Do you have a weak wireless signal in your home or business when connected to wireless? Get a wireless extender to cover those dead spots in your home or office. Companies like Linksys and D-Link have models that will do that for you and are easy to setup. I would recommend buying a extender with the same brand as your router you currently have.
Never throw away Cd’s you get when you buy or upgrade your computer. Many computers & printers come with Cd’s to reinstall your software if you ever need to reload your computer. Many companies will charge you for replacement Cd’s if needed. Also keep your serial numbers in a safe place because without those… your Cd’s are useless.
Most Important Cd’s to keep are…
Operating System CD (Windows XP or Vista)
Computer Drivers CD
Printer CD
Anti-Virus Protection CD
Word Processing CD (Corel, Microsoft Office)
Make sure when choosing a password for online accounts and computer accounts… you use a unique password that is hard to guess. Use a password that contains letters, numbers and symbols when possible. Most websites will require you now to use different characters when choosing a password. Also try to come up with one you will use all the time so you will not forget it but make sure its long enough to cover some website guidelines on length.
Example: 308*Abc$
Running out of room on your desk because you have a keyboard and mouse in the way… get a wireless keyboard and mouse and move it out of the way when not in use. You can get these devices in either USB or bluetooth and are easy to install.
Get rid of your floppy disks and start using a flash drive. Flash drives come in all different sizes and can be used for a quick data transfer from PC to PC or a backup of your important files. Most computers will accept flash drives without installing drivers except Windows 98SE. Also flash drives do work better on USB 2.0 then the older 1.1 version.
Add a USB External hard drive to your system to gain more data storage or backup your current system. External hard drives come in all different sizes and tools to easy to add this handy device to your system. One nice thing about external drives is that you can move them from one PC to another without turning off your PC and your data is then is accessible to your other PC.
Get rid of your big bulky monitor and get a LCD display. They take up less space and are easier on the eyes… and cost less than you might think. You can get a range of sizes and options to suit your needs.
Couple of things to look for when buying a LCD:
Get a Display that has at least a DVI port or better.
The Higher the contrast ratio.. the better the screen.
If you are running out of USB ports on your current system, don’t worry… you can add more ports by a PCI add on card or USB Hub. These upgrade options are not expensive and will give you more USB ports in a world that everything is going to USB.
Add another TV to your house by adding a TV tuner in your current PC. TV Tuners will allow you to record and watch TV on your computer while surfing the web. You can buy tuners to be installed inside your PC or an external that works via USB. Setup is easy and you will be glad you added another TV in your home once you have installed one of these.
Switching your operating systems theme to Classic will speed up your computer without costing you a dime. You can do this with Windows XP or Windows Vista. You can change this by going into your display settings and change your theme to classic.
Windows XP - Start, Control Panel, Display, Theme Tab
Windows Vista - Start, Control Panel, Personalization, Theme