Sometimes when these things happen it seems like it would be easiest to toss the computer in the ocean and get a brand new one, but there are several things that can prevent these terrible and expensive disasters.
First there is no shame attached to not knowing all the answers when it comes to your PC. At sometimes the concerns may be less because the company has an IT department to protect the data and productivity of its business. Most of us work at least a little at home so support is important there too. If you are fortunate enough to have a technically proficient teen ager at home or next door you may have an amazing resource for your home computer. When the Mills Team set up our first network we were fortunate enough to have a friend with a genius son at La Jolla high school, he put it all together in no time for us, and it all has worked as we have wanted it to for years. When our teenage friend left for UC for his college career followed by a fantastic career at Apple we had to start looking for help. The point here is find a tech guy or gal, that you trust and that can be reasonably available (computers never break down between 9 and 5 during the week - it is a rule). It can be a real task to find the right person for your needs. We have a great guy now with navy training and he has a host of friends in the field that he will call on if needed, but we looked for a long time before we found our guy. If you are in the San Diego area call me I'm happy to give you his contact information.
Next If you are running a PC keep your computer Windows Update current. Microsoft has important security patches every week that need to be installed. If you haven 't already go to Windows Update on the Microsoft website and learn all you can about keeping this important part of your software up to date.
Find a good Anti Virus that will keep your machine clean and protected, but not necessarily one of the big expensive security packages, many of the Geek experts have warned in their blogs about things like the Norton package. It is so big it slows down your PC. I've been very happy with ESET's "NOD32" for years. Now that I have upgraded our PCs to Windows 7, I'm changing over to Microsoft's Security Essentials. It is light and is not slowing down the PCs. It has been excellent at scanning and cleaning and it is priced right. It is a free download from Microsoft. It comes highly recommended by my tech friends. Go to the Microsoft site search for "Security Essentials".
And last but certainly not least BACK-UP your data. There are lots of ways to do it, but I forget to do it - so I have an automatic constant back up in the cloud (as they are saying now) on the web. I have used Carbonite for years on all our computers and the file server - it has a big advantage to me it backs up your files as you change them so you have current data backed up. We have lost four hard drives with critical data in the last five years, I've been fortunate to be able to restore all the data each time with Carbonite.
These four things can help you keep your Cyber Sanity:
1. Find a tech support person to back you up, you can't know it all no matter how hard you work at it.
2. Run you software and firmware updates regularly.
3. Talk to your tech person about a "Light Weight" Antivirus one that won't bog down your machine read some reviews there are some good ones out there now some are even free.
4. BACK UP the Data regularly!
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