Archive for April, 2010
Insider Tips To Keep Your Network Running Smoothly
April 26, 2010
Our job is “proactive network management”, ex: we try to prevent problems before they occur.
A good analogy is your car; you change the oil regularly, carry a spare tire and make sure your tires are properly inflated and rotated. Will this guarantee you won’t have any problems? NOPE! Will these actions prevent many problems the occur because of neglect? YEP! Will these simple actions (take ahead of time) reduce the impact of the inevitable problem? YOU BET!
Most of this is common sense!
So why, tell me, do some business owners (even some who are on our managed services plan) neglect the basic necessities of preventative maintenance?
April 19, 2010
I hear it more often than you would expect. It starts like this…
“We are looking for someone to call when we need help.” The implication is clear – we only need help when the chips are down.
This is a no-win situation for a service provider, especially one that prides itself of proactive network management.
These customers don’t want to spend any time (read money) keeping their network up and running properly but when the inevitable disaster appears on their doorsteps they want to call in the big guns to magically cure years of neglect and disrepair with a few keystrokes.
April 12, 2010
We had a staff meeting today. To start with it appeared pretty normal – The usual rhythm ensued and we covered all the basics, then I pushed forward….
My personal pet peeve is the ‘normal’, the ‘usual’, ‘the way we do it’. I completely understand how things get this way – you push along through your day, concerned about the 15 things that HAVE to be done and constantly pestered by the 30 things you did not plan on doing, all the while trying to improve your lot in life.
This my friends is how blinders are installed – firmly fitted on your head!
Many people are just too busy DOING their jobs to take the time to improve them. EVERY position in EVERY business suffers from this problem. All our staff here (me included) and all your staff there (including you).
April 5, 2010
Chances are you have been frustrated by the inability to edit PDF documents without going out and spending a fortune on Adobe Acrobat and learning yet another program. Well – here are two tools that will allow you to easily convert PDF files to MS Word Format and convert MS Word to PDF documents as well.
