Take control of your tech support – better organize your tech support – consolidate computer support equipment

Do you feel like you’re on tech overload? You just bought a new computer support device and it quickly becomes obsolete in a couple of months? Apple support has something to do with that, quashing all netbooks and traditional desktop PCs as of late. You may also feel like you have too much computer service equipment. You have a desktop that you never use and a laptop or iPad that gets the most use.

You can easily take control of your tech world.  Here’s how:

1.  Take an inventory of all your computer equipment. Chances are there are some devices that aren’t working, active, or accumulating dust. Get rid of these things.
2.  Are there any daisy chained hubs, switches, or routers? Consolidate them into one big 16 or 32-port switch to a router. This will speed up your network and organize the network equipment better.
3.   Take note of your wireless and router password as well as any computer log-on, email, and website passwords. Make sure to create a password for your network.
You can store them in a password-protected word document. Just don’t forget the password!
4.  Do you have a backup that actually works. Whether you want to back up to an external hard drive or online, do it and test it. Please make sure that you keep a copy of your files backed up, not the main ones. External drives fail too and if they do, at least you have your main computer as a redundant fail-over for files.
5.  Last but not least, make sure your antivirus software is active and current. I’m a big fan of Norton Internet Security.

Just five steps and you’ll be in control of your own tech universe.