Archive for October, 2008

We see computer and technology problems every day. These are the greatest hits and they’re in heavy rotation. Do us a favor — avoid these common problems and give us more interesting problems to solve.

Backup

Backing up data is important. Hard drives are machines that break. When they do it can be very expensive if not impossible to recover the data they contain. Fortunately, it is possible and affordable to make exact copies of digital information. The question is not whether you can afford to back up, it’s why you think you can afford not to.

Square Peg, Square Hole

Computers use different connectors for different purposed. Displays are connected via VGA or DVI, Keyboards and mice via PS/2 and USB, and copper ethernet networks are connected via RJ-45. Unfortunately IT is not a realm in which it is safe to adopt an “if the shoe fits, wear it,” or “if the connector fits, plug it” mentality. It’s common for both ends of one wire to end up plugged into a switch or hub, which creates a loopback on the network and generates infinite traffic and breaking the network. It’s also common for multiple routers to be connected to a network via their LAN ports, often with identical IP information, defeating the network’s ability to properly route traffic to the internet. Improperly connected network hardware and cables is a big cause of network downtime and can be extremely difficult to track down.

Reset Button

Reset =/= Restart. Restarting or rebooting a network device is a common troubleshooting technique. Routers and switches and wireless access points are actually little computers. They sometimes crash too, especially less robust models. In that case, rebooting can be a quick and easy and effective fix. Resetting the device, however, reloads the factory default configuration, which is probably not appropriate for your network.

Email and Scope

Email is the first indicator. There are many problems with the same symptom that people notice before anything else. When email stops flowing, our phones start ringing. These problems can exist at any step along a long chain. The local computer, local network, network perimeter, ISP, and the mail server itself are all required for email to flow, and a hitch in any one of them can cause the same symptom. Some of these problems might require professional help to solve, some you might be able to handle yourself. To determine where the problem lies, or at least a likely candidate, run down this list:

1. Does rebooting my computer solve this problem? If yes, it’s probably something on my computer that’s acting up.
2. Can I print to a network printer or see file servers on my local network? If yes, the local network is probably healthy.
3. Do I get a response from my router if I type its IP address into my browser? If yes, the perimeter is probably OK.
4. Can I open web pages? If yes, the ISP is probably in good shape.
5. Can I access my email via the webmail login? If yes, the mail server probably isn’t broken.

Knowing the answers to these questions might not fix your problem, but it will certainly help us fix your problem.

Internet

Businesses are internet addicts. Financial information, email, research, data shared with customers, data shared with vendors, business web presence, instant messages and more all require a working internet connection. It’s relatively inexpensive to upgrade your office to a dual-WAN configuration with automatic failover. Save yourself the worry and hassle of internet downtime in your office and make this small investment.

Preventative Medicine

One client insisted that their server’s hard drive was being backed up. It turns out that it was not. Data was recovered, but at a cost of $2,400. Another ignored our recommendations for managed switches. Network downtime cost three-quarters of a day of productivity. Both of these problems could have been identified and mitigated in advance for much less money than the eventual cost of cleaning up after a disaster. Rebuilding the levee is cheaper than rebuilding the city.

Both one of my friends and my mother asked me about blogging this weekend. This is a topic that’s been beat to death on the internet, and this probably won’t be the most thorough report on what it takes to get a blog started, but it should be among the most succinct.

1. Visit wordpress.com/signup.
2. Fill out the form.
3. Start blogging.

That’s it – that’s all you need to get your feet wet. It’s free to start, cheap to upgrade to custom features like control over ads and your own domain name, and easy to migrate to your own server should you decide you need added flexibility down the road. Jump in, the water’s fine!

For all things technical, my first call, IM, or e-mail is to Damien Clark and his company Feedwire. His knowledge is vast, his explanations concise, and he is easy to get a hold of even with the strange hours that we keep in television. I highly recommend him for any small company looking to get a hassle free IT infrastructure in place. In fact, that is the words I would use to describe Feedwire – hassle free. They are able to really take all the guess work out of IT infrastructure, they are able to fix problems very quickly and make sure to always be accessible, so we never are left alone with an emergency.

Dave Barnett
Coordinating Producer
Big Brother