The learning curve for starting an online business is, to put it mildly, daunting. At its worst it can be a non-technical person’s worst nightmare.

I’m not a technophobe, but I do have limits on what I’m able to handle in the way of troubleshooting computer systems. To set up a home office that will handle a shared, high-speed Internet connection and accommodate three or four networked computers is pretty much at the outer boundaries of my expertise.

Fortunately, I was smart enough to ask a friend who is an IT Consultant for help in cutting that learning curve down to size. I’ve always been told, "Do what you’re good at and hire others to do what you’re not good at."

I returned the favor by connecting him with someone who could optimize his websites to rank higher in Google’s Search Engine listings. As Hannibal often said on The A-Team, "I love it when a plan comes together."

With the purchase of my new computer for my business, I have purchased a customer service plan for my computer.  This not only includes regular maintenance, but it also telephone computer support should I run into problems.

You might wonder why I would spend the money to get service like this, but the reasoning is simple: time is money.  This is especially important in my line of work as every moment that I don’t have the use of the computer, my business is bleeding money.  Too many minutes of downtime, means that I would be broke.

You could argue that I could buy software to keep my computer running at tip-top shape, but when I can’t figure something out, or the computer is non-responsive, will the software help me out?  I think not.

So, is it worth it?  You bet.  It is nice to know that there will be someone on the other end of the phone that would be happy to help me out with my computer problems at a moments notice.

I was hired a few months ago to do some registry cleaner reviews for our local paper. Part of my job is to take different products and write comparison reviews. We have slowly been moving to the technical side and I find myself having to do a lot more research, as I do not know the products well.

The nice thing about doing a Registry Mechanic review is that I get to purchase and try the software. I am sure that my computer has never been as clean as it is now. I would not have believed the amount of complete garbage that was on my machine if I had not seen it for myself.

What is even worse is that was just on my machine at work. I am sure that it would be even worse to run it on my home machine that has several different people using it. In the end, I decided that I liked what I had read most on RegCure reviews and that is the software that I, myself, decided to purchase and try. I was not disappointed and I would strongly recommend this product.

Most of the time when I leave my computer on and running, I lock it just before I walk away.  We have little children and a pet cat, so I don’t want anyone to push the wrong set of buttons and ruin my computer.

I hope you noticed I said most of the time.

You see, yesterday I made the mistake of not locking my computer.  The result of that is my cat decided to walk on the keyboard, and I lost pretty much everything.  Now, don’t ask me how a cat can delete data, but somehow she did it.

I tried the Photo Recovery Software I had on hand, and it didn’t work.  Same goes with the Recovery My Files Software that didn’t work either.

In desperation, I have taken it down to the local computer repair store where they will use their hard drive data recovery software, and hopefully they will be able to recover my data.  If I end up losing everything, I just don’t know what I will do.

I don’t know if it that important to put on a home computer, but I am looking into getting some Internet privacy software. I think that even though it is just the family using the computer, it is a good idea that we keep our things protected. You just never know if a babysitter might use the computer and we do have private financial information on it.

It was suggested that we buy some Anonymizer software for the computer. Apparently this makes anything that we do on the Internet untraceable. Things, such as online banking. This is information that I don’t believe is any of anyone else’s business.

I would just feel better knowing that we have some Privacy Controls software installed on the computer. We may never have a use for it, but it is worth it for my peace of mind. My husband agreed that if it would make me feel better than I should go ahead and do it. I am not sure exactly what to get, but I know if I ask the boys at my computer store they will help me out.

As some of you know, I used to do a lot of computer consulting.  I don’t do it much anymore as I had a bad customer in the past that soured the whole experience for me.  But, I still help my existing customers, and today I found myself out fixing computers.

The reason that I was called out was that they needed a formatted hard drive recovery.  It seems that the child of my client accidentally formatted their work computer.  Unfortunately, they had no backup of the data on the machine, so it was up to me to get everything sorted out.

This wasn’t the first time that I had this experience, and I had some disk recovery software with me for situations just like this.  Sure, the software was not cheap, but it has made my life much easier.

It only took about an hour for me to complete the hard disk recovery and I was able to save her data.  I also showed her how to lock her computer to hopefully prevent this situation from occurring again.

I went over to my grandmother’s house the other day to visit.  She is getting old (about 85 now) but her mind is all there.  In fact, she has taken it upon herself to learn how to use a computer and has been learning on her own.

I am very proud of her because most of her friends wouldn’t even touch a computer.  She has actually tried to get some of her neighbors in her condo complex to try out her computer, but most of them show no interest.

Her learning curve has been steep but she has been up to the challenge.  She has shown me the many things that she has done and tried out on her computer.  While at her house to have coffee she shared her latest computer learning adventure.

You see, she told me that she was getting a weird popup each time she started her machine telling her that she had a registry error.  Not knowing what it was, she searched online for the best registry repair tools.  She found a couple of products and printed out reviews about those products.

In between knitting mittens she read the Regcure review and the Registry Easy review (she showed me the printouts).  She told me that she made her decision based on the reviews and purchased the Registry Easy software for her machine.

She even managed to show me how she did it on her computer and I was impressed.  If the software is so easy that my grandmother can fix her own computer, it must be good.  I think I might have to buy it for myself.