Wednesday, September 8, 2010

Are You Ready For The Internet?

Last month we talked about the basic elements of your computers and how to do disk cleanup and defrag.

This month I want to talk about checking for internet readiness.

I know many biofeedback practitioners who have been told not to put anything onto their computer and never never to use the internet from their computer, except for the technical assistant who told one person that they could always go to this one place on the internet and that wasn’t using it at all.

Well, hmmmm. What you have that is the house for all the screens for the programs running with your device is a computer. Simple. All it is capable of is adding numbers very fast. That’s it. In these times, the computer and software for it has become more graphic and we demand to see pictures that are movie quality. We want games we want our financial software to show us pie charts in full color and on and on. We want to see what’s on the internet – we want information. Well sure we do and we can have it at our fingertips.

I’d say that most of the computers which have come loaded with the software for your devices are already set up to seek internet connections.

The computer I have was built for me by a company which specializes in creating computers for our special market. Just to the right of the on/off button is a silver button that has a slanted line through a ball on the icon. That button is what turns on and off the computer’s internet seeking capability. If you have a different computer, just go to an internet ready cafĂ© or the center of your town maybe and turn on your computer. It will probably find a connection that you can use.

Before you do that it’s a good thing to think about protecting your computer with a good anti-virus software package. There are several available and many are free. You will need to ask someone you trust to know about these things to find the one for you or do your own research from a library internet ready computer or someone else’s computer which is protected by an anti-virus program.

When you find what you want you can buy it in a box from a store or download it directly from the internet and it pretty much sets itself up for you. Mostly what you have to do is tell it when and how often you want it to scan your system and look for it’s own updates to keep it current of virus treat names.

Check your computer’s “Security Center” which is located from

START
     CONTROL PANEL
             SECURITY CENTER

Click on the red, green, blue and yellow shield icon entitled “Security Center” and then you will see this screen.

You can manage security settings for: Internet Options, Windows Firewall, and Automatic Updates. They are displayed at the bottom of the screen.

Internet Properties allows you to set the security levels by moving a slide bar from one priority level to another. You will see a definition of the consequences of each level so you can choose which one you feel most comfortable with. Windows always gives you a hint as to which is the most common one to use.

The Connections tab shows you how you are connected to the internet. In this example there are two types of connection to the internet because I have one by cable in the house and I have a USB internet connection device commonly called an “Air Card”. If there is nothing here, then you need to choose an internet connection and set it up. If you have a telephone in your office you can use a DSL line, or you can call one of the cable companies in your area and set up a very inexpensive internet connection. If you don’t have these things available to you then you might want to investigate one of the cellular phone internet devices available, like the air card I mentioned above.

If you are looking at air cards, check do an analysis of all the phone companies in your area to see which one has the most cell sites and the best offerings and price for their air card. Some of them offer you the moon but have no coverage. Be cautious and really do the research to get the best price and package you can.

The General Tab lets you choose a home page or some other internet page to be displayed for you whenever you log on to the internet. You don’t have to have anything selected here. Some people like to have the home page of their internet provider page displayed if that is where they have their primary email account.

I have two emails set up to display and a search page. So I have three internet addresses or URL’s which I copied and pasted into the box from the address bar of the website I wanted displayed when I log on to the internet.

You might want to choose a news account like CNN or a local television station or NOAH. The choices are endless and you can customize your online experience by selecting something that you are interested in to display to you when you log on.

When you click on the Programs Tab you have the ability to select your primary email ISP, the programs you want to use for your primary calendar (if any) or contact lists. I have an office software package which I do use here for calendar, contacts list and to use to create files which I can copy to my website like this one.

You don’t have to set up anything here – when the computer was set up at the factory or by your system technician this screen would undoubtedly have be set up for your system. You have the ability to change and customize the programs you want to use for yourself on this page.

So far we’ve talked about preparing for using the internet, selecting an anti-virus package to protect your computer while you are on the internet or whenever you receive files or programs from another source and just a minimal amount of discussion on setting up your internet.

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