Get IT Organized . . . keeping IT all organized

So! You’ve bought a new computer. In the package you have located the big piece, a monitor, the next largest piece in the box, the "tower" in which is located your CD ROM and "A" drive. Now, this is "what you can see". Do you know what’s "inside" the magic box (tower)? What you cannot "see"? Unless you are a computer geek, not very likely. And, do you really care? Quite possibly "not".

All you know for sure is that you want IT to work. Plug it in, and "go"!

Now let’s see. The computer store told you that’s pretty much all you had to do; all you had to know. WHOA! Stop right there. Did they tell you that you’d likely need a power-bar for electric power surge protection? Did anyone mention doing back-ups? Or that soon you would buy a Zip Drive? Or some other external drive?

And of course, you’ll need a printer; a black and white to start? Or should you go for broke and buy a color printer right up front and get it over with? Should you buy a multi-functional machine, maybe? One that photocopies, acts as a fax machine and printer, all at the same time? Well, not exactly at the same time. One function at a time, I’m thinking.

Of course you will need extra ink cartridges. And paper. Don’t forget to buy paper. What kind of paper? What happens to your paper when it is exposed to light? And labels. You will want labels for sure.

Back to the computer boxes: In there you found some taped-together plastic see-through bags with direction folders, and some floppy disks. A few manuals. Hmmmm. Why so many? Well, at least one for each item, it seems. Not only for the items we can see, but there seems to be some for things we cannot see. One says it’s for the modem. Guess the modem must be in that tower some place.

And software that comes installed on your computer. More manuals. Looks like there must have been a sale on manuals.

Now there is a packing slip: On it you can see the size of your hard drive, how much RAM your machine has, how many and what kind of ports you have. There’s all sorts of information that doesn’t mean much to you. Perhaps you should know where you file this paper, though. Just in case you ever need it again. Think ahead. In the future when something needs upgrading and someone asks silly questions like what size is your current hard drive, or how much RAM you have. How should you know? Well, you can load all your equipment in your car, and take it back where you bought it and they can tell you. You can pay someone by the hour, anything between $65. To $100 per HOUR, and they will tell you. Some charge travel time on top. No one told you this? Got to keep records on all this "stuff", starting now. Who, what they charge, their phone numbers. Do they charge extra in off hours? What did they really do when they were here? And WHERE did they put your disks and files. Did they mix yours up with theirs? Should get them to write down what they actually did, someplace. Why did it take them two hours to find the problem, when you already told them what the problem was in the first place?

Oh, yes. And you forgot to tell the store where you bought your computer that you do in fact already have a digital camera. Still in the gift box, though. A phone call to the store elicits new information. Now you need an USB port. And cables. CABLES! There’s all sorts of cables in the box. But they didn’t give you any schematic to follow to show you what goes where, in hooking together all these precious new tools. Back to the phone. You tell them - that they told you - that you could install all these parts and pieces yourself. It’s not rocket science. Not so sure about that now, are we. OK, they will send an installer over next week some time. Could be a high school kid.

Darn. And you wanted to surf the net right away. You wanted to play music on your CD ROM, at least. You’ve heard from everyone everywhere that even kids can figure out this computer business. So why can’t you? Never mind, eventually you’ll get the hang of it. It will all come together for you; just in time for the monitor to stop working one morning when you are in a hurry, and need to look up a recipe, or need to find those special directions for how to use your workshop saw; or when you failed to unplug your system in a thunder storm. No one told you about that, did they? Golly, it’s good you kept the phone number of the install fellow. Now you can call him to come right over.

How many manuals can one person read, anyway! That’s "if" you can find them. How can you find what you are looking for when you don’t know what exactly it is called? Should have saved all those colorful little boxes that all the parts and pieces came in, maybe. Perhaps should have written down all the dates when you bought the extra parts and pieces like the USB port and those cables. You need a new mouse. So, big deal. Go get one. Buy it. Get it home, and discover it has the wrong plug. No one told you there was more than one "end" on the mouse. It’s just a mouse, for heaven’s sakes!

Now, suddenly the store doesn’t want to know you anymore. They tell you that you have to call TechSupport at the manufacturer, when things don’t work. And, the store does "not" offer any suggestions or TechSupport for SOFTWARE. So, you sit on the phone for 45 minutes on hold. Your nickel. THEN they want your credit card number? They actually want to charge "you" for this call, on top of paying for the long distance charges? You’ll get used to it.

But, several months later another problem occurs, and you begin to think about where you filed your bits and pieces of paper with all your notes on them. You know that you did FILE them, someplace. You are VERY careful; notes you so carefully took from the TechSupport person. Now you are absolutely certain that you could fix this problem yourself, if you could just locate those notes. Do you really have to sit on hold AGAIN! and pay for another call, as well as TechSupport charges to your credit card? Golly! How many folks have your credit card number now, anyhow? You have talked to lots of support lines in the past few months. Probably should have written that information down someplace, also? Who you gave what information to, and when, for what purpose. Got to get organized. All this nuisance work is costing you a lot of money.

Saw something about a Tech Organizer on line someplace. Seem to recall that it was called C . . . I Am Organized. No, I didn’t see it. Someone on the forum was talking about it. Said it was a manual retrieval system, so when the computer crashed, I could at least find my records with serial numbers, passwords, when I bought what, and where I bought it. Is that monitor still under warranty? Where did I put the manual for the modem? Now that it doesn’t work, I’m sure I could fix this small thing, so I don’t have to pay someone else to sit here for two more hours.

Now I’m out of ink. I just bought this cartridge last month. Or was it the month before. Seems to disappear quick. Maybe I could write that info into this "IT organizer", too. What do you mean it’s time to service the photocopier again. Didn’t we just do that? Look it all up in your C . . . I Am Organized IT Tech Organizer. Save time. Save money.

Order the most important organizer you will ever own. Go to http://www.epowerorganizeIT.com to check it out right now.

Copyright – ePower Organize IT, Inc. 2003