User Support
When things go wrong, IT support professionals get the call. Here are the resources to help them improve their troubleshooting skills, their people skills, and their technical knowledge.
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Is your service bench static safe?
Lax precautions against electrostatic discharge can reduce the effectiveness of your support team. Here's a checklist to help you set up an ESD-safe workshop.
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System Mechanic results mixed: Boosts Internet speed
We're always looking for ways to increase our computer's performance, and here's a look at one product that might help.
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Mastering the seven phases of a service call
Fixing the problem is only one part of the support visit. Jeff Dray outlines the seven phases of a service call. Following the same method for each ticket will help you tackle each task efficiently.
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What Windows 7 means for support professionals
Does Windows 7 totally flip support upside down? Not entirely, according to IT pro Rick Vanover, who presents these Windows 7 support decision points for organizations considering an upgrade.
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Road warriors need mobile backups
Frequent travel is no excuse for risking data loss. Here is how your users can keep their files safe when they are away from the office.
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Providing home user support
Although there are a lot of similarities, supporting those in an office environment is vastly different than supporting home users. Here are some things to consider when providing support for home users.
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Beware of carefully engineered, manipulative customer service surveys
Have you ever thought that you have been manipulated into answering survey questions to reflect a predetermined outcome? Be careful how your help desk surveys are worded.
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Microsoft's new antivirus is fair game for home businesses
Many free security utilities are restricted to personal or non-commercial use. Microsoft bucks that trend by giving license to home-based enterprises.
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Remote access sites: Blessing or curse? Take the poll
We all hear them advertized, and millions of people use them. Are remote access sites a blessing or a curse to user support professionals?
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How do you keep in touch with colleagues when you work from home?
Jeff Dray addresses the challenges of returning to work after a long absence. How do you get back in the swing of things?
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Be stingy with Administrator privileges in Windows 7
If you've been too liberal in giving admin rights to XP users, the improved User Access Controls in Windows 7 should help break the habit.
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The biggest challenge in a one-person IT shop
What do you consider the biggest challenge in a small - or even one-person - IT shop, and how do you handle it?
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Users in the wild: Some new species
Jeff Dray loves to dissect the quirks and foibles of the customers he runs into during his support rounds. Here are a few "types" to add to the mix.
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Items to address with a PC tune-up
How often do you perform periodic maintenance on the PCs you support? My guess is that most answers will fall between one year and never. Nonetheless, what maintenance steps do you perform? Here's my list.
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Will Linux ever be a popular desktop system? Take the poll
Linux versus Windows has been the subject of debate for quite some time, but will it ever achieve the status of a popular desktop product that we'll have to support? Share your opinion and take the poll.
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Rule number one: The customer is always right. Rule number two...
We've probably all seen it at one time or another. Rule number one: The customer is always right. Rule number two: When the customer is wrong, refer to rule number one. Do you agree or disagree?
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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.
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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.
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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 get the most out of the rechargeable batteries in their laptops and portable devices.
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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 tool works. Read on, support pros, and save yourselves from future headaches.
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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.
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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 platform to run efficiently? Do other manufacturers understate their system requirements?
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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 partition types. Here's my favorite option for Mac users who need an advanced partition manager.
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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.
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Assigning priorities: Which really is top priority?
How do you establish what gets priority status among competing requests? Joe Rosberg believes that there is always a logical way to classify requests according to their actual importance. Here are his guidelines for assigning priorities.
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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.
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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?
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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.
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Registry Cleaners: Are they a good thing or possibly bad?
Many kinds of malware keep rearing their ugly heads because of some embedded trigger planted in the Windows Registry. Can registry cleaners that are designed to remove these things actually do more harm than good?
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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 you can't live without?