Computing Approaches For The Average Person

2008, Colin Fraser




This short paper is a quick tutorial on how to get things done in a digital 
age in a safe and effective manner and also, to introduce some tips and 
techniques for the average computer user to help them in their daily tasks.  
It is in response to many queries by friends and family on how they should 
approach certain tasks such as email, web browsing, etc.

Email

     Email is one of the most popular uses of the internet and computers 
in general.  Nearly every person in the developed world has at least one 
email account and many even have multiple email accounts.  As handy as 
email is, there are problems with it.  One issue is that many people use the 
default email their internet service provider gives them and then when they 
change ISP's they lose the old one and all the emails with it.  To make matters 
worse, now they need to tell everyone they know of the change and to make 
sure to use the new one.  Email is also a vector for spam, viruses and 
other nasties.  As hard as it is to believe, there is a quick and simple 
way to make all these issues go away forever and also allow you more 
flexibility in how you get your email.  Here it is... Webmail.  Forget about 
the accounts that your ISP gives you.  Get yourself an account with a provider 
like hotmail or another service like it.  Most of the better ones check for 
viruses and spam and to top it all off, all you need is a web browser to 
get and send mail.  By removing the email client from your machine, you are 
greatly reducing the change of a virus infection.  If you don't want to use 
hotmail, search google for webmail hosts and pick one more to your liking.  
My personal account is with www.vfemail.net and they have a few different 
names you can choose from such as manlymail.net, clovermail.net, etc.  
Bottom line, ditch the outlook express and save yourself tons of hassle.

Browsing

     The web browser is another vector for viruses.  I suggest using opera 
or firefox (www.opera.com or www.mozilla.org).  Internet explorer ships with 
the windows operating system and many people are not even aware that there 
are other browsers, but there are actually many different ones.  Both opera 
and firefox offer a better browsing experience that is more secure and they 
also offer tabs.  Tabs are like mini windows for each web site you are viewing.  
In internet explorer, you need a new window for every site you want to visit 
if you don't want to close the old one.  Not with firefox or opera, you 
simply open a new tab and go to the new site and all the other tabs you had 
open with other websites loaded are still there.  Its basically like a 
windows taskbar but for websites.  The newest versions of IE now have tabs, 
but again, its still internet explorer with all the hassles of viruses.  
Firefox and opera simply offer a safer way to browse the web.

Not Losing Your Stuff

     Here is a question that I pose to people all the time.  Where exactly 
is “my documents” or “my pictures” located on your hard disk?  It takes some digg
ing to find exactly where this stuff is and its also different in nearly every 
version of windows.  This leads to a serious problem.  How do you make a single 
wholesale backup of your data?  Again, theres a simple approach that you can 
take to completely eliminate this issue.  You should have a single directory 
for ALL your data and organize it accordingly for the types of data you have.  
As an example, if you have a new computer that has a single large C: disk, 
you can make a directory in the root of C: called C:\users and in that 
directory make yet another directory for every person in a household such 
as C:\users\mom and C:\users\dad and so on.  Inside each of these you can 
make directories for things such as pictures, documents, etc.  Now where this 
approach becomes handy is when its time to back up your data.  
Simply copy ALL of C:\users to another removable hard disk, DVD or any other 
type of backup device and you are done, period.  No searching, no uncertainty.  
You should get in the habit of ALWAYS saving your data in your directory.  
Don't use the desktop, thats not what the desktop is for.  You wouldn't ever 
leave every paper document you own on your actual desk and so it is with 
your computer.  Keep your data in a single logical place that you can find 
and that is easy to back up.  There are also other things to consider when 
backing up your data such as fire and theft.  This is where the term “offsite
 backup” comes from.  It means keeping another copy of your information(another backup)
 in another seperate building.  Then in the case of fire or disaster, 
you can STILL be assured you have your data.  DO NOT get into the habit of 
assuming your hard disk won't fail.  Disks fail all the time and in many cases 
without any warning at all.  If your data is REALLY important, you should 
have TWO seperate disks in your computer, one as the main and one for backup 
and at least two other copies offsite, preferably on two different types of 
media(one hard disk and one set of DVDr's as an example).  I am VERY fond of 
the notion of write once media in that a virus cant then erase the data since 
its permanent and read only and recordable DVD and CD's fit this bill nicely.

As always, planning planning planning.

-P