You don’t need to be a computer scientist in order to be tech literate. There are certain skills every employee regardless of their positions should know in order to use technology efficiently. Below you can find four of them. For some, these skills may seem natural but for others if they are lacking these skills or are not good at them, they may lose productivity and as a result, can fall behind their coworkers. Therefore, don’t afraid of technology or computers and do your best to improve yourself.
- How to Use Search Engines in an Advanced Way: Everyone knows how to use a search engine but here I am not talking about only typing words to Google. What I mean is using search engines in a more advanced way such as adding quotation marks or Boolean operators like AND, OR, NOT. As a result, you can save a lot of time and eliminate the unwanted results from the beginning. Also, while scanning through the returned search results, you need to know how to distinguish a good reliable resource from a bad one.
- How to Back up Your Data: You never know when your computer will crash or be stolen or any other disastrous event will happen. Therefore, it is always recommended to back up your important files, photos or documents. In this way, you can prevent data loss. It is best to use cloud systems for backing up data such as Dropbox or Box or you can try old fashioned alternatives like using a hard drive. There are also tools available that are built in computers. These are Windows Backup or Apple’s Time Machine. You can set them up in order to back your data up with an external hard drive.
- How to Set-up an Anti-Virus Software Program: You need to protect your computer from external attacks so you can protect your data. The world is getting more and more digital each day and it is getting harder for us to protect our privacy. For this reason, everybody must install an anti-virus program to their computers for protecting themselves. Especially, when doing online shopping, we should be very careful and definitely check whether the website is trustworthy such as if it has a private SSL connection or a security stamp.
- Access Your Office Network from Anywhere: This is probably your IT department’s job. Most offices have a virtual network which their employees can connect wherever they are and whenever they want. In this way, you can use your time more effectively and even work from home some days.
