Casual Articles - Computers and Technology

Painless Fundraising
I was a softball coach for my daughter’s softball team and know a bit about the problems associated with small sports’ clubs. Every year, we needed uniforms, replacement equipment and, if we won in the playoff’s, individual awards and trophies which we had to somehow provide. All this takes money. Therefore, at the advent of each spring season, we scoured the neighborhood for sponsors or donations to make this all happen.Begging for funding isn’t exactly my idea of a fun April day. The head people would get on the phone calling business friends and associates hoping to secure a sponsor that would be happy to see their, “Benny’s Car Wash,” or “Lucky Lou’s Bar-B-Q,” logos on the kid’s uniforms. Of course, we would be excited with a small donation as well, without having to print special promotions on the t-shirts. We finally found a local restaurant that stepped forward and gave us the several hundred dollars required to begin the season.That was the frustrating part. It was only a few hundred dollars, in most cases. It was too much to ask a bunch of parents to donate and not enough for a full-blown fundraiser. This “middle-ground” is far too common for many charitable groups. Luckily,

Internet Paid Surveys Scams and Gems
Internet paid surveys is an interesting way to make money online. But the whole process to start earning consistent income and finding good paying surveys is an intriguing process fraught with disappointments and rewarding surprises. On one hand, you will come across scams that pay you nothing for all the hard work and time, while the gems reward you with great payouts. In the midst of all this, it is crucial to learn how to differentiate between the two in order to make some serious income from internet paid surveys.Typically, a market survey company is the one that handles all the surveying of survey takers for their clients, the product and services companies. There are many established big names like Global Test Market which offers internet paid surveys. But it does not always mean that you can make money with them. Let me explain. Big names are reliable and do pay on time. But because of their credibility, they have large databases of ready survey takers. It gets very competitive to really make money from their paid surveys. Nevertheless, you should still register with them as a long-term income plan.There are some scam internet paid surveys sites that keep popping up on the int

Many who read this article may find these recommendations to be old news. However, think about the number family, friends, and associates that ask you for help fixing their PC and I believe you will understand why I chose to write this article..

This list of recommendations for a healthy & secure PC is by no means a complete list of everything you can and should do. It is however a great start if you want to keep your computer running properly for an acceptable period of time. It will also help prevent some of the most common issues related to PC security.

1. Hard Drive Fragmentation
---------------------
Believe it or not, many people have never even heard of hard drive fragmentation, or the process of Defragmentation. In a nutshell, when you install software or create files and data, the Operating System stores this data on your hard disk drive. The most efficient way of storing this data would be in one continuous disk file. However, files are not always stored this way, or are initially stored this way and later become split up, or fragmented. Because of this, when the data or file is retrieved, the hard drive must be searched in multiple places just to combine data that makes up one file. This slows things down tremendously. If you are running Windows 2000 or Windows XP, you should perform a disk defrag at least once every two weeks, more if possible. All of my systems run this process automatically once every week in the evening hours.

2. Installing Games & Disk Intensive Software
---------------------
If you're a gamer, or regularly use disk intensive software, the above Defragmentation process will help. However, you can also take another step to make things move a little faster. If you have two physically separate disk drives in your system, I suggest that you use one primarily for the Operating System and related software, and devote the other physical disk for installing games and other disk intensive applications. This cuts down on the competition for disk resources between your Operating System and other applications. There are other things you could do as well, such as configuring the appropriate type of RAID where multiple disks appear to the operating system as one big logical disk drive. This takes a little more planning to get the most out of your drives so I’ll cover that in a future article.

3. Virus & Spyware Protection
---------------------
The bottom line here is; make sure you have installed some sort of anti-virus and spyware protection. Furthermore, don’t just assume that the default configuration of the program is best suited for your environment. For instance, I can’t tell you how many people I know whose computer has contracted a serious virus because of just one minor but very important task. When the anti-virus software pops up a message and tells you that your subscription is about to expire, don’t just hit the ignore button. Take a five minute break from what you are doing and renew your virus signature subscription. Not only will this keep you up to

Life Insurance - Plan for life
The very best time to arrange life insurance is when it’s furthest from your thoughts. Take a typical young man. He’s at the start of his career, possibly still living at home, but thinking of looking around for a flat. He has a car and the insurance that he arranged for it was probably his first step in the insurance ladder.If he decided to take out some life insurance, whilst he’s still young, fit and healthy he’d get the best possible rates. Probably the most valuable insurance at this stage is Critical Illness (CI) cover.Whilst life insurance is designed to pay out to your beneficiaries if you die, CI cover will give you valuable support if you become critically ill. For our young man, starting on his career, an illness of this type could be a financial disaster. It is a fact that one in three people will develop cancer at some time in their lives, but the good news is that treatment and cure rates are improving all the time.Advances in medical science thankfully mean that more and more people will survive many of the major serious illnesses. Unfortunately this recovery can take many months, or even years and necessitate long period of time off work. It may not be possible

----------
Believe it or not, many people have never even heard of hard drive fragmentation, or the process of Defragmentation. In a nutshell, when you install software or create files and data, the Operating System stores this data on your hard disk drive. The most efficient way of storing this data would be in one continuous disk file. However, files are not always stored this way, or are initially stored this way and later become split up, or fragmented. Because of this, when the data or file is retrieved, the hard drive must be searched in multiple places just to combine data that makes up one file. This slows things down tremendously. If you are running Windows 2000 or Windows XP, you should perform a disk defrag at least once every two weeks, more if possible. All of my systems run this process automatically once every week in the evening hours.

Push or Pulling Too Hard? Don't Use Up All Your Energy Trying to Have Employees Follow Your Rules!
Many small business computer consulting companies share a familiar headache and frustration-- how do you motivate or have employees follow the rules of your company? Employees can be using your firm as a stepping stone to something bigger, a place to get their feet wet. They are not there for the long run or to win the longest serving employee award. It is time to stop dreaming that you will have employees that will be with you forever. It just isn’t going to happen.Many business owners of small business computer shops share the same frustrations around having technicians not return phone calls to clients, not filling out time sheets, not sharing information with their peers in the company, and simply just not showing up on time. You are not running a babysitting service and these types of employees can simply use up all of your energy too quickly.How do you motivate them? First of all you shouldn’t be looking to motivate them. Technicians should be motivated because of the passion that they have for technology, to fixing that hard to fix problem or just having pride in a job well done. When you find a technician that shares this passion and vision as well as one who understa

his slows things down tremendously. If you are running Windows 2000 or Windows XP, you should perform a disk defrag at least once every two weeks, more if possible. All of my systems run this process automatically once every week in the evening hours.

Must Have Software Tools For A Smart Home Office, Part I
If you do most of your business from a home office, you should know that there are plenty of software options out there to help you do more in less time, so you can devote more quality time to your family and children.Diagram StudioDiagram Studio offers you a wide choice of different tools which allow you to quickly and easily create flowcharts, business and technical diagrams, schemes, plans, family tree, etc. The focus of these tools is on ease-of-use, speedy results, automation, and quality output.Diagram Studio contains many features else found only in very expensive packages, like automatic formatting and routing, rotation, customizable toolbars, professional color styles, graphics import and export, curves, flexible text support, and a library of ready-made symbols and templates. Diagram Studio supports Object Linking and Embedding in Windows as an OLE Server. This feature makes it very easy to use Diagram Studio drawings in other Windows programs. You can embed or link your diagram. In both cases, you can edit the diagram by double-clicking it in the destination application.It's easy to draw and edit charts with Diagram Studio. You don't need to have any artisti

or the Operating System and related software, and devote the other physical disk for installing games and other disk intensive applications. This cuts down on the competition for disk resources between your Operating System and other applications. There are other things you could do as well, such as configuring the appropriate type of RAID where multiple disks appear to the operating system as one big logical disk drive. This takes a little more planning to get the most out of your drives so I’ll cover that in a future article.

Qualities of a Great Manager
In the call center environment we are often only as successful as the people we hire. While our front line employees are critical to our business, choosing the right managers powerfully impact your success. So what makes a good manager? Ask 100 people and you might get 100 different answers. While the behaviors that make a great manager may be open to interpretation, there are some competencies and corresponding questions, which stand the test of time.I think the face of business has entered an era of global mobility and flexibility. To be a successful manager in today’s business world you have to be able to shift gears and cope with change effectively. You have to be able to make decisions without knowing all of the details or be able to see the big picture. Today’s managers have to be able to function in an atmosphere of ambiguity in order to be successful.Learning how to deal with ambiguity is no small task and some managers are more comfortable with it than others. You can discover a candidate’s comfort level with a few questions that assess how well they handle ambiguity.Tell me about a time when you had to make a decision without having complete informa

here is; make sure you have installed some sort of anti-virus and spyware protection. Furthermore, don’t just assume that the default configuration of the program is best suited for your environment. For instance, I can’t tell you how many people I know whose computer has contracted a serious virus because of just one minor but very important task. When the anti-virus software pops up a message and tells you that your subscription is about to expire, don’t just hit the ignore button. Take a five minute break from what you are doing and renew your virus signature subscription. Not only will this keep you up to date on newer viruses, it will allow your software package to update to newer versions. The same thing goes for spyware protection. There are plenty of free spyware protection solutions out there, none are perfect, but most do the job. I suggest using Microsoft’s AntiSpyware Beta package at the least.

4. Software & Hardware Firewall Protection
---------------------
If you are not using a firewall, then you are just asking for trouble. Actually, there is a significant chance that your system is already compromised if you have no firewall protection at all. Many cable/DSL router combo devices have built in firewall protection, and this is at least a good start. However, if you have Windows XP SP2, go ahead and enable the built in firewall as it will provide you another level of protection. Oh, yes, and when the system pops up a message about whether or not to allow a certain application or communication to take place, don’t just hit the ok button, read it thoroughly then make a decision.

5. Installing & Uninstalling Applications
---------------------
Just about every time you install a new application or piece of software you increase the time it takes to boot your PC and in some cases decrease its performance. On thing that drives me crazy is printing software. For the life of me I cannot understand how or why printer support software could total 400MB in size, but they sometimes do. Not only that, they tend to load all kinds of unnecessary real-time running applets. HP printers are notorious for this. Be very aware of what it is you are loading and only load those components that you need. Even some off-the-shelf software packages load adware and other not so helpful applets. Also, when you uninstall software, not all the software gets uninstalled in many cases. One thing I suggest is to purchase a registry cleaner. This can dramatically decrease boot times and in many cases increase the overall performance of your PC.

6. Purchasing & Downloading Items On The Internet
---------------------
When you download or purchase any software from the Internet, make sure you pay close attention to everything you are agreeing to or checking off on the various pages that lead up to the final purchase or download. As with everything else, make sure you read the fine print. You may be agreeing to download and install something you don’t need or may impact the security and performance of you PC. Also

HTTP = HTML link (for blogs, profiles,phorums):
<a href="http://www.casualarticles.com/article/176886/casualarticles-10-Things-To-Do-For-A-Healthy--Secure-PC.html">10 Things To Do For A Healthy & Secure PC</a>

BB link (for phorums):
[url=http://www.casualarticles.com/article/176886/casualarticles-10-Things-To-Do-For-A-Healthy--Secure-PC.html]10 Things To Do For A Healthy & Secure PC[/url]

Do you remember the good ole days when sales managers used to just sit back and wait for their salespeople to come into their offices and ask for help? Maybe they needed the old veteran to come in and nail down the close. Well, we all know you just can't do that any more. Sure, that would put a few more sales in the win column (in the short term). But in the long term what are you creating? Nothing but needy, dependent salespeople without an ounce of personal selling confidence. Show your sales people HOW to prospect, HOW to set appointments and HOW to close sales makes your job easier and everybody's paycheck fatter.

It is not that hard and it's not that expensive to set up and manage the hosting of websites. The sign up for a web hosting account is very simple. After you have chosen a name for your website and registered the domain name, the next step is to find a web hosting service.

That's usually how it starts. You hear an unfamiliar noise when you turn on your computer. Or, you may be working along and all of a sudden, your computer stops responding.

Tags

Links

Casual Articles - 10 Things To Do For A Healthy & Secure PC

Related Articles: