HelpDeskNotes

The Biotour Bus: Teaching About The Technology of the Future

Tue, 29 Apr 2008 17:37:16 -0700

I came across a very interesting non-profit organization whose mission is to enliven the sustainable energy movement. BioTour adventures and exploration of the cultural and natural diversity across the USA encourage people to break free of old patterns of thought and behavior and inspire creative action.

The first BioTour bus traversed the USA on a trip from Massachusetts to Nevada for the Burning Man Festival in 2006. This group of young people traveled across the USA in 4 buses powered by solar power and waste fryer grease from restaurants. The busses have already traveled through 42 states, and have held more than 70 events at colleges, other schools, and community gatherings.

Five Interesting Facts:

1. My first question was how clean does waste vegetable oil burn? Their answer: It greatly reduces greenhouse gas emissions when compared to diesel fuel, it has no sulfur (which causes acid rain), it has fewer particulates than diesel fuel which causes asthma and other respiratory ailments for some people.

2. The buses run on waste vegetable oil collected from restaurants across the country. As a result, the emissions smell like french fries. The bus warms up and shuts down on biodiesel (biodiesel is chemically altered vegetable oil) or petrodiesel when biodiesel is unavailable for purchase.

U Rock Hard: A Community of People Who Rock

Mon, 28 Apr 2008 18:53:18 -0700

Just when you thought there could not be anymore, another social media Network comes along. This is a site for music lovers who want to share their art. URockHard.com is dedicated to people who make their own music. Site users with profiles can post videos, upload pictures, and create email accounts to share their comments and experiences with other enthusiasts.

Guitar Games – a space dedicated to guitar game videos such as Guitar Hero

Rock Bands – a space dedicated to multiplayer music gaming videos such as Rock Band

Karaoke – a space dedicated to karaoke or personal singing performances

Air Garage – need I say more!

The Garage – a space dedicated to musicians from the solo drummer to top rated bands and everything in between

How to Re-Apply Your IT Skills

Fri, 25 Apr 2008 21:05:51 -0700

There is no question, IT opportunities are shrinking in the USA. Jobs are being outsourced, and salaries are shrinking more by the day. Many IT professionals in the USA who are looking for new job opportunities may need to take their focus off of the IT jobs to find their next nitche. The skills of IT professionals are highly marketable in other career fields. You just need to apply your creative troubleshooting skills at another angle.

A new book came out recently for IT professionals that can help people look at their career opportunities in a new light. Debugging your Information Technology Career may be just what you need to expand your perspective. Even your education in IT can be cleverly highlighted on your resume to show how you qualify for another line of work.

The author, Janice Weinberg, is a career consultant who has been through the IT job transition herself. She started out as a Systems Programmer for IBM, and at GE, before she re-applied her skills to marketing, sales management, and strategic planning roles in GE's computer services business.

India Outsourcing Company Recruits IT Support with a Bus

Fri, 25 Apr 2008 01:13:22 -0700

India IT help desks are facing a shortage of qualified workers. About 5% of the population speaks English, and only a portion of English speaking job candidates have IT skills.

So as a result, IT recruiters in India are going out to find candidates by bus and inviting them to ``Step in to step ahead.'' Aashu Calapa said, ``The industry is facing a tremendous talent crunch. This innovation may expand the talent pool and take jobs to the job seekers.''

Many of India’s IT workers face burnout, and as a result, help desks have a 50% turn over rate. Long hours, often twelve hour days, are common. Also, the busiest hours are at night, to coincide with US business hours.

Operation costs of outsourced data centers in India are increasing, and I suspect all other IT operating costs will follow. As a result, this may help level the wage playing field a bit for IT workers in the USA.

Friday Funnies: Earth Day for George Bush

Thu, 24 Apr 2008 22:20:41 -0700

Earth Day did not get much attention this week with all the other distractions in the news. I guess that is why I could not resist posting something about politics and Earth Day all in one shot this Friday. With all of the heat in the political arena, it seems appropriate. I am a few days late for Earth day too, but since Friday is the day I normally have jokes, I thought this would be a good video for today.

George Bush's Earth Day

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It's a Story of Survival of the Fittest for HDI - now SDI!

Wed, 23 Apr 2008 20:57:45 -0700

I am sitting here chucking to myself over an article by CIO called Help Desks Killed off by Service Desks. The evolution of the IT industry has driven out the words "help desk" because of negative nick names like "unhelpful" or "Helpless" Help Desk. This change has also been driven by the development of ITIL service desk theory. Since I got my cert in 2005, I have wondered when HDI (Help Desk Institute) is going to catch on.

In a press release that came out earlier this month said, “In the 20 years since HDI was established, the definition of ‘Help Desk’ has become outdated and primarily referential only as a single-point of IT contact support. Through the successful uptake of ITIL, ‘Service Desk’ has become the most common term within the ITSM industry. The term rightly reflects a vastly improved quality of service and IT support that is better skilled, more empowered and more cost effective. The revised brand will consequently help to support the pivotal role we play at the heart of the ITSM industry and to ultimately expand our global reach.”

This all reminds me a little of the Geico caveman commercials, so I thought I would bring you a Geico commercial for a chuckle, but HDI was not near as funny as this commercial. Laugh a little at the past:

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I was a Finalist in the HumorPress Writing Contest!

Wed, 23 Apr 2008 20:31:54 -0700

Some time ago, I wrote a Humor Article for Help Desk Notes, and since I could not find anything similar to it on the internet, I decided to enter it in a humor writing contest. I wrote My Safe Mode Dream back in August 2007. In February, I sent it to HumorPress.com, and I was pleasantly surprised when they contacted me to say that I was a finalist, especially since it was a short piece, and it can be hard enough to translate a technical humor to a non-technical audience.

Here is a link to the Finalists and the Prizewinners. They are all very good!

Friday Laughs: Bad A$$ Bunny and a Snake - Who Do You Think Wins? See the Video!

Thu, 10 Apr 2008 19:34:05 -0700

There was the Tortoise and the Hare, there was a fable from India called The Lion and the Hare, and now here's the Serpent and the Hare. In a scrimmage between a snake and a hare, which one do you think will win? Which one would you place your bet on? Which one will back down, "turn tail," and run? Come on! This is an easy one, isn’t it? I think you will be surprised when you see this video.

Got a comment? Post it! Then pass this along to a friend.

Want to see more funny videos?

Laugh until you cry.

What a Difference the Right Help Desk Software Can Make

Wed, 09 Apr 2008 11:21:22 -0700

Olan Mills Inc, once a privately owned company with a chain of 900 portrait studios, closed its doors and reopened inside of 1,100 Kmart stores.

The company purchased a cumbersome point-of-sale system that required an exorbitant amount of IT support. The help desk software they used to support the point of sale software was not easy to use, and it was difficult to assess the status of a trouble ticket or find answers to simple problems.

Pete Cole, Olan Mills' field liaison manager, realized it was time to deploy a help desk software application that would allow help desk analysts to find solutions quickly and users to resolve problems on their own in some cases. Cole finally settled on a browser based help desk application that was easy for help desk analysts to navigate.

The right software package did several things to increase overall efficiency of store operations.

* Reduced training time for new employees

* Quickly identified and fixed common software problems

* Help desk agents were able to handle more calls

* Problem tracking became a useful and viable way to solve problems

See more Help Desk Software articles

The Grid: The Upgrade From The Internet

Tue, 08 Apr 2008 20:19:26 -0700

Just when you thought you had the latest and greatest internet connection, the upgrade to comes out. Can you imagine what type of technology is next on the menu of high tech? Well, you don’t need to imagine anymore. This summer you will be able to see the power of The Grid when Cern, the Genva based particle physics center, switches on the Large Hadron Collider. According to the TimesOnline The Grid may actually make the internet obsolete.

What can The Grid do that the internet cannot?

The Grid will be about 10,000 times faster than broadband. That kind of speed will allow techology, like holographic video conferencing, to begin - which will make gaming a whole new world. The Grid has already been used to design a drug against malaria. Domestic use, however; will probably not be available right away.

Sorry to disappoint...

Why So Many US IT Jobs Are going Overseas

Tue, 08 Apr 2008 15:30:43 -0700

I recently became acquainted with Matt Lykken who graduated with honors from Harvard Law School in 1985. Today he is a tax attorney who put together a website that explains in plain English why US employers are so incline to send US jobs overseas. It explains how the corporate tax bill gives corporations tax cuts for sending jobs overseas. For example: If you opened a business, and you needed to hire someone, but you would be fined 35% of your income if you hired a US citizen, wouldn't you choose to hire a non-citizen?

This isn't only a problem for those people who work on help desks in the US. You see, when help desk analysts loose their jobs; they start looking for other IT positions. Pretty soon, there are too many people competing for desktop, system admin, and other IT jobs, and wages go down. This causes a surplus of highly skilled workers. Those jobs are filled by people overseas who do not have the same IT skill sets, but they work for a fraction of the cost.

Lollapalooza - A Music Festival for the Internet Age

Mon, 07 Apr 2008 11:37:35 -0700

Lollapalooza is one of the biggest music festivals of the year, and right now it is the hottest topic on the internet. It will take place on August 1-3 in Chicago's Grant Park and sponsors include AT&T, Citi, Playstation, and Bud Light. What does this mean? Well this is a show like no other you have ever seen.

For a $200 three day pass you can see the 115 artists that will be on stage at this three day event - I won't even start naming them. You'll have to go to the website yourself to check it out.

If you can't make it, you can always download the iTunes.

The schedule will not be available until June, so I recomend you signup for the newsletter now if you want to stay posted

Outsourcing - Two Problems Areas in Outsourcing That Are Rarely Considered - And a Winning Solution

Mon, 07 Apr 2008 09:01:23 -0700

Many U.S. companies who have fallen into the trap of outsourcing their IT departments have learned all the disadvantages the hard way. The decline in service that companies suffer after making an outsourcing transition can be harsh on company profits, but tracking that back the outsourced IT department takes intuitive research. Being in IT as long as I have, I can tell you that there are two fundamental problems with outsourcing outside of the US. Lack of IT experience and language barriers cause significant down time. All of these problems can be avoided when the steps are taken in the beginning.

Lack of experience - IT Outsourcing outside the US became popular around 1998, but after the initiation of the 2004 corporate tax breaks, outsourcing IT jobs was the new best selling idea for Corporations. The first time I was forced to deal with a 100% scripted IT support call was when I had to call Dell about a hardware problem in 1999. The person I was talking to did not have the basic understanding of what he was asking me to do. I had to keep explaining that I already knew what the problem was. I had already done the troubleshooting. I was an IT specialist myself, and I knew what was wrong, but this person was trying to follow his script. I explained that the evidence supported I had a bad motherboard, but he could not grasp what I was saying. "OK, I know the logic behind what you are saying, but as I said previously, I already checked that. Let's move on the next part of your script so we can get to what I have already explained. I need a new motherboard." A call that should have been 15 minutes wasted 45 minutes of my time.

There is no more effective way for a company to set themselves up for IT disaster, then to remove a host of people who have put years into designing an IT network for a company, and replace them with less experienced people that know very little about your business. I heard second hand how one company suffered tremendous losses the first day they switched their network over to a large outsourcing company. They had three "Severity 1" outages on the same day.

Help Desk Software: Ticket Desk Pro - Going Going...

Tue, 01 Apr 2008 15:45:45 -0700

Here is a new software package I just heard about called Ticket Desk Pro. The price is currently 15.47, but look out, the price goes up five cents every time someone buys a copy. (Pretty original idea for selling software!) You can also earn a commission after you install it on your website. Any customers who creates a ticket on your website will see a link to Ticket Desk Pro at the bottom of every page. If they click the link, you earn a commission. That’s not a bad deal!

I must say that the website doesn't look very professional. In my opinion, the site was designed by an infomercial expert. The good thing about that is you know you are not lining the pockets of internet marketing gurus. Never the less, this may be the solution for you, if your help desk is short staffed.

I am not breaking down the details of what this package can offer you, because the terms they use to describe their features do not make any sense to me.

Take a look at my Help Desk Tools and Reviews Archives to see what else is out there.

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April Fools! I'm back!

Tue, 01 Apr 2008 12:26:05 -0700

Hello everyone out there in tech support! I have been quiet for a while, but I have not forgotten about you! Surprising you with a new post out of no-where was not meant to be an April Fools prank. I've just been busy taking care of some of some of those very taxing things that life dishes out. (I’ll be sure to tell you all about it.) The hardest part is over, and now I can get back to my Help Desk Notes Blog. I'm excited to be back, and I have a host of important help desk topics to catch-up on with you. So keep reading!

Just for fun, I decided to hook you up with some clasic April Fools websites. Check them out:

Top 100 April Fools Day Hoaxes

April Fools News - Hillary Challenges Obama to Bowl (Please Hillary, give it up already!)