- Follow this blog:
- RSS
- Email Alert
User Support
-
Exigent ergonomics: Another way for the help desk to help out
Help desk pros are responsible for making sure that computer hardware and software stays in good working order. Who's responsible for making sure that computer users staying healthy while...
Posted by William Jones | November 11, 2007, 3:25 PM PST | Latest comment by williamjones
-
Should users have the presumption of privacy?
In our company computer manual, it's clearly stated that users should make no presumption of privacy when it comes to e-mail or any other data that might reside on their computers' hard drives. We...
Posted by Joe Rosberg | November 7, 2007, 10:35 AM PST | Latest comment by JCitizen
-
Publicize your prohibited applications
For a good part of last Friday, I felt like the Allison family on the Titanic. First class passenger and investment banker Hudson J.C. Allison and wife Bess were traveling with their children,...
Posted by Calvin Sun | November 5, 2007, 7:17 AM PST
-
Getting certified: Is it really necessary?
If you have been working in IT for a number of years, it is quite possible that your skills exceed your paper qualifications. Often we take certification long after we have learned and deployed...
Posted by Jeff Dray | November 3, 2007, 5:52 AM PDT | Latest comment by robert_boyko@...
-
The care and feeding of Li-Ion batteries
Lithium-Ion—or Li-Ion—batteries are in everything, and while they may not last forever, they'll benefit from a little tender loving care. This time, five strategies that will help your users...
Posted by William Jones | November 2, 2007, 3:39 PM PDT | Latest comment by batterynotebookcomau
-
Building vs. buying your own computer, revisited
A couple of months ago, I posted an article discussing the merits of buying a prebuilt computer versus building my own. At the time, I wavered from my usual preference of building my own, and...
Posted by Joe Rosberg | October 31, 2007, 5:32 PM PDT | Latest comment by Dumphrey
-
Avoiding the two extreme errors in explaining things
What possible connection does Greek mythology have with desktop support? Plenty, in terms of avoiding problems when you have to explain a technical concept to your customer. In his classic work...
Posted by Calvin Sun | October 29, 2007, 6:44 AM PDT
-
Remote support planning saves time and money
In these days of cost consciousness and the demand for instant fixes, more and more organisations are turning to remote support as a way of getting customers problems sorted out quickly and...
Posted by Jeff Dray | October 27, 2007, 3:13 AM PDT | Latest comment by MariaJones
-
Is security software your best protection?
There's a lot of software out there that promises to make our computers safer, and everyone has their favorites. Corporations need these utilities to protect their investment, but can we...
Posted by William Jones | October 24, 2007, 9:41 PM PDT | Latest comment by oneoar51
-
Handling the misdirected call
Have you ever called a company but reached the wrong department? Annoying, isn't it? However, if the person you called takes time to get you the right area, you feel better. Conversely, if that...
Posted by Calvin Sun | October 21, 2007, 6:29 PM PDT | Latest comment by DadsPad
-
Preventative maintenance for PCs: Four favorite utilities
Whether it's a visit to the MD or the auto mechanic, periodic check-ups are necessary to make sure things keep working the way they should. When the work at the help desk slows down enough to...
Posted by William Jones | October 18, 2007, 10:46 PM PDT | Latest comment by jdclyde
-
Putting out fires? Don't beat out the flames, turn off the gas!
Are you too busy firefighting to solve the underlying problems in your systems? This is not as rare as it should be, as companies grow and departments merge we often find ourselves having to cope...
Posted by Jeff Dray | October 17, 2007, 12:20 PM PDT
-
DOS is a beautiful thing
One of our engineers was recently attempting to update a customized software support file (with my blessings, by the way), and for a reason I didn't really care to look into at the time, he was...
Posted by Joe Rosberg | October 15, 2007, 11:18 AM PDT | Latest comment by pierre.forget@...
-
Make your error messages meaningful as well as accurate
You or your system may issue error messages, but it's important to keep in mind how they're received. Taking this into account can help smooth transactions on both ends, eliminating confusion and...
Posted by Calvin Sun | October 15, 2007, 7:49 AM PDT
-
Microsoft Service Packs: A necessity before you deploy?
The recent Excel 2007 rounding bug has made me grateful that I haven't yet deployed Office 2007 on my network. I find myself asking 'What's to gain from rolling out Microsoft's products before the...
Posted by William Jones | October 11, 2007, 10:21 PM PDT | Latest comment by Joe_R
-
Are you an early adopter, or do you wait and see?
From time to time -- no scrub that, all the time -- things change in the industry. New hardware breakthroughs, new operating systems, new software, new peripherals and updated software all appear...
Posted by Jeff Dray | October 11, 2007, 11:22 AM PDT | Latest comment by Teufelhund
-
What happened to the paperless office?
I remember back 20 or more years ago, when word processors were commonly replacing all those IBM Selectric typewriters, and when computing was beginning to become more the rule than the exception,...
Posted by Joe Rosberg | October 9, 2007, 11:13 AM PDT | Latest comment by Deadly Ernest
-
Queue to Zero: Making sure the support queue stays manageable
Merlin Mann's Google Tech Talk from July offers some advice on managing your email queue. His principles can be extended to the other queue that support pros deal with, the help desk request...
Posted by William Jones | October 9, 2007, 12:22 AM PDT | Latest comment by Joe_R
-
Handling the drive-by interruption
It probably happens more than you want: as a desktop or field support analyst, you're visiting a customer location to resolve a problem, having been dispatched there by the help desk. This visit...
Posted by Calvin Sun | October 8, 2007, 4:41 AM PDT | Latest comment by Tell It Like I See It
-
The medical profession: How similar are doctors to IT engineers?
I had to visit my doctor today, I had injured my shoulder and there were complications that involved the visit. The doctor asked me if I had lost consciousness during my fall and proceeded to...
Posted by Jeff Dray | October 3, 2007, 10:35 AM PDT | Latest comment by CharlieSpencer_Palmetto
-
Change the OEM information in the Windows System Properties panel to your own
If you want to add your own contact information to the Windows System Properties panel, or change the OEM information that's already there, it's a pretty easy process.
Posted by Joe Rosberg | August 12, 2009, 5:43 AM PDT
-
Boot a sick Mac into Target Disk Mode for troubleshooting
William Jones shows you how to use one Mac to access the internal drive of another -- no screwdriver required.
Posted by William Jones | October 3, 2008, 12:16 AM PDT | Latest comment by williamjones
-
The right way to format Windows disks using a Mac
A quirk in the Apple Disk Utility allowed me to create a FAT32 volume that would not mount in Windows. Avoiding the same problem is easy once you have an understanding of how Apple's formatting...
Posted by William Jones | May 7, 2009, 5:34 PM PDT | Latest comment by martygoleta@...
-
The care and feeding of Li-Ion batteries
Lithium-Ion—or Li-Ion—batteries are in everything, and while they may not last forever, they'll benefit from a little tender loving care. This time, five strategies that will help your users...
Posted by William Jones | November 2, 2007, 3:39 PM PDT | Latest comment by batterynotebookcomau
-
How to troubleshoot a computer problem
What steps do you go through in order to diagnose a computer problem? There's more than one correct answer, of course, but here's one way to work through the troubleshooting thought-process.
Posted by Joe Rosberg | September 23, 2009, 9:17 AM PDT | Latest comment by DKeith45
-
Keep Thunderbird from building too big a nest on your hard disk
Mozilla's Thunderbird is a great cross-platform alternative for reading e-mail. I've found that the software can require some tuning to provide the best possible experience, though. Here's a tip...
Posted by William Jones | July 10, 2008, 11:53 PM PDT | Latest comment by libskrap
-
Hijacked Address Book: How did it happen and what to do?
Most of us have seen those spoof e-mails, when a personal e-mail address has been commandeered for the purpose of sending spam, but in this case, to everyone in your address book.
Posted by Joe Rosberg | April 8, 2009, 3:35 PM PDT | Latest comment by SteveOfLA
-
Advanced partition management on your Apple computer
All operating systems come with some means of creating partitions and formatting disks. Too often though, the included tools will come up short, omitting support for advanced tasks and non-native...
Posted by William Jones | May 29, 2008, 5:12 PM PDT | Latest comment by stuartbell
-
Reasons to have dual monitors
If you had two monitors, what would you use the extra desktop real estate for? Joe Rosberg has some ideas -- try them at your own risk.
Posted by Joe Rosberg | February 29, 2008, 10:38 AM PST | Latest comment by Dr Dij
-
A review of Sony's PlayStation 3 repair service
Video game systems are computers designed for a very specific purpose. What can support techs learn from Sony's PS3 service process?
Posted by William Jones | August 27, 2009, 11:05 PM PDT | Latest comment by StefDenis
-
Tips on avoiding hand and wrist pain while keyboarding
If you're like me, you spend hours at the keyboard. You probably, though, don't think of yourselves as classical pianists such as Andre Watts, Lang Lang or Phillipe Entremont. Nor do you likely...
Posted by Calvin Sun | December 5, 2007, 6:39 AM PST | Latest comment by trevor022
-
What are your most common desktop support issues?
We'd like to know what you’ve found to be the most common, important, or recurring desktop support issue.
Posted by Joe Rosberg | February 18, 2008, 6:04 PM PST | Latest comment by szlzezezpzzz
-
Best Buy's recycling program does not accept storage media
Before the company will recycle an old computer, Best Buy's policy says that the hard drive has to be removed. While it is prudent to make sure that there is no data on a machine destined for a...
Posted by William Jones | February 19, 2009, 11:13 AM PST | Latest comment by TonytheTiger
-
Vista's recommended system requirements were not realistic
Did Microsoft sell itself short when it listed the recommended requirements for Vista? Would it have been better received had Microsoft originally presented Vista as requiring a powerful hardware...
Posted by Joe Rosberg | August 6, 2008, 5:59 PM PDT | Latest comment by JCitizen
-
What's in your desktop support toolbox?
Joe Rosberg is looking for the perfect support desk toolkit. He lists some of his favorite items for everyday tasks and is open to suggestions from TechRepublic members. What are the tools that...
Posted by Joe Rosberg | April 15, 2008, 10:28 AM PDT | Latest comment by XnavyDK
-
Ten ways to ensure that you finish work on time
Working life is about surviving the 9 to 5 and making sure that there is some of you left for the next day.
Posted by Jeff Dray | September 7, 2009, 1:06 PM PDT | Latest comment by Chief-Tiff
-
Be S.M.A.R.T. about your hard drive's health
Given enough time, all hard disks will fail. Thankfully, most drives support a feature that could give users an early warning before the bitter end. Here's how support pros can introduce...
Posted by William Jones | June 18, 2009, 5:00 PM PDT | Latest comment by cquirke
-
Never judge people until you have walked a mile in their shoes
I believe that it is important to gain experience in a variety of departments. Maybe we should try out a few other jobs to help us do our own.
Posted by Jeff Dray | October 27, 2008, 4:31 AM PDT | Latest comment by azra.rizal
-
Who owns corporate e-mail? Is there a right to privacy?
Does a user have a right to privacy when it comes to corporate e-mail? Or is e-mail corporate property, subject to the whims of the company? Here's one story, what's yours? And take the poll.
Posted by Joe Rosberg | May 13, 2009, 7:00 AM PDT | Latest comment by Forum Surfer
-
Tactical ITIL -- service, incidents, and problems
The world of ITIL separates help desk calls into two distinct types. There are "service tickets" and "incidents." These types are resolved differently.
Posted by Tricia Liebert | March 17, 2008, 10:07 AM PDT | Latest comment by ggbyrne@...
