By Suzann Dodd, ContributorTHERE ARE a few simple things you can do to prolong the useful life of your computer.
The old country saying; 'dirt won't kill you, cleanliness will' is true. Too many people destroy their electrical equipment by the over use of cleansers and water.
Nothing kills a computer or any electronic gadget as quickly as water. When you want to clean your computer an almost dry soft cloth is the maximum.
Never scrub or really wash your computer, ever. Never let it get wet. It it gets wet you can virtually kiss it goodbye. My first laptop, a Toshiba, was with me when I got caught in the rain. For two weeks I let it sit and it did work long enough for me to transfer everything on the hard drive to another computer before giving up the ghost.
Never use your computer when there is a lightening storm.
Don't show me your surge protectors or UPS -- they will not protect you. Nothing can protect you against a lightening strike.
I can show you a graveyard of surge protectors, killed during lightening storms, and many tech shops can show you a long list of customers having to replace everything from a mother board to a hard drive to modems and even a floppy drive fried by lightening.
As soon as the sky starts to get full of dark clouds or you hear the first rumble of thunder, unplug everything, including the modem. Lightening can and will run up a line, be it telephone, cable or clothes.
As you all run Gatesware, learn to defrag your hard drive once a week and scan disk for errors. Always empty your trash basket.
You can set your computer to do these things automatically.
The first time you defrag it will take a very long time. Yet the subsequent operations will be far shorter.
Always set your cache in your browser to '0'. There is no sense in clogging up your computer with garbage which might fool you into thinking you are connected to the Internet when you aren't because yesterday's page is loading.
Don't turn your computer on and off frequently. Better to leave it on with a screen saver or in hibernation mode.
Crashing usually occurs when you run out of memory. Know the limits of your computer. Crashing can occur when you are using Gatesware for no known reason. Try to hot boot; ctrl-alt-del pushed at the same time. Hopefully this will work.
Computers have internal fans. You don't have to keep your computer in the refrigerator so you need not keep your home or office sub-arctic.
Remember, the more electricity you use the more likely you are to have an overload in which you might lose everything.
Suzann Dodd is an attorney and a writer.
