Rob --
Great column today, and you are right on target, as you were last year. Your advice to get rid of those trial copies of software is excellent -- for Mac OSX users, to avoid some error messages and headaches with Word files, make sure you empty the trash after putting that trial copy of Office for Mac into it. (Yes, it makes a difference!) In setting up my parents' new MacBook, I found it helpful to download all the newest drivers for their printer/scanner....and try it all out right away. The HP printer worked without the update, but more of the features were available only after going to the HP website and getting the download. Easy to do.

The other thing about getting a new computer is that you need to keep track of passwords, so write them down and save them in a file as you set up your dsl, set computer preferences. Keep track of your warranty paperwork, too.

Thanks again for the column....and merry Christmas!

Try to obtain tech support phone numbers for your hardware in advance. It's very difficult to go to the company's support website if the problem is that you can't connect to the internet (to find the information or contact numbers).

Hi Rob, where do I go to ask you tech questions?! Such as: Especially since I work for charity, my software budget is extemely low to say the least, so when I got a new Dell PC, our volunteer techies installed their MS Word and Outlook, onto the new computer, and as usual there has been nothing but problems ever since, with MS constantly shutting down the system: closing down whatever I'm doing and sending me back to my desktop and asking me to allow it to send a Report back to MS. Question: is this problem fixable by anything short of paying top dollar for new MS Word Software?
Sincerely, The Animal Guy in Florida

How about: once you've gotten everything configured but before you start adding non-essential software, make a distinct backup that can be your clean start if/when things go wrong. A disk image would be good (albeit more complicated) and your image will be the smallest it's ever going to be.

Regarding your review of digital cameras, I can't believe you didn't mention Fujifilm FinePix S6000fd. Consumer Reports gave it great ratings.

Today's Fast Forward had some practical, helpful advice. And I don't even have a new computer. One question though. You mention that a new computer should have an easy, reliable personal finance software. I need that! As someone who lost the financial brains of the outfit to divorce (I do words, she did numbers), I'm looking for something to help me track my finances -- something intuitive and not overly complex. Any recommendations?

I buy Dell products. I found it helpful to try out every feature/program as soon as possible...just a test drive. I had 30 days free special tech support for set up and it was run by folks that picked up the phone and answered it...and answered my questions. Way better than waiting on long holds for the regular tech folks later in the story when you discover something doesn't work.

Rob - your columns and chats are invaluable for people at basically any level. As an add-on to today's column, what's your opinion on Microsoft's automatic updates for windows? I've been running it manually on one system and automatically on another, with very little difference in results. More importantly, I haven't had any problems with the automatic mode.

Your opinion oh wise guru?

Hey, Animal Guy -- go get OpenOffice.org's OPEN OFFICE. It's a nearly 100% compatible-wth-M$Office that's FREE!

Or, if all you need is word processing, Abiword is a far far better solution. It doesn't do spreadsheets/presentations/etc, but it will open just about any format out there and can save as .doc or .pdf or... I use it to open WordPerfect docs, which I then save into another format for use in an OpenOffice (or NeoOffice on my macs).

Rob, my advice for new computer users (or anyone installing new software) is to first delve into the preferences. I learn a LOT about a program's capabilities by examining what the options are for modifying that program. And MOST programs worth their salt have a handy "Restore To Default" button in case you accidentally alter something you probably shouldn't've.

Cheers!

I'll second rjrjj's advice to collect and save information about tech support phone numbers and other resources _before_ you need them, and Snowed in's advice about making a backup. The absence of a regular backup procedure is easily the most significant security exposure for most home PC users.

In fact, since many new PCs today come without media (e.g., CDs) with which you can restore the initially-loaded software, one very important "new PC" chore is to create those CDs, if you need to, and to put them away in a safe place. You should also, as you add additional software, make sure you save all the installation media, license keys, etc., in that same safe place.

Rob,

I did some searching and can't find a good answer. Are there any known vista viruses that have been released in the wild. I can't seem to find any information on this.

Thanks.