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Survive Without Your Office IT Tech
Filed Under: Security
If everyone in your office isn’t up to speed on how to handle your computer network, what do you do if you’re forced to operate without your IT go-to person? Prevention is truly golden in the situation, so make sure your IT person isn’t the only one in the office capable of handing basic tasks. Then you can limp by until you find a replacement.
Before you have to face that kind of situation, take preventative measures to protect your office now.
Know Where Your Backups Are
Right now, do you know where your backups are and how to restore them if it became necessary? Your IT person knows this, but you should know it, too. Talk to your IT person to make sure the right information is being backed up regularly, and make sure you know where the information is. In fact, it’s best to run a restore on a different system so you can check the data and make sure it’s there and usable. Tapes and disks wear out, and sometimes data gets corrupted for some reason or another. Checking your backups regularly helps protect you against data loss.
Keep a List of Passwords
Your IT person undoubtedly has a master list of all the passwords that are necessary in the office. Make sure you always have an updated copy of this list. If you don’t have this and your IT person quits today, imagine the problems you could face. Passwords to things like databases, servers, firewalls, routers, user systems and more are things you might take for granted if your IT person handles everything. If there is no list, have one made up immediately and keep an updated copy at all times.
Keep a List of Product Keys
Another important list to have is a list of product keys. These are the long codes that are required when you enter most types of software. They often come inside the CD-ROM case, but they don’t always. Do you know where these things are? Could you find your Windows product key if you needed to reinstall your operating system? What if you needed to reinstall a printer or other mission-critical piece of hardware or software? Belarc Advisor is a good free program you can download that will keep track of this information for you.
Know Where Software is Kept
The list of product keys won’t do you any good if you need to reinstall a crucial program and you don’t know where the disk is. Your system administrator no doubt knows where they are, but check to make sure he or she is organized. You’ll want to be able to easily retrieve the program you need without having to comb through boxes or drawers of disks.
Know Your IT Person’s Help Line
When there’s a problem or question that your IT person can’t fix or answer, he or she calls someone for help. In fact, get the numbers of repair people, consultants, software support personnel and any other people or companies that are regularly contacted so you know who to call when you have a problem.
Brush Up on the Basics
Finally, make sure you have a good, basic understanding of how your network operates. If you don’t know the basics, you won’t be able to solve small problems and you might not have enough information when you call someone for help.
Ask your IT person for help in understanding how your network operates and the functions each server performs so you’ll feel more confident and knowledgeable if you ever have to handle IT tasks in your office.
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