You could go overboard and get an antistatic mat, but these tips should be more than good enough. Even an antistatic wrist strap is probably overkill for the average geek building a PC or fiddling inside it.

Static electricity results from a difference in electrical charge between two surfaces. For example, if you rubbed your sock-covered feet on a carpet, your feet would scrape off electrons. The electrons give you a negative static charge, and when you touched another object — such as your doorknob — the electrons would be transferred to that object, equalizing the charge. You’d experience this as a small shock when you touched the object.

Such shocks can damage your computer’s internal components. You don’t need to worry about this when using your computer normally, but if you’ve opened your computer’s case and are touching its internal components, or are just pulling a new video card or stick of RAM out of the bag it came in, you’ll want to be sure you don’t have a static charge that will zap the components. PC components typically come in antistatic bags so they don’t get zapped during transport or while being handled.