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5 Ways to Get Your Child’s Tech Up to Speed for Classtime

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By Jon Gould
Guest Columnist

It’s time to embrace the back to school season with open arms. Don’t forget to make sure the single most important tool in your student’s backpack is their computer. And it needs to be sharper than a No. 2 pencil before an SAT exam! Nothing is more important, yet kids invariably wait until the last minute to see if their computer is just as ready to get back to school as parents are to see their kids go! My advice: Skip the Fire Drill.

Maybe the greatest source of stress for every family, whether their kids are hiders or high achievers, is a computer problem interfering with scholastic performance. You may be able to perform many of the suggestions below on your own if you are very savvy, or seek out your trusted IT professional, who will probably do it all for somewhere around $95.00.

Keep the following tips in mind. Save time, money, and STRESS – BEFORE an issue arises.

Top 5 Back to School Computer Tips from Jonny Gould:

1. Have a qualified professional technician run a full battery or hardware diagnostic tests: memory, hard drive, video, optical drives, and all attachment ports. This normally takes at least a couple of hours of machine time with professional tools. Test the battery. Test the WiFi connectivity. The hard drive test must include a thorough surface scan to make sure a hard drive failure or file corruption problem isn’t right around the corner. Have the internal components vacuumed free of dust which acts a heat blanket, a natural enemy of electronic devices.

2. Have your machine thoroughly checked for viruses, malware, and spyware, even if an Apple Mac. IDC, the most widely respected computer industry consultants, says the single most vulnerable operating system today is NOT WINDOWS but the Mac OS! Take the appropriate steps to rid your computer of these malicious threats AND make sure to have proper anti-virus software installed and up to date. Enable security functions, including anti-phishing and pop-up blocking.

3. If your student is not so little these days and is actually going away to school, make sure you ask what the connectivity is like on campus. Bring an Ethernet cable even though it is a WiFi campus. Ethernet is more secure, faster, more reliable, and connects you EVEN WHEN WiFi is down! Bring a USB cable to connect a printer directly to the machine for the same reason.  (Now might be a good time to mention that your own printer will require your own paper and back-up ink!) C’mon, you don’t have to be an Eagle Scout to be a great parent!

4. Run all applications software, drivers, and operating system updates. Launch every application and check for software functionality. A sub-tip to think about: Does your student have all the software they need for their specific course of study? A graphic design and illustration student will require different software (Photoshop, Illustrator) than a student who is geared more toward web design for example (Dreamweaver).  Most schools have access to deeply discounted or even free software, so check with your institution before you buy!

5. Last but not least: Plan for the worst! A hard drive crash, computer theft, or simply data corruption. Cloud-based backups fail all the time, and it never shows up until you attempt to retrieve lost data. Too Late! Make sure your student is equipped with a LOCAL BACK UP! Personally, I recommend a simple and inexpensive external hard drive to keep the files safe. Last thing you want is to hear, “I’ve been working for a month and my 50-page report vanished;” we know those tragedies all too well here.

Hopefully you will be able to use one or more of these computer tips to get ready for the upcoming school year. If you have any questions or want more information on how you can tackle the above, stop in or give us a call, 203-661-1700.

Jon Gould, General Manager of Computer SuperCenter, has been a fixture in the community for of 15 years, helping guide customers through their computer problems. As a parent of three girls and a business manager, he has seen it all.

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