PC Maintenance and Security

I chose three tutorials from the Atomic Learning PC Maintenance and Security workshop.  This is what I learned about each.

Making Email Safer

I chose this workshop because I get emails from people I don't know every day.  I did not know what signs to look for to avoid scams.  One thing I learned that I will definitely be sharing with others is a phishing scam that looks like it's from Bank of America but it's really not.  It asks for your login, password, and social security number.  I would like to share this with others because it looks so real that I'm pretty sure I would have fallen for it myself.  That's scary!  It completely surprised me how professional the email looked and how much it truly resembled the Bank of America website.  I'm glad to learn how easy it is to block spam and junk mail from my inbox.  

File Backup Options

I chose this workshop because I have moved and changed jobs quite a few times and would like to learn better strategies to backup my files from computer to computer.  One thing I learned that I would like others to know about is that there are several websites that will help me do this such as www.karenware.com and www.foldershare.com. Also, my computer itself has it's own built in backup system.  All I have to do is use my Windows Backup/Restore Wizard.  With this I can backup all or some of my data such as My Documents using a flash drive or disk.  I was shocked to learn that there is an "incremental" option which will make it so that it will only update files on my flash drive that have been changed or added since the last time I did a backup.  I wish I would have know that seven years ago!  

Clean Up & Speed Up Your PC

I chose this workshop because I have a fairly new laptop and it is so slow!  It didn't used to be so slow.  I'm sure that part of the reason it slowed down so much is because of all the games I allow my son to play on it.  I have downloaded many games that he never uses and I don't even want to know how many games my (four year old) son has downloaded on his own without me knowing.  One thing I learned that I will share with others is that there are a few small things that you can do to make a large difference in the speed of your computer.  After performing a couple of the cleanup options I learned about, I was surprised to learn how many files I have on my computer that I not only never use, but that I didn't even know I had!