Devoted to Help Desk and Technical Support personnel and applications

I came across a very interesting non-profit organization whose mission is to enliven the sustainable energy movement.  BioTour adventures and exploration of the cultural and natural diversity across America encourage people to break free of old patterns of thought and behavior and inspire creative action.

The first BioTour bus traversed the USA on a trip from Massachusetts to Nevada for the Burning Man Festival in 2006.  This group of young people is traveling across the USA in 4 buses powered by solar power and waste fryer grease from restaurants.  The busses have already traveled through 42 states, and have held more than 70 events at colleges, other schools, and community gatherings.  

Five Interesting Facts:

1. My first question was how clean does waste vegetable oil burn?  Their answer:  It greatly reduces greenhouse gas emissions when compared to diesel fuel, it has no sulfur (which causes acid rain), it has fewer particulates than diesel fuel which causes asthma and other respiratory ailments.

2.  The buses run on waste vegetable oil collected from restaurants across the country.  As a result, the emissions smell like french fries.  The bus warms up and shuts down on biodiesel (biodiesel is chemically altered vegetable oil) or petrodiesel when biodiesel is unavailable for purchase.

Just when you thought there could not be anymore, there's another social media Network.  This is a site for music lovers who want to share their art. URockHard.com is dedicated to people who make their own music.  Site users with profiles can post videos, upload pictures, and create email accounts to share their comments and experiences with other enthusiasts.

Guitar Games – a space dedicated to guitar game videos such as Guitar Hero

Rock Bands – a space dedicated to multiplayer music gaming videos such as Rock Band

Karaoke – a space dedicated for karaoke or personal singing performances

Air Garage – do we need to say anymore!

The Garage – a space dedicated to musicians from the solo drummer to top rated bands and everything in between

 

There is no question, IT opportunities are shrinking in the USA.  Jobs are being outsourced, and salaries are shrinking more by the day.  Many IT professionals in the USA who are looking for new job opportunities may need to take their focus off of the IT jobs to find their next nitche.  The skills of IT professionals are highly marketable in other career fields.  You just need to apply your creative troubleshooting skills at another angle.

A new book came out recently for IT professionals that can help people look at their career opportunities in a new light.  Debugging your Information Technology Career may be just what you need to expand your perspective.  Even your education in IT can be cleverly highlighted on your resume to show how you qualify for another line of work. 

The author, Janice Weinberg, is a career consultant who has been through the IT job transition herself.  She started out as a Systems Programmer for IBM, and at GE, before she re-applied her skills to marketing, sales management, and strategic planning roles in GE's computer services business.

India IT help desks are facing a shortage of qualified workers.  About 5% of the population speaks English, and only a portion of English speaking job candidates have IT skills.

So as a result, IT recruiters in India are going out to find candidates by bus and inviting them to ``Step in to step ahead.''  Aashu Calapa said, ``The industry is facing a tremendous talent crunch. This innovation may expand the talent pool and take jobs to the job seekers.''

Many of India’s IT workers face burnout, and as a result, help desks have a 50% turn over rate.  Long hours, often twelve hour days, are common.  Also, the busiest hours are at night, to coincide with US business hours. 

Operation costs of outsourced data centers in India are increasing, and I suspect all other IT operating costs will follow.  As a result, this may help level the wage playing field a bit for IT workers in the USA.

Earth Day did not get much attention this week with all the other distractions in the news.  I guess that is why I could not resist posting something about politics and Earth Day all in one shot this Friday.  With all of the heat in the political arena, it seems appropriate.  I am a few days late for Earth day too, but since Friday is the day I normally have jokes, I thought this would be a good video for today. 

George Bush's Earth Day 

I am sitting here chucking to myself over an article by CIO called Help Desks Killed off by Service Desks.  The evolution of the IT industry has driven out the word help desk because of negative nick names like "unhelpful" or "Helpless" Help Desk. This change has also been driven by the development of ITIL service desk theory.  Since I got my cert in 2005, I always wondered when HDI was going to catch on.

In  a press release that came out earlier this month said, “In the 20 years since HDI was established, the definition of ‘Help Desk’ has become outdated and primarily referential only as a single-point of IT contact support. Through the successful uptake of ITIL, ‘Service Desk’ has become the most common term within the ITSM industry. The term rightly reflects a vastly improved quality of service and IT support that is better skilled, more empowered and more cost effective. The revised brand will consequently help to support the pivotal role we play at the heart of the ITSM industry and to ultimately expand our global reach.”

This all reminds me a little of the Geico caveman commercials, so I thought I would bring you a Geico commercial for a chuckle, but they were not near as funny as this commercial.  Laugh a little at the past:

Some time ago, I wrote a Humor Article for Help Desk Notes, and since I could not find anything similar to it on the internet, I decided to enter it in a humor writing contest.  I wrote My Safe Mode Dream back in August 2007.  .  In February, I sent it to HumorPress.com, and I was pleasantly surprised when they contacted me to say that I was a finalist, especially since it was a short piece, and it can be hard enough to translate a technical humor to a non-technical audience.  

Here is a link to the Finalists and the Prizewinners.  They are all very good!

There was the Tortoise and the Hare, there was a fable from India called The Lion and the Hare, and now here's the Serpent and the Hare.  In a scrimmage between a snake and a hare, which one do you think will win?  Which one would you place your bet on?  Which one will back down, "turn tail," and run?  Come on!  This is an easy one, isn’t it?  I think you will be surprised when you see this video.

 

Got a comment?  Post it!  Then pass this along to a friend.

Want to see more funny videos?   

Laugh until you cry. 

Olan Mills Inc, once a privately owned company with a chain of 900 portrait studios, closed its doors and reopened inside of 1,100 Kmart stores.

The company purchased a cumbersome point-of-sale system that required an exorbitant amount of IT support.  The help desk software they used to support the point of sale software was not easy to use, and it was difficult to assess the status of a trouble ticket or find answers to simple problems.

Pete Cole, Olan Mills' field liaison manager, realized it was time to deploy a help desk software application that would allow help desk analysts to find solutions quickly and users to resolve problems on their own in some cases.  Cole finally settled on a browser based help desk application that was easy for help desk analysts to navigate.

The right software package did several things to increase overall efficiency of store operations.

 * Reduced training time for new employees

 * Quickly identified and fixed common software problems

 * Help desk agents were able to handle more calls  

 * Problem tracking became a useful and viable way to solve problems

Just when you thought you had the latest and greatest internet connection, the upgrade to comes out.  Can you imagine what type of technology is next on the menu of high tech?  Well, you don’t need to imagine anymore.  This summer you will be able to see the power of The Grid when Cern, the Genva based particle physics center, switches on the Large Hadron Collider.  According to the TimesOnline The Grid may actually make the internet obsolete.

What can The Grid do that the internet cannot?

The Grid will be about 10,000 times faster than broadband.  That kind of speed will allow techology, like holographic video conferencing, to begin - which will make gaming a whole new world.  The Grid has already been used to design a drug against malaria.  Domestic use, however; will probably not be available right away.

Sorry to disappoint...