Correct Way to Turn a Computer On or Off

The Universal Power symbol

Many people turn they televisions, toasters, kettles, fans, radios and other electrical items off by a simple flick of the switch on the wall. Even though this is fine in the majority of cases, when it comes to computers, its a good idea to stop it. Right now.

You may be surprised to know that even holding down the "Power" button that most computers have on the front of them to turn off a computer can do serious damage if used wrongly.

If you turn off your computer like this, then it is called a "Hard Shut down". This way of turning off computers is generally reserved for emergencies or when the system stops responding to commands.

Hard Drive with the "Arm" Moving

Its a very bad idea to turn off your PC any way that isn't one of the below. This is because your PC needs a chance to close any open files, park the hard disk arm and do a myriad of other things you can't see. If the PC is turned off when it was writing something, like one of your photos, music or even part of the system, you could lose those files completely or even stop the whole PC from turning on again. On top of that, every time you  perform a hard shut down the tiny little parts in your computers hard drive (Where it remembers things) suddenly jerks to a halt, which can scratch and corrupt even more data, but this time permanently.

There are four proper ways to turn off your PC, non of witch involves an actual switch, ironically.

Common Computer Definitions

Keys on a Keyboard

From our previous post we continue on to cover the second problem facing new computer users, the seemingly endless list of equipment that covers "computers".

It is true that there are hundreds of thousands of different things that a related to using computers, however the average user never needs more than a handful to become proficient.

So I'll cover the basics again, this time focusing on what makes up a computer and what they look like.