PC Tech Support - Network, Desktop and Server Remote and Onsite Field Experiences

There have been rumors that Gateway is making a comeback. Dell is distributing their desktops and laptops through select retail stores. HP bought Compaq as we know and they kept the best of both lines. IBM, well except in the laptop world, to me, they are obscure but still a viable options.

Let start with Gateway, this is my opinion of course so please don't get offended. I've written off Gateway desktops a long time ago. They once in the mid 90's were doing very well and had a very large following and believers in their approach to their desktop computers and laptops. I thin they even may have tried to get into the server market which was I believe didn't help them. There desktop line once stood proud and ran a good race with Dell and the others but it came down to quality. Quality began to run short, it may have been due to increases in desktop production to meet demand and at the same time skimping on the quality controls and most importantly, the support. If you building an inferior product at least provide the support to the customers who bought the junk. Give them due respect and even though they bought a lemon they could still remember the effort made to make up for it.

Next comes Dell. Ah, Dell. Although I don't have the same disdain for dell as I do for Gateway, I can say this with confidence. There support was once rated very high had plummeted to lows that were unimaginable. It was horrible. Once desktop and server customers were buying their desktops and servers knowing they had good reliable tech support if they ran into trouble. But Dell blew it. They went overseas and the support people were getting was pathetic. Well, word got around and sales slumped, really badly both in the the server and the desktop computer and even the laptop segments. So, they are trying to rebuild their reputation and are now also selling through select retailers. The golden era of "you could only buy dell online" has ended by their own doing. Greed put them in this position just as it did to gateway.

How about HP? HP is and has been one of the most steady reliable companies and with the purchase of Compaq some years back, really became the superpower of the server, desktop computer and laptop world. Oh, and lets not forget the incredible and reliable HP printing devices they've been producing for years with no match, I believe, in sight.

IBM, don't see much of them in my parts but I know there out there. I had a recent experience with some of their servers however and I must say they were impressive in performance and the pricing was competitive but one thing really ticked me off during my recent server experience. There was a very critical update for their drives and drive subsystem (I think it was one or the other, I can't remember for sure). This bugged me because although I understand fully well that when you buy the latest and greatest from a company, your also beta testing for them, but a critical update for the drives in their servers? If the update isn't applied there could be loss of data. Now I could seriously tell you that I've not ever had that problem with HP servers.

ExtractNow
ExtractNow - File Archive Extractor

It's not that I don't like WinRAR, the rar compression technology, or anything else that rar has achieved or has helped the computing community achieve. It's just that I prefer not to have to install WinRAR or any other program to extract files on a desktop that are in a RAR compressed archive.

This is similar to way back in the days before Microsoft added the zip technology into the desktop and explorer.exe. Nearly all computer desktop installations needed a copy of winzip installed to extract a zip file. This was annoying and I get the same sense with rar files. Needing to add a program at each desktop I use to use open a file archive. This is most annoying as rar files come less frequently than zip files do. The part I really don't like, and I know this is configurable, is that so many file associations change and the rar program comes up at times I don't need it too and there's more clutter at the icons are everywhere.

ExtractNow is a nice program and of course it has an installation to it and it can add icons to the desktop and context icons to explorer too but the foot print of the installation file is 1MB. It installs in seconds and doesn't require much extra time to figure out how to use. I don't have that spare time, even if it's half an hour, to setup a program to extract from a rar archive, like with winrar. I just need to get some files out of an archive. Further more, I don't compress using winrar. If a file is compressed I just use the buit-in to Windows ZIP technology and be done. ExtractNow does just that. A quick small program to extract from archives.

On a completely different note, I've done several installation of Microsoft Exchange 2010 starting last spring. I've done numerous installations of Exchange 2003 and 2007 in the past.

About the first installation:
I knew of the core differences added into the new version of Microsoft's messaging platform but wasn't that familiar yet.

I have to say that Microsoft has done a great job in the installation procedures and the software redesign itself. It really is a work of art. They have added some great features and scalability to the program and the Exchange management console had a huge makeover as well - for the better. The one big surprise I did encounter was that Exchange, once installed, will not email out to the web right away. So out of the box, Exchange isn't sending anything out - no messages/email. A connector has to be built in order for emailing to begin. Another surprise was that although I heard that Microsoft allows the splitting of various functions and roles of the messaging system, I didn't expect to be worried about whether or not I could install a Microsoft Exchange on a single server hardware. It almost seemed in the end, when no email was going out that I needed a separate server to be the "edge" server. The email server role that communicates with the outside world (again, a great improvement in the Exchange environment).

This Microsoft Exchange Edge server role can be installed on the same server as everything else. the edge server is supposed to go into the DMZ zone of the firewall and network. All support and help files related to the installation and configuration of the server always relate and regard this server as another physical system, which of course I didn't have and the customer would have been extremely upset if I had to surprise them with a requirement of needing a new server purchase for the Exchange edge server role.

While trying to find the answer during the configuration part of my installation of whether or not I needed an additional server, I came across the following blogs that help my nerves cool down as i was assured by the author that ,a Microsoft Exchange can be installed on one single server.

There is a compelling need for support software that allows technicians to remotely control computers over the PC remote control software is an industry that's growing fast. Driven by need, PC remote control software has taken on many forms and is found in even the smallest of computer and consulting shops around the world. PC remote control software isn't for just the large support organizations and VARS, or Integrators anymore. PC remote control is a necessity for large organizations and small ones alike.

Supporting computers from the web is very important in keeping up with the demands of end-users and customers. Desktop applications and the desktop OS itself has become more complicated not only in there use but with their interaction with the network and the internet. The days of applications and operating systems remaining static and needing manual upkeep and maintenance have past. Only if explicitly cutoff from their surrounding network computing environment do applications remain solely interactive with the user and not the environment in which they are operating. Desktops as we know have for many years now updating and up-keeping them selves. At time this approach does draw backfire as an update could break an application unintentionally of course). The update and subsequent collateral damage to another program on the desktop will have to be addressed and corrected. With so many applications and desktops updating themselves and disabling programs during updates, have to be addressed quickly and by skilled information technology support professionals. PC remote control software can aid to get support to these stricken computers faster by accessing and remote controlling them them over the Internet.
Another site that suggests software for web-based remote support of computer desktops and servers has placed an interesting article on space. The article provides a nice and tidy example of how software for remote support can increase customer satisfaction and reduce overall time per support incident.

Remote control not only aids in regular computer users to have access to their work computers from home or from other office locations or even from hotels while away on business but remote control of computers has over the last decade or so been synonymous with remote support software. Remote support software is remote controlling of computers that are usually not your own. For example, today I used gotomypc to access my office computer and used remote support software to help another person by providing tech support.