Category Archives: Hints

Hints, svb

How to Choose an IT professional – questions to ask.

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1. Do you have a “day job”? Are you moonlighting?
Depending on your needs, you’ll either be comfortable with someone who is only available part time, or you’ll need someone who is committed to providing tech service full time.

2. Are there any other people who work at your company?
Find out if the consultant is a solo practitioner or part of a larger firm. If you discover he’s part of a consulting firm, find out if others from the firm will be involved with your account, and what their backgrounds, specialties, and history with the company are.

3. What “size” is your typical client?
Determine what size business the consultant is most experienced in dealing with. Signing on with a consultant who works mostly with large companies might mean he has great experience working with many PCs and employees, but it also means he’s used to companies with bigger budgets than yours.

4. Does your company specialize in any particular products and services?
Find out what software and hardware the company specializes in fixing, installing, and maintaining as well as the service vendors it might work with. Also, discover what types of technology they shy away from.

5. Does your company resell products, such as hardware and software? Are there any other vendors, such as ISPs or telephone companies, that your firm acts as an agent for?
Signing up with a reseller could put you in a position of only using the products they’re selling. Working with a true consultant, however, you’ll be able to shop for your choice of products and services.

6. What are your payment terms, rates and minimums?
Discover what kind of work is billable vs. non-billable. Also, ask how much the firm charges for travel time, phone support, e-mail/online support, and remote support, and whether there’s an increased charge for after-hours emergencies.

7. Can you provide references?
Ask the consultant to discuss long-term and more recent accounts with you to help get a better sense of his experience and abilities. Also, ask about those clients who didn’t work out and why they didn’t work out. This could reveal any potential pitfalls of a relationship with the consultant before you sign on with him.

8. How do you keep up with new tech developments?
What is new today can be old tomorrow, so it’s important that the consultant you work with knows about the latest tools and trends. Find out how the consultant keeps up with technology. Does he attend regular programming classes or certification classes regularly?

9. What kind of user and technical training can you provide?
The more handholding a consultant the more money he makes. Ask the consultant whether or not he would be willing to train you or someone else internally to become more self-sufficient.

10. What am I paying for?
Besides understanding the exact services you’ll be paying for, you’ll also want to know what type of overhead is built into the consultant’s rate structure. This way you’ll get a good feel for whether you’re paying for fancy cars and posh office space or working with someone you feel you’re getting the most bang for your buck from.

Hints, registry

Clearing user history

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This will help you to manage the all types of user history in windows operating system. This is a built-in feature of all windows keeps track the user’s history, for example the websites you have visited, the documents you have opened and the keywords or files for which you’ve searched. However this tip is very useful for you, if you are sharing your computer with others or you do not want that the other persons know about your last visited documents history. You can clear these kinds of user’s history with a single click on desktop icon named Cleanmru.reg. There is no need to clear each history file one by one. This trick will work in nearly all of the windows versions like windows 2000, XP and 2003.

Follow the given steps for configuration to clear recently opened documents automatically:

To edit the computer registry, first you should log onto your computer with administrative rights.

Here copy the following 6 lines and paste in notepad then save with the name Cleanmru.reg on your desktop.

REGEDIT4

[-HKEY_CURRENT_USERSoftwareMicrosoftInternet ExplorerTypedURLs]

[-HKEY_CURRENT_USERSoftwareMicrosoftWindowsCurrentVersionExplorerRunMRU]

[-HKEY_CURRENT_USERSoftwareMicrosoftWindowsCurrentVersionExplorerRecentDocs]

[-HKEY_CURRENT_USERSoftwareMicrosoftWindowsCurrentVersionExplorerComDlg32

LastVisitedMRU]

[-HKEY_CURRENT_USERSoftwareMicrosoftSearch AssistantACMru]

When you double-click Cleanmru.reg icon to remove the windows history, a small dialog box will appear with the information “Are you sure you want to add the information in C:Documents and SettingsAdministratordesktopClearmru.reg to the registry?”

At the end, you will get the message “Information in C:Documents and SettingsAdministratordesktopClearmru.reg has been successfully entered into the registry.” Click on Ok button and verify that your all history will have been clear.

Backup, Hints

Backing up your My Documents folder

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Normally windows users use My Documents folder to save data, the reason is that  Most Windows programs, including Microsoft Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and Access save their data in My Documents folder by default. Many other subfolders such as My Pictures, My Music and My Received files contain in My Documents folder. Those folders usually take up a lot of space, and they are therefore recommended to be taken care separately. Normally My Documents folder location is C: drive when you install your window on C drive, but you can change location of you My Documents folder to other drive, Must do this if your good habit to use My Documents folder frequently.

Also note that some people may have placed some or of the important files on your desktop, the common location for program shortcuts and start icons.  The default location of My Documents folder will vary depending on what version of Windows you’re running:

  • C:WindowsPersonal on Windows 95.
  • C:My Documents on Windows 98.
  • C:Documents and SettingsUser NameMy Documents on Windows ME, 2000, XP.

These are typical locations, but you can change these location for My Document folder for different windows.

You can find different type of file with different file extensions in My Documents.

  • Microsoft Word (.doc, .rtf, .dot) documents.
  • Microsoft Excel (.xls, .xlt) tables and spreadsheets.
  • Microsoft PowerPoint (.ppt, .pps, .pot) presentations.
  • Database (.mdb, .dbf, .csv, .db, .xml) files.
  • Internet (.html, .txt, .pdf) documents.
  • Digital photo (.tif, .jpg) pictures.