What they

fail to purchase, however, are the tools that may save

their children from the misery and heartache a late paper

or missed deadline will cause due to full computer labs

or unexpected computer failure.

Before you

send your student off to face another year consider these

practical safeguards against PC frustration:

�Laptop computers. A

handful of colleges around the United States currently

require incoming freshmen to have laptop computers

(including Clayton College and State University). These

notebook universities require a laptop with minimum

features and often have inexpensive rental programs

available to students. Whether or not your child's

college requires this device, however, laptop computers

are portable which makes trips to the library or just a

quiet place to study simple and hassle free.

Some

popular models include the Chem USA ChemBook 7200, which

retails for $1,449; the Quantex T-1411, which retails for

$2,599; the WinBook XL, which retails for $1,399; and the

Gateway Solo 2500 SE, which retails for $1,999.

� Desktop computers. While they

require a little more than a backpack to transport, what

they don't require is a lot of money.

Some

desktop computer manufacturers, including Emachines of

Irvine, Calif., have pushed the price tag below $600,

making these computers much more affordable.

� Computer maintenance. Before your

children attack their first term papers, be sure to

remind them of some basic PC maintenance tips. In

addition to regularly deleting temporary files and

defragmenting the hard drive, it is essential to make

regular backup copies of work in progress. Whether your

children are working in a crowded computer lab or on a PC

from home, system crashes can occur at any time for no

reason at all. So be sure to supply them with a generous

supply of floppy disks, or another backup device, to

which they can save their work.

� Data protection. Families and

sharing go hand in hand. And while you wouldn't want to

live without them, they can raise the risk of computer

problems when as many as four or five people share a

computer. To protect your children from losing critical

papers when a little brother or sister - or college

roommate - inadvertently hits the delete key or

crashes the computer, supply them with the handy

protection offered by GoBack, a new software application

from Wild File Inc. The unique time travel technology

offered by GoBack allows PC users to take their computers

back in time to recover from problems such as Y2K

glitches, system crashes, virus attacks, software

installation complications and user error (overwritten or

deleted files). For information, visit www.goback.com .

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