Cold Calling Scammers

Be very very wary of cold callers claiming your computer is infected by malware or a virus.

Look here for a run down on what can happen and the experience of one user.

http://www.troyhunt.com/2012/02/scamming-scammers-catching-virus-call.html

Usernames and Passwords

Usernames and passwords are critically important in the computer world.

They control your access to not only parts of your computer but the greater internet as a whole.

One way to make sure this information is recorded is to write it all in a small book that is then kept in a safe place, or create a file on your computer, or both!

When details change, as they sometimes do, update the recorded information, then if you forget some critical login information the book or file can be consulted to help with memory recall.

Sometimes a computing professional may create a login and password for you, perhaps to access some online service or another.  My suggestion is to login into that service and change the password soon afterwards, not forgetting to update your recorded information, so you know access is private.

The chances of that person using your information is low but better to be safe than sorry.

CTRL your Computer

The Control key, often abbreviated on your keyboard as CTRL, and located in the bottom left and right, is a pretty handy key.

For example...

CTRL and Z = Undo
CTRL and X = Cut
CTRL and C = Copy
CTRL and V = Paste
CTRL and B = Bold
CTRL and N = New

Also...

CTRL and A = All
CTRL and S = Save
CTRL and F = Find
CTRL and P = Print

Another use is with web browsers, hold the CTRL key and move your mouse wheel forward and back, the page will zoom in and out, awesome!

Backup Your Data!

Ultimately you are responsible for your data.

The best way to go about this for a home computer is to first consider what needs to be backed up.  Generally you only need to backup the files and documents that you have created, but figuring out how much of that you have can be tricky.

The easier way would be to find out how large your hard drive is, say 500Gb, then purchase a USB external hard drive of at least that size.  Some of the external drives come with some backup software, otherwise the more recent version of Windows have backup software as part of the package.

Using the backup software you can typically choose to backup your My Documents files and folders (this at a minimum), all files and folders on the hard drive or a selection somewhere in between.

Obviously the more data you backup the longer it will take so if a regular timed option is available then select a time when the computer is on but not in use for an hour or so.

Don't forget that programs backed up will often not worked if restored but some programs, especially accounting packages, do not store the files you have created in the normal My Documents structure so a full backup may be required to grab all these files placed into weird locations by programs not storing them in a standard way.

The final process is making sure your backups are actually doing that, it would be the worst feeling in the world to find out your safe files don't exist.