cybrpunk.com

Tech Tips: Clues for the Clueless

Are you a computer user?  If so, today’s post is aimed squarely at that bullseye on your forehead.  Tech people already know the list below by heart, but the common user seems to be oblivious to the following 10 tips on how to get better tech support.  This list was put together by me based on my own experiences in tech support of corporate clients.  If you re-use this, please link back to this site.

Here’s my Top Ten list of things to consider when you need tech support:

1. If you want our help, please get up from the chair and let us get access to the PC.  This is an immediate clue as to the intelligence level of a given user if they ask for help but don’t think to get up and let us work.  If you really want to piss us off when we ask to see your PC, just swivel the keyboard around and stay seated that way we have to balance on one foot to keep from touching the unholiness that is your presence which is dumb enough to think that this actually helps.  We don’t want to catch whatever you have.
2. Hovering over our shoulders while we work is not only irritating but often times distracting.  Unless we specifically need your input or are trying to show you how to do something… give us space.  We don’t need you to constantly take the mouse out of our hands to show us things that are completely irrelevant to the problem at hand.  Also, unless we are really close friends, we don’t need to hear all about your family and where you went on vacation while we are trying to fix your PC.  Hearing about your fantasy vacation to an elite resort on a private island could cause something unexpected.  Like your hard drive being mysteriously formatted.  I’m just saying….
3. Sitting in a chair across the desk from where we are working and continually whining about your deadline or lost data or missed appointment will not speed things up.  Crying will also not help.  It kinda freaks us out.  Just because you need your PC to be working right now does not alter the fact that it’s not working.
4. Please don’t call us for help with a problem and give us no information to go on.  This is especially annoying when you tell us that your PC is down when in fact, you just have Internet Explorer set to Work Offline and nothing more.  Better yet, call me in the middle of the night and tell me that the network is down because you can’t get your e-mail from home.  There are about 8,326,287,491 possible causes of this problem and only one of those is the network being completely down.  OMG.
5. If you are getting error messages on your PC, please please please take a screen-shot of that message or at least write it down.  Don’t be that user that just automatically clicks OK on every pop-up no matter what it was and then wonder why nothing is working.  Those error messages are sometimes clues as to the problems you are having.  They are important.  At least read them.
6. If you’re going to drop your PC off on our desks, leave something that will give us a clue as to what we are looking at.  I’ve found unlabeled notebook PCs sitting on my desk or chair before with no note, no name, no contact number, no indication of a problem… nothing.  Then at the end of the day So-and-So will call asking if their PC is fixed.  The answer is always going to be NO.  At least leave a Post-It note with your name or number so we know who to call to find out why we have an orphan in our office.  Even a snapshot of you with your dog would be more desirable than nothing if you can’t be bothered to write even your own name.
7. If you know that you will be getting a new PC setup at your desk take a minute or two to clean up around the hardware that will be replaced.  If you aren’t sure what will be replaced, then just clean it all up.  That includes removing all the Post-It notes, toys, pictures, shwag, stickers, make-up, food, mobile phone adapters, USB aquariums, etc. that are obviously going to be in the way of us helping you change your equipment.  Or if that’s too much trouble, then don’t complain when you find all your precious “stuff” swept off to the edge of your desk in a ball of clutter that would make the King of the Cosmos weep with pride.
8. If your PC is having a problem and we ask you if you installed anything on the PC - don’t lie.  We are not that stupid.  You’re only making yourself look bad when you lie about things like that.  More than likely we, or someone on our team, built that PC you are now using.  So when we look at the problem computer and see that Yahoo Instant Messenger, Ask Toolbar, 1001 Smileys, Free Animal ScreenSaver, Bejeweled, Nokia Mobile Connect, etc. are installed on your PC we not only know that you lied but you have given us proof.  Everything installed on a PC can potentially change how the whole system works.  We don’t just ask this for fun.  If you lie it’s not going to change the reality of what you did.  Just be honest.  We may think you are ignorant for not knowing better but at least you can look us in the eye with some sense of dignity.
9. If you don’t like an answer you’ve received to your PC questions, then by all means ask for explanations or clarifications.  Not all tech people are as open and friendly as I am.  Many techs have the social skills of a badger suffering from crack withdrawals.  Sometimes you may need more info.  But whatever you do, DO NOT get angry with us if we have worked on your problems and given you an honest answer that you just don’t like.  The best way to ensure that you will never receive quality tech support again is to yell and scream at the servicing technician because there is no way for them to recover your files off a crashed hard drive or a failed USB thumb drive.  Threatening our jobs because you don’t think we’ve done our jobs right, even though we’ve told you that what you are asking for is impossible, will also not get you very far.  Even if you succeeded in getting that particular tech fired, you will quickly run out of IT people when they all give you the same answer.  Attend some anger management classes but do not take out your problems on the tech.
10. You don’t need us to do or see every single thing that happens on your PC.  If you got a message in Internet Explorer that said it will be showing you both secure and unsecure items, yeah OK, no problem.  That’s normal.  If your screen flickered once and never again… probably a fluke or you kicked the power cord under your desk.  And if you get an error or warning message on your PC that comes complete with an explanation of the problem you are having and instructions on how to fix that problem then by all means please try it out.  Not only does it save time and gives you a certain sense of pride that you were able to fix your own computer problem but it also keeps you from wasting our time.  Many programs do offer fixes for the problems that can arise.  Most developers also make these message “dummy-proof” so even the most computer illiterate person can understand and follow the instructions.  We are not here to hold your hand every time the computer beeps.  It’s not scary.  It will be OK.

There you go.  That ended up being a lot longer than I had thought it would be.  I think the next Tech Tips will cover the opposite angle and focus on the techs themselves.  Users are always to blame but we have to share some of the burden sometimes.  Sometimes.

Mixed up PCs

For as long as I’ve been with this company they have been using only Dell computers and servers.  Recently though our parent company has decided that all companies under it’s umbrella must start purchasing and using HP computers and servers.  I don’t mind HP at all but this shift in hardware was not thought out other than to make this mandate and then leave people wondering: How?

We have no corporate or global agreement with HP like we do with Dell.  We have no standardized pricing and discounts like we currently enjoy.  And so far, it looks like the first HP notebook I’ve ordered is going to take at least three weeks to arrive.  Unlike Dell which takes, at most, a week.  Someone should have thought about this just a little more.

Now add to this that we also have to deal with Lenovo on some projects so we have to be able to buy Lenovo notebooks as well.  I just received a brand new Thinkpad X61s this morning (which was ordered one week after the HP) and have started removing the bloatware.  Thinkpads have always been notorious for putting tons of extra crap into their computer builds that no one will ever use.  It’s a waste of everyone’s time.

I just ordered six PCs from Dell last week.  They are all here already.  I think I’ll just worry about HP later.

Thursday Tech Tips

I had a user setting up his notebook at the last second in a conference room full of expectant visitors.  When his notebook wouldn’t connect to the room’s built-in projector it seems that he went and grabbed our nice Dell portable projector.  When that didn’t work and the meeting was two minutes overdue to start, they finally came running to me.

Unfortunately, this left me with no time to help him with the problem he was having with connecting to external displays.  The only thing I could do was grab a spare Dell notebook on the way out of my office and have him copy his presentations to it so he could continue on with the meeting.  Problem not solved but crisis averted.

Today he tells me that he’s leaving on the weekend for a week and he needs that functionality to work and he won’t be able to let Dell have the laptop before then to fix it.  Uhh….  So I dredged through my rusty databank of a mind and remembered that I kept seeing a little graphic pop-up each time he hit Fn+F8 and it said “Presentation Mode: OFF.”  I remember thinking that that wasn’t right but couldn’t troubleshoot it at the time.

I contacted Dell Support and of course they can’t do much without me having the PC in front of me, but they did give me a hint that I thought might work.  There’s a Dell QuickSet application that runs in the background and gives some control over certain system settings and functions.  So I got the PC for a few minutes and checked QuickSet and sure enough, there’s a Display setting that, if unchecked, will not allow you to use external displays.  Presentation Mode was indeed turned off.

So I checked the box to enable Presentation Mode and tested it with an external LCD monitor and a HD Plasma TV in the conference room.  Imagine that…   it works now.  Not so hard of a fix after all.  But how did it get set like that in the first place?  That I can’t answer… yet.  I have two new D630s sitting here in my office though and I intend to see what their default settings are on this.

So that’s the first tech tip for today.  The second one is more of a common sense tip that should be obvious after reading the above.  If you need help with your PC, please… for the love of all that’s silicon, give us technical people a little time to fix your problem.  Asking for help at the last possible second is the worst time to do so.  Especially when you knew the problem existed previously.

Hong Kong: Closed

A severe tropical storm passed through Hong Kong this morning and the goverment instated the highest weather warning of Typhoon Signal 8 at around 10:30pm last night.  Because of that, our office along with pretty much everything else in Hong Kong, was shut down until the warning signal was lowered to a 3.  It makes sense when you consider that most of Hong Kong is water.

So that means that I was up every 30 minutes or so after my alarm went off to check the Hong Kong Observatory website to see what alerts were raised.  As long as the Signal 8 was in effect, the ferries to leave our island wouldn’t run, the busses to leave our apartment wouldn’t run and as far as I know, even if I were to make it out of Discovery Bay alive, the MTR trains don’t run either.  So, as I said, Hong Kong shuts down.

If the signal persists to 2:00pm then we can forget about work and do whatever.  But if the signal lowers before then we have to come to work within 2 hours.  That kind of sucks.  So when I saw that the signal had changed back to a 3 at around 11:30am I reluctantly took my smelly self to the shower and got cleaned up.  I had to go to work.

It’s not a bad thing.  I have a lot to do today.

Garsh Dangit

Garsh Dangit: Space Ranger.  Hehe.  Sounds funny.

It seems that I never got around to making a post yesterday.  Which is pretty damn lame if you ask me.  Which you didn’t but if you had that would have been what I would have said.  I have a stash of jokes and pictures that can be used in cases of post emergencies just like that but it does no good if I just plain forget.

Yesterday at work was insanely busy.  I had a big implementation of a Cisco ASA 5510 firewall/Intrusion protection/VPN system for an affiliate company and it took much longer than anticipated to complete.  I didn’t even really get to sit in my own office till about 3:00pm when I finally kicked the installers out so I could get some lunch.

Today has been busy catching up on all the things that didn’t get attended to yesterday as well as some things that needed to get done today.  I spent some time talking to the guy who will be replacing me out here in Hong Kong once I leave to go back to St. Louis.  He’ll be another ex-pat from St. Louis just like me and he has tons of questions just like I did when I was planning on coming here.  I think he’ll do OK out here.  He’s got some size 10 shoes to fill.  Seriously, I’m going to leave him a pair of my shoes.  No, not really.  I’m all hopped up on sugar right now so anything I say can and will be held against me tightly and I won’t let go.  What?  Don’t mind me. My teeth hurt.

Beer

I think I feel like having a beer.  Maybe two or three.  I could probably go for a full on drunken stupor to be truthful, but a couple of beers would suffice.  It’s been a rough couple of weeks.  It’s friday evening and I’m leaving work and I still have a ton of stuff waiting for me on Monday.  Beer: yeah, I’ve earned it.

Beer.  It’s what’s for dinner.

The mobile web

I just attended a luncheon regarding the rising opportunities in the online mobile phone markets and it was pretty interesting.  I found out the the average youth user in China sends an average of 100 text messages a day.  That’s just sending!  Considering I’d never sent a text message in my life prior to coming to Hong Kong, that just seems inconceivable to me.

However, the focus of the presentation was about the youth market and how it’s affecting and shaping the mobile web.  Basically the premise is that the kids today are deciding and driving the technology and services available on mobile devices and us old folks will just get whatever they decide on.  Lucky us.  The 2 second attention span generation has come to power.

Supposedly, 50 Cent and young Japanese girls have something in common.  They are doing something called Lifecasting.  They basically wear their phones around their necks and let it record constantly throughout their day and it auto transmits these images or video to an online accessible site.  Personally, I’m not sure how I would feel about this but I guess it would keep Fiddy from doing illegal activities since he’d be broadcasting whatever he’s doing to the world.  The japanese girls will probably get flooded with dirty old men though.  But maybe that’s what they’re going for.

It sounds like more and more content on mobile devices will be branded as well.  Just like you can’t have a college bowl game without some companies name and logo plastered all over it.  Just like you can’t play certain video games without seeing billboards in the games advertising everything from soft drinks to cars.  Now your mobile content will also be branded.  Considering the size of the screens, I hope that you can still see what you were looking for with all those logos.

Of course since this meeting I’ve been thinking about the possibilities of making this site and A Little Scary more mobile friendly.  I found this Wordpress Mobile Plugin that looks like it makes your site mobile phone compatible and thought I might give it a try.  If anyone out there has any opinions on the matter, please leave them in the comments.

Too busy

It’s been a long day and it’s almost time for nighty-night time.  I’ve been swamped at work for the past week and a half to two weeks and I just got off two calls to my management in St. Louis to make a very long day even longer.  I haven’t had time to post, to do any artwork, to work on the comic or anything today.  Granted I was at work and I was working but I hate it when I’m being pulled in three different directions all day long and don’t even get to take a breather for lunch.  Oh well, whatever.

So other than a little whining I got nothing much else to say right now.  Although I do have to mention that I just found out that my boss (soon to be my ex-boss in a few hours) has been diligently reading this site.  I guess it’s a good thing I don’t complain too much about work on here or name names, eh?  If she’s reading this I wish her good luck in her new project.

And with that, I’ll be signing off to go put my shoes on, take the dogs out and then crash.  It’s been a long day and I deserve some sleep.  That cat better stay quiet tonight….

You need a what?

Our company’s CEO is in the office today and there are lunches and dinners planned to keep him amused and well fed.  However I must have missed an e-mail somewhere along the line.  The office manager bounded into my office asking for my baby picture.

You want what?  A baby picture of me?  Those are all in the States and not scanned.  Why?

So it’s something to do with some activity during a dinner.  So I’m assuming we will be expected to guess the employee by their baby pic.  I got nothing.  SO, I decided to improvise.

Here’s the first one I sent to the office manager:

I think my Mother would agree that this is a pretty close approximation to any real baby pictures that do exist.  But this was denied as an acceptable submission.

So I decided to improvise some more.  I broke out Photoshop and got to work.  And ended up with this:

I think that’s the one they are going to use.  Without the watermark of course.  I still say the monkey picture is better, but there’s just no accounting for taste on this side of the world.  Perhaps the hat won them over?

Windows Server 2008 launch event

Today I didn’t go into the office.  Today I went to the Wan Chai Convention and Expo Centre to attend the Microsoft Windows Server 2008 launch event.   I’d like to say it was fun.  I’d like to, but I can’t.  Oddly enough, going to a product event here in Hong Kong is not much different than going to a public festival.  It’s crowded and people will push past you to get to what you are trying to get to no matter what.

Add to this that the break-out sessions that I wanted to attend were all either full or in Cantonese only and it wasn’t all that great.  I really only wanted the free copy of Windows Vista Ultimate NFR and the little 3 Kingdoms figurines that they were giving away and I gotta say that it just wasn’t worth it to me to stay till the very end to try and get those.

But of course it was a Microsoft event and there were tons of vendors on hand to deplete my business card stash and add me to their mailing and call lists: all in the name of shwag.  Granted the shwag wasn’t as good as some events I’ve heard about, but it wasn’t bad.
Here’s a picture of the official Microsoft  Shwag Bag.

It’s a pretty nice messenger bag with a compartment for holding a notebook computer smaller than mine.

Here’s the crap… I mean shwag… that I dumped out  of it after I got home.

Which consisted of leaflets and folders from over a dozen companies that I could care less about, 4 spiral notepads, 3 post-it note bundles, a wireless mouse (no batteries), an inflatable drink float shaped like a tiny inflatable chair, a Swiss-Army like pocket knife, numerous CDs and DVDs with things on them I will never install, a couple of pens, 2 monitor wipey things, and a nice booklet of all the updates in Vista SP1: completely in Chinese.

I’m sure I missed a few things but who cares really.  It’s all crap and will almost all eventually end up in the trash just like usual.  It may take me a while but that’s the ultimate end for shwag.