This article will describe a few of them. The first step in protecting your children at the computer is to prevent their access to passwords. This will keep them from sharing passwords with others and inadvertently enabling hacking into your system. If you think about it, there's no reason why a five, seven, or even twelve year old needs to know the passwords to sensitive areas on the computer unless you've given them permission! A firewall is software that checks all data entering and exiting a computer and it then blocks that which doesn't meet specified security criteria (user-defined rules).1 5. Don't click on website links in spam messages. In an effort to obtain personal information, some spammers will send email that asks you to click on a link. Dust Kills Cleaning the Unit Fan is Essential Computer Care Between taking care of the household, the kids, the pets, and the district PTA, computer care is probably one of the last things that you think of doing on a regular basis. Without a regular maintenance schedule however, you could find out (the hard way) that a neglected computer is an energy hog - one that works harder than it needs to and one that could be a financial burden to replace. The Wikipedia encyclopedia claims that "Out of 1 billion camera phones to be shipped in 2008, Smartphones, the higher end of the market with full email support, will represent about 10% of the market or about 100 million units." But what is it that makes smartphones so appealing? As mentioned, smartphones give us the ability to not only carry our data around with us where ever we go, it also gives us the ability to edit that data any place - any time. Although this software does a pretty good job of removing unwanted programs, it can leave some files behind even after a complete uninstall - files which become orphan files. And it's these orphan files that can really clutter up a hard drive and shorten the life of an otherwise, young and robust PC. How much can you afford to spend on a new computer? Although the prices of computers are decreasing, they can still create a hefty expense especially if you need additional peripherals described above. In addition, you'll need to figure in costs for maintenance, servicing, and insuring. 4. Start comparison shopping and look for the "fastest and biggest.