No need to get angry with your PC _ better to get friendly with it.

According to the marketing researchers, a lot of people got computers for Christmas or New Year's. A lot, although not all of them, are using a home or small office computer for the first time.

Welcome to the club. In the past 20 years, many people have been frustrated, angered, exasperated, offended, outraged, dangerously violent or simply reduced to blubbering, whimpering victims of computers.

No, really. Computers have made lives better for many people, families and businesses. These machines really, truly can help to make your life easier, bring up your children's school grades and work habits _ both _ and help you squeeze out a few more baht in profits.

There is no more reason to approach your new computer with trepidation, any more than you should approach it with arrogance. It is a new tool to help you in your life.

Apart from a car, it probably represents the most money you have laid out on a machine. On the other hand, if you consider the cost of that mobile phone and the monthly phone bill, the computer may be much more economical.

Here are some guidelines you may want to consider as you start using your new baby.

DON'T BE AFRAID

It's just a machine, but it is out to get you. It is important to establish authority, to make the machine work for you, not vice-versa.

Computers are not magic. You can't type a command such as ``write my monthly report.'' But they are great at detail work _ doing the same thing over and over, so that you can attend to the grand strategy.

If you make an error, you don't have to type the whole letter all over again, just correct the part that is wrong. The computer can remind you of every appointment, every day. The computer can hold your entire address book and retrieve any one, or any group, easily.

SEE WHAT IS ATTACHED

Today's computer usually comes pretty well ready to run, with all the extra hardware and software you need. (``Hardware'' is machines and stuff you can lift, including your actual computer, printer, colour cards, memory chips, etc. ``Software'' means the programs and utilities on the computer, such as word processors and World Wide Web browsers.)

Your desktop computer should have a floppy disk drive, a CD drive (or, better, DVD) and speakers. It if doesn't, take it back and buy one that does. These aren't luxury add-ons, they are integral parts of a computer today.

You need a printer. The nice young man who sold you yours, should have given you a printer, or added a nice one for a couple of thousand baht. If he didn't, get one.

You need a modem to link to the outside world. It may be inside the computer (internal) or sitting beside it (external), but you need one.

An uninterrupted power supply is cheap (3,000 to 4,000 baht, typically) and worth while for two reasons: Power cuts and power regulation. It's not necessary, but a UPS is good value.

Later, you will need a scanner so budget 5,000 baht for it and look at the 10,000-baht, multi-use alternatives as well. If you got one with the computer, great. You don't need it immediately but you will want one later.

SEE WHAT IS INSIDE

The affable young man who sold you the computer probably gave you some ``extra'' software. Fine.

Apart from basic Windows and included programs, you need office software: Word processor, spreadsheet, presentation program if you have school children. You need an anti-virus program. If you don't have these, consult your local neighbourhood geek and ask him to help you load them on the computer. Learn from him how to do it.

INVESTIGATE CAREFULLY

You won't break the machine by delving around in its inner software bits. But you can make the machine unusable. Here are some general guidelines about kicking the tyres and checking the oil on your computer without breaking the engine.

Anything on the Start menu is fine. Click on Start or press the Windows key on your keyboard and see what is available there. Click on it, see what happens, look at the result.

Look, for example, at Help. Play around with it. Look up some words or scroll briefly through the Index.

Click on Settings. Have a look at the Control Panel under Settings. Double-click (two, quick clicks on the left button on the mouse) on each folder you see in Settings.

The important rule: You can look at anything you want if you don't change anything; don't change anything unless you know what will happen.

The more important rule: Do not change the registry. Ever. The registry is like the carburetor on a car, and if you change the setting the engine (computer) might not even start again, let alone run smoothly.

The most important rule: If you really, really want to change it, go ahead, it's your personal computer, but you automatically lose complaining rights.

CONSIDER THE ALTERNATIVES

Never forget you are using a personal computer. You do not have to use Outlook Express to write your email. You do not have to write letters with Microsoft Word. You do not have to play Microsoft solitaire. You do not have to make copies of your data with the backup program that comes with Windows _ in fact you should get a different one.

There are so many alternatives in the computing world you don't have enough time to consider them all. You are not stuck with what Mr Gates and the nice young man at the computer shop gave you.

BUT CHANGE SLOWLY

The computer you bought is a working machine. (If it isn't, take it back and make the nice young salesman make it work _ perfectly.)

You can work and play on it right now. Do that. When something isn't quite right, you'll know it. Ask around if there are any different ways of doing it. (Hint: There are.) Investigate them, look at the alternatives, decide which are best for you, if any. Try it out.

But be moderate about this. Don't be ripping software off your machine in the first week because you read somewhere, or heard somewhere, that it was no good. Don't install a whole ``trial CD'' of software from Panthip Plaza because the nice young geek, three cubicles down, gave it to you.

Change things one at a time. Both you and your computer will be better for it.

GET AN INTERNET ACCOUNT

Come on, it's 2002. If you're still wondering if you should connect to the Net, you're in the 20th century. The world is run more and more on email.

And don't bother with the starter kits you can pick up at the mall for 299 or 598 baht, either.

Talk to friends, acquaintances and the geeks in your office and apres-disco khao thom restaurants. Get their recommendations about the best company in town _ there are a dozen and a half Internet providers. Then sign up.

If you still can't decide on who to favour with your business, go to Internet Thailand. It's a large, conservative company with government roots.

PROTECT YOUR PRIVACY

In general, marauders and predators on the Net are not so much dangerous, as they are annoying _ kind of like the young man who keeps trying to look behind your sleeveless dress.

(To answer your question, yes, there are very dangerous people roaming the Internet looking for victims, but they are rare.)

Give your email address to friends and business associates, not to the world.

Obtain, and install, and maintain an anti-virus program and Internet firewall software. If you know nothing about this, learn _ because your security and privacy are at stake.

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