Printers - a fairy tale

By Lindsay
Once upon a time printers were very expensive. This was back in the old dark days - the 1980's.  They had to be shared.  Cheap personal printers used dot matrix printing - with ribbons, and ink and other stuff.  The good quality printers (like laser printers) were very expensive.  A Print Server was used to share these expensive printers.  Print servers required liecnces per user (expensive) after all it was only fair since printers were expensive.

And the IT department felt justified in monitoring printer use, per user, because they had the tools that allowed that to happen.

Well the printer companies started to develop lower cost printers.  Personal printers.  Printers that didn't need an IT department to connect and use.  They were even allowed to be shared between users.  Soon black and white laser printers broke the $500 barrier.  Everyone wanted their own one.  Large printers/fax/copier systems could be connected to the network by themseves.  They didn't need a print server - they did that all themselves.  And they didn't need user licences - anyone on the network could use them.

So today we now have cheap personal black and white laser printers for less than $100, and colour laser printers for less than $300.  Printers are once again personal - everyone can have their own.

So why is it that management still don't get everyone their own printer???

What determines response times to customer issues?

By Lindsay
Sometimes I get asked what determines the response times/priority to customer issues.  I use the 3 S's.  These are:

Service

No Service and Support Agreement

Best Endeavours after all service and support customers and scheduled project customers.  Response limited to business hours only, and usually the next business day. 

Service and Support Customers

Gold – have priority over all other service levels and scheduled projects.  24 hour response.

Silver – have priority over Bronze service and support, but not scheduled projects.  Business hours only.

Bronze – have priority over casual customers only.  Next business day response.

Severity

Severity also plays a part in the response to customer needs.

Server or other problem affecting everybody  – highest priority

One workstation is down or only affecting one person – low priority (except see seniority)

Seniority

Seniority also plays a part in the response to customer needs.

The Managing Director/GM/CEO always gets higher priority than a member of staff.  An MD/CEO/GM can override severity, their call.

Second Hand or New?

By Lindsay
One of the choices that a small business owner must consider when buying a new computer (either as a replacement for one that has failed, or for a new staff member) is to decide whether a new computer or a second hand computer is required.

• First, is the computer being used in-house, or will it be going out to customer sites?  If you are seeing customers, then it should be new.  
• Second is the computer going to be using modern applications that require processing power?  Then it should be new.
• Third, is the computer going to be for a short term project, or for the long term?  If long term then it should be new.
• Fouth, will the computer be using legacy applications (old versions of accounting systems etc) then it can be second hand (but Windows 7 has an XP mOde that allows it to emulate a Windows XP computer to handle the older applications).

So you've bought your computer.  Lets look at how long it should last.  A new desktop - 4 years.  A new notebook - 3 years.  A second hand computer - well as long as it still functions.  Bear in mind that computer repair costs may be more than the value of the computer.  Depreciation of nearly 50% per year on computers is there for a reason. 

One of the advantages of second hand computers is that it allows you to cheaply provide the N+1 redundancy that I mentioned in an earlier post.  The number of computers available should be 1 more than the number you need, so that if there is a problem with a computer,  your very expensive human resource can still continue to perform their job,whilst the very cheap computer hardware is repaired.

Windows 32 bit or 64 bit?

By Lindsay,
for most end users Windows in 32 bit ot 64 bit versions is, well, a bit of a non-event.  Most modern computers are 64 bit.  The computer properties tab shows which version is installed.  Some older computers (and especially the smaller notebooks) are 32 bit.  The main reason why it should care to you is summarised as follows:

•   64 bit is the way of the future.  Applications will be written for the 64 bit operating system, and so one day your new product XYZ version 2012 will not work on your old computer, and

• 64 bit allows for more RAM.  32 bit systems stop at 4 Gbytes RAM, 64 bits can have more RAM (as much as you can afford!).  This is important if your computer is a graphics workstation, or does a lot of computation.