help desk News and Other Resources

Blog Post

10 timesaving strategies for the help desk

April 19, 2013 5:00am PDT

Vague descriptions, off-the-wall requests, and ad hoc 'quick questions' can slow help desk operations to a crawl. Try these tricks to remove obstacles and speed things up.

11 Latest comment by rhal

Blog Post

10 virtual appliances that can simplify your job

September 27, 2012 10:43am PDT

If you've never worked with virtual appliances, you owe it to yourself to check them out. Here are 10 good ones that will give you an idea of what they can do for you.

8 Latest comment by atmail

Blog Post

Windows 7 Startup Repair Tool automatically diagnoses and fixes startup problems

June 23, 2011 8:33am PDT

In this edition of the Windows Desktop Report, Greg Shultz takes a look at the Windows 7 Startup Repair Tool and explains how it works to automatically troubleshoot and repair the operating system.

28 Latest comment by pjunkel-pcmind@...

Blog Post

10 things help desk techs can do to improve service

December 13, 2011 12:13pm PST

A few best practices can make a world of difference in the eternal struggle between the help desk and its callers.

38 Latest comment by MarkFreed

Blog Post

Three ways to gain programming experience

August 20, 2009 12:20am PDT

Justin James offers advice to a reader who needs experience but can't find work because he has very little on-the-job experience. Check out these recommendations for picking up programming...

59 Latest comment by DComander101x@...

Blog Post

Big Data and the cloud throw down the guantlet for IT department

May 12, 2013 7:25am PDT

IT/business alignment has gone from something you should consider to further your IT department to something you should do to keep your IT department employed.

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Blog Post

A strategy to improve application development

May 10, 2013 12:19pm PDT

Following these strategies will help ensure the business value of your app development projects.

Articles

Ten questions that can help you hire a good help desk analyst

November 9, 1999 8:00am PST

Are you having trouble finding the right employees for your help desk? According to Pat Vickers, you may not be asking the right questions.

61 Latest comment by KIWIMARSI

Blog Post

10 tips for delivering bad news

April 6, 2011 7:10am PDT

Giving someone bad news is never easy, but there are right ways and wrong ways of going about it. Calvin Sun has some advice on the best methods for sharing unpleasant information.

12 Latest comment by AndrewRLong

Blog Post

10 things end users do that drive me crazy

May 6, 2011 8:55am PDT

Annoying users come with the support tech territory, but sometimes a little venting can help. See if these scenarios sound familiar.

276 Latest comment by gitmo

Blog Post

10 reasons to migrate to Exchange 2010

July 27, 2010 1:45pm PDT

Organisations have shown a reluctance to upgrade to Exchange 2010 -- but they could be missing out on some cost-saving improvements.

13 Latest comment by PurpleSkys

Articles

Write your help desk's mission statement to raise team awareness

June 24, 2003 7:00am PDT

One sure-fire way to improve help desk morale and raise awareness of your technical support team is to write a help desk mission statement. Get some tips on what to include and find some samples...

9 Latest comment by RobSt

Blog Post

Install the powerful OTRS help desk ticketing system

June 8, 2012 3:05pm PDT

Follow instructions on how to install and run the open source help desk ticketing system OTRS on a LAMP server with a Ubuntu base.

7 Latest comment by gorman.mi@...

Blog Post

10 ways to make meetings more effective

November 6, 2007 12:01pm PST

"That meeting wasted my time."How often have you made this statement? Like you, I've attended many unproductive meetings, but a recent one topped them all. I had been talking about my consulting...

16 Latest comment by Ian Thurston