Your PC is very much like a vehicle, normal maintenance is key for best performance over time.  At least once a year, your PC should go through a cleansing process.  Remove old programs, make sure a defrag is run, check your anti-virus/spyware/spam programs for expiration, clean the registry, etc.  This also needs to be done without corrupting the things you need.  All too often a user will uninstall a critical program or power down a computer without waiting for a clean defrag stop.

The biggest complaint that we hear at ITCS is "Who am I supposed to call when I have computer issues?"  Well, that is simple, you get in contact with us!  There are currently more home computers that are out of warranty than covered under manufacturer's warranty.  And with the current economy, everyone is looking to stretch their current investment.

When purchasing a PC today, you have more options than you can shake your finger at.  You have options on where to purchase, you have options on how you want your system to be, options for type, size, speed, etc.  All these options can make even the most sane person question their sanity.  We are worried that we are spending too much for a system that is too beefy for our need, or just the flip side of that, where we are worried that we aren't getting a strong enough system.  So, what are you to do?  Well, this guide is intended to help you make an educated choice for your next system.

Backups today for the home user are becoming increasingly difficult.  First, we could back up to floppy disks.  Almost all of our data could fit on a few.  We also had the option of a tape backup, which was cumbersome and unreliable.  Then, writing to CD seemed the option that would always be able to hold everything we needed, and when the writable DVD's came out, we were in 7th heaven.