Computer
Heat and dust are a major cause of failure. Most computers have two fans. One fan is on the CPU (Central Processing Unit) to keep it from overheating and the other is in the power supply to keep it and the rest of the computer cool.

The power supply fan drags in dust from the room, even in an air conditioned environment and deposits it throughout the computer. The dust then clogs up and jams the fans and causes problems on the circuit board. This results in corrupted data and electronic failures.

How can you prevent this? Regular preventative maintenance services on your equipment will keep inside your equipment clean and can also spot potential problems before they happen.

Virus
Who is vulnerable to virus attack? Anyone who uses the internet or disks that have been in another computer. What can a virus do? Some can slow the computer down or just pop up annoying messages, while others will delete files and wipe hard drive and some can destroy the motherboard by erasing the BIOS Chip.

Prevention is better than cure. You must be protected with good virus software and it must be updated regularly, at least every few days.

Backup

We regularly see computers, both business and home PCs, with hard drive failures and the critical data has not been backed up. Sometimes it is possible to salvage some of the information, most times it is impossible. This can be a disaster for the user. How often should you back up? That depends on how much information you can afford to re-enter that has been changed since the last backup. Don't forget to test the validity of the backups by restoring data from the backup. Take the backups home. In the case of theft, fire or flood, you don't want to lose the backup as well.

Backups can be made to floppy disks, zip drives, CDs or tapes, depending on your requirements.