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When choosing your computer, either as a stand-alone computer or a computer that connects to a network, the first question anyone should be asking is this:
What am I going to use the computer for?
This question contains many factors and the following should be considered:
- How long do I expect the computer to last?
- Where is the computer going to be located? Is it likely to end up full of dust or pet hair?
- What sort of ongoing maintenance should I expect to keep the computer optimized?
- Am I using this computer for office applications, games, browsing the Internet, reading e-mail, something else or a combination of these?
- Do I think the applications I am going to use are going to be upgraded beyond this computer? Will I need the computer to be upgraded at some stage?
- Am I connecting the computer to a network, if not, is there a chance that one day it may need to be connected to a network?
- What sort of devices do I want to connect the computer to? Is it a printer, scanner, backup system, USB camera or something else?
At Craig Allan Solutions, we take the time to listen to your requirements and rather than have a standard system that appears to be “unique to everyone’s needs”, actually source the components based upon your requirements.
We do have standard features on certain computers, such as internet security and backup systems, however these are “tried and true” systems designed to make the best use of your computer using minimum system resources.
Often one of the misconceptions in a business environment when it comes to computers is this:
The computer can be:
- Running the latest game I just loaded onto it
- Downloading music off the internet (illegally)
- Talking to my friends all over the world who are sending me jokes by e-mail
- Playing an online game
- Personalizing my private web pages
...all while using the computer for business purposes.
The fact is this:
By doing the above on an office computer, you are risking the following:
- Opening your computer to attacks through vulnerabilities caused by programs that open “back doors” and allow people to access your computer or viruses to enter your computer.
- If your computer is on a network, you are risking the entire network and all files on the server to be altered, deleted or stolen by a computer “hijacker”
- Slowing the computer down and potentially slowing the entire network down. Files that people may believe to be stored on the network may become corrupt due to excessive network traffic
- Opening the business owner to be liable for illegal content, whether this be music, pictures, videos or documents, and prosecution from the owners of such material that has been downloaded and stored on your computer.
Craig Allan Solutions have been working in the I.T. industry for over six years prior to our assistance solely with the pet industry and have seen our fair share of these things happen. The most common request is to “upgrade the computer because it’s running too slowly”. The more programs you put on a computer, the more chance this will take a service of the operating system and continually poll network cards, memory and external devices. This will in turn cause the computer to appear to be running slowly. Simply deleting the applications associated with these often rogue programs and scanning for spyware and viruses makes a dramatic improvement without the need to upgrade hardware components. Depending on the level that spyware and viruses have infected the computer, we have been in most cases, able to restore a computer to near 100% optimization.
One of our workstation computers in action with PetAdmin installed. Pictures taken at and with kind permission from Susan at Killarney Kennels. Visit our links for more information on Killarney Kennels.
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