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 Did
you know?
We all browse websites
throughout the work week, but did you know that your Internet
Explorer’s cache could be affecting what you see and how
fast you see it?
Your cache –
a common term for the Temporary Internet Files – stores
Web pages, images, sounds and anything else you encounter online.
To view an image, for example, your computer must download it
from the web and display it on the screen. That image is stored
in your cache.
Filling up the cache
has some advantages. If you’ve visited a website before,
your second visit could download faster because it will pull
the stored information from your temporary files.
One disadvantage
to this approach is missing fresh content that is added to a
site. If it’s Thursday and your browser pulls a page from
your cache that you downloaded on Tuesday, you could miss changes
that were posted to the web in the past two days.
We update
dozens of websites and it’s not uncommon for a client
to let us know that they do not see the changes we posted. A
click or two of the “refresh” button will normally
fix the problem, but how will you know the information you’re
seeing is outdated if it’s not your own website?
To find
balance between speed and reliability, you can adjust options
for your Internet Explorer browser (the most popular browser).
To delete all temporary
files (it’s smart to do this on occasion), go to Tools
à Internet Options in your Internet Explorer. Under the
General tab, look for the area called Temporary Internet Files.
Click Delete Files. This could take several minutes to finish
if you have visited a lot of websites since your last deletion.
You can
also tell your browser how often to look for new information.
In the same Temporary Internet Files area, click on Settings.
Under “Check for newer versions of stored pages:”,
if “never” is selected, you’ll be seeing old
information on a lot of web pages. Any of the other options
would be better, keeping in mind that less you pull from your
cache, while slower to load, the more fresh your content will
be.
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Definition
of the Month
Courtesy
of Webopedia...
VPN-
Short for virtual private network, a network
that is constructed by using public wires to connect nodes.
For example, there are a number of systems that enable you to
create networks using the Internet as the medium for transporting
data. These systems use encryption and other security mechanisms
to ensure that only authorized users can access the network
and that the data cannot be intercepted. |
 Congratulations
Denver!
Please join
our staff in congratulating our president, Denver Abernathy,
on his recent engagement to his longtime girlfriend, Katie.
Denver proposed over the holiday weekend, and they are planning
a July 2005 wedding.
Keeping
Your Home PC Healthy – Part 1
What can
I do to make my home computer run better? This is a question
that we get a lot at Promethius. Not surprisingly, our recommendations
are nearly the same as we recommend with business machines but
without the convenience of corporate solutions. Most suggestions
seem like common sense, but home users rarely take steps to
maintain a healthy computer.
Defragment
Regularly
Defrag
reorganizes all of the data on your hard drive so that it
can be accessed faster. As time goes by, data becomes fragmented
and is stored in different places on the hard drive. This
means that the hard drive has to work harder (and take more
time) to read and write data. Do not use the computer while
defragmenting or it may restart the defrag process every time
you do something. Defrag takes a long time, depending on the
amount of data on the drive, however if you run it often it
speeds up the process because files are already well placed
from your last defrag session.
Check
Antivirus Routinely
Updating
your antivirus is essential to protecting your computer against
new viruses. Download the current version and Service Pack
(update) of your product at regular intervals. Keep up-to-date
on all the new features direct from your antivirus provider.
If you have Norton or McAfee, set it to automatically update
at least weekly. Verify that your antivirus signatures are
up-to-date monthly. See http://www.microsoft.com/security/protect/
for more information regarding anti-virus configuration. Trend
Micro has a good free online scanner at http://www.trendmicro.com
if you suspect your computer is already infected. If Norton
or your current antivirus software seems to be behaving strangely
(locks up or won’t start), run an online scan immediately.
Save
Files Wisely
Save all
the data you create in your My Documents folder (and not scattered
all over your PC). This includes photos, Word documents, taxes,
downloaded images and scanned images. If your data is currently
scattered all over your PC, select and <move> it into
My Documents. This ultimately makes backing up your important
data easier and finding files will never be an issue. Use
subfolders to organize documents within the My Documents folder.
Backup
Frequently
Backup
files regularly to guard against the loss of data. A backup
is a duplicate of a file, program, or disk that can be used
if the original is lost, damaged, or destroyed. To backup
means to make a copy of a file or files. Restore means to
copy files back to their original location after a loss of
data.
You can make backups of your files and folders onto floppy
disks, Zip disks, CDs, Jaz disks, DVDs, or even to your hard
drive. If you choose to backup your files to your hard drive,
be sure that you are not backing up to the same hard drive
that you normally store your files on. The amount of data
these types of media can hold varies greatly. Use the type
of media that your computer can read and write to and that
can hold the files or folders you need to backup. CD burners
are down in price and install easily. There is no reason not
to back up regularly. You should never have to stress over
your hard drive crashing, your PC getting stolen, losing data
or needing to rebuild due to viruses or system lockups.
If you have
questions about any of the items listed above, please call the
office at 317-733-2388.
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