| There are literally millions and millions of
files available all over the internet. With a simple search command, you
can find fonts, programs, games, graphics, sounds, movies, stationery and
just about anything else that you can imagine.
In order to get these products and files, you
must learn how to download. Here are some of the things that I recommend.
1.
Make sure you have an
anti-virus program installed, operational and with up-to-date definitions.
This is critical as you may run across a virus
and if so, you could put your entire computer at risk.
Anti-virus software is inexpensive insurance.
2.
If you are going to
install a program, be sure that you've updated your emergency disk and
have a recent backup. This is very important for downloads
which change system information.
3.
Stash your downloads
in a special directory.
I create a directory called "Distributions" and
inside that directory
I've put subdirectories - one subdirectory
for each product. In those subdirectories I tend to save the setup files,
documentation and anything else that I need to install the program or whatever.
In addition, I recommend
that you use store your downloaded treasures on a drive other than the
C drive. This is to keep your C drive for system files and applications,
and your other drives for data.
4.
Find the files to download.
There are so many sites with files to download
that it would be impossible to list them all in one place. There are literally
thousands of sites with just graphics and clip art files alone, much less
programs, games and everything else.
A good place to start
looking :
Allfree.gr - Huge collection of
freeware programs..
5.
Save the downloaded
file in your download directory.
6.
Decompress the downloaded
file.
Many downloads must be decompressed.
Files ending with a .EXE filetype must be executed.
These files will typically begin a dialog for
installation once you double-click on the file.
The .ZIP file type means
the file is compressed and must be decompressed before it can be used.
You can do this with any number of utilities,
including Conversion Plus and Winzip.
7.
Install or use the downloaded
files.
If you downloaded a program, then install it.
For graphics and sounds and such, use as appropriate.
8.
Clean up.
If you are limited on disk space, you should
delete the .ZIP or .EXE file that you downloaded once you've installed
the application. You should also clean up any other miscellaneous files
that are left over from the download process. I usually delete the files
in my TEMP directory after doing any kind of installation.
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