Outcome: Repaired.

The Dell Inspiron 8500 which had a fried hard drive is now back up and running with Windows XP Service Pack 1 and all updates, and network, sound, video and processor drivers re-installed.

We opened the incident with Dell service on Tuesday. They promised to overnight a replacement drive. The replacement arrived early Thursday.Thursday evening I called back, and was on the phone for about 45 minutes replacing the drive, and starting the Windows XP restoration from the Dell supplied OEM version of Windows XP. Once XP was installed, I then used the Dell Drivers disk to restore all of the software specific to the hardware contained in the Inspiron 8500. (This process was not particularly clear or intuitive).

This took another hour. Today, I’ll bring the unit back into the office and install all of their applications. With luck the user will be up and running.

Rough totals, then of the time:

Diagnostics: 1 hour

Windows XP replacement 1 hour

Applications replacement 2 hours

Lost time for the user: 4 days.

Estimated Total cost to client for repair: $400+

Since these units cost almost $3000 for the laptop plus peripherals this represents a 13.3% cost of the purchase price to replace a major part in a 14 month old machine. Since the machine had a 1 year warranty, a replacement disk might have been $250 or so.. with some extra legwork in finding one. You could argue that in this case, the service contract was not justified. If the user has to replace a motherboard, or the laptop screen, however, the parts replacement cost would be much higher.

One possible mitigation might be to have created a drive image of the disk using Ghost. This would allow the restoration of all of the office applications in about 15 minutes. Of course, the restore point will be current only back to the time that the image was made.

And yeah, the service was provided on-site alright. By me.

So, you think you bought on-site service when you paid extra for Dell On-site, next business day service, with an additional charge of, say, $147.00?

If you have a laptop, and the laptop hard drive fails, you didn’t. They will ship you a new hard drive, overnight, after going through 45 minutes or more of diagnostics and testing over the phone. But then, they’ll leave you with another phone number to call after the drive arrives, and then walk you through the procedure for replacement.

The upshot is, if you really want to outsource your network hardware maintenance, the “on-site service contract” is really only a piece of the the solution. You still need some poor schlub to spend several hours diagnosing the problem and then reloading Windows and all of your applications on to the new hard disk.

And, for the record, any onsite visit does not include software (!) Not even the operating system.

I think this is false advertising.

The Basics of Personal Computer Hygiene:

Scanning your computer with the Norton Anti-Virus Program

Using Ad-Aware to remove pop-ups and spyware

Using SpyBot Search & Destroy to remove pop-ups and spyware

Awhile back I posted a link to an article which described how to reduce the load time for Adobe Acrobat…which, in its default configuration will take several seconds to load a bunch of plug-ins that are unnecessary 99% of the time. Now comes a program called PDF Speedup which automates the whole process of degunking Adobe Acrobat. It will even eliminate the on-line ad that shows up in the right hand upper corner of Acrobat 6.

TNT Screen Capture has the ability to capture parts of a windows menu or toolbar, and it places them on the screen with a graceful drop shadow. This is ideal for creating program documentation.

The ubiquitous and very wonderful Google has released a beta-preview of Google Desktop which allows you to search not only the usual Google places, but also your own computer. At this point, it appears that the files that it will search are restricted to documents created by Microsoft applications (Word, Excel, OutLook), as well as AOL instant messages, and plain text files. There is a good introduction to installing and using the tool here.

Also a graphics indexer called Picasa will index graphics files in multiple formats.

For organizations that already have a file server network, you have an opportunity to automate some of the routine updates and checks that should be taking place on each user’s desktop computer. Typically, you have a program running at the server which checks the internet for the latest updates, and which makes them available to the user workstations. This accomplishes several things;

• It conserves bandwidth by downloading patches and updates only once, and then storing them on the server
• It allows you to look at the status of the workstations by running the management program at the server.
• It allows you as the network manager to determine which files and patches get downloaded and installed.

An example of this is the Symantec Anti-Virus program. This program normally runs at each workstation. It has a component called “Live-Update” which, if set correctly will periodically checks the Symantec web site for the latest virus threats, and will download the appropriate virus scanning code to the workstation. If you have 10 workstations, this may be happening 10 times each week or more.

The Symantec corporate antivirus program provides a server component which does the live update. This program downloads the virus updates to the the server. When the virus program is set up at the workstation, it is instructed to look to the server for updates, not the internet. This keeps all of the update traffic on the local network.

What happens with laptops?

The above scenario makes a lot of sense with desktop workstations which are permanently attached to the network. With laptops, the anti-virus program can be set up as managed, unmanaged, or semi-managed… that is, it will update when attached to the local network. This works fine if the user regularly attaches to the local network. People on the road can have their laptop set up as “unmanaged”– whereby updates are delivered, as before, directly from the Internet.

The program is available starting around $260 U.S. for a five-user license. This includes the server components, and the workstation components. Similar programs are available from other virus software vendors such as Mcaffee and Trend.

Some things don’t change a great deal. For years the recommendation has always been to use Uninterruptable Power Supplies (UPS) on any computer or equipment that you don’t want to go down during a power outage.

American Power Conversion is a recommended brand, with reasonable prices. The batteries for these will usually last three or more years. They come with software to connect to a computer, which interfaces nicely with the computer operating system (Windows, Mac, or Linux), and will gracefully shut the computer down before the battery gives out. At a miminum, you need one UPS for any network server. Ideally, it should be large enough to protect the server, and any attached routers and hubs, or Cable/DSL modems so that the network infrastructure will be protected during a power outage of several minutes. The unit will also provide surge protection, and protection against brief interruptions in power, that would otherwise cause a computer to crash or reboot. Not incidentally, it will also help to protect against a lightning strike.

I just replaced my unit after three years with a new APC 750 for $275.00 US. This covers the server, a cable modem, two hubs, my router/firewall, and my wireless hub.

Workstations should also be protected by a UPS if there is any history of flakey power in your building. Then, if the power flickers, you can continue merrily on your way, while you listen to the anguished cries of your co-workers who lost their unsaved documents.

Adobe PDF files are a pain, but  necessary evil on the web. The latest Adobe Reader takes forever to load, especially compared to older versions.  Help is on the way at: http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=11041

I’m a simple minded guy. I use Microsoft Word for all of my word-processing. I can get along with about four styles; Heading 1, Heading 2, Heading 3, and Normal. I also like to print single envelopes to my LaserJet printer.

I’ve used macros for these things for years…transferring and updating them to each subsequent version of Word. The following code works in Office 2003:



Sub Heading_1()

'

' Heading_1 Macro

' Macro recorded 6/3/2004 by Lawrence Keyes

' Assigned to Alt_1

The above macros are assigned to the keystrokes within the “Customize Keyboard” section of ViewToolBars. Again, it is really simple: ALT-1 is used for Heading 1, ALT-2 for Heading 2, etc. ALT-N is for “normal”. The envelope printing macro is assigned to a button on the toolbar.