Technology Tips for making your online life easier
I have done many in home service events over the years and have overwhelmingly ran across folks who have simple questions, but are unwilling to ask their friends and family for answers. This article is about how to make your online life easier and what options to consider when making purchases. The sections below are split into common issues that I have ran across in no certain order of importance.
Which Anti-virus software is the best?
This question has been asked the most often and there is no one good answer. I will, however, narrow the search for so that you can make a the best decision. There is malicious software out there masquerading as legitimate anti-virus software. Never be lured into one of those pop-up windows that flashes and tells you that your computer is infected. The best thing to do if you are alarmed is to click the X and close all of your open windows. Now, open your Anti-virus software and run a scan. What if you do not have an anti-virus software? The list below will cover the various legitimate anti-virus software along with some information about each one.
PC-cillin AntiVirus 11.0
Kaspersky Anti-Virus 2010 3-User
Anti-Virus & Anti-Spyware – 2 Year Subscription
Everyone needs anti-virus protection and at the very minimum you should have at least a free version, but don’t trust just any product that says free, because it could do more harm than good. For free solutions try:
AVG Free
Note: Your computer should be virus free before attempting to install an anti-virus
How much memory do I need?
The amount of memory in your PC, also called RAM, depends on what you are using it for. The demand that software puts on immediate memory usage makes it relevant to have a sufficient amount of RAM. My standard answer is get as much RAM as you can for the lowest price, but everyone needs at least 1GB, 2GB is better, and for heavy users 3-4GB is best. The motherboard and operating system has to be able to support any added memory. You can find out what your motherboard is capable of accepting by going to your manufactures Web site, or by looking at your documentation that came with your machine. It will say expandable up X amount of Ram.
What kind of computer should I buy?
Buying a computer is in large part the 3 P’s, personal preference, performance and price. Get the machine that has the look you want with the most amount RAM, fastest processor, and best video capabilities as possible for the lowest price. In other words do some research first! However I do recommend staying away from E-Machines, HP and Gateway. HP makes very good printers, and decent business class equipment, but it is too proprietary for home users making service and upgrades more difficult. Gateway is also very proprietary.
My favorite PC laptop is Acer
PC or Mac?
The choice to buy a PC or Mac is also very personal. While Macintosh computers are not incapable of getting virus’s they are much less susceptible to them. It is not that Macs cannot get a virus, but that the large majority of virus’s are made to attack the Windows operating system. Another choice when purchasing a PC is to have it loaded with one of the Linux operating systems. In the past decade Linux has become much more user friendly and capable of supporting a wider range of hardware and software. Even if you have a MAC or Linux operating system you still have the choice of loading Windows.
You can have a dual booting operating system, or run Windows in one of the many Virtual Machines
Remember the 3 P’s, preference, performance and price! If you need a professional opinion your local computer store can assist you. Many small business owners are affiliates for computer hardware and software vendors and can get you special pricing!
Geek Dependency and who designs these things anyway?
As consumers we are ever more dependent upon geeks to maintain, install, and upkeep our technology. The 60 minute video report embedded below makes Geek Squad look pretty good, but they aren’t complaining about lack of business either!
Watch CBS News Videos Online
Food for thought
Why ARE electronics so unnecessarily complicated? It is nothing new that every day objects are designed with little thought for the user and with much more emphasis on FEATURES. The Design of Everyday Things
Our society is becoming increasingly dependent upon the computer and electronic professional. Consumers need choices when it comes to customer service and shouldn’t be forced to deal with bored incompetent call center agents. Your local independent computer and electronic business owner can help guide you in making good choices about what to buy, where to buy it, how to repair/install/setup, and often times will even deal with unfriendly customer service for you!
The Future of IT – A Story and Prediction
We are entering a new decade of computing. The past decade and beyond was all about innovation and new technology, and there is new and exciting technology still to come! Still, while we may have the technology toys were are still at the mercy of IT professionals to fix them. I have a particularly keen sense of reading the moods of people and something I have seen happening is that the general public and business is becoming more and more angry and fed up with IT professionals. The underlying feeling has them confused and looking for answers, which has not boded well for the IT industry. Before I get into the how and the why, I would like to take a minute to tell a story.
Just over a year ago I sat in a sales meeting with non-technical business colleagues. This sales meeting was advertised as a “training session” for users of a certain ERP (enterprise resource planning) software. I arrived that morning eager to learn with notepad and pen in hand. After about an hour of listening and not having one single bit of information to write down, my eyes started wandering about the room. I was looking mostly at accountants, buyers, business owners, and other non-technical people who had been delegated the task of administering the ERP software. Why were all of these eager faces looking at the salesmen like they were gods?
The answer is simple, these new IT gods were telling them that they did not need IT people to run this software and that it was, in fact, as easy to use as Microsoft Office programs, after all, it was built around Microsoft technology. I had personally been working with this software for only a short time, but I can tell you in my professional opinion, it was not simple. Sure, the basics could be learned by anyone, but if you wanted to customize it and needed elaborate reports, or BOM’s it was quite a different story. I gathered up the courage and asked a question that required the sales person to actually use the software, rather than show pre-made demonstrations, or how they actually achieved what they were demonstrating as being simple. He stuttered a little, hesitated, then began to rather quickly go back and attempt a layman’s rendition. He looked at all of the confused faces around the room and quickly changed the subject recovering nicely with the audience, there almost an audible sigh as he steered them back onto the path of fancy easy to use upgrades and features.
I could not believe my eyes, or ears, and ended up feeling like this was a waste of an entire day, because I wasn’t learning anything about the software I was here to learn about. Why were my colleagues and all of these other, seemingly intelligent people, staring at the sales people like they were in a hypnotized zombie-like state? What was wrong with these people? Couldn’t they see that they were being schmoozed over by slick salesmen whose intention was for them not to hire software admins, so that they could continue to make money off of their naive hopes of eliminating in- house or contract IT people? To answer my own question, the answer is simply that they WANTED to believe it badly enough, therefore it must be true.
My eyes were opened that day. I realized that educated people were tired of being at the mercy of IT professionals, especially arrogant ones who never try to explain things to them in plain English. They all possessed a common bond where they wanted to feel empowered to solve their own technical problems and standing there before them were these software sales genius’s telling them they could be free. What happened over the past decade that has made people so cynical towards the IT industry?
Many things have happened, money, budgets, etc.. to make corporate America re-think IT needs, but It really is the fault of IT professionals that people have become disillusioned with them. I have been around enough Network Administrators, Programmers, Software Administrator, Help Desk technicians etc to know that by not sharing information and talking above non-technical people it somehow has given them this God-like status and they are not about to give it up without a fight! The funny, or not so funny, thing is that a great number of professional IT people do not even have college degrees, which must further widen the gap for those that worked hard and got that degree to be where they are today.
IT people demand high wages, special treatment, and carry around an air of superiority that has made other professionals and consumers fed up. The proof can be seen in the numbers of companies outsourcing IT nowadays. With the exception of technology companies I fully expect this trend to continue throughout the next decade until, being forced into the role of customer service, these arrogant assholes realize that they are no more important than anyone else in the company and start behaving with a team player attitude and adjusting for past mistakes. Not only that, but we will see an increase in educated IT people who are more user-centric.
In all fairness there are very good IT people out there, I like to think of myself as one of them. I have been looked down upon by my fellow IT co-workers for not seeming “techie” enough. I didn’t start out as an IT professional I worked hard to become one, so I feel like I appreciated the position of others in a more enlightened manner. End users do not want to hear technical jargon and be confused more, they just want a simple explanation, to be heard, and to have their problem solved, yesterday!
Why cut out Middlemen?
My last article was about outsourcing and the effects it has on technical “value.” In other words, the fewer middlemen the more bang for your buck! Generally speaking, when it comes to home users having their computer services go through several middlemen it is not the optimal situation to be in.
I can name at least 4 large scale corporations who outsource consumer warranty and installation work. The list includes such giants as ATT, HP, Samsung, and Dell. How do I know this? I have done work for everyone of those companies. You are literally at the mercy of these giants to make good on their promise to repair or install your hardware.
A typical repair for warranty work passes through 3 hands before getting to you. There is the company who sold you the extended warranty, the company they use to find technicians to do the work, and then the contracted technician themselves, sometimes even more hands. Several years ago the big companies had their own technicians, or found the techs themselves, but since that time more and more of them would rather pay someone else to handle consumer needs, because it just does not make sense to them to hire full time IT people to the jobs. While this scenario may make sense dollar sense to the large scale business, the consumer often times ends up forced to deal with inferior service and support.
There are many articles written on the benefits of outsourcing in business, but very few on how it affects the end user. You may receive excellent service, but chances are your service is simply “ok,” or worse, horrible. The middlemen are much like many others in the service industry, they are looking for warm bodies to show up at your door, and to make as much money as possible. They take a gamble on whether or not the technician will be top notch, or even mediocre, since most of the buyers are not technical they are ill equipped to choose good IT people. If the first tech they send fails to fix the issue or blunders in some way, they will chalk it up to a bad experience and send a second body hoping it will be better.
Big business does not have to put up with inadequate, sub par service, and neither do you! Find someone local to do your service and repairs. Someone who has a good reputation and can guide you on what to purchase and offer you a service agreement. The extra that you may pay initially is going to save you in several ways. First of all, you are not at the mercy of the huge conglomerate to do your repairs, secondly you will possibly save yourself many minutes, or hours, of time on the phone with a person from another country who has a language barrier and does not seem to care about your problem, and lastly, but extremely important, you are going to get professional quality service and personalized attention.
Small to medium computer repair shops are thriving all over America, because of the factors mentioned in this article. There are additional reasons to consider local computer sales and repair, but we can save that for another article in the series! Whether you hire Girlyteck, or another local tech, you can do so with confidence, trust and peace of mind.
Many of us prefer local insurance agents, local car salesmen, local bankers, and many others, so it just makes common sense that we would prefer local computer repair business. Do your local economy and yourself a favor and cut out the middlemen by doing business with local reputable computer business’s! You will be surprised at how economical, convenient, and stress-free it really is to have personalized computer services.
Outsourcing and the Effects on Technical Value
Over the past 5 years the face of IT has been going through some dramatic changes. What was once a highly specialized field is now becoming more and more common place and less valued by big business. Since we provide technical support services related to hardware, software, and networking this article will concentrate on that aspect of technical services, but keep in mind that this phenomena has spilled over into almost all areas of IT.
In recent years the cost of getting someone to support your network and do installations was around $100-$300 an hour, and it still is for business who employ vendors and third parties to provide technical support for them. For many years providers teamed up directly with second or third parties to complete work on a contract basis. The customer would hire a company directly who would then employ a third party who would contract the technician, the technician would do the work and get paid. This worked out well for all parties involved.
Then something happened. These new companies starting emerging with all sorts of names, but their business plan was the same to put themselves in between the consumer and the third party contractor in order to make money. So now we had a 4th party hiring a technician contractor to do the work, which lowered the pay of the technician, by about 40%. Many technicians, at this point, opened their own business’s and storefronts attempting to deal directly with consumers and business’s. The technicians who were left started taking jobs at a lower rate of pay. Then something else happened. A new breed of technician was born, the person who has little or no training and experience realized that they could get work by doing it even cheaper. Some of us in the business call these persons “pizza techs.” Meaning they do the jobs for some extra money to buy pizza.
Realizing that the cost of labor was getting even cheaper, even more new business’s started to emerge creating 5th and sometimes 6th party chains from the consumer to the end provider. The result of this was even lower pay until what we see in the current market emerged. Quality technicians became harder and harder to find, so companies devised ways of training and instructing less technical people to complete jobs, thus were able to pay them rock bottom prices. Many consumer do not know how many hands their work orders have passed through, because these companies work hard to make it all invisible to the consumer. The bottom line, although, is that customers are still paying the same costs or more, but receiving lower quality service.
Some ways to avoid poor service is to go directly to a local provider for your IT needs, avoiding any business who is almost strictly in retail. How do I know all of these things? Because I have been on both sides of the pendulum and dealt with these third and fourth parties directly. For instance, when you buy a warranty on your new TV or computer, you expect good service if something goes wrong, but in reality you are forced to call customer support, located overseas, it is time consuming and hard to communicate with non-English speaking people and when someone finally shows up to fix your problem, they are unprofessional, possibly close to literate, and do not care about your ordeal. Why? This person is the equivalent of a warm body often times, and if you are lucky a somewhat concerned individual. We have to ask ourselves this question, “if I was getting paid $30.00 to fix something that was $75 or more, how well of a job would I do?” This is by no means an exaggeration, I have seen work orders go out for these prices and quietly sat by and watched while they were accepted at face value.
The point of this article is to caution consumers and make them aware that the IT services they are paying for have often times been greatly reduced in quality so a few fat cats can make a buck off of them without them ever suspecting a thing. There are ways to help avoid becoming the victim of these unscrupulous companies and one way to hire someone local to do the work. Not only do we help our local economy by hiring local reputable computer and TV technicians, but we can be certain that the job we hired someone to perform has not gone through multiple vendors before reaching the person who is going to provide service to us.
Just like in many other things, until consumers demand better service for their money, these companies will exist. They have sucessfully circumvented the minimum wage law by not hiring W-2 employees, and often times are paying the equivalent of slave labor to complete the service contract agreements. There are still some good third party companies out there who pay a fair wage and hire quality technicians, but they are becoming more and more rare.