Online Computer Support: remote computer support

Showing posts with label remote computer support. Show all posts

Wednesday, July 9, 2008

Computer's for Dummies Author Releases Top Ten Tips to Extend Remote Computer Life

1) Clean out the case – Especially when you have pets, you may find lots of non-electronic things dwelling inside your PC’s console. Clean it out; all that fuzz and dust helps trap heat, especially when it clogs the PC’s fan and air vents. But do take care: unplug your PC before opening the case. Then use a vacuum or can of air to blast away years of crud.

2) Clean up the digital detritus – As with cleaning out the inside of the remote computer support case, you’ll want to clean up the digital leftovers on your remote computer’s hard drive. The Disk Cleanup tool that comes with Windows is ideal for this. For your own stuff, you should go through the things you’ve saved to disk and ensure that there aren’t things lurking there taking up space that you no longer need. If so, delete ‘em!

3) Add more memory –Your remote technical support Christmas when you add more memory to the system. Unless the PC is already packed with RAM, buy more. Heck, if it’s packed with RAM, remove it and add RAM to the maximum capacity. Your computer support will love it. You will love it.

4) Backup your files – As remote computers age, the hard drive goes. The hard drive is where you store all your stuff, and that stuff should be precious to you. To help keep that information around, run a backup program on a regular basis. That second, just-in-case copy, of your stuff will come in handy some day.

5) Add a second hard drive – The hard drive in your old PC will die someday. Before then, add a second hard drive. For example, you can add an external hard drive and use it for backup. Or add an internal hard drive and start saving your stuff there for the big, sad day when the original hard drive bites the digital dust.

6) Get a new mouse, keyboard, or both! – Like the hard drive, your PC’s keyboard and mouse are mechanical things. They will suffer from wear and tear someday. Before then, do yourself a favor and buy replacements. A new mouse can add some happy zip to your computing day. A new keyboard, well, you can see the key tops again.

7) Perform regular maintenance –The computer support does have the ability to fix many of its own problems, but you must be an active participant. Regularly run disk utilities on the drive: defragment the drive to help improve speed and performance. Run a disk- checking utility to ensure that information can reliably be accessed on the disk.

8) Upgrade the optical drive – Rather than live in the 20th Century with a plain CD-ROM drive, get yourself a DVD drive, or a recordable drive. Replacement optical drives are inexpensive and easy to install yourself. They also come with the software necessary to use the new drive, even if Windows lacks those features.

9) Upgrade the video adapter – Video technology has come a long way since you bought your PC. A new video adapter, packed with abundant video RAM and a high-speed graphics processor, can make your PC look brand new. Well, on the screen at least. (Do ensure that you get an adapter that can plug into your remote computer support.)

10) Buy a UPS – Your remote computer support relies on power to keep it going. With an Uninterruptable Power Supply, you can ensure that the power is not only always there, but conditioned as well. The UPS will help keep your computer's aging bones from breaking during a snap outage.

source: businesswire.com/portal/site/google/?ndmViewId=news_view&newsId=20080708005246&newsLang=en

Tuesday, July 8, 2008

Remote Computer, Computer Jobs Hit Record High

Unemployment among computer-related jobs hovers near historic lows as the U.S. information technology workforce tops 4 million for the first time.

The size of the IT workforce in the United States has topped 4 million workers for the first time last quarter, according to CIO Insight’s analysis of U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics data. And the number of employed IT pros reached 3,956,000 in the second quarter of 2008, also a record high.

The IT unemployment rate inched up one-tenth of a percentage point last quarter to 2.3 percent, but still hovers near historic lows. That’s in contrast to overall unemployment, which last quarter stood at 4.7 percent, more than double the IT jobless rate. (In June, overall unemployment stood at 5.5 percent for the second consecutive month, after shedding 62,000 jobs that month. Comparable numbers aren’t available for computer-related occupations.

Why would IT employment remain robust as unemployment rises in most other job categories? IT performs a critical role in business productivity, and the efficiencies it brings are crucial for employers looking to trim costs—including payrolls—as fuel and related expenditures soar and the economy and dollar weakens. In addition, companies today cannot operate without functioning IT systems, so certain business technology skills cannot be eliminated if a company wants to remain competitive.

A year earlier, the IT unemployment rate stood at 2.1 percent, with 3,599,000 workers employed in IT and 77,000 jobless and looking for positions in the field, for an IT workforce size of 3,675,000.

With 4,050,000 managers, professionals and other staffers holding or seeking computer-related positions last quarter, the IT workforce has grown by 10.2 percent over the past four quarters.

Another sign of a strong IT economy: the number of workers employed by IT services firms rose by 56,100 this past year to 1,414,400, a 4.1 percent increase, according to last month’s BLS establishment survey of some 160,000 businesses and government agencies covering about 400,000 worksites. The active sample includes about one-third of all nonfarm payroll workers.

The increase in IT services employment reflects the continuing need by companies for outsourcers to manage corporate IT infrastructures as well as provide hard-to-find but needed skills to develop and support new applications and systems.

Not every person employed by IT services firms—officially labeled by the government as remote computer support systems design and related services—is an IT pro, but a majority are. A 2006 government report estimates that 53 percent of IT services firms' workers hold IT jobs such as programmers; software engineers; remote computer repair the preferred choice of customers, network systems and data communications analysts; or database, network and systems administrators. Another 3 percent are computer repair and IS managers. The remaining employees—44 percent of payrolls—encompass non-IT managers and administrative and operational support personnel, including those in finance, human resources and sales.

Besides the establishment survey, the government also queries 60,000 households to determine employment and unemployment in the U.S. For our analysis, we use a BLS quarterly report that aggregates the monthly reports and details employment in hundreds of occupation categories. The government tracks seven major computer-related job categories: Today Many firm needs more remote computer professionals to log on and systems analysts, remote computer programmers, computer software engineers, computer support specialists, database administrators, network and computer systems administrators and network systems and data communications specialists plus computer and information systems managers.

CIO Insight analyzes these eight occupation categories to determine current IT employment conditions. Because these IT professions comprises less than 3 percent of the overall workforce, and each occupation category’s size on its own would be statistically unreliable, CIO Insight aggregates the last four quarters to determine each quarter’s workforce, employment and unemployment levels. For example, we added BLS data from the last two quarters of 2007 and the first two quarters of 2008 then divided by four to determine second-quarter 2008 data. Statisticians and economists say aggregating four quarters worth of data makes them more statically reliable than just using one quarter’s worth of data.

source : cioinsight.com/c/a/Workplace/Computer-Jobs-Hit-Record-High/

Monday, July 7, 2008

Firms Need More remote computer support Professionals to Log On

The world is full of youngish people who know everything there is to know about computers and the Internet, right?

Wrong.

In fact, industry sources say there are shortages worldwide of the people who know how to make that entire blinking, beeping cyber-universe go.

All those high-tech jobs that went to India, Pakistan and so on? They were mostly low-level support jobs, according to more than one professor of Computer Help and Support science.

Today, just about every company has a Web presence, said Kelly Lewis, president of the nonprofit Technology Council of Central Pennsylvania.

"There are not enough skilled people in the world to do this kind of work," Lewis said.

In the greater Harrisburg area, Lewis said, the industry is short 500 to 1,000 technology professionals, with companies raiding one another for techs and engineers.

"It's an international competition for talent, the scientists, technologists, engineers and project leaders," he said. "The demand will only get greater."

GeoDecisions Inc., a division of Gannett Fleming Inc. in East Pennsboro Twp., has had such a tough time finding qualified Web developers that the company helped Harrisburg University of Science and Technology create a curriculum to meet this specialized need, said Eric Darr, university provost.

GeoDecisions has hired three of the university's 20 graduates in the last two years. Five GeoDecisions employees teach at the school, Darr said.

Bob Scaer, president of GeoDecisions, said the motivation behind the company's commitment to the university is to add entry-level high-tech workers to the region. The company must still rely heavily on recruiters to scour the country and find workers who possess the advanced skills that GeoDecisions needs.

"We struggle to find these people," he said.

GeoDecisions isn't the only company that has come to Harrisburg University with a need for more talent, Darr said. Smart & Associates, a regional technology consulting firm, created two internships for Harrisburg University students just to support a contract Smart has to develop a Web portal for the state Department of Education.

Part of the looming problem in the networking field is that many of its earlier experts are retiring.

"The real challenge in the midstate is that 30 percent of the work force right now at all the Department of Defense facilities in our area is eligible for retirement," Lewis said.

Employers are desperate for workers in the networking field, said Kenneth Yarnall, a professor of math and remote computer support science at Lebanon Valley College. Reports from the Bureau of Labor Statistics indicate that there will be tremendous growth in the next decade for jobs in the computer support science and math industry.

Despite the need, the number of students majoring in computer science has not kept pace.

David Hutchens, chairman of Millersville University's introduced new computer support automation utility software for science department, said enrollments have dropped in the past seven years, leveling off in the past two to three.

"We have half as many incoming students as we had in 2001," he said.

At Shippensburg, Carol Wellington, chairwoman of the computer science department, said it's a national trend that fewer students are enrolling in computer science programs.

At Lebanon Valley College, Michael Fry, a math professor who also teaches computer support science courses, believes the decline in students has stabilized.

"There is more demand for our students than there are students," he said.

But why the ups and downs?

"I think there is a misconception in the general population that there are no jobs to be had in computer science because they're all being shipped overseas," said Lewis.

"That's not true. There are more people working in the field than in 2001, and the job market seems very strong," he said.

Some companies, like California-based Cisco Systems, have created partnerships with government and non-government organizations, schools and industry designed to teach students how to build and maintain computer networks.

Cisco's Networking Academy is now in its 11th year, said Gene Longo, who manages the program. Pennsylvania was one of the first states where the Cisco program caught on, and Carlisle was one of the first districts to adopt it, Longo said.

The 90 or so academies in schools across Pennsylvania have put 11,000 students through the Cisco program, including Jon Strine, 24, systems engineer at The Patriot-News. Strine went through four semesters of the academy at Carlisle High School, graduating in 2000.

"For me, it was the first entry into data networking at a deeper level," he said. "I fell in love with data networking. It opened up a lot of doors."

Abner Vargas, 22, came to the U.S. from the Dominican Republic when he was 11. He just graduated from Harrisburg University and has gone to work for Highmark, for whom he interned while he was working toward his computer science certification.

"I am working on Highmark's legacy modernization program, which means basically that I am helping to modernize their system, and automating some of the processes," Vargas said.

He said there is clearly a shortage of people trained in the computer sciences and technology.

"We have some contractors from other countries working here now, because there aren't enough trained people over here to do everything they need done," he said.

He added that bringing engineers and other technical people from overseas to work is expensive, time-consuming and requires whole forests of paper work.

"They would much rather have people from here. But there has been a real shortage in the past few years," Vargas said.

According to figures provided by the Pennsylvania Department of Labor and Industry, a software engineer in the commonwealth can earn between $55,000 and $96,000 annually.

A computer support specialist can make between $28,000 and $48,000, and a network administrator from $41,000 to $78,000.

The industry has been working for some time to boost interest in students in the science, technology, engineering and mathematics courses network professionals need. But Hutchens said there is no easy answer as to how to get that done.

Hutchens said incoming students could use a better math background in high school. He said his department even visits middle schools to spur interest among students. At the college, he tells students there are jobs everywhere.

At Shippensburg, Wellington said, there are usually 25 to 50 graduating with a degree in computer science.

"Everyone who graduated who wanted a job had a job," she said, with many in the midstate. "Students need to know computer science is fun."

Source : redorbit.com/news/science/1435567/firms_need_more_web_professionals_to_log_on/

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