Security Information Everyone Should Know

How Basic Computer Information Helps

This blog has been started with the intent to help people everywhere that want basic computer information to have a place to come and find information. Also people would have a place to ask questions about the information. However when I got started working on ideas for the blog and even starting a couple posts on the blog it occurred to me that maybe people really did not see a point in knowing basic computer information. After that I decided that I would post some reasons it is important to learn as much of the basic information in this blog as a person can. So for this blog instead of teaching another part of computers I will be explaining why the information in this blog is so important to everyday computer users.

I decided for the information I would talk to a few people in the computer field and ask them what they considered important basic information and why. I went to a few classmates seeing as we have all been working on computers and networking for a couple of years and have been learning about all the things that could go wrong with the computer. I also went to the instructor over the basic computer information courses to see what his views were on what I should include in the blog. There is not a lot of basic information references on the internet so I am pretty much building this one from my knowledge and the knowledge of others. Out of all the things that we talked about there was two things that everyone brought up and agreed on as the biggest problems.

The first thing that I would like to explain is the importance of keeping the computer clean. This may not seem like a big deal to most but I will explain various problems that can be prevented from just cleaning the outside of the computer. The first thing to understand is what dust can do to the computer. Dust can cause your computer to catch fire for one thing and is probably the biggest reason of them all. There are also components in the computer that can be effected which are the power supply, the fans, the hard drive, and even the RAM, so as you can see the dust alone can destroy almost any part of the inside of the computer. Dust on the outside of the computer can cause the USB ports to stop working along with a DVD drive or media card reader. These are everyday problems that a lot of people have that can be prevented by just vacuuming off the computer when you vacuum the room the computer is in which is something that Instructor Greg Bell tries to make sure that every student understands on day one of class.

The next thing that we ran into a lot while working on people’s computers at school is the people would not run an antivirus or if they did it was never updated so the antivirus could not do its job the way it was supposed to. Making sure the antivirus is running and the automatic updates are turned on is another big step in keeping the computer running and also avoiding any problems. Some of the things that can go wrong if there is not an up-to-date antivirus running is the hard drive can be destroyed in a matter of minutes, and the BIOS, which is what tells your computer what to do and how to do it, can be destroyed. There is also the fact that antivirus helps keep malware off of the computer that can steal a person’s personal information. I had a person tell me “well I do not have any personal information saved on my computer so I have nothing to worry about”. Guess what that was just simply not true and in this day and age I would imagine that it is not true with anyone. Anytime someone signs up for an email account or even signs up for a social networking site the information that is typed in is saved somewhere on the hard drive of the computer. Also just because a person may log out of a bank account does not mean that account is safe because that information is also saved on the hard drive. If the antivirus is not running then there are also programs that can be secretly downloaded onto the computer that can follow every key stroke and watch every web site a person visits.

So as you can see those are two simple things that can be done to a computer to prevent most common computer problems. I would hope that if people did take something away from reading this blog that they would decide to do these two things. In the hardware software class at my college we fix computers for people the entire semester and judging by what problems came into that room this past semester at least 75% of the computers if not more that came in would not have needed to be there at all if these two things I just discussed would have been done on the computers. I will be covering how to keep the computers clean and the different choices of antivirus in another blog post in the coming weeks but for now I just wanted people to understand why my classmates, my instructor, and I feel that this is an important blog to have on the internet so that people can learn about taking care of their computers.

Works Cited

Bell, Greg. "How Basic Computer Information Helps." Personal interview. 14 Mar. 2013. Instructor of CIT, has an AAS in Information Systems, Currently work on a BS in Business Education Computer Information Technology, and does CIT work for a local business.

Brewster, James. "How Basic Computer Information Helps." Personal interview. 14 Mar. 2013. Currently working on a degree in Networking Technology.

"Computer Basics." GCFLearnFree.org. N.p., n.d. Web. 20 Mar. 2013. <http://www.gcflearnfree.org/computerbasics>.

Drew, Jessica. "The Benefits of Having Anti-virus Protection." - TopTenREVIEWS. N.p., n.d. Web. 20 Mar. 2013. <http://anti-virus-software-review.toptenreviews.com/the-benefits-of-having-anti-virus-protection.html>.

Gillespie, Christopher. "How Basic Computer Information Helps." Personal interview. 14 Mar. 2013. Currently working on a degree in Networking Technology with minors in Computers and Internet Security.

"How To Check Your PC Avast Anti-Virus If Its Active Or Secured." AllSEOTech. N.p., n.d. Web. 20 Mar. 2013. <http://allseotech.com/2012/11/05/how-to-check-your-pc-avast-anti-virus-if-its-active-or-secured/>.

Ranck, Michelle. "How Basic Computer Information Helps." Personal interview. 14 Mar. 2013. AAS In Computer Information Technology, and continuing education in Networking Technology and Information System Security.

Setting Up Your New Computer

The next thing I would like to talk about is setting your computer up once out of the box. This is pretty straight forward so I will not spend a lot of time on this.

For a laptop computer the very first thing is to fully charge it. It is kind of like when you get a new cell phone and they tell you to charge it fully before using it. Once the laptop is charges its simple enough turn it on and answer the stuff on the different Microsoft screens. Always be sure to lay the laptop on a flat surface for ventilation clothes or bedding can be very harmful. I always find it funny that it is called a laptop but a person’s lap is the last place a laptop should be.

As far as a desktop be sure the place that you chose to put your tower is in a well ventilated area. I would not recommend any desk that shuts the computer up. In my previous post there is a link that tells all about what temperature can do to a computer. Cabling the computer is always pretty simple everything should have different colors so just put the colors together. One thing I like to do with my cables is get some twist ties and tie them together. This will help keep them organized and will also prevent pulling the cables out or running the over with wheels on desks and chairs. To hook up your internet just look for the hole in the back of the tower that looks like a really big phone jack. Just like the laptop fill in the information the different screens ask.

The only other helpful thing I can really say about it is to make sure the time and date are correct. As far as I know the problem should be fixed but during Vista some computers would not have the right time. If a computer does not have the right time it will cause your computer to not update correctly and could cause problems with its operation.

Getting Your Computer Home

The first thing that I will talk about is something that most people probably do not even think about which is getting your new computer. I know that a lot of people cannot wait to get home and open up their new toy and play with it but that is not always a good idea. The computer will be subjected to different temperature from the store you were in to the ride in your car. If you are a person who buys from the internet your computer could be in a really cold or hot vehicle for a long time. So now you are probably saying yeah okay what about it well you see the computer needs to be at room temperature before opening and setting it up no matter if it is a desktop, laptop, or a tablet. Even a cell phone needs to be at room temperature before using it. You see a computer is a lot like a glass of iced tea on a hot day you know when the condensation on the outside of the glass starts well the inside of the computer can do the same thing. If you take your newly delivered computer off the front porch and start it right up condensation can develop on the inside of the computer and that can destroy any component on the inside of the computer. This is also true of any device that is left in the elements for too long that is why it is never a good idea to leave any of your tech toys in the car, or take them outside for any length of time on a rainy day or snowy day like it is today. So remember I get just as excited as everyone else when I get a new tech toy but remember you must let it get room temperature before starting it up. For more information.

Introduction

I decided that I wanted to blog about computer information that will help someone starting out with computers or just are not sure how to do things. I have found during my time in college studying computers that most people really do want to know the basics of computers however they really do not know who to ask, what to ask, or where to look on the internet. I will be helping people better understand Windows computers I will try to include sites that may help a person even more than what I put on this blog. I will try to cover the computer from the time it is taken out of the box to the point of someone being ready to handle their computer on their own. If there is anything that anyone has questions on as I get started please comment and I will try to answer it.