Technical Support Books - Page 2

A Guide to Computer User Support for Help Desk and Support Specialists, Third Edition

Fred Beisse

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Subjects -> Business & Investing -> Industries & Professions -> High-Tech
Subjects -> Computers & Internet -> Business & Culture -> Technical Support

Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 1 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

well-written 5 out of 5 stars.
1 of 2 people found this review helpful.

Excellent book. Good for anyone's collections. Helpful in help desk support. Well-written book. Good examples and cases.

Editorial Review:

A standard for help desk professionals and those considering becoming support professionals, this text focuses on key information for user support professionals, including decision making, communicating successfully with a client, determining the client’s specific needs, and writing for the end user. This text has been updated to reflect the latest in support industry trends, especially the use of Web and e-mail-based support. For those considering entering the field, alternate career paths for user-support workers are described. This edition has retained and updated the CloseUp feature, which details real-life scenarios of working professionals and issues in the workplace. With balanced coverage of both people skills and technical skills, this book is an excellent resource for those in the technical-support field.

Help Desk, Service Desk Best Practice Handbook: Building, Running and Managing Effective Support - Ready to use supporting documents bringing ITIL Theory into Practice

Gerard Blokdijk, Ivanka Menken

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Subjects -> Computers & Internet -> Computer Science -> Software Engineering -> Information Systems

Editorial Review:

Covers every detail, including some missed in other books. This thorough book provides a clear roadmap to designing, implementing and operating a help desk. The author leaves no key process out and completely covers everything from initial concept to measuring support effectiveness and process improvement.

The book starts with an initial strategy that is focused on planning help desk services that are completely aligned to requirements and are based on a mission statement. This business-oriented approach is refreshing and will keep IT grounded in the real reasons for a help desk. More importantly is the process for careful selection of services to provide. An overly ambitious set of service goals will kill a help desk implementation early in its life by offering too much before there is a stable help desk process in place. This book is realistic and lays the foundation for a success implementation.

The section on the actual design of the help desk structure provides insights and information that can be applied to a large number of solutions. Since help desks will be organized in accordance with requirements and unique mission statements, this section of the book is like a catalog of patterns. It has excellent tips on how to best structure the help desk to meet requirements and mission. The information on accurately estimating staffing requirements is consistent with industry best practices and something that, believe it or not, is often overlooked when help desks are established.

This book gets into the meat by thoroughly covering the processes that are essential to running a help desk. There are many topics that stand out as both unique [to books of this genre] and reflect best practices by the best-run help desks. Examples are change control, disaster recovery and vendor management. These topics show that the author not only considers business alignment, but also cross-functional alignment within IT.

Professional resources and underlying technology are provided in detail.

This book contains an in-depth coverage of operational requirements for the help desk once it has been implemented. It hits all of the critical success factors, such as performance metrics, service level agreements, communications and internal evaluations. It even has a chapter on marketing, which is something that is important but not often done be most help desks. This proactive approach to keeping users (your customers) informed of new services, accomplishments and tips is excellent and will go a long way towards attaining high customer satisfaction scores - not to mention proving the value of the help desk to IT and business management.

You will find this book to be one of the best for planning and implementing a world-class help desk.

Open Source for the Enterprise: Managing Risks, Reaping Rewards

Dan Woods, Gautam Guliani

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Subjects -> Computers & Internet -> Business & Culture -> History
Subjects -> Computers & Internet -> Business & Culture -> Technical Support
Subjects -> Computers & Internet -> Operating Systems -> Linux -> General

Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 4 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

Editorial Review:

Open source software is changing the world of Information Technology. But making it work for your company is far more complicated than simply installing a copy of Linux. If you are serious about using open source to cut costs, accelerate development, and reduce vendor lock-in, you must institutionalize skills and create new ways of working. You must understand how open source is different from commercial software and what responsibilities and risks it brings. Open Source for the Enterprise is a sober guide to putting open source to work in the modern IT department.

Open source software is software whose code is freely available to anyone who wants to change and redistribute it. New commercial support services, smaller licensing fees, increased collaboration, and a friendlier platform to sell products and services are just a few of the reasons open source is so attractive to IT departments. Some of the open source projects that are in current, widespread use in businesses large and small include Linux, FreeBSD, Apache, MySQL, PostgreSQL, JBOSS, and Perl. These have been used to such great effect by Google, Amazon, Yahoo!, and major commercial and financial firms, that a wave of publicity has resulted in recent years, bordering on hype. Large vendors such as IBM, Novell, and Hewlett Packard have made open source a lynchpin of their offerings. Open source has entered a new area where it is being used as a marketing device, a collaborative software development methodology, and a business model.

This book provides something far more valuable than either the cheerleading or the fear-mongering one hears about open source. The authors are Dan Woods, former CTO of TheStreet.com and a consultant and author of several books about IT, and Gautam Guliani, Director of Software Architecture at Kaplan Test Prep & Admissions. Each has used open source software for some 15 years at IT departments large and small. They have collected the wisdom of a host of experts from IT departments, open source communities, and software companies.

Open Source for the Enterprise provides a top to bottom view not only of the technology, but of the skills required to manage it and the organizational issues that must be addressed. Here are the sorts of questions answered in the book:

• Why is there a "productization gap" in most open source projects?
• How can the maturity of open source be evaluated?
• How can the ROI of open source be calculated?
• What skills are needed to use open source?
• What sorts of open source projects are appropriate for IT departments at the beginner, intermediate, advanced, and expert levels?
• What questions need to be answered by an open source strategy?
• What policies for governance can be instituted to control the adoption of open source?
• What new commercial services can help manage the risks of open source?
• Do differences in open source licenses matter?
• How will using open source transform an IT department?

Praise for Open Source for the Enterprise: "Open Source has become a strategic business issue; decisions on how and where to choose to use Open Source now have a major impact on the overall direction of IT abilities to support the business both with capabilities and by controlling costs. This is a new game and one generally not covered in existing books on Open Source which continue to assume that the readers are 'deep dive' technologists, Open Source for the Enterprise provides everyone from business managers to technologists with the balanced view that has been missing. Well worth the time to read, and also worth encouraging others in your enterprise to read as well." ----Andy Mulholland - Global CTO Capgemini

"Open Source for the Enterprise is required reading for anyone working with or looking to adopt open source technologies in a corporate environment. Its practical, no-BS approach will make sure you're armed with the information you need to deploy applications successfully (as well as helping you know when to say "no"). If you're trying to sell open source to management, this book will give you the ammunition you need. If you're a manager trying to drive down cost using open source, this book will tell you what questions to ask your staff. In short, it's a clear, concise explanation of how to successfully leverage open source without making the big mistakes that can get you fired." ----Kevin Bedell - founding editor of LinuxWorld Magazine

The ASTD Handbook of Training Design and Delivery

George M. Piskurich, Peter Beckschi, Brandon Hall

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Subjects -> Business & Investing -> Management & Leadership -> Management
Subjects -> Business & Investing -> Management & Leadership -> Motivational

Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 3 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

Disappointed 3 out of 5 stars.
53 of 60 people found this review helpful.

I finishing my PhD in Cognitive Psychology, and I am new to the field of training. My purpose in reading training books is to discover whether or not I would like to pursue being a trainer, or at the very least use the information to help me in my current field. So, you can take my opinion with a grain of salt.

I know that ASTD is the big professional association for trainers, so I was surprised and disappointed in the limited usefulness of a book sponsored by them.

Other books present design and delivery in a more thorough manner. You can skim this book in a few minutes and get the key points. Whether this is entirely due to the lack of substantive content or due to the book's format is debatable, but I am thinking more the former than the latter.

The key points that are useful are not adequately backed up by sufficient supporting detail or research. I don't think the "Delivery" part should necessarily be backed up by research, but the "Design" part surely should. I would like to know why the techniques they suggest should work and how cognitive processes relate to those techniques. But my thinking that this is important may be more due to my own background, rather than a real flaw of the book. However, even if that is true, I have found other books that do give sufficient supporting detail and/or research.

The other books I recommend instead of this one are:
- Beyond the Podium by Rossett
- Developing Training Courses by Hassell-Corbiell
- Web-Based Training by Horton
- Multimedia for Learning: Methods and Development by Alessi and Trollip
- Building Expertise by Clark

Editorial Review:

This comprehensive companion volume to the bestselling ASTD Training and Development Handbook (Craig, ed.) helps trainers design classroom, self-study, or technology-based training programs. Delivering the latest information on how adults learn best and human performance technology, it shows trainers how to prepare lesson plans, create visual aids, and deliver highly memorable presentations.

Spreadsheet Modeling and Decision Analysis (with CD-ROM and Microsoft Project 2003 120 day version)

Cliff Ragsdale

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Subjects -> Business & Investing -> Management & Leadership -> Decision-Making & Problem Solving
Subjects -> Business & Investing -> Management & Leadership -> Management

Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 14 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Great book, and includes @RISK 5 out of 5 stars.
1 of 1 people found this review helpful.

Ragsdale really makes spreadsheet modeling accessible to real-world business situations. It was a great asset to my MBA coursework. As a student, it came with a free student version of @RISK risk analysis software as well.

Editorial Review:

Valuable software, realistic examples, and fascinating topics . . . everything you need to master the most widely used management science techniques using Microsoft® Excel™ is right here! Learning to make decisions in today's business world takes training and experience. Cliff Ragsdale--the respected innovator in the field of management science--is an outstanding guide to help you learn the skills you need, use Microsoft Excel for Windows to implement those skills, and gain the confidence to apply what you learn to real business situations. SPREADSHEET MODELING AND DECISION ANALYSIS gives you step-by-step instructions and annotated screen shots to make examples easy to follow. Plus, interesting sections called The World of Management Science show you how each topic has been applied in a real company.

Leo Laporte's PC Help Desk (Laporte Press)

Leo Laporte, Mark Edward Soper

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Subjects -> Computers & Internet -> Hardware -> Maintenance, Repair & Upgrading
Subjects -> Computers & Internet -> Hardware -> Microprocessors & System Design -> Computer Design

Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 6 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

The pc help desk.,by leo laporte ,is a must for all computer users.. 5 out of 5 stars.
5 of 5 people found this review helpful.

The pc help desk book written by leo laporte is a must read guide in keeping your pc or mac healthy...leo is warm and has a great sense of humor..He never talks down to his audience,and has been a lot of help to me on his call for help program...Any serious computer user,should buy this book...thank you! stewart l

Editorial Review:

Nurse your PC back to health with a little help from Leo Laporte. Leo Laporte's PC Help Desk in a Book uses a unique, medical dictionary approach, complete with symptoms, diagnosis, and treatment for all of your common and not-so-common PC maladies. Flow-charts will help you correctly diagnose and treat such problems as:

• Windows installation woes
• Storage device tragedies
• Printer problems
• Pesky audio, video and general multimedia mayhem
• Keyboard and mouse afflictions
• Home networking headaches
• Core PC hardware issues
• Application failures
• Viruses, spyware and spam infections

Don't waste time digging through paperwork only to find a tech-support line that is going to cost you an arm and a leg to cure your PC's ailments. Make your own house calls instead with Leo Laporte's PC Help Desk in a Book.

PC Help Desk in a Book: The Do-it-Yourself Guide to PC Troubleshooting and Repair

Mark Edward Soper

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Subjects -> Computers & Internet -> Hardware -> PCs

Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 8 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

A great help 5 out of 5 stars.
13 of 14 people found this review helpful.

I had looked at this book for a long time, but delayed buying it. I finally bought it as a supplement to other, more technical books I have. It gives me the information I need without numbing my mind in geek-speak. During the first 24 hours after buying it, this book got me out of several difficult problems quickly and effortlessly. Surprisingly, it is not the diagnostic flow charts I have found most helpful, but the book's running text located by way of index entries has been the most helpful to me in solving the problems I had, one of which was the Blue Screen of Death related to the recognition of a hard drive on an OS installation.

Editorial Review:

Each year, thousands of harmless PCs suffer the pain and humiliation of buggy Windows installations, bad cable connections, mismanaged system resources, viruses, and slow Internet connections. All too often, these downtrodden PCs end up being scrapped before their time by owners who just can't care for them any longer. The real travesty is that with a little love, these wounded PCs could become useful members of society. That's where PC HelpDesk in a Book comes in. Using a unique, medical dictionary approach, this book walks users through the symptoms to diagnose and treat the problem. End-users will be armed to perform cost-effective upgrades, repair fouled Windows installations, and squeeze out a little more performance from a slow Internet connection in lieu of purchasing a new computer.

Mission Critical: Realizing the Promise of Enterprise Systems

Thomas H. Davenport

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Subjects -> Business & Investing -> Management & Leadership -> Strategy & Competition

Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 12 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

Editorial Review:

As information-dependent companies of all types continually expand, acquire, merge, and globalize, the need to share critical data--between far-flung sites, independent divisions, and even neighboring departments--increases exponentially. Thomas Davenport, director of the Institute for Strategic Change at Andersen Consulting and a professor of information management at Boston University, advocates integrated enterprise systems (or ESs) to expedite the process. In Mission Critical, he explains how these inherently complicated, unfailingly expensive, and yet potentially vital programs can best be coordinated with existing operations. He explores specific benefits as well as possible drawbacks. And he shows why some of the biggest players in the business world have succeeded in their ES efforts, while others with equal resources and similar goals have not.

While a properly designed ES will facilitate rapid dissemination of electronic data to pertinent employees, partners, and customers through Internet or intranet access, Davenport repeatedly claims, the key is handling this "as a business project, not a technical one." This means clearly defining objectives from the outset, utilizing executives with power to execute the required organizational changes, and incorporating explicit across-the-board incentives and penalties that are tied to the project's ultimate conclusion. Top managers and information specialists will find helpful guidance here on all relevant aspects of the process, including pre-implementation procedures, software selection, organization-wide strategies, and tips on using an ES to its full advantage. --Howard Rothman

The Compleat Guide to Day Trading Stocks

Jake Bernstein

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Subjects -> Business & Investing -> Industries & Professions -> Accounting -> General AAS
Subjects -> Business & Investing -> Investing -> Futures

Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 12 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

Editorial Review:

Day trading is Wall Street’s hottest trend and, in The Compleat Guide to Day Trading Stocks, famed futures trader and author Jake Bernstein turns his attention, knowledge, and experience to the exciting world of stock trading. Bernstein covers timing systems, trend following systems, breakout systems, and more—all illustrated with chart examples based on intra-day time frames, and supported by results from his meticulous, historically accurate back testing.

Basic enough for novice traders—yet with enough detail for the most demanding market veterans—Bernstein’s book gives day traders the tools they need to succeed in this fast-paced, relentless market. Special attention is given to:
• Day trading the technology sector
• Risk management and diversification
• Little-known nuances of order placement Jake Bernstein (Northbrook, IL) publishes MBH Weekly, a newsletter covering the commodities and futures markets. Author of The Compleat Day Trader and Strategies for the Electronic Futures Trader, Bernstein is a popular speaker at trading seminars and regularly appears on radio and television.

VBA for Modelers: Developing Decision Support Systems Using Microsoft® Excel (with VBA Program CD-ROM)

S. Christian Albright

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 17 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Aimed at a very specific audience: avoid if you are not a management scientist! 1 out of 5 stars.
14 of 22 people found this review helpful.

I am a little surprised at the high rating that this book seems to get from the current 13 reviewers but, then again, these are probably memebers of the books target audience. When Albright refers to "modelers" in his title he is constraining the definition very tightly to those in the business world who develop models for "management science". This book has little to do with the more general concept of modelling as it might be found in the physical sciences, engingineering, the social sciences and anything else you can think of outside of management science.

What is good about this book is that it provides a fairly basic introduction to VBA in the first part in a nicely laid out fashion. It then goes on to develop example code targeted very specifically at the management science student or professional. I think this is an admirable approach and this book is probably very useful to the "management scientist" who wishes to learn VBA as it is implemented in Microsoft Excel. It is also quite nicely written. I think that within its target market this is a book that could be recommended. However, if you are not into business modelling or don't make extensive use of the Solver Add-In that ships with Microsoft Office then this book is probably not for you.

Again, I wish to emphasise that this book is very tightly focused on a particular type of VBA developer: i.e. the "management science" specialist who makes extensive use of spreadsheets. As I said, the introduction to VBA programming is well laid out but there are better texts and this one is really very basic (excuse the pun). The scope of the book is not broad so don't expect to learn a lot about much of VBA that does not fall within the fairly narrow constraints of business modelling.

For a general introduction to VBA programming that is far more wide reaching than this book try one of the editions of Walkenbachs "Power Programming with VBA". If you are already competent in VBA or VB programming and want a good reference book on VBA with excellent examples and a very far reaching scope then there is nothing better than the Wrox books by Bullen et al: my "Excel 2002 VBA" serves as an irreplacable reference bible even after 4 years and an upgrade to Excel itself.

I am not a "management science" professional. I have been developing a number of fairly extensive specialist VBA Add-Ins as a scientist/engineer for several years now and I can honestly say that this book taught me nothing new. I didn't actually find anything wrong in any of the text or code that I studied but from my point of view the code examples are highly repetetive and very simple (definitely aimed at the novice VBA programmer). Possibley a great book for management scientists wanting to learn VBA but others can find far better in terms of both introductory texts and advanced programming texts.

For mangement scientists wanting to learn VBA I would give this five stars but for all other Excel users, or potential users, of VBA I can only give it one star.

Editorial Review:

Learn more effective modeling techniques than ever before! VBA FOR MODELERS: DEVELOPING DECISION SUPPORT SYSTEMS USING MICROSOFT ® EXCEL shows you the easy way to automate methods and models and create special applications. You'll learn sophisticated techniques through a simple and clean interface, so there's no more long nights of trying to make it work. And because it works with Microsoft ® Excel, you'll be saving time while the program crunches all the numbers.