Man's New Best Friend

Now that you have decided to start a business where selling online is a large part of your marketing campaign, you have a new best friend. It is your computer. The opening line from the great novel by Charles Dickens “A Tale of Two Cities” says that it was the best of times and it was the worst of times. The same can be said of your computer. It can be the best of tools for your success, and can also be your worst enemy if it doesn’t perform up to its best.

Almost everything you do that will make you successful, from shopping the competition and building your web site, to billing customers and reconciling your bank statement takes place on your computer. It contains important information from product images to personal family pictures. And when our computer decides to go on a vacation (otherwise known as crashing) we can be put in a very difficult situation. Here are some things that you should be doing to maintain your computer on a regular basis to keep it fast and happy.

1. Clean House. There is a great success principle that says we should get rid of what we don’t want to make room for what we do want. And it works for computers also. Every web site you visit has images that are saved on your computer’s hard drive. Even things that you have “deleted” aren’t really deleted. They are still hanging around on your computer. So there is a way to do some spring cleaning year round. It is called “disc cleanup”, and here is how to get it done. Go to “Start” and select “All Programs”. Towards the top is “Accessories” and then hit “System Tools”. You will see as an option “Disc Cleanup”. This nifty little program is a great way for you to let windows flush itself out and eliminate all the junk that has been accumulated.

2. Close The Gaps. Your hard drive will run faster if it gets all the important data close to each other and compacted. This way it doesn’t have to go on a safari to find the information it is looking for. After you have cleaned your hard drive, then do something called “defragmenting”. It literally does what it sounds like: gets rid of fragmented space between data. Follow the same procedures as cleanup, but under “System Tools” look for “Disc Defragmenter”. Even if a window pops up telling you that you don’t need to, do it anyway. It will keep your computer running faster than the road runner on El Paso asphault.

3. Stay Current. There are always new updates that software companies come out with that improve performance and increase security. It is important to update your software with regularity. To update Windows, go to “Start” and then “All Programs”. Towards the top you will find a choice called “Windows Update”. You will need an active Internet connection open, and it will contact our friends in Washington State. But your personal information will be safe, and you can keep your operating system fresh as a baby after a bath. And of course you will want to update your virus protection software a couple times a week. Are you scanning for viruses with regularity? Trust me friends, one virus that takes root can bring the whole computer to a grinding halt. It’s just not worth being undisciplined where your business is concerned.

4. Back It Up. A must purchase for your computer is software that will back up your data. This makes a copy of everything on your computer and copies it to a disc that you can keep in a safe place. I arrived home from a trip to Russia years ago to find that somehow my hard drive was fried. I believe they used some strange Soviet x-ray machine on my laptop and it was deader than a slow possum on a Texas highway. Because I was going to wait until I got home to do a backup, I lost invaluable documents and over 400 pictures that could never be replaced. Back up often and keep your discs in a safe and secure place. If you ever need to restore your computer after a disaster, the original software will be restored, but everything you have collected since the day you received it can not be replaced until you restore backed up data. Go here and search the myriads of data backup software programs that you can try for free. I use one called “Back It Up” that I purchased at Best Buy for around $30.

5. Be a Spy Buster. Lots of sites want to put all kinds of tracking cookies and ad ware on your computer to keep track of where you go. Get rid of it with two of the best programs for spyware removal around: Spybot and Ad-aware. They are both free and can also be found here. Don’t forget to update them often and run them weekly.

Love your computer and your computer will love you! Treat her right and she will be the best thing that happened to your business since the post it note. If there are any questions you might have about these maintenance suggestions, support is only a phone call or a quick chat away. And don’t tell your dog, but there is a new “man’s best friend” in the house. And it’s named “Acer”.