Friday, October 10, 2014

Definitely and absolutely necessary

I'm going to do something a little different today. Normally we discuss a lot of different things related to web design and development. At ASIT Group we also do a lot of computer repairs and custom installations and obviously there are a bunch of different things we need for the various jobs. So for anyone in the same sort of situation or for those of you who are attempting a fix on your own computer (hardware or software) these are the absolute necessities.

A lot of people forget that computers are an actual physical thing and need to be maintained in order to function correctly.

  • Screwdrivers, for unscrewing those tiny little screws that seem to be everywhere, a magnetic one would be best and a little tray is always nice to store the screws while you're working so you don't lose anything.
  • Cloths, dust in a major issue and apart from being ugly and making you sneeze it also increases heat inside the computer and hinders working on the machine so cleaning it may be a necessity.
  • Blank CDs/DVDs, these can always come in handy.
  • Blank Flash Drive, again, always handy, you will really want a minimum of 8Gb.
  • Ethernet Cables, for network problems, you'll want a minimum of two and make sure the cables you have do actually work.
  • Hiren's Boot CD, this is honestly the most useful tool ever created, it's basically a bootable CD with a load of different tools on it ranging from anti-viruses/anti-spyware/anti-malware to optimisers such as defragmentation and cleaning software to disk image makers and everything in-between. I prefer to have it on a bootable USB purely for the durability and portability factors but I honestly can not praise Hiren's Boot CD enough.
  • Install CDs, if we're doing a fresh install of an Operating System it's handy to have that operating system lying around because chances are the client won't have the discs. I like to keep Windows 7, Windows 8 and a Linux distro around. Don't forget that you will need any extra drivers as well to make all of the peripherals work properly.
  • Live CDs, these are extremely useful because it boots to an almost fully fledged operating system while keeping the actual operating system completely off which mean you can do those deep scans and proper diagnostics.
  • Mobile Internet Connection, just in case the client doesn't have an Internet connection or they think theirs is broken, it's useful to have a backup. Most people have a decent amount of data usage on their mobile phones nowadays so that is actually my go-to thing.
  • Various Cables, just to be sure everything is actually working as it should and in case the client doesn't have the right one. I would recommend at least a micro USB and a mini USB to USB cables as well as a printer cable and lately, possibly even a proper USB 3.0 cable.
Obviously the list goes on but those are the absolute necessities. If you think of any others just leave a comment!

Till next time,
Alec