What do you do with your computer when you leave work?

Most of us use a computer at work, some of work shifts and share that computer with others and some of us have laptops that we take home and do more work on, a bit like me.  But most of us I guess have a computer at work and when we go home we forget about it until the morning.

So do you shut it down, lock it or perhaps you just turn the monitor off and go home?  Well working as we do in support we often access computers out of  hours to update applications and perform some manual maintenance.  What do I often find?  Computers not only left on and logged on, but documents wide open or online accounts logged on.

I have seen Hotmail, OWA, Amazon all logged on and with cached credit cards, documents with confidential data open to be seen, all of this on computers in offices that can and will be accessed by other people.  I don't think people think it matters, but life is more and more online and in a digital format, would you leave your passport, house keys and wage slip on your desk?  I doubt it.  But your online life seems to be fine to leave lying around for everyone to look at.

OK so thats a bit of a rant.  But what about those important documents we in support have to backup?  You have them open on your computer, yes I will get a snap shot these days but I know how annoyed you will be with me if that computer reboots overnight due to a power cut and that presentation is corrupt and its all our fault in support.

Ok so thats another rant.  I dont do it to annoy people, really I dont.  Computers are work tools for employees, they help people make a business do what it does. I run a business and what we do is important to us, to me and to all our staff, they have mortgages and kids and if we fail they all fail.  It matters to take care of your computer and the work you do on it.

At the end of the day close all your applications so that we can backup all the important data, secure the information by not leaving it all over your screen for the cleaner to see, and don't forget all that energy that is wasted leaving the computer on all night.  Thats our future and our leccy bill being wasted, both mean a lot to my business.