Getting a new computer? Look at our tips!

Many students have been coming to us for advice for different virus protection, flash drives, computer programs, external hard drives and other ideas on what to look for in a new computer.

A lot of people think they know a lot about computers, but deep down don't. I'm not trying to make fun of those people, but spending that much money on a computer that could die the day after your warranty is up is a scary thing. Hard drives are formatted to run and save computer programs. Flash drives are not, they are formatted to save things on, pretty much anything. If your hard drive on your computer does crash, it is cheaper for you to go to the store, spend between $40-150 on an internal hard drive and install it yourself. All you have to do it take the back panel off, unplug the hard drive and put the new one back in and install your operating system and any other programs.

If you want to buy a brand new computer, there are some things you want to consider. You want to look at is the hard drive itself. Make sure it is big enough for everything you want it to do. You also want to look at the RAM (memory), which is the speed of the computer. Windows XP needs about 512 mb to run, vista needs 3 GB, windows 7 needs 1 GB and MAC OS-X needs 2 GB, plus you may want addition RAM to make the computer faster. Another thing is look at is the processing speed. When you look at a new computer, there a lot of numbers that are available, but you want to look at is the GHz. I recommend anything above a 2.0 GHz. When you get below that, your computer will be slow to process the information sent to it such as loading more than one program or switching tabs on the internet and everything between.

For virus protection, why waste your money and buy something? You get viruses for free so why not get a free anti-virus. With many students coming to us saying that have problems with Norton, all those problems are true. Norton will slow down your computer because it has programs running in the background that takes a lot of memory or speed to run on your system. If you get any other anti-virus, that have a smaller version of it but it works just as good or better. Here, we suggest Antivir or AVG. Every program has its problems, but you will have to find one that works for you.

If you need any other tips on how to keep your computer running strong, no matter how old it is, stop into the STC and we'll tell you how to keep it running. We cannot do it for you or show you how to do it, but we can tell you how if you would like.