Pre-Season Fast Start 5 Update

If you are familiar with the 30 Day Challenge, you understand what I mean by 'Pre-Season'.
As for the PTR, I have found that many of my beta-testers are having issues with just getting their computers and web browsers to work correctly. So this post is a pre-emptive strike to get folks alert to what they are doing with their computers. Again, learning how to do this yourself is a critical outcome - if you are having trouble - 'just Google it', and see if you can find the solution.

#1) go check if you have the latest windows updates! If you are not up to speed here you will not be able to upgrade your browser. It's very important to have the latest security patches on your machines.

#2) go check your virus software! Do you have any? Is it up to date? It's easy to ignore it until you download a virus and then you can't get into your machine or online to get the latest update to kill off that virus. I have had great success with Avast. They even have a free home addition.

#3) go check your spyware protection. Do you have any? Is it up to date? Same thing goes here, keep it up to date and it will save you some huge problems. Whether it's a virus or a 'malware' problem - it will ruin your day (& your computer if you are not up to speed with the latest updates. I have had good success with 2 programs, Super Anti-Spyware and MalwareBytes. They have saved the home system a number of times.

That said you should have these all on auto-updates so you get the latest & greatest as it happens. When I get a virus, I run one program after the other until they give me an 'all clear'.
There have been times it's taken multiple cycles to quarnatine the problems.

#4) Update your Internet Explorer browser. You should have IE8 on your machine and have it up to date with the latest patches. When I hear about sites not looking right or slowness problems, here's a good place to start.

#5) Do you have backup? I bet ya don't! My computer guy turned me on to Carbonite after testing out a couple of others that sounded great. Carbonite is VERY cost effective and gives you off-line backup to cover worst case scenarios.

#6) BONUS. Go get an additional hard drive. Hard Drive prices have plummeted! Years ago we bought a Terabyte back-up server for $800. A couple of months ago I picked up a 'Tera book' backup for $99 & the shipping was FREE! Yea!

You'll be SO HAPPY when you can access your back-ups after the big crash and get yourself going again quickly. How many songs do you have on iTunes? How much is that music worth?