Do you still think of your personal computer as "The Computer?" If you do then chances are you're not taking advantage of what it really is. You really ought to be thinking of it as just another household appliance. When you want to use the phone, do you think about "firing up the phone" to make a call? How about the TV? Do you "activate the television set" to watch a show? How about booting up the dishwasher to do another load? Consider launching the refrigerator to download a glass of milk? You certainly don't make a big production out of using an iPod, cell phone or some other consumer electronic device. You just use it to get a job done. So why should using the computer be such a big deal? It should be used like anything else we use to improve the quality of our daily lives.

The other day I needed to find a business service in my area. Did I reach for the Yellow Pages, call information, check the newspaper or drive over to the local supermarket to check the bulletin board? If it had been 20 years ago I probably would have chosen one or all of those options. But it's the 21st century so I just moseyed on over to the awaiting computer and did a Google search. In moments I had the names of several businesses, their addresses, phone numbers and websites that gave me more than enough information about each of them to make a well informed decision in making my selection.

All of this took only a few moments because I just leave my computer on all the time. Its high-speed DSL Internet connection stays on all the time too. It's an appliance so why should I turn it off? I also don't turn off my telephone or my refrigerator because I'm constantly using them throughout the day. There are of course, exceptions. I turn off my TV because the sound might prove to be distracting and besides, it turns on instantly. I also don't leave the dishwasher or washing machine on because thankfully I only need to do a load once or twice a week. But since it takes the average PC several minutes to completely boot up after you switch it on, I say just leave it on. Don't be shocked. Modern computers are energy efficient and burn less electricity than a 100-watt light bulb.

There hasn't been a study done on this as far as I can determine but I'd be willing to bet that a lot of people out there who own computers aren't using them as much as they should simply because it takes too much time and effort to turn them on and wait for them to boot up.

So let me make the following suggestion, America. Turn your computers on and leave them on. I'm willing to bet that if you do that, you're going to find yourself using your computers a lot more often and in ways you may not have even considered. Leave them on so that in the morning, your e-mail along with your newspaper's website is waiting there for you to peruse over your morning cup of coffee. Leave them on so when you need to find something, it's just waiting there for you to do a search. If it's always on, your friends can send Instant Messages to you instantly if they need to tell or ask you something. Oh and while you're responding to them, you can knock out that letter you were meaning to send to Aunt Millie but you just didn't have the time to do it because it meant you had to fire up the computer and the printer. Yes, printers and just about every other computer peripheral these days are energy compliant so you can leave them on as well.

If you find this hard to do, then just leave your computer on for the day and turn it off at night. Then leave it on for 24 hours and turn it off. Then try it for two days. In a week, you'll be leaving it on all the time and using your computer like it was intended to be used. Send me an email next week and let me know if I was right. And you won't even have to boot up your computer to do it.

(Craig Crossman is a national newspaper columnist writing about computers and technology. He also hosts the No. 1 daily national computer radio talk show, Computer America, heard on the Business TalkRadio Network and the Lifestyle TalkRadio Network - Monday through Friday, 10 p.m.-midnight ET. For more information, visit his web site at www.computeramerica.com.)