I’ve planned for some time to write a series of blog posts featuring the IT tool kit and apps I have at my disposal. Apparently today is the day I start.

To start things off, I’m going to take my cues from Ric Chapman over at Technibble.com and name the tools that keep me mobile.

Being über mobile wasn’t a conscious decision, it was a reaction to the market demand as I saw it. There are two main types of technology support service: drop-off and on-site. If you have a computer at home, it’s not generally seen as too much of a hassle to unplug everything and take it to a service depot. A busy office doesn’t necessarily have the same luxury of time or manpower. One computer out of commission costs them significant productivity. Assigning someone to drop off a computer at a tech shop and pick it up again only compounds the issue. Worse, if the issue is widespread as with network issues, it’s not something you can pack into your car and drive somewhere.

So I resolved to give businesses the white glove treatment (as opposed to the rubber glove). Complimentary pick up, drop off; active on site and remote support.

So without further delay, here is part 1 of my IT tool kit feature, What’s In The Bag

Mid-2012 Apple MacBook Air 11″

This is my first MacBook, but not my first Mac. My previous (and only) two laptops were an Asus W3V, followed by a Dell XPS M1530. What I took away from my experiences with both models (and from all the laptops I serviced in the line of duty) was that laptops don’t live long and most aren’t very well made. Hauling around a laptop as one often does in my line of work, I learned quickly that holding it wrong could produce some frightening crackling sounds due to shoddy plastic flexing. So when I had opportunity to buy the famed aluminum unibody notebook, I took it and I’ve been completely satisfied by the result. This despite the fact that many of the tools I came to rely on were Windows only. That said, I’ve never been left wanting, and the tools I use now vastly outperform the ones I once used. Within days of getting it, a friend was admiring it and accidentally dropped it on hardwood — not even a scratch on it.

I chose the MacBook Air 11″ due to the ultra portability and was also influenced by the fact that it fit perfectly inside Hazard 4’s “Kato”. It’s also impossibly light. I can comfortably hold it with a couple of fingers. The one addition I made when ordering was to add 8GB of RAM, which in hindsight was a wise investment.

Apple iPhone 5

My first smartphone was a Blackberry Curve, but not by choice. I’d wanted an iPhone at the time, and when my contract was up, I picked up an iPhone 4 and later the iPhone 5. Why the iPhone? Several reasons. I like the uniformity. An iPhone is an iPhone. From model to model, I can know where the settings are and how to work them. Some argue that Apple’s devices are too restrictive, but to me that just makes them easier to work with. Harder to break. Not true of the Blackberry and certainly not of any Android phone. Don’t get me started about the Android. The only other smartphone OS I would consider would be the Windows phone. I like the direction Microsoft took, and they’re pretty slick.
The LTE on the iPhone 5 is actually faster than my home internet connection, if you can believe it. Bluetooth and WiFi tethering provide access to the internet on the rest of my devices.
I also use the camera extensively to capture things like serial numbers, error codes, and wiring to aid in technical documentation.

Plantronics Voyager Pro HD

The most recent addition to my mobile toolset, this is one of two Bluetooth hands-free devices that I use regularly. My old earpiece was Motorola H500, but when I turned my head it would flop around too much. The Voyager fits comfortably in my ear, and as Ric said of the Voyager Legend model in his mobile IT tool kit feature, it pretty much destroys the competition.

Apple iPad (3rd Gen)

You may be sensing a theme here. I used to loathe Apple fanboys. It was a factor that held me back from having an Apple desktop for years. I was afraid I would become one of those smug “I’m a Mac” guys that nobody can stand. Say what you will about Apple, but they make a solid, trendsetting product.
At first, most mobile tools I used were available for the iPhone. At one point, though, the small (but beautifully crisp) display became too much of a burden. So in came the iPad. A few months more of this, though, and my Dell XPS M1530 packed it in, which was when I bought the MacBook Air.
I was told that once I bought the Air, I’d never use the iPad again, but this turned out to be patently untrue. Each have their distinct uses and are a vital part of my toolset.

iFixIt’s 26-Bit Driver Kit

I received this kit along with something I purchased for my Mac Mini. For a “bonus” kit, it’s amazing how much it covers. Standard bits, Torx, and even the super-rare tri-wing bit common in Wii consoles, with this kit I can open almost anything. It’s also the most compact kit I’ve encountered to date. As much as I’ve used it, I’ve miraculously managed not to lose any of the bits!

TechLite Lumen Master TE116

Crawling under desks and inside dim wiring closets is great and all, but even better with a good quality flashlight. I scored 3 of these babies at Costco for about $8 apiece.

Kershaw Tanto Blur

Hardware deployments invariably start with sealed boxes. In a bind, I’ll sometimes MacGuyver myself tools using paper clips or keys, but nothing speeds up unboxing like a tanto style knife. Except maybe a box cutter. But box cutters are only really good for cutting boxes. And maybe crafts. This bad boy is also ready to cut through seat belts in an emergency. For a computer guy, I use this a ton. There’s a spot on the Kato bag that it fits in perfectly, and my jeans have a great spot for it too.

Tablet Speaker for iPad

I picked this up in response to all the presentations I attended (and performed) where the source was a laptop or iPad. Presenters came so prepared with multimedia content, but remembered only to bring the projector, and relied solely on the internal speakers to fill the room. Big mistake. Tablet and laptop speakers are better than nothing, but barely. This is a compact stereo speaker system that plugs in via the headphone jack and can easily fill a medium-sized room.

Western Digital 500 GB My Passport
I get called to businesses in response to emergencies, some of which are data related. If I suspect an impending system failure, I can plug this in and get a backup going right away. There are larger capacities available, but so far I find 500GB suits me just fine. The new models are USB3, and the best feature is that it both communicates and is powered by the same single USB cable. No fiddling with extra wires or open power sockets required!

Corsair Flash Voyager Mini 32GB

Although technically not “in the bag”, this little guy is a huge part of my ability to be mobile, and a vital part of my IT tool kit. Loads of storage space, it’s rubber, shock-proof, hooks to my key ring, and the best part is, there’s no lid to lose! This is the issue I have with many other flash drives, including other offerings from Corsair. This key contains the majority of the software I use on-site.

Up next in Part II – the software I use on-the-go.

It’s no secret that the bulk of my client base are Doctors. Some are specialists, some are General Practitioners, some are independent, and others from large clinics. Some of them are old-school, and keep paper records; many have opted for completely paperless EMR systems. But what they all have in common is diligent documentation.

It may seem to the casual observer that doctors enjoy forcing their patients to wait. It may seem that they are in no hurry to see the next patient. After all, they’re doctors — at one time all but revered as gods. But behind the curtain, what happens is actually in the patients’ best interest.

Doctors take on a lot of liability by entering the medical profession. They often literally hold patients’ lives in their hands. This is why they have insurance. But of course insurance isn’t enough. Any driver knows that you don’t crash into cars with abandon, knowing that your insurance will foot the bill. The aim is to avoid any insurance issues altogether.

The medical profession, much like the IT industry relies on information, and that it be up to date. So after any appointment with a patient, doctors spend time making notes. Sometimes these are just rough notes to jog their memory later, other times they will speak into a transcription machine to record their notes for later, and in some cases, the doctors will opt for a speech recognition program to directly transcribe the notes from their voice to the computer screen.

However they do it, the result is the same: information recorded for reference. And there you have it. Documentation. It’s not sexy, but it’s vital to care, both for people and for technology.

Doctors do it because lives are at stake. Being that I service the systems that the doctors rely on for patient care, I do the same thing for much the same reasons. I can’t be expected to remember an issue that occurred 18 months ago in any great detail, but provided I made adequate notes of my work at that time, I can refer to them later and immediately grasp what the issue was without wasting time investigating all over again. IT documentation at it’s finest.

After every day, I spend a couple of hours documenting all the issues I encountered in that day. Wireless network configurations, passwords, IP addresses, anything that my clients or I may need for reference later gets documented. I take the information from my little notebook and transcribe it to my records management system. If the client’s infrastructure is large or complex enough to warrant it, I’ll sometimes write a booklet listing all the components and configurations of their IT systems — a booklet that I actively keep up to date and resubmit to the client for their records once or twice a year.

I don’t even want to get into the nightmares I’ve experienced by starting with a new client who has no IT documentation. It’s a long and drawn out process collecting all the information from scratch. Vendor contact information, account numbers, warranty expirations, configurations — the list of information captured is extensive. It’s common for even a small client to have a 20-page IT documentation record, when completed.

All of this adds accountability and a quality to our work at McLean IT. From this information we can derive when a service was performed, why it was needed, and who performed it. Information that is invaluable when you discover you need it.

The question of whether or not to have a server comes up often in small business. I see lots of local businesses struggling to get by without a server and in most cases, both productivity and IT costs would improve considerably if they had one, even considering the initial investment in server hardware and software.

First, I should define what a server is. Technically, a “server” is a concept rather than a tangible “thing”. The most basic definition of a server is something that provides or “serves” information. Take, for example, the Internet. When you type “www.google.com” into your browser, there are potentially dozens of servers involved with getting your computer to that page, not even including the final server that contains the actual search engine. The relationship between the server and the software you use to access it is called the “server-client relationship”. You may have heard terms such as “Email client” or “FTP client”. These are just general terms for different programs that handle the client or user-side of Email or FTP.

 

 

Hopefully that makes sense.

So why does a business need a server? It depends.

File Server

The most basic use of a server tends to be for file sharing. Servers dedicated to this are usually cleverly called “File Servers”. They can store important business information centrally like accounting files, document templates, images, videos, project files, invoice records. In short, any file you want, you can store there. And what’s more, you can secure them granularity. Let’s say you have sensitive business information for management eyes only, but everyone has access to the file server. No problem, you can use the server to group users together and deny them access to entire sections of the file server.

Why is that better than a workgroup or “peer to peer” network? In a network consisting entirely of workstations and no server, each computer can be a server and share files between devices. However, the process is unwieldy and notoriously difficult for most users. And even when done properly, for the information to be available, the workstation serving the information must be on. Furthermore, file sharing on an ad-hoc basis is inefficient both because it is not centrally managed but also it becomes almost impossible to find which file the most recent or “up to date” version. The same inefficiencies can apply to cloud-based storage services. And of course, having important business information stored in only one place on a workstation with no failsafe is never a good idea.

Backup Server

Another similar use of a file server is as a backup server. Technically this is an extension of the idea of the file server, but is especially useful in this case since it generally takes up a significant amount of space. While you may technically replace the traditional file server with a cloud-based service like Dropbox, it doesn’t typically afford you the space, speed, or flexibility of a local backup server.

Web Server

While I don’t typically recommend that small businesses host their own websites, there are some practical reasons to run a web server locally. Some billing applications are web-based, as are some proprietary industry applications. Or a business might run an “Intranet” or a Wiki to manage internal business information.

Database Server

Running a database server is very common even for small businesses. Whether it be a file-based database such as FileMaker or Microsoft Access, or service-based like MySQL, Oracle or Microsoft SQL Server. It doesn’t matter what the database contains. What matters is that it is contained in a central location that is potentially accessible from any computer on the network.

There are literally hundreds of other reasons to have a business server, but this covers the most common uses. The good news is most businesses do not need a beast of a server. Typically small businesses servers can run perfectly well with lower specs than the workstations that access them. A server takes care of a great deal of issues.