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Here some advice for being your family’s tech - May 13, 2016

Family Tech now comes out every other week.

Your home likely has its own facilities manager – the person whose job it is to make sure the heater filters get changed, the outside water is turned off for the winter – that sort of thing.

Your home also likely has someone who has central oversight of the technology – or should.

Back when technology in the home meant one personal computer, that computer was in the family room for all to share. More or less, one person was in charge and made sure there was enough disk space for all, and would do updates to the operating system periodically.

But as computers became cheap and many families got one for every member, or some may have abandoned using a PC in favor of tablets or phones, central control was often lost.

Yet a level of oversight is still needed. All the devices in the home likely use wi-fi, so someone needs to make sure it is working-- as well as knowing how to reboot it if needed and when that is needed. That person needs to be the one to contact the internet service provider if there is a problem.

If you decide to appoint someone as the family IT director, the first thing that person should do is create an inventory of all devices, their model numbers, purchase dates and who uses them.

That person also needs to know what version of the operating system the devices use, if they are actively used and even if they still work.

Capture the serial numbers and any other necessary information, such as if there is a service agreement, and keep all this on a spreadsheet.

If you have devices no one uses, consider selling them on sites like Gazelle, eBay or Craig’s List.

For PCs, the family IT director should check to see that antivirus software had been installed and that scans are being done regularly – at least once a week. That person should check to see if there are any viruses or malware on them that need to be dealt with.

Read the rest at www.FamilyTechOnline.com


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