Information Technology Tips (Part 1)

"Information Technology Tips (Part 1)

1. First Priorities: Email is the first priority. So is Internet connectivity. Printing is your first priority. Actually phones are your first priority... You have a lot of first priorities.
2. Phones: When you provision your phone switch, remember to leave a few analog lines available for emergency access in case your phone switch fails.
3. Vendors: Do not delegate your responsibilities to vendors that you haven't worked with. You'll most likely regret it. On the other hand, do work to establish long-term relationships with your vendors. They will be responsive to your needs, give you great discounts, and be available when you need them.
4. Backups: Figure out what is important. Put it onto servers. Backup the servers. And do a restore to make sure you're actually backing up what you think you are.
5. Viruses: Viruses are not a problem until they are a problem. Then they are a huge problem. Remember to install Anti-Virus Scanners at the Desktop, Anti-Virus Scanners at your Message Transfer Agent (MTA) and Anti-Virus Scanners on your firewall.
6. Scripts: Script tasks that you do often. Scripts are your friends.
7. Imaging: When deploying new systems in the PC world, imaging is the key to rapid deployment. Spend a lot of time getting the perfect image and then stamp it out for your next sixty users. Use Jumpstart for your Solaris Boxes and Kixstart for Linux. Remember, automation is the key. Imaging is also the key to rapid recovery. Do not attempt to troubleshoot PCs. It's not worth your time. Instead, have your users store their data on the server and if they run into a problem on their machine, re-image it. Better yet, keep a stock of pre-imaged systems and just swap them in.
8. Documentation: Documentation is initially worthless to you because you know how everything works, but you tend to forget over time. And new people coming in often don't know how anything works. Document everything. Make it a priority.
9. Intranets: Start the Corporate Intranet/Web Server with a straightforward hierarchical (departmental) framework. Incorporate Version Control. This should be the one place everyone can go to for information.
10. Remember your ultimate goal is to make your customers happy!

- Gordon Shephard"

<Note from JobFairy.com: How true. What more can we say?>