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If Something Goes Wrong
Develop good computing habits
❖
Connect your computer directly to your router or broadband
modem, by plugging a standard CAT5 Ethernet patch cable
(sold separately) into your computer's RJ45 Ethernet port. If
your connection problem disappears, the problem lies in the
Wi-Fi
®
part of your network.
❖
If you have enabled any security provisions (closed system,
MAC address filtering, Wired Equivalent Privacy [WEP], etc.),
check the access point vendor's Web site for recent firmware
upgrades. Problems with WEP keys, in particular, are
frequently addressed in new firmware releases.
Develop good computing habits
Save your work frequently.
You can never predict when your computer will lock, forcing you to
close a program and lose unsaved changes. Many software
programs build in an automatic backup, but you should not rely
solely on this feature. Save your work! See
for instructions.
On a regular basis, back up the information stored on your
internal storage drive.
Use Windows
®
to back up files, or the entire computer, to an optical
disc, or external hard disk. Here are some ways you can do this:
❖
Use the Windows
®
operating system to back up files or your
entire computer to an optical disc, or external hard disk.
❖
Copy files to a rewritable external storage device.
❖
Connect your computer to the office network and copy files to
your network partition.
Some people use a combination of these methods, backing up all
files weekly and copying critical files to external media on a daily
basis.
If you have installed your own programs, you should back up these
programs as well as your data files. If something goes wrong that
requires you to reformat your internal storage drive and start again,
reloading all your programs and data files from a backup source
will save time.
