Computer New Year Resolutions

With the arrival of another new year it's time to revisit our computer new year resolutions. If you can keep to these suggestions you'll save a lot of computer frustration and irritation. And you'll save the expense of paying people like us to fix the problems.

1. Protect your system: When you are on the net, you are at risk. Our Internet Protection kit gives you the basics to stay safe.

2. Ditch Internet Explorer: IE increases the risk of being infected with viruses and spyware. Switch to Firefox or Opera now. As well as being more secure, they have better browsing features.

3. Keep your system up-to-date: It's rare to find software without bugs in the system. Update your systems regularly. Windows users can update their system from the Windows Update site and Mac users can use the built in software update feature.

4. Be careful where you surf and who you talk to: The Internet is a big city and in big cities there are places you shouldn't go and people you shouldn't talk to. If you go to the unsavoury parts of the net, you can get hurt. So don't go looking for trouble in the form of pirate software, free music downloads, game cheats or porn.

5. Get the kids their own computer:The biggest risk to your computer is the kids, so give them their own computer.

6. Get an Internet plan that doesn't charge for excessive use: An Internet plan that charges for excessive use is the same as giving your Internet provider a blank cheque. Change your Internet plan to one that reduces your speed if you go over the monthly limit. If your ISP doesn't offer this, then go to one that does. You can find Internet providers at Broadband Choice.

7. Keep your software and passwords safe: Losing a password can be a big pain, particularly when a technician is charging a $100 an hour while you try to find it. Even more expensive is finding $1,200 of Microsoft Office disks have gone missing. Write down your passwords and store them safely with your software disks.

8. Save your work: Every time you go to leave your computer, print or switch to another task, press the save key beforehand. If your software allows you, enable the autosave function as well. Losing a morning's work can ruin your day.

9. back up your data: There is one thing worse than losing the mornings work and that's losing five years work. Losing data is a fact of life and it will happen to you. Backup regularly and test your backups.

10. Retire your old computers: Computers are cheaper than ever. If you are struggling with an older PC, you are wasting your time and money. Get a new system.

11. Don't hit your computer: Computers can be frustrating beasts and hitting them can only make things worse, although it does relieve your frustrations. If you can't help yourself then don't hit them too hard and not too often. If you really are stuck, you might find one of our books can help.

We'd like to wish all our customers, partners, subscribers and readers a happy and prosperous new year. May it go without a computer problem.