Airfares To Brazil - - Learn the 5 Mistakes Most Everyone Makes Computer Problem Tips - Are You Messing Up Your Computer?

Stop using an ordinary power strip - buy and install a good quality surge protector

) Fry the components! These uncontrolled spikes can adversely affect the smooth flow of power to your computer (i.e. Blackouts and car accidents involving power lines all can cause momentary power surges or voltage spikes, lighting strikes, electrical storms.

"transient voltage surge suppressor" and UL 1449, look for a label with the words. A good protector should have at least the Underwriter's Lab standard rating of 1449. That's why you need to buy and install a good quality surge protector.

Stop "forgetting" to do at least a weekly backup

No, " More hang-dog looks and shaking of the heads. Is "Do you have any backups, the next question I usually ask?

Not hardware. . . Remember the richest man in the world (Bill Gates) made all his fortune with software. Your dead PC becomes a very expensive metal door stop, without backups. You can recover from 90% of major computer malfunctions if (and this is the big "IF") you have backup copies of your operating system and data files.

"THE" best thing you can do for yourself and your computer is to setup a backup system and stick to it! . . Let's be frank here. . . Okay. Buy a good backup program like Acronis True Image Home or an online service like Mozy.com.

Especially unknown freeware and beta applications, installing and uninstalling lots of and lots of programs; stop downloading.

And they write up their "products" as freebies too! Spammers and spyware kings have long since known that everyone loves a bargain, but folks. I couldn't run my little home business without some of them, hey. Free and useful software products and utilities, the Internet is just full of cool. I know this is toughie.

Sure I got some killer freeware but I also have gotten some killer adware too! Some the most persistent and difficult to remove spyware/viruses I have ever came across have been from me getting a case of download fever and clicking all over the net trying to save a penny here or there on "freeware".

If the freeware isn't from an established source like Download.com or SourceForge.net then be very careful on what you click on. Then after I downloaded it I had to go through the pain and hassle of uninstalling it or running some anti-spyware to remove it.

Stop letting your hard drive get full of fragmented software files.

) Misplaced snippets of code and dead end registry files (registry files are what Windows uses to keep track of what software is installed, the other problem with downloading everything you see is that your hard drive quickly becomes full of used programs.

So do your defragging late at night while you are asleep or during the when you are away from home. This utility works fine but can be horribly slow running. Now Windows has its own "Disk Defragmenter" utility built in. You should defrag your hard disk, so once a week if not more often depending on your download activities. So over time your hard drive becomes a cluttered minefield of bits of broken application coding. Uninstalling a program does most of the heavy lifting but no program really is removed clean.

Stop picking and using weak passwords

" But who the heck could remember some pass word like that? "2Tech#Log, numbers and characters like this, capitals, we all know that a strong password should have a blend of lowercase letters! We al do this one, hey.

Anyone who cracks your password now has access to your whole online financial life and identity, and since we use the same password on everything from email to eBay to bank records. "techlog" which a tech savvy 15 year old with a free code cracker off the internet can have broken it in under 30 seconds, so we all just plug in something like.

Uses the same personal password over and over, she like us, when you can easily hack the bank's vice president's home laptop because, why waste all that energy to hack into a bank? Sure most are smarter than the average person but like everyone else that they love easy pickings. They are portrayed to be in books and movies, crackers and other online thieves are not the super-evil geniuses; hackers.

"please sign up to receive your free offer" websites, then use a completely different one for those. PayPal accounts, eBay, create really strong ones for your bank. Create different passwords for different functions. So here's what to do.