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As advances in technology and the Internet have allowed websites to utilize a bevy of creative enhancements, website design developed into an art and a science. Advanced HTML and sophisticated software has thankfully rendered ugly frames a thing of the past, and layout possibilities are endless. However, there are still many elements to avoid that can cause visitors to wince, become frustrated, and ultimately leave your site in favor of another. As a website designer or someone seeking website design services, you may favor certain components. However, you must also realize that every website is different, and what may benefit one site may be detrimental to another. Below you’ll find a listing of five elements that should be used only if absolutely befitting of a website, or not at all. Text: Avoid using extra large or extra small text, and creative fonts that are hard to read. A website might have a great layout and creative graphics, but unnecessarily extra-large text can render that fancy layout displeasing. Worse still, it appears amateurish, unprofessional, and is the online equivalent of shouting. No one wants to be shouted at. Likewise, text that is too small will turn visitors away. Sometimes an amateur web designer might purposely lower the font size in order to fit more text within a certain area on a web page. A better option would be to have a copywriter examine the text to see if there is anything that could be deleted. Visitors who are confronted by a mass of tiny text will likely click away before reading a single word. Browsers today easily enable users to adjust the size of text as they see fit, so there really is no excuse for a website not to have text at a legible, reasonable size. There is also no excuse for text blocks written in an artistic, creative font, unless perhaps it is a website showcasing fonts. Creative fonts are best left for headlines or captions consisting of only a few words. They are meant to make a bold or stylized impression. If used throughout an entire sentence, or worse yet, several paragraphs, readers will become frustrated and give up. Pop-ups: Annoying and intrusive, they instantly create a negative impression. These days, there are several kinds of pop-ups webmasters and web designers may utilize, but most people agree: they are all annoying. The last thing a visitor to your website wants to see while viewing your content is a pop-up that suddenly obscures a portion of your page. Most browsers are now equipped with pop-up blockers, but they don’t block everything, and even when they do, it’s also annoying to receive a message that a pop-up has been blocked. Users prefer to have no interaction with pop-ups whatsoever, and a good website would be smart to avoid using them. Clutter: Information is great. Too much information is not. Visitors click on your site looking for information. They want to find that information quickly. If faced with a page showing dozens of links, multi-tiered drop-down menus, excessive paragraphs of text, pictures placed haphazardly, and virtually no discernable structure, they will leave. There is no need to compile as much information as possible onto a single web page. It’s understandable that a business might want to let visitors know about all aspects of a business, but certainly there is a better way to present it. Your home page should contain pertinent information about the company, the links leading to the expansions on what your company offers, sells, or promotes, and any additional links to other areas of the site, such as your company’s philosophy or contact information. Additionally, text should be laid out in a neat manner. One long block of text is frustrating to read. Separate paragraphs, and use bold captions to summarize content. Flash effects and animations: Flash is great, except when it delays access to information. Many templates are Flash based, and the allure of such creative bells and whistles may be hard to resist. Ultimately though, such effects can begin to wear thin on a visitors patience. Customers don’t care if a link vibrates, shakes, glows, rattles or dings when they hover the cursor over it or click on it. They just want to click-through to the next page. Additionally, unless your entire site is meant to be excessively creative, avoid using flash animations that last longer than a second or two, or need a few seconds to load before running. Delaying a visitor access to the information they seek will frustrate them. And don’t forget, many Internet users are still on dial-up, and flash animations will seriously hamper the performance of your website on computers with a slower internet connection. Large graphics: If you must use them, make sure they are optimized for the Web. Large images are fine if your website is showcasing art or photography; visitors expect it then. But otherwise, large graphics or images can look sloppy and worse yet, slow down a web page’s loading time if not optimized for the Web. Again, someone on dial-up is not going to wait 30 seconds for an image to load. The website design professionals at Active Web Group know how to design a creative, engaging website that functions efficiently and delivers a rewarding user experience. Active Web Group is Long Island’s leading full-service online marketing agency. Please view our web design portfolio, and be sure to follow AWG on Twitter for online marketing tips, news, and information.

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You can make a safe assumption that the reason I am visiting your online store is because I have an intention to buy something from you. All I need from you is to help me find what I am looking for and then take me from point A (product page) to point B (checkout). I am ready to fork over my money if you show me a clear path. So it is up to you to decide how easy or difficult you want my journey to be.

15 Conversion Hot Spots

1. Don’t Require Registration. Do not force me to register during the checkout process. If I click on checkout, that is usually a safe assumption that I have made a decision to purchase. Please get out of my way so you can take my money as quickly as possible before I change my mind. Don’t present me with unnecessary registration steps or other information that would slow me down. If you want to give me an option to register after the checkout is complete, sure, I will consider it.
2. Write for Humans. Remember that Google is not your target customer – I am. Don’t write your product descriptions or other content containing tons of SEO keywords with a sole purpose to please Google. Sure you need to focus on SEO but the product description has to make sense to customers first. At the end of the day, you might get a good ranking on Google but if consumers don’t understand the content on your site, you will not win.
3. Watch Out-of-stock Items. Don’t let me add something to the cart if later you will tell me that it is out of stock. If you already know that something is out of stock, can you please show that upfront on the product page so we don’t waste each other’s time?
4. Delete Empty Categories. Do you have categories that do not have any products online? Can you please disable those categories so that I don’t have to click those categories, just to find a “No Products Found” message?
5. Clean-up Your Home Page. Just because you have a lot of promotions and products on your site, you don’t have to show all of them on your home page. Please keep the home page clean and focus only on few key promotional or merchandise messages that truly tell a compelling story. If you have more than 100 links on your home page, you are trying too hard.
6. Establish an Arrival Date. It would be nice to know when I will receive an item – not just when you plan to ship it. You know my zip code – you know the delivery times with UPS and FedEx, you know your processing time – so can you please show me a date when I should expect to see the item at my door instead of having me do all guesswork in my head?
7. Don’t Over-recommend. If I add something to the shopping cart, please show me the cart before showing any other recommendations or offers that I might be interested in. Don’t slow me down by showing 10 recommendations before I get to my cart page. I have a short attention span and if I get overwhelmed with too much unnecessary information, I might just leave.
8. Be Careful with Email Addresses. If you take my email address during checkout, please make good use of it. For example, if would be nice of you to follow up few days later to check if the item arrived properly, and if I would be interested in writing a review for the item. I don’t mind writing an honest review – you just have to ask and remind me. Which is a good segue to the next point.
9. Don’t Change Negative Reviews. If I write a negative review about a product, please don’t go out of the way to moderate the review to put a positive spin to my content. Please remember that customer reviews are supposed to be unbiased and any attempt from your side to hide or suppress the negative reviews is a sure way to lose trust with your loyal customers.
10. Disclose Final Price Early-on. Don’t wait until the final step in the checkout to show me the final price including the coupon discounts, taxes and shipping costs. I would like to know that information at the shopping cart page so there are no surprises during the final step. If you need my zip code in the shopping cart page to calculate these costs, just ask me and I will be happy to provide that information to you. Which leads me to the next point.
11. Avoid Duplicate Entries. If I have told you anything about myself such as my zip code, please try to remember it. Don’t make me re-enter that information at the time of checkout. There is a good probability that I will not change that information, but just give me an option to change it later if I need to.
12. Help Customers Reach You. Please don’t try to hide your contact information just because you want to minimize the number of customer service calls. If you have an 800 number hidden somewhere on the site, please display it prominently. Customers need to know upfront that there is an easy way to contact you if something goes wrong with their order.
13. Don’t Ask for Too Much Info. When I am providing my credit card information, you really don’t have to ask me what type of credit card it is because you can figure it out from my credit card number. Just show me the credit card type for confirmation and I will let you know if there is a problem.
14. Simplify Security Checks. While you are thinking about that checkout experience, can you also do something about that Captcha? It is nice to know that you are concerned about our security and want to make sure that I am a human. But for the sake of humanity, please don’t make me decipher that 10-character Captcha image. Just try to keep it simple, if possible.
15. Turn Off Advertising. If you display any AdSense ads on your retail store, can you please turn those off? That sends a mixed message to me as a customer. If you are truly an online retailer, your focus should be on selling products, not making a few bucks from customers who accidentally click on those ads and end up somewhere else.

Some of the above points may seem obvious but it is amazing to see even large online retailers who end up building complex checkout processes, overlooking some of these points just because they have a complex business. If you think from customer’s perspective, they really don’t care about complexities in business – they are looking for a simple and intuitive shopping experience. David Montalvo is the CEO of UnReal Web Marketing LLC . He has achieved over 100,000 top 10 positions for Fortune 500 companies since 1997.

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Dealing with Identity Theft By Scott Nesbitt – Sunday, July 12, 2009

It starts off innocuously enough. A few small purchases that you don’t quite remember making appear on your credit card or debit card statement. They look plausible, but you’re busy and will check them out later. Then the real fun begins. Someone racks up a credit card bill of several hundred dollars in a state you’ve never been to. You get a phone call wanting to confirm the purchase of a laptop computer for someone overseas. A bank or finance company starts calling you about payments on a car loan or mortgage that you know nothing about. Welcome to a club that has several million members in the United States alone. If something like that’s happened to you, then you’re the victim of identity theft. If it hasn’t happened to you, then you might want to read this TechTip for advice on how to protect yourself from identity theft. Just what is identity theft anyway? As its name states, identity theft (also called identity fraud) involves someone assuming your identity. Their reason for doing it is pretty easy to understand. They want to get hold of your money (or worse). They want to defraud companies. They want to accumulate cash and goods, on your dime, for personal gain or satisfaction. The key point, and the key danger, of identity theft is that someone is pretending to be you in order to commit a crime. They’re using your name, your Social Security Number (or the equivalent in wherever you live), and maybe even your own financial accounts to do illegal deeds. And identity theft isn’t just limited to taking your money or using your name to defraud. Some perpetrate identity theft for spying, blackmail, drug trafficking, or money laundering. The different forms of identity theft Most cases of identity theft fall into two categories. The first, and best known, is financial identity theft. This involves someone accessing your bank, credit card, and investment accounts. From there, they gradually bleed your money away or just snatch away outright. The other category is criminal identity theft. That’s when someone becomes you. It might be a criminal on the run, or someone who is trying to make a clean break with their past. They assume your identity – including your education and work history – in order to find legitimate work or to build a new life for themselves. How the identity thieves can sting you There are a number of ways that this can happen, both offline and online. In the online world, one of the most popular of these is the use of fraud emails. Some of these emails will alert you to a situation with an account – for example, at a bank, with eBay, or with PayPal. Of course, the email includes a link. You click that link and you’re taken to a Web page that’s a better-than-decent facsimile of a legitimate site. Once there, you’re expected to enter your account and personal information. And you can imagine what happens after that. This sort of thing is easy to spot (as you’ll see soon), but a lot of people do fall for it. Another way identity thieves can catch you is by hijacking a legitimate online merchant’s payment page. You know the one, where you enter your address and credit card information. Unfortunately, that page is one the identity thieves have set up and your information becomes theirs to toy with. In the offline world, it can be quite easy for someone to get information from you. Sometimes, all it takes is a phone call. Many people don’t think twice about answering certain questions. It can be an easy matter for someone to lift documents that contain your vital information. More than a couple of unfortunates have been stung by simply tossing bank statements or pay slips into their garbage or recycling. Some bold thieves will actually steal mail from mailboxes. It’s amazing what information people can glean from your bills or even a letter from the tax man. And let’s not forget about someone lifting your wallet. Far too many people carry far too much identification with themselves, making their wallets a treasure trove of personal information that an identity thief can use. Don’t become a victim There are a number of ways in which you can protect yourself from identity theft. The most important of these is to keep your wits about you. If you’re vigilant, your chances of getting taken are reduced. If you’re disposing of old documents – like pay stubs and bills – don’t throw them out or recycle them. If you can, shred those documents using a cross cut shredder. This type of shredder doesn’t cut paper into strips, but turns it into confetti. A number of these types of shredders can also grind up old credit and bank cards. When at an ATM or making a purchase with a debit card, shield the keypad with your hand or with your wallet. You never know who’s looking over your shoulder. Speaking of wallets, try to lighten your load a little. Don’t carry all of your ID with you. If possible, take only what you need. When doing a secure transaction online (or one that you think is secure), look in the bottom right corner of your Web browser window. You should see a padlock icon. If you double click that icon, a smaller window will open that shows you the security information for the page and site. One way that many Web sites ensure their security is by getting a signed digital certificate. Most sites get their certificates from certificate authorities. Two of the best know certificate authorities are VeriSign and Thwate. In fact, most Web sites use them; you can generally trust sites with certificates from either firm. Earlier, I talked about fraud emails. The easiest way to not be taken in is to read those messages carefully and not to click the links. If you do click a link, remember to check your Web browser’s address bar. The URL won’t be one that you’ll recognize; it will probably be a strange, long, and convoluted address. Remember: if in doubt, don’t click any suspect link or give out your information either online or over the phone. Check the source out. Recently, a friend of mine got a new credit card. He received a strange phone call purporting to be from the bank that issued the card. The call was to confirm an online transaction he’d made. My friend wouldn’t confirm anything, and he called the bank immediately to check this out. It turns out that the call was legitimate. It could have gone the other way, though. What to do if you’re a victim Even if the identity thief has only made a few small, illicit purchases, contact your local or national law enforcement authorities. Get a copy of their report and, if possible, the case number. You may need this information for the next steps. Next, contact your bank, financial institution, or credit card company. Close any accounts that have been compromised. If the identity thief has opened any other accounts in your name, close them if you can. Then, contact all of the credit bureaus in your area. In North America, there are three: TransUnion, EquiFax, and Experian. Let them know that you’ve been the victim of identity theft and that a fraud alert should be applied to your accounts. By doing this, the identity thief will not be able to open a new account; a representative of the financial firm will have to contact you first. In the United States, a key piece of government-issued identification is the Social Security Number. Many other countries have something similar – like the Social Insurance Number in Canada. An identity thief can do a lot of damage if he or she gets hold of that information. In the United States, contact the Social Security Administration (or the equivalent department in your country) to report a theft. If the identity thieves have really been active, it can take a long time for you to clear up the mess. Your credit rating could be damaged, even just temporarily. You’ll face a lot of stress, and probably a number of collection calls and letters. And there’s a good chance that you won’t be able to prosecute the thief. That person may never be caught. Where you can go for more information If you need more information about identity theft and what to do about it, there’s a lot of information available from government departments around the world. In the United States, check out the Web sites of the Federal Trade Commission and the Department of Justice. The Canadian Privacy Commissioner and Minster of Public Safety also have more information. For some reason, Europeans seem to be less susceptible to identity theft. Even so, you can get information on this subject from the European Anti-Fraud Office. Australia has an anti-fraud awareness week, and in New Zealand identity theft is rare but the government has at least one Web page discussing it. Do you have any tips about avoiding identity theft? If so, feel free to leave a comment on this TechTip.

Computer Geeks – Your #1 Source for Computer Parts! Disclaimer: Occasionally we miss something, make a mistake, or don’t cover everything on the topic but we are trying hard to give you the most unbiased and well-written information that we can. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 2.5 License. © Copyright 1996-2009 Geeks.com™ All Rights Reserved

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Tip of the Week

High Performance Vista

Microsoft Vista comes with a new set of battery and power plans.  If Vista seems a bit slower than you anticipated it because the default power setting limits the CPU to 50 percent.

For high performance:

• Click Start, Click on Control Panel
• Open the Power Options control panel and change it to High Performance to give push your processor to its top rated speed.

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Upgrades
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When it comes to decorating your home with furniture there is always lots of talk about the interior. However the outside of your home should be given as much importance as the interior. This is not just in terms of the looks but also in terms of comfort, practicality and relaxation.

You can make the outside of your home as interesting and appealing as the interior by incorporating state of the art Outdoor Furniture. From amongst the options that you have is to incorporate a beautiful teak wood set of chairs and a table. This would work wonders next to a beautiful garden setting. A teak wood set will provide for hours of priceless entertainment outside your home but inside your boundary walls.

If you want to add something unique to your garden setting then you can go for an outdoor garden rocking chair. This is a wooden product that is big and bulky in size yet lightweight and durable. It makes a great addition to any garden whatsoever. You can go old school with specially developed old Adirondack chairs that will act as a great complimentary furniture item to the rocking chairs mentioned above.

If you are looking for some decorative elements for your garden then you might want to explore the collection of outdoor fire pits by Onewayfurniture.com. Add a touch of gothic serenity with these bold and beautiful fire pits designed to create an awe inspiring ambiance. Specially crafted Patio Furniture can also turn your backyard into a very inviting area of your home.

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Those looking for contemporary style furniture will find the collection of modern beds by the company to be very impressive. Amongst the ultra modern sets is the Modloft Monroe Platform Bed with Side Lights & Nightstands. Make the ultimate statement with the unique style and design of this bedroom set. The design is compact yet practical and spacious enough to provide you with ultimate comfort. The low rise slender construction of the bed gives it a sleek look where as the espresso finish lends it class.

The company also produces a host of traditional style bedroom furniture. The Hillsdale Brook land Leather Bed Bedroom Furniture Set in espresso has the traditional square box construction with a simple yet imposing design. The dark colored complimenting dresser and cupboard give your bedroom serial appeal.

Another unique concept to bedroom furniture is that of transitional beds. This is a fusion between traditional designs and modern concepts. The results of this fusion can be a sleigh design bed with a metallic finish giving a totally different look to your bedroom. The source sited above also produces a bedroom sets for children in its collection of Baby Furniture items.

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By Bryan Lambert – Sunday, June 14, 2009

ONE – It’s all about the results baby!

Face it, why do more people today use Google than any other search engine out there? In a word, results – pertinent results to what you’re looking for. However, sometimes to get the results you want, you have to wade through a lot of chaff. It’s analogous to dumping a waste can of papers onto the floor and searching for one tiny scrap. With Bing, you get “enhanced results” – what I mean by that is that you get intelligently organized results quickly and efficiently. With many of the search results, you can hover over the right-hand side and get a pop-up window with more information on that particular result. However, along with these results you also will find that you have a plethora of refinement tools to drill down to exactly what you’re looking for. These refinement tools brings us to reason Two.

TWO – The silver platter – that cool left-hand navigation pane

Under the heading of “how could something so simple and elegant be so powerful,” you can now add Bing’s left-hand navigation pane. This pane saves you so many steps in searches that in a short time you’ll wonder how you lived without it. With it, you get your search results categorized, possible related searches, a “reference” pulled from Wikipedia (if one exists), a quick link to images and videos as well your search history – all in one convenient package. Speaking of images and videos, let’s take a look at reasons Three and Four.

THREE and FOUR – Images and Videos done right

Every search engine can search images and videos, and they can mostly come up with what you want – but many times the presentation leaves a lot to be desired. With Bing you get image and video results on steroids. For instance, with the image results it is actually possible to just continually scroll down (instead of hitting next, next, next), and the next set of images are dynamically loaded (they call this the “infinite scroll” feature). Also, with the image results you get some really cool filters (in that nifty left-hand navigation pane) that filter not just by size, but by layout, color, type and “people” (very cool). Hover over an image, and you can also get an option to “show similar images.”

The videos are cool in that if you hover over the video, it starts playing a snippet of it right in the search result box (some have complained about this, but the content filter is set to “moderate safe” by default – turn it off and you see that same kind of “results” you’d see on any other video search engine (just without the auto-playing snippet part)). The videos too have easy to use filters in the left-hand navigation pane such as length, screen size, resolution and source just as the images have. Click on a video and a larger version of it pops to the top of the results page giving you the option to watch it right there, or go to the actual website. It is actually this and other little things that really make Bing shine. Speaking of little things, this brings us to reason Five.

FIVE – The little things

There are so many little cool things that come along with Bing that it is hard to know where to start. From “instant answers” where you can literally type in “traffic” and get your local traffic, to its Local Search (which runs circles around other local search features I’ve seen on other search engines), you’ll be amazed at the usefulness of the Local Search features where you can not only find what you’re looking for, but can get one-click directions and a bird’s eye view. It seems the folks at Microsoft sat down and decided to do the search engine right – or rather decided to bring the search engine, rather, decision engine into the 21st century. All this and I haven’t even touched on the travel or shopping features of Bing. For more information, I’d really recommend checking out Bing’s product guide at http://www.discoverbing.com/.

Final Words

Really, the more you play around with Bing, the more you’ll love it. Now, I know that some of you are thinking that Google fulfills all your search needs and that “Bing is just there to be there” so why bother checking it out. To this I say, “give it a try” (or as Microsoft would say, “Bing and decide”), and you too will find out why Microsoft’s Bing will outshine Google.

Computer Geeks – Your #1 Source for Computer Parts! Disclaimer: Occasionally we miss something, make a mistake, or don’t cover everything on the topic but we are trying hard to give you the most unbiased and well-written information that we can. Computer Geeks 1890 Ord Way Oceanside, CA 92056 | www.GEEKS.com This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 2.5 License. © Copyright 1996-2009 Geeks.com™ All Rights Reserved

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by Lee Koo (ADMIN) – 5/29/09 1:02 PM

Is there a life expectancy on external hard drives?

I have been using the same 250GB external hard drive for more than five years. I backup quicken files, thousands of photos and a lot of other files to a portable drive several times a year. I would like to know if it has a life expectancy and should I eventually retire it? Are there maintenance procedures that will enable me to prolong the life of these drives or is it just a matter of luck when it goes south? Thanks so much!

Submitted by: Ted V.

Here are some featured member answers to get you started, but
please read all the advice and suggestions that our
members have contributed to this question.

Life expectancy of external hard drives varies –Submitted by ben_myers
http://forums.cnet.com/5208-7588_102-0.html?messageID=3048631#3048631

Life span? Definitely! –Submitted by Zorched
http://forums.cnet.com/5208-7588_102-0.html?messageID=3048701#3048701

Life expectancy –Submitted by Hforman
http://forums.cnet.com/5208-7588_102-0.html?messageID=3048661#3048661

Do external hard drives have a life expectancy? –Submitted by StephanBer
http://forums.cnet.com/5208-7588_102-0.html?messageID=3048643#3048643

Life of an external hard drive –Submitted by waytron
http://forums.cnet.com/5208-7588_102-0.html?messageID=3048865#3048865

Is there a life expectancy on external hard drives? –Submitted by alswilling
http://forums.cnet.com/5208-7588_102-0.html?messageID=3049941#3049941

If you have additional information and advice for Ted, please click on the reply link and post your answer. Please provide as much detail and information as possible in your answer. If you have proven facts, laboratory researches done, or referenced materials done for this topic please cite those resource and links in your answers to give credit to those folks who deserve it. Thank you!

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Vendor-built Computers pitfalls

If you order a computer built by a vendor such as Dell or Gateway or HP (or if you purchase one off the shelf from Wal-Mart), you are getting pretty good systems for the money, and I don’t fault you for getting your systems that way rather than custom home-built or custom built at a local shop where you can tell the vendor exactly what you want and expect to get.

However, there are pitfalls to those systems that you need to be aware of and protect yourself from. Here are a few of things you can expect and not be able to change.

1. Vendors will create their own installation disk called a Master/Restore/Recovery disk and it will include everything on one cd…….your Windows version, all drivers for the computer built, special programs as a ‘bonus’, propaganda advertising hidden as tours, tutorials, a lite versions of programs that are limited in function in the hopes that you will upgrade to full-featured programs for more money, spam/spyware that phone home behind your back when you’re on the net that track your surfing, antivirus programs that are trial/demo versions only but unless you read this carefully you will be under the assumption that you don’t ever have to upgrade/renew and that you got this ‘bonus’ as a freebie just because they like you, and more than likely you will have an extra partition created that holds restore/recovery information with a shortcut icon to it on your desktop so if you need to reinstall a file, you can use that shortcut to do so. The reason for this is that if you can use the shortcut to replace/restore a file or add a component, you won’t have to use the Master/Restore/Recovery disk which normally will automatically format the drive and start you back all over to where the system was the day you got it (and wipe out all the stuff on the harddrive in the process causing you to lose all your files before you have backed them up).

2. Many vendor’s disks are PROPRIETARY to the computer built at that time. If you replace ANY of the hardware (including getting a new harddrive or adding ram), the cd will NOT work to restore/format the drive to start over on a clean install because the hardware has changed from what the cd expects it to be. In that case, you are stuck in a dark and scary place knowing you have a system that has been formatted without any way to get it back up and running again. You have the option of saving your old hardware and temporarily putting it back in (or removing extra ram you installed), getting the system back up and running, then removing the old hardware again or adding your ram back in and going from there…….this is a huge pain in the butt and inconvenient and unfair as all get out. But it also means that you may panic and take the machine back to where it came from (ship to Dell/Gateway/local vendor but never Wal-Mart) and paying somebody else to ‘fix’ it for you when you shouldn’t have to do this.

So what can you do to protect yourself? Here are a few ideas.

1. First and foremost………as soon as you get your system home and set up, pop in a blank cd and burn two or three copies of the vendor cd immediately. If you should EVER lose that original, you will be S-O-L trying to get a new one from the vendor or you will have to wait a long time to get it or you will pay for it dearly, when you’ve already paid for it once. ALWAYS WRITE DOWN THE PRODUCT CODE KEY FOR THE WINDOWS INSTALLATION….TAPE IT TO YOUR COMPUTER, WRITE IT ON THE CD ITSELF, WRITE IT ON THE CD JEWEL CASE. Cover your butt because if you take it back to a shop somewhere and forget to bring your own cd and code key, they will use an OEM cd from the shop and the product code key will be THEIRS and not yours. You might not be able to activate XP if they use a temporary setup at their shop and it expires after 30 days.

2. Always assume that vendors and ISP providers are going to LIE to you. They figure if you don’t know enough about computers that you brought the system to them to fix it in the first place, they can get away with telling you/selling you anything….and if your modem can’t connect, it will ALWAYS be your fault and not a problem with their servers at their end. You must have messed with the settings or got hijacked is what you will be told, in addition to being told to ‘bring it in and we’ll set it back up for you’…….and it will cost you a minimum of $50 for that ‘service’.

3. Insist when ordering your computer to be built that they give you SEPARATE installation disks for everything they are going to install. That means a Windows install disk, drivers disks for each piece of hardware, and install cd’s for all programs they have installed. It costs them 20 cents for a cd and about two minutes to burn each one….tell them you will pay an extra $25 to get separate cd’s. Most will do this for you…..but people don’t realize they have the right to demand it so the subject never comes up.

4. Insist that they give you a MOTHERBOARD manual, not just a crappy user manual that gives you a tutorial about hooking up your speakers/monitor/keyboard/mouse to the case when you bring it home. A motherboard manual will tell you everything you need to know about that board and what it is capable of being upgraded to later on, and if you have on-board sound or graphics rather than separate cards inside the case. Also insist on getting the motherboard drivers cd so you will have them handy should you format the drive to start over.

5. Burn two or three copies of every cd you get and use the COPIES to do your installations with later on. Save the originals in a safe place so if the copy goes bad/gets scratched, you can burn more copies from the original.

6. If you have the extra money to spend while ordering your computer, and if the vendor says he can’t give you separate disks for everything, tell him you want an OEM full or update install version of the Windows at the very least. This may cost you an extra hundred or so, but with it you will have the choice later on of downloading newest drivers for all of your hardware and burning it all to a cd including motherboard drivers, and then if you want to start from scratch without using the vendor specific cd, you can install everything separately yourself….and save money in the long run. The update cd has exactly the same information on it as the full version and will only ask you to prove via the installation that you have another version of windows that makes you eligible for the update. Inserting an old W98/ME cd into the drive when asked for it gives you that proof. The rule has always been that if you buy a piece of hardware from a vendor (and a system qualifies), you can get an OEM version of Windows……so get one….and make sure they give you the Product Code Key that goes with it.

7. Now that you have protected yourself and become more knowledgeable about your rights as a buyer, have a good time with the new toy.

TONI

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