Main Points Made on Show Today

Guest, Antonio Thornton, Chief Information Officer with Les Systems 
www.lessystems.com.

Be careful. A lot of viruses are going around. As always, Peggy reminds us to keep our antivirus software up to date.

Also, when someone sends you an e-mail warning you about a virus, always check its validity before you do anything. A lot of times these are hoaxes, and some even instruct you to delete certain files off your computer! Before you do anything, go to www.sarc.com and search for the virus (or hoax) by name.

There's a new technology newspaper entitled Blinks. See details on www.blinks.net. Peggy will start a technology column (software tips) in this monthly paper. She also publishes a new article on their Web site each month.

If you need a Web site for your company, find help at www.theabl.org. Search for member companies that can help you. Make sure your marketing plan is in place first. Do your homework before you spend your money!

To save time, especially when you have an older computer that takes forever to boot, leave it on (just turn off the monitor). If your computer goes into sleep mode when it's idle, you can change the feature. To learn about the options that suit how you work, click Start, Help, go to the Index tab, and search for "sleep," "hibernate," or "standby." 

To help your system boot quicker, you can also reduce the number of programs that start when you start Windows. 

1. Click Start, point to Programs, click Startup. This will give you a list of programs that start when you turn on your PC.

2. Right-click the program you don't want to start with Windows, and select Delete (repeat for each one). This deletes the automatic startup: it doesn’t delete the program.

3. Now click Start, Run. Type "msconfig" (without the quotes) in the box, and click OK. Click the Startup tab. Deselect any programs that you do not need to start up automatically. If you're not sure what a program is, leave it checked!