For many, the PC is much more than just a gadget ? it is an essential tool for a lifestyle. It organizes one's daily activities, hold an immense amount of information and be the cornerstone for a person's daily living and working.

With such reliance on it, one has to ask: how do I pick the perfect personal computer?

Before you start on the features, you first have to ask yourself: will I need this PC to be with me most of the time? Do you have a great need for mobility? If you tend to require access to the computer a lot during the course of your day, your best pal is the laptop. If you talk to people more or can work with hard copies, you won't need to lug around a four-pound laptop everywhere and can settle for the sturdy homebody called the desktop PC.

As soon as you take your pick, then you can go on to deciding on the other features: speed, capacity, accessibility and peripherals.

The best place to start is at the review websites for computers. At this stage, get acquainted with what they say is the latest in the market. Then do some research on what these advances in technology actually mean. There are many sites that will give you definitions and background on these things.

From here, you can also check out what you'd like the PC to do for you in terms of what kind of applications you will need in it. This will help you decide on how much to compromise on the features against the price.

The internal workings of a PC progresses in leaps and bounds quite often. Techies would suggest watching out for updates every six months. Speed is the feature that changes more often than the rest. When going to a computer shop, make sure you understand the meanings of the words ?Gigahertz,? ?Pentium? and ?Celeron,? as well as the words behind the acronyms RAM and AMD. And here is a side tip: don't forget to ask on how to keep your CPU from heating up.

In terms of capacity, your hard disk will need to have enough space to hold all the information you wish to put in it, not to mention the applications that need to run your PC. Some would suggest two hard disks ? a master and a slave drive ? or partitioning your large-capacity drive to separate the applications from the data. This will not only help you organize your files, but also keep your data from getting corrupted when the applications fail or get contaminated.

For accessibility, what kind of access would you like into and out of your PC. Here, think Internet, local area networks and wireless communications. All these seem to be becoming more and more necessary in maximizing your PC. Ask your PC dealer on the best in the market ? they would only be recommending suppliers here since these applications require another kind of vendor.

Lastly, the peripherals. With all the advances in technology, there are some peripherals that are asked for so often that they are already a staple on a PC package ? mouse, CD-ROM with writer, USB drives, scanner, printer, network card, a card reader and a modem.

Based on your requirements from your PC, you may also consider other peripherals like DVD-ROM, video output, infra-red port and a host of variations on the peripherals mentioned above.

When you have the hardware, you are now ready to identify the applications that you want in your PC. In short ? what do you want your PC to do? These will come in the form of software or programs that need to be installed in your PC. Branded software are licensed, but there are alternatives that are freeware or are called ?open source? which can be cheaper. Don't forget to look at peripherals for these applications. They usually come in packages.

Make sure you ask your dealer to help you install everything. And always ask about the warranty. Keep all your receipts and guarantee cards, and you're all set. You are now a full-pledged owner of a PC.

Now, for the security?