… but you don’t listen to.

Reader’s Digest recently printed an article entitled “Thirteen Things Your Computer Person Won’t Tell You.” They followed this up with extra “online content” with “7 [more] things your computer person won’t tell you“.

I’m not sure I would endorse hunting down a copy of RD just to see this article but if your mother or grandmother happens to have it lying around give it a read. There were several things that bothered me about this article, aside from the content itself (Which I will get to in a second). First the writer seems to see fit to put an “us vs them” mentality on the user and the tech. Like the things written in the article will somehow destroy the tech support job as mankind knows it and force us all to find new jobs. As a tech, my job is to be here for the user, not to discover how much “lazy time” I can find for myself.

Second, some of the items on their list are just wrong.

And Thirdly, journalistic integrity.

Sources: Derek Meister, Geek Squad; Aaron Schildkraut, myhometech.net; anonymous posters on TechRepublic.com; techcomedy.com
[emphasis added]

What!? You got some of your sources from anonymous posters from a website? Not to mention a technology comedy site? I don’t know if the writer was trying to be funny or not but it sure doesn’t come across that way. While not really reputable in many tech circles I can see going to Best Buy’s Geek Squad for answers like this, but “MyHomeTech” (DOT NET!?) as a resource?

In my next article I’ll detail more of how I think the article should have been handled instead of how they did handle it.

Our apologies as we continue to work on this site. Erik was gone and I (Ben) was having to do several jobs at once and didn’t have to write articles. Erik has returned safely and we’ll be firing up the content on this site again very soon.

Being as Erik is gone this past week and the next few weeks in Africa (Darfur to be exact) helping out World Relief with some much needed computer help (I’ll have him link to or do a technical writeup of what he did while he was there when he gets back) I thought I would provide a link to a way that might interest you in getting out of your padded cubicle and see some of the world.

Today’s link is with a group called Projects Abroad. The link I’ve provided there is an add for teaching IT skills to Africans who are hard up for work. (Computer skills, it seems, are hard to come by in 3rd world countries where computers themselves are hard to find.)

I used some of my desktop skills to teach Microsoft Office products in Spain for a few weeks one summer. Teaching and/or volunteering to help other people not in your country with some skills that you can provide is not only a great way to help others, but it also allows you to see some of the world. It’s worth a shot, both Erik and I have done it, and I think we would both recommend it.

My life in a cube isn’t really a technical humor comic at all. It’s drawn on the backs of letters and post-it notes and other papers. I post it here because it deals with working in a cube-farm on a computer. Something that I am sure we’ve all had some sort of experience with. (If not, then let the comic be an experience for you…)

BartPE. Those that know about it can sing its praises, and those that don’t know, well, that is why I am writing this.

I cannot tell you how many times in my computing career thus far BartPE has saved me. It works like a linux live CD, only it’s Windows based. The number of things you can do with it are pretty much limited only by your imagination (if you can program) and plugins that people have created. (If you can’t program)

Some of the things I personally have done with BartPE: reset windows passwords, edited registry values (of the windows install I was trying to fix, not the live one), scanned for and removed viruses, recovered files that were “impossible” to get to in a running Windows environment, and ghosted hard drives to a network share.

All of this from a a bootable CD! This is easily my favorite bit of free software. If you’ve used BartPE I’d like to know. What have you used it to do?

If you don’t know about Google then I have to admit I am a little confused as to how you got here. What you might not know about the big G is that they have an attempt at being “Nonprofit Friendly” by compiling all the tools you might need as a Nonprofit in one place.

Everywhere I have ever worked we have had enough of a budget to buy Microsoft products at a very discounted price. It would be interesting however to run a company completely off of Google’s online offerings. (If you or someone you know is doing this please leave a comment! I’d like to know how that is working!)

The real gem for Nonprofits here though is (besides all the free stuff) is Google Grants. This is about the only “free” thing that would normally cost money. Google offers some grants to Nonprofits to provide ad-word location under the things that your Nonprofit covers. Combine with Google Analytics for some free website marketing tools.

I don’t know about you, but every once in a while I have to open a compressed file that isn’t a .ZIP. Most of the time it’s a RAR file, but boy-oh-boy do I hate installing some random program onto my computer just so I can uncompress the file and uninstall the program again. That’s why I love portable programs. And specifically I love to use 7-Zip Portable for just such an occasion.

It may not be the best compression program, but it works, and it’s portable.

Check it out here:

http://portableapps.com/apps/utilities/7-zip_portable

Other than Amazon.com taking a dive this morning it’s been a bit of a slow day.

In an attempt to foster relationships and community with other blogs and/or sites with similar goals to us here at theFundless, we would like to present the Non-profit Tech Blog. They have quite the community over there, and while it doesn’t appear to be as focused as we are on tools for the nonprofit IT department, they have a great community of people who can probably give you a solution to what you are looking for. (They’ve been around for about 2 years now, so we can only hope our site will be looking that good at 2 years old! Keep up the good work over there!)

In light of articles like The 30 skills every IT person should have I have decided to write my own. I’ve managed other geeks for a while now, and these are the things that I expect my department to know. You’ll note they’re not about technical skills, I’ve found that, for geeks at least, human interface is more difficult than computer interface. So without further ado:

1. “Our job is not to fix computers” - I don’t care if you are First level or Seventeenth level help desk, the CIO or the guy that carries monitors around, you are not there to fix computers, you are there to enable the rest of the company to continue doing their jobs where computers are involved. Now it may be that in order to do that you need to fix a computer or two, but that’s not the purpose. For example: When a computer breaks, don’t just sit down at the users workstation and start to work first. Make sure the user can continue with their job, either with a temporary workstation or some other off line activity.
2. “We make the best use of technology, not the most use of technology” - This is a hard one for most geeks. We want to set up a SQL database with a web front end using ajax and redundant servers. Meanwhile the user is standing there with a post-it note and a sharpie. Sometimes low-tech is better.
3. “Technology is our job, not theirs” - When someone asks you how to mail merge for the 4th time, remember, they don’t do this kind of thing every day. Besides, there are probably several things that person knows a whole lot better than you. Like how to work the copy machine. (stupid copy machine - grumble grumble)
4. “It’s our job to increase productivity overall” - So if you see someone typing the same thing over and over instead of using copy and paste, spend some time to teach them. Just don’t forget #2 and #3.
5. “‘I don’t know’ is a good answer” - And should be used often. There’s no harm in saying you don’t know, or better yet “I don’t feel I know this topic well enough to make an informed decision”. However, these phrases should always be followed by “Let me do some research and get back to you” or “why don’t you talk to so and so, I think he might know more about that”.

If you have worked with customers at all in your life then you will undoubtedly enjoy today’s Tuesday Humor selection. We present to you, Not Always Right (dot com). An excerpt for you:

Me: “Okay, sir, can you tell me the brand of your computer?”
Caller: “Compaq…” (or so I thought I heard…)
Me: “Okay, sir, give me a sec–”
Caller: *apparently still reading* “…compact disc.”

Not Always Right has been running since October 07 and has already amassed an impressively large amount of reading material on funny customer stories. (Readers can submit stories via a link on the front page.)

All the topics are put into a category as well so if you just want stories on Tech Support issues you can do that. However if you did something like that you’d be robbing yourself of some of the beauty and humor of some of the other stories on this site.

Their archives are worth digging through as well, time consuming as that is, especially if you have had a hard day and need a good laugh. Despite all this, I am sure we find this stuff funny because “WE would never do anything like that…”