For anyone aspiring to quit their day job and work at home, this list should hopefully point you in the right general direction–doing any or all of these items could only help you get and keep a job. Employers look for people who know how to run their own computer, and who keep their computer updated in terms of protection against spyware, malware, and other yuckies. Some companies require their employees to keep updated anti-virus protection on their computer. Every item is important, but make especially sure to follow edict #10.
Here they are:
Download Zone Alarms ~ Window’s firewall is a piece of junk. Download Zone Alarms (it’s free!) and disable Window’s firewall. Your computer will thank you.
Download AVG ~ AVG is a free program that provides several layers of security for your computer–it helps keep viruses out, and also performs scans on your computer afterwards, to find any viruses that may have slipped through. AVG also protects your e-mail and will scan any incoming e-mails for viruses. This is a must to download.
Download Ad-Aware ~ Ad-Aware does not try to protect your computer from getting any viruses like AVG does–it is simply a free program that scans your computer for any malware and spyware. Ad-Aware and Spybot scan for two different types of spyware, so it’s important to install them both. Ad-Aware download.
Download Spybot Search and Destroy ~ Spybot download. Also free. Anyone seeing a pattern yet?
Defrag your hard drive regularly ~ This one doesn’t even require you to download anything. Go to Start –> All Programs –> Accessories –> Disk Defragmenter. This will allow your computer to run faster. Here’s a little known tip: For some reason, Windows doesn’t do it perfectly the first time, so if you haven’t defragged in a long time, make sure to defrag again and again until it only takes 30 seconds or less to defrag. I did this to my husband’s computer last week, and it took me 5 times before it defragged quickly. Yes, Windows is dumb, why do you ask?
I originally wrote this as one blog, but apparently I don’t know how to quit talking, and the blog got WAY too long. So here’s the second part–it should appear in just a few minutes. Thanks for reading!