Whether you’re interested in wiring diagrams, product reviews, sample resumes, certification tools, checklists, white papers, sample code, or Gartner product analysis, the TechRepublic Downloads Center has all this and a whole lot more. Each week, you’ll find a variety of new material to help make your job a little easier. Best of all, it’s totally free! If you already use our downloads, you know firsthand how helpful they are. But for those of you who haven’t taken advantage of this valuable resource, here’s a glimpse of what you’re missing, as well as some feedback from TechRepublic members.
To say thanks for helping us make TechRepublic a great IT site, we’re celebrating our millionth member and all 999,999 others with a member appreciation week. As part of the celebration, we’re having a contest. To enter, send us an e-mail with a constructive comment about TechRepublic: what works, what doesn’t, or how you would change the site to make it better. At the end of the week, we’ll pick three e-mail addresses from all the respondents, and these members will receive tickets to the Gartner Symposium next spring.
Our download made this TechRepublic member a hero
Currently, our most popular download is “200 ways to revive a hard drive.” It’s a compilation of techniques for troubleshooting failed hard drives and is divided into four categories:

  • Freeze it
  • Drop it
  • Hit it
  • The rest of the solutions

Over 127,000 TechRepublic members have downloaded this file, and many have sent us their thanks. Here just one example of how our downloads can make your job easier.

Wayne R. Hainsworth, a network engineer, told us how this download made him look good on the job: “Just a short note to tell you how your ‘200 ways to revive a hard drive’ download has made me a hero three times in the past month. Each hard disk drive (HDD) was in a manager’s PC, and in each case, there was not a good backup available, so I had three very upset managers.

“The ‘Freeze it’ method worked in each case. I was able to revive the HDD and recover their data, and I taught them a good lesson at the same time about keeping timely backups. Anyway, thanks for those tips and the great work you people do at TechRepublic.”

  1. 200 ways to revive a hard drive: Over 200 TechRepublic members contributed their tips for troubleshooting a failed hard drive.
  2. Use TechRepublic’s TCP/IP checklist to troubleshoot your network: Troubleshoot problems on Windows and Linux networks using our simple 12-step TCP/IP checklist.
  3. The ultimate preventive maintenance checklist: TechRepublic readers helped compile this list of things to check on your next preventive maintenance visit.
  4. Windows 2000: What to expect from Microsoft’s new operating system: Download TechRepublic’s white paper to get up to speed on the Windows 2000 operating system. Updated June 2000.
  5. Shortcut-key cheats, version 2: We’ve updated our list of shortcut keys, those funky keyboard combinations that perform magical acts.

Avoid trial and error mistakes
Recently, Support Republic posted a CAT 5 Patch Cable Creation Guide that illustrated how to make a CAT 5 Ethernet patch cable. Since its debut in October, this file has seen over 33,000 downloads. While none of the fans for this download have been as descriptive as Mr. Hainsworth, their comments are equally as supportive.

Carol Hallabrin “really liked this guide. It was simple to understand (even for a novice) and great for reference material. I gave a copy of it to a friend who was asking me cabling questions, and he was on his way.”

Alan Hegwood told us, “On review, the CAT 5 cable creation guide is very concise and helpful. I can tell now that I’ll have to do more than a few of these to justify the expense of buying the crimping tool.”

Bill Wynne wrote, “Great stuff!! I teach networking to adults, and this is the best description I’ve seen on the topic. I’ll use it in every class. A day doesn’t go by that I don’t look at TechRepublic.com.”

Tools to help you learn
Jason Smith recently authored a series of articles and a download to help members learn the basics of Microsoft Access 2000. This series and the download received plenty of praise for being educational and easy to follow.

Pat Williamson wrote, “Thanks for doing this, Jason. I’m finding it very helpful, and the fact that the lessons are in bite-sized chunks helps!”

Lawrence Levine wrote, “Thanks! Not currently a user (I’m a spreadsheet guy, through and through), but there are times when the database size requirements make Access a better alternative for recording and analysis. The approach in this article was a cinch to follow and emulate.”

David D. responded very simply, “Brilliant.”
Do you find our Downloads Center to be helpful and informative? Have the downloads helped you through a difficult technical problem? Let us know! Post a comment below or send us a note.