Number 1, we picked the name for the confessional — correction, you picked the name for the confessional — and it will be…

The IT Confessional

I know, you’re all surprised and excited. I know I am. The second piece to this post is what you’re all want to hear. Who won the contest?

The winner of this particular contest is Kevin Potter for his awesome, “Is that a big or little zero?” story! I will be contacting Kevin (or better yet, if he wants to email me at jesse.middleton at b5media dot com) to get him his KB.

I want to thank everyone who posted and emailed in their stories, they were a great read and many of them will be used to form some, hopefully, entertaining posts at That Damn PC.

Keep checking back for me and sending your stories in.

I recently came across Adocu.com - blogging gone nano through a good friend and while the product that they are proposing, Twitter with only one word, sounds strange, the underlying concept makes a lot of sense. Why do we bog ourselves down with so many words? Technical support could take a lesson from these guys.

Many of the responses that nonits (non-IT folk) receive from IT start with a, “Have you checked the amount of free RAM on your computer?” or, “What processes were running when this occurred?” My guess is that if you knew the answers to these questions, you wouldn’t be calling technical support. The big, bad IT guy has to take a step back and realize that he’s paid to do his job because that’s what he knows how to do. I’m sure that he wouldn’t like it if accounting asked why the debits and credits did not foot properly (and yes, that is a real term in accounting as my girlfriend just informed me).

Remember, not everyone is an IT genius. Some need a guiding hand, one who will understand that RAM, BIOS and PCI are just letters to others, not technical pieces of a computer system.

So this post will take a little bit different angle than the last few. See this one is about information. Not the kind like where the latest and greatest porn site is or where Miley Cyrus has shown her booty today… This is the kind of information that can help you in your everyday life. Sites like ReadBurner, Alltop and Technorati are trying their hardest to help you find this information and they’re doing a damn good job at it so far.

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I hear this argument all the time from users. First off, it’s not a valid argument as we were taught in Philosophy 101. But more important, it’s usually said because people are uneducated about what Linux is and what it does. They would rather stay with a clogged up, aging OS rather than a new, spunky, and sexy OS. There are positive and negative points to this state of mind.

Clair, over at New Linux User, wrote a post about the wrong way to go about showing people what Linux can do. And I agree with her completely. The wrong way of showing someone why they should switch is to force it down their throats — and besides, this leads me to my first point (or is it second) that there is a reason that you need to force it down their throats. I can not imagine how difficult life would be if an IT guy had to explain why the kernel needs to be recompiled or why they only make that software for the PC (which everyone else uses). This would be a headache and a half.

On the other hand, learning about new technology is a great thing. We would still be in the dark, using the dirty holes in the ground to relieve ourselves and be trying to put squares onto axles to get the car going without learning about and embracing new technology. Linux has a great deal to offer both the personal and commercial front but they may not be there yet — or the users may not be there to accept it yet.

Either way, forcing new ideas and programs on people can only cause them to push back. It’s like and argument between a child and his mother about how much he wants the brand new Power Ranger toy (are they still around?). The more the parent pushes back, the more the child fights. Give it a rest, they will come around.

Look, I know 15 character, multi-symboled, including 3 numbers and 4 capital letter passwords are no picnic or walk in the park and should probably be outlawed but this is no way to store them. There are plenty of password managers out there like KeePass, Billeo, and PassPack (now known as Passpack) — so please use them instead of this.

Check out the blog post at SECURE-ID’s blog below.

Image Courtesy Of: http://securid.wordpress.com/2008/05/31/new-way-to-store-passwords/

It’s never easy to do but its a necessary evil. Sometimes you have to open up and tell the people what’s going on. This is something that Twitter has learned recently. With all of their downtime and problems, they have found that simply notifying their users that something is wrong makes everyone feel a bit more comfortable that their favorite micro blogging service will be around.

The IT folk out there could really learn from this. Inform, don’t shelter.

Photo Courtesy of: http://www.gapingvoid.com/Moveable_Type/archives/004566.html

I love hearing great stories from IT people and nonits (what I’ve decided to call non-IT folk) and below is part of an email that a lovely IT reader sent in:

If something does break and there are error messages that come up, WRITE THEM DOWN. I can’t stress this enough, those error messages appear for a reason and usually indicate the problem. If you can’t duplicate the issue then it’s not an issue anymore.

To explain this a little clearer, lets break this apart into easier to digest chunks.

1. When an error message pops up on the screen, it means there is a problem. No, the computer does not spit them out for no apparent reason and no they are not there to amuse and excite (although many of them are quite amusing.
2. Write them down should be a no brainer but so many people click OK without even thinking or reading what the message said. As in the first step above, these messages pop up for a reason. Make sure you keep a copy of them (a screen shot would be best) in a form that someone else will be able to understand. Read: Write out the full error, not just “Microsoft Word said error.”
3. Finally, if you can’t reproduce it, it’s not an issue anymore is not always true. Many times issues that can’t be reproduced are not gone, they are just sleeping. Think of it like when your dog finally takes a break from chewing up your couch. It’s not that he won’t chew anymore, it’s that he’s too tired to eat another cushion. But take heed, follow steps one and two so that you will save your cushions and your couch.

To many people ignore the warnings that are staring them in the face. If your computer starts to act up, spits out funny messages or down right BSODs, stop and open a ticket, call your nearest nerd-tech guy or simply go out for a smoke break. You’ll thank me later, I can guarantee it.

This is my first post on That Damn PC and I’m happy to be here. I’ve spent my life tinkering with computers, blowing up electronic equipment and picking on the end-users at all of my IT jobs… Now I want to give back. I started blogging over the past couple of years and made it a point to be honest, open and most important of all, sarcastic. I have a couple of blogs that I write for in the Philadelphia area (as this is where I’m from) and they all have a twist of sarcasm, wittiness and and sometimes a down right rude tone to them that I am hoping to bring to you, the faithful (and not so faithful) readers of That Damn PC. To get into the swing of things, I’d like to first ask a question and then tell you a little IT-related “issue” I recently came across.

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