Times are tough now. With millions of Americans stuck at home, uncertain if they still have jobs to go back to after this bout with the novel coronavirus. Some have taken up part-time work to help mitigate the financial impact of the pandemic, while others have started an entirely new career out of the need for survival.
That’s the new normal now. Survival.
Perhaps the easiest way to get work is to go online and search for online freelance jobs you can do. Several good job opportunities are found in the virtual world. People are starting to flock to the online world to make a living at least for the time being.
If you take a gander at what job opportunities are available online, you would be surprised at how easy most of these are. Whether these jobs have something to do with content marketing tasks, digital and graphics layouts, Sitefinity CMS, or virtual assistance, most of those who are knowledgeable about computers won’t have a hard time.
But what about those who are not as tech-savvy as the others? We have listed a few things that might be helpful for those who are technologically challenged.
7 Simple Things to Know about Computers for Online Work
- Get to know search engines.
One of the most important things you need to learn fast is how to fully utilize search engines and make it work to your advantage. It’s more than just typing in addresses or keywords. You must learn how to filter good results from the bad ones. Working with advanced search settings also helps improve your browsing experience.
- Learn Word Processing and Spreadsheets.
Most online work has to do with these two, except for digital and graphic arts. The most common online freelance gigs such as writing, virtual assisting, and transcribing all utilize word processors and spreadsheets.
- Get acquainted with browsers.
If you expect to work online, you should have a better understanding of browsers to help you access unlimited information. Using bookmarks, opening links in new windows, clearing your browser’s cache, are some of the things you need to know.
- Find out what the common keyboard commands are.
Since you will mostly be working with a set of keyboards, knowing some basic keyboard commands and shortcuts will help save you plenty of time instead of using the mouse every time to click on the drop-down menus.
- Learn the basic hardware terms.
We know it can feel quite alienating whenever people talk about their computer set-ups at home or the specs on their machines and all the other hardware they have. While you don’t really need to go all-out IT on this one, it helps if you know the difference between a hard disk drive and an actual computer unit.
- Understand the basics of network diagnostics.
When you start working online, you will inevitably encounter network problems. This is where some knowledge about network diagnostics comes in handy. In fact, you don’t need to be a Cisco expert. You just need to learn the basic troubleshooting methods to get you out of a jam. Get some basic knowledge about how to find out what your IP address is and verify physical network connectivity among others.
- Identify which cable goes where.
This may be easier to some especially with the fact that cords can only be plugged into very specific ports on your PC. However, some folks are still struggling with this. Know which cable connects to which port.
We hope that you find these tips useful and help land you an online job.