Ramblings of a Geek

Gary Kemp, a former colleague, has started a new blog/forum for providing peer support for IT issues.

Check it out - it'll be interesting to see how it develops

How does tech support have an impact on the bottom line?

I've been thinking about this for a while so I thought i'd put it in a blog and share my thoughts on it.

It's a question I've come across quite often in my long(ish) career in IT - many guys that I've encountered working in support think that it's the sales team that bring in the money and that they just have to fix issues. I've been in that position and sometimes when you're right in the middle of something, it can be distracting to have to put it to one side to fix someone's print spooler or scanner or excel macro... well you get the idea.

The thing is, the support guys probably have far more contact with the customer than the sales team ever did - to the customer these guys are the company and it's their experience with the front end that decides how long they remain a customer. Ultimately, without customers you have no business.

I read a blog post over the weekend on the MS Dynamics Community that put it in a much better way than I could.

In my last job we went on training with Ken Blanchard who is a great speaker on effective leadership. One point he makes is that if you (managers) want to change your business for the better, then you need to lead from the front. Incentivising good performance is also another great way of actioning change in an organisation.

Any readers of my blogs from the past will notice that this post has a little more business focussed content than they're used to. I have just started the road to an MBA so you can expect more of this sort of stuff along with the usual tech stuff.

IT4Charity Blog

I'm in the process of developing a blog at work. It's still a work in progress but feel free to take a look.

It's at http://www.it4charity.org.uk/blog

How To Clear the Outlook Email Address Auto Complete Cache

For some reason, the auto-complete in my Outlook 2010 has gone screwy and started having the incorrect addresses for auto-complete entries.There are several options but as this is a relatively new install of Outlook, I'm going to nuke the cache. "That would make a good blog post" I thought to myself, so here goes.

It's actually surprisingly easy too and works for Outlook 2003, 2007 and 2010.

Outlook 2010 Method

1. In Outlook 2010, click File and then click Options.
2. Click the Mail tab.
3. Under Send Messages, click Empty Auto-Complete List.

Outlook 2003/2007 Method

1. Make sure Outlook is closed.
2. Open Windows Explorer and browse to %APPDATA%\Microsoft\Outlook (or just copy and paste it into the address bar).
3. Rename Outlook.nk2 to outlook nk2.bak (just in case you need it ever again)
4. Thats it. There is no step 4 :-)

For a more in-depth look at the various options related to Outlook auto-complete cache, look at this KB article which has every permutation of config steps known to man.

Almost there...

So

I have an exam on quantitive research methods on Friday. I'm finding revising for this incredibly tedious but I guess it has to be done. I also have a multiple choice test to do online by Saturday night and then my first year at university is complete.

I can't believe how quickly it's gone. It only seems like yesterday that I was severely depressed and agonising over having to work in IT for the rest of my life. Time flies and all that... :)

Now that i'll have lots of time on my hands, I hope to start blogging more frequently.

Hello

I've been blogging for near on 5 years now in various places.

When I quit IT last year, I stopped writing in my tech blog and started a new one here.

The problem is, I don't have enough content by myself to fill the new one and I miss writing technical stuff. I still do technical stuff just not for a living anymore.

My plan going forward is to get some additional bloggers for men-talhealth.org.uk and do my personal blogging here.