be left behind further than you could have ever imagined.

Computers are everywhere. Take a moment to try and think of a place a business where you didn’t see a computer in use. From the small local corner store to the largest hospital, computers are in every gas station, grocery store, bank, restaurant, beauty shop, and doctor’s office around. From a consumer’s point of view – you may not think that’s much to worry about. But along with computers, we’ve also been infiltrated with a little thing called “self-service.” Today, there are more self-serviced resources than ever and in an effort to synchronize them with headquarter databases, they’re provided via your inescapable computer.

Here are some examples. Banking is self-serviced through the desktop-clad ATM machine. Gas stations are self-serviced through a menu-clad touch screen kiosk. Most cash registers are Windows XP or Vista machines that send purchase details back to headquarters via the Internet (or a small Intranet). Having your weight, blood pressure, and heart rate measured and recorded is now a digitized process. Even ordering a pizza is now a simple matter of dialing from a wireless cell phone and making a few selections from series of pre-programmed menus!

The important thing to realize here is that this phenomenon isn’t a new convenience – it’s a new requirement. And if you haven’t jumped onto the binary wagon, you’re going to face a few problems. For just as this new lifestyle was once predicted, we’re going to predict that “the old ways” will slowly disappear.

We’re going to predict that all paper-based transactions (checks, money orders, etc.) and documentation (think of the old filing cabinet system) will disappear. We’re going to predict that chips will replace everything that was once transported from one location to another through the trusty post office. And we’re going to predict that homes will become less cluttered with stacks of paper and that our natural resources will flourish as a result of it.

This all sounds fine and dandy of course, but if you’re not computer savvy, you’re going to feel a little lost once the choice has past and the revolution is 100% complete. Fortunately, computer systems are designed in a way that even a child can manipulate them. In fact, if you can remember that most systems are designed along the line of menus and the selections of a few options on these menus, you’ll do just fine no matter how many buttons there are to push.

For example, when you’re faced with an electronic system, look for a main menu. Most main menus display themselves as soon as a device is turned on, so chances are that if you’re standing before a device that shows a bunch of choices to do something, you’re looking at a main menu. The buttons on these main menus of course take you to additional menus, which in turn give you even more choices to make. And all of those choices will eventually bring you to the service that you need. One very important choice you’ll want to keep your eye on is the option to return to the main menu. This way, you can return to the beginning of a system and start over in case you get lost among the way.

Another important choice that you want to keep your eye on is the choice to get help! This option may not be available on every device that you encounter, but when it is available, be sure to use it.

There’s just no way around it. Computers and computerized systems are here to stay. There’s no need to fear them – but you surely can’t avoid them. Just remember the menu system and you’ll soon discover that you can approach and use these things as if you designed them yourself.

When it comes to maintaining your computer, you’ve probably heard it all before. “Run Defrag!” “Scan Your Disk for Errors!” Although these two activities are important, there’s  more you can do to extend the life of your computer beyond today’s predicted two-year span. In fact, by following the simple advice below, you can enjoy the use of your computer to up to five years or more – reserving expenses to simple software upgrades rather then complete and costly hardware upgrades.

One of the easiest and least expensive things you can do to extend the life of your computer is to get rid of unnecessary programs, folders, and files. A disk drive that’s clogged with unnecessary and unused files is disk drive that works harder than it has to. Although Window’s defrag system can ease some of the stress that these files place onto the drive, it doesn’t do much to get rid of the problem in the first place. This is because the defrag program simply organizes the files in a system that makes it easier for the computer to access. (Thus cutting down on the work required to find and load them). But this method merely “relieves” the symptoms that these files induce  – it doesn’t attack the cause. These files need to be deleted – not “organized!”

Of course, deleting files can be a scary adventure to most users. Most computer users don’t know which files are safe to delete and which aren’t.

The worst thing anyone could do is snoop around crucial Window directories and haphazardly delete files that don’t look familiar. Doing so could render important programs inoperable, corrupt the Windows operating system, and possibly prevent the computer from even starting. That’s why using special deletion software is so important. Deletion programs will analyze a computer’s operating system and installed programs to determine which files are crucial to computer function versus which files are safe to delete.

You already have such a program on your computer and it’s Windows’ Add/Remove Programs (available from the Control Panel). This software will assist you with deleting programs that you not only no longer want, but additional files that these program use as well (dynamic link libraries, database files, registry references, shortcut icons, etc.).

But sometimes Windows’ Add/Remove Programs isn’t enough. Although this software does a pretty good job of removing unwanted programs, it can leave some files behind even after a complete uninstall – files which become orphan files. And it’s these orphan files that can really clutter up a hard drive and shorten the life of an otherwise, young and robust PC.

Orphans are usually files that contain temporary data created by a program, files created by the user, partial files left over from a computer crash, or any other kind of miscellaneous files created for almost any other reason. The problem is that an uninstall program doesn’t delete the orphan files it leaves behind because they were never part of the program when it was first installed. An uninstall program can remove only the files it placed onto a hard drive during its install routine.

So while Windows’ Add/Remove Programs can remove an entire program, you’ll need to get rid of those pesky little things with a more advance file cleaner like CleanSweep for example. CleanSweep is a unique program that will specifically seek out files that are no longer associated with a program, and then ask if you want to delete them.

The only time that you wouldn’t want to delete an orphan file is if the file were an actual document that you created before deleting a program. If you were to say, uninstall Microsoft Word, all the documents that you created with Word would then turn into orphan files. Or if you were to uninstall a graphics-editing program, all the pictures you made with the program would become orphan files.

The smart thing to do when you don’t want to lose the data that you created with an unwanted program is to:

1. Save or convert your documents to a format that will work with different program first (that is, a program that you intend to keep)
2. Archive them onto a floppy disk, flash drive, or CD-ROM
3. Proceed with a program like CleanSweep.

Using CleanSweep or any other similar type of utility could delete anywhere from less than a megabyte of hard drive space to over five megabytes and up. That may seem like a small amount of “clog material” to you, but to your computer, it’s a lot less to process!

It’s an unfortunate fact of reality, but children are the most victimized computer users on the Internet today. The good news is that there are some practical steps you can take to protect your children from sexual predators, hackers, and other seedy individuals who want to cause harm. This article will describe a few of them.

The first step in protecting your children at the computer is to prevent their access to  passwords. This will keep them from sharing passwords with others and inadvertently enabling hacking into your system. If you think about it, there’s no reason why a five, seven, or even twelve year old needs to know the passwords to sensitive areas on the computer unless you’ve given them permission! In fact, children don’t need to know the password used to access the Internet either. It may be a hassle to type it in each time they want to get online, but it’s better to know the times that they connect than to have them sneak online without your permission and knowledge of their activities.

The second step towards protecting your children online is using the computer together. Siting next to your child while he or she peruses the Internet, you can guide him or her to make safe and intelligent decisions. You can approve websites and bookmark them together. You can monitor the conversations your children have with their friends and teach them appropriate online behavior at the same time. You can make recommendations and create a private time for quality time as well.

The third step involves blocking access to inappropriate areas altogether. You and your children may not always agree about what’s appropriate, but as a guardian, you’re in control and you’re ultimately responsible for their safety. Take the time to investigate software tools that put you in control and allow you to block access to certain websites. If you use an online service like AOL (America Online), you can use its internal Parental Control settings to block access to various chatrooms and websites. You could even block instant messaging and email from anyone who isn’t a fellow AOL user.

Other tools available online operate similar to the way that AOL’s Parental Control settings work, however no collection of tools could replace the reinforcement of mom and dad. Never let your children speak with strangers and never leave them alone at the computer unattended. Children just don’t have the experience that adults have and they don’t have the skills required to handle inappropriate conversations, emails, or images found online.

NOTE: Some of these tools include kid-specific web browsers that will visit pre-approved websites. Others include browser plug-ins that won’t allow access to online areas that contain forbidden keywords.

Another step requires teaching your children to never ever volunteer personal information. Under no circumstances, should children give their personal names, home addresses, phone numbers, or school information to anyone over the Internet regardless of the situation.  In the even this information is required to enter a contest of some sort, be sure that you’re the one who makes the decision to supply it and that you’re the one who does it.

Performing all of these steps won’t be easy. However you can help minimize resistance to your monitoring efforts by explaining why you’re taking these precautions. Smaller children will probably enjoy the time you spend together at the computer, but older children and pre-teens may resent it. To help build a case for your concern, you might want to show your older children a few news stories that exemplify the dangers that unsupervised children are exposed to. The newspaper is unfortunately full of examples but with your help, we can reduce them world-wide.

Between taking care of the household, the kids, the pets, and the district PTA, computer care is probably one of the last things that you think of doing on a regular basis.  Without a regular maintenance schedule however, you could find out (the hard way) that a neglected computer is an energy hog – one that works harder than it needs to and one that could be a financial burden to replace.

Let’s talk about maintaining hardware.  So much emphasis is put on maintaining a computer’s operating system that we sometimes forget how important it is to maintain a computer’s hardware components. Since there can be quite a few components to take care of, let’s talk about the most important one.

The most important component of a computer’s hardware system is its fan. The fan is located on the computer’s CPU unit and when that thing gets clogged with dirt and dust, it can run down a computer faster than you can say, “Something’s wrong with my computer and I don’t know what it is!” In short, the fan is responsible for keeping a computer’s motor cool and this motor is what keeps the computer’s hard drive and peripherals functioning the way you need them to, which translates to “fast.”

A dirty fan doesn’t rotate fast enough to keep that motor cool and a completely clogged fan just stops rotating altogether. This causes the computer’s motor to work harder – and a harder working motor can raise the electric bill! Worst case scenario: the motor can overheat and stop working as well. No motor equals no computer.

Keep your computer’s fan clean by preventing the fan from getting dirty or dusty in the first place. Use the computer in a dust-free environment and never smoke around it. Nicotine and tar mean certain death when it comes to computer fans, however should you find a need to clean the fan, do so with extreme care.

It’s quite easy to cause more damage from cleaning so if you’re not comfortable with cleaning your PC yourself, take it to a shop for servicing. Otherwise, you can unplug and disassemble the computer to do it yourself.

You’ll need a can of compressed air and an anti-static rag to remove stubborn clumps of dust. Hold the can perfectly vertical and spray the fan being careful not to spray the dust off the fan onto other sensitive parts of the computer like circuit boards or inside the motor casing. Wipe up remaining dust with your anti-static rag and then reassemble the computer.

One thing that you certainly don’t want to use to remove computer dust is a vacuum cleaner. Although using a vacuum cleaner seems to make more sense, the strong suction of a vacuum cleaner can actually spark damaging static electricity or dislodge loose cables. You also don’t want to use oil-based cleaners. Although Pledge may dust your wooden tables and cabinets to a perfect shine, the oil inside a cleaner like this will erode sensitive computer parts. Stick to a liquid-free dusting method and your dusting routine will be safe enough to repeat as often as you need.

As previously mentioned, preventing dust from entering the computer is extremely important and will reduce the need to open and dust your system in the first place. The severity of outside elements (smoking, humidity, pets, etc.) will ultimately determine how often you’ll need to de-dust your machine. But as an average, you shouldn’t need to perform this procedure any more than once or twice a year.

The entire exercise should take no more than twenty minutes tops and once complete, you’ll immediately see and hear the difference in your machine. The computer’s keyboard and mouse will run more smoothly, hardware won’t take as long to connect, and the entire machine won’t be as loud as one that’s corroded with ugly dust bunnies.