In general a good help desk software should include the following features:

• Easy to setup and maintain – you don’t want to spend too much time on upgrades or database maintenance etc. you want a software that integrates all this in an easy to use interface.
•  Easy to use for staff and users – the software needs to be user friendly, and not too clutter so staff and users can find things very quickly.
• It needs to provide multiple ways for users to submit tickets – you need to have the flexibility to allow users to submit tickets through various ways. that could be either through a web form, or email, and if possible through phone calls.
• Have a help desk ticket history – the software needs to keep records of active tickets, completed, and new tickets. on a help desk system sometimes you need run reports from the past, to  discover trends, and sometimes to justify new staff.
• Have a good reporting feature – you want to be able to run reports using many criteria, by locations, by technicians, time completion, categories, etc. this is very important to keep efficiency.
• Keep an inventory of existing assigned equipment – if you know what equipment your users are using is easier to troubleshoot it. that’s why a good help desk software should have an inventory of all the equipment assigned to the supported users, and be able to retrieve that information quickly.
• Remote Access for technicians – this is not critical but very useful. this allow technicians to troubleshoot problems quickly without visiting everyone’s physical locations. now operating systems have this feature built-in but requires other modifications and permissions. it will be much better if a help desk software provide this by default.

there are many more features that some help desk software include, but I believe those are the most critical ones for a basic good help desk system. if you are in the process of building a help desk system, I recommend you spend quite some time demoing or reviewing multiple help desk software so you make a sound decision of what software fits your needs and budget. you don’t want to adopt a software and then spend a huge amount of time fighting with it, that’s why the logistic process at the beginning is so critical, and because the software dictates what you can and cannot do, then choosing the right one is essential.

here is the recipe when setting up a help desk system:

1. identify your needs and budget – your needs could be : how many people you need to support, who are these people? where are these people, how these people will communicate with you, how many staff you have etc. then comes the budget, can you afford a commercial help desk app with many premium features, or you better off with a free help desk software because you don’t have enough money?  those questions need to be answered before start looking for a help desk software.
2. Think for the long run – plan for a software that is active in development and is supported, or at least has a good active community. you don’t want a software that will become obsolete, or incompatible with new operating systems. also think about the future of your organization, is it going to grow? will you need some features in the future that you don’t necessarily need now? think about all this before diving into the software research - is a waste of money and time to buy something today and then 6 month later migrating to another one because you didn’t think about these details before.
3. finding the help desk software – cool now you started the search,  most likely you will type the “help desk software” keyword on Google and check the first results and make your decision with that, right? wrong! you should demo and review at least a 100 of them, from commercial, free and open source. why? because then you can make a good decision and experiment enough that you know that the software you are getting is the right one. be first in Google does not mean you are the best, that means having a heck of a good search engine marketing strategy, and probably money to do that. there are many unknown software that are just as good, but they are buried in Google because they don’t do marketing.
4. at last you need to plan the availability and reliability of the help desk system – allocate the right resources for the software. if the requirements recommend such and such, do such and such, and then more. you want your help desk system to be available as much as possible and be reliable as well. now how you are going to build the credibility and trust from users that is longed in many IT help desks.

I hope this article make your help desk software search easier, and give you some hints on what you need to setup a good help desk system that last.

remember a good help desk system start with a good software. visit help desk applications to learn about hundreds of commercial, open source and free help desk applications you can use for your help desk system, all unbiased and user driven reviews.

First Option:

You can pay extra $5 dollars or so to get your own static IP address. And configure your router to allow access from outside.

Second option:

Let’s look at software that allows you to let you have access to your computer from outside/anywhere in the world:

· Cross Loop

· Show My PC

· Log Me In

· AMMYY

· Go To My PC

· Any Place Control

· And many more

Third Option through services:

You will need to sign up for DNS (Domain Name System) services there are many out there:

I use www.dyndns.org

For complete list of all DNS providers: http://www.technopagan.org/dynamic

Once you have choose the option that works for you can you can setup your computer to access anywhere from the world. I would highly recommend that you use strong password. I have seen many people use very simple password it’s a risk for your personal data to be get access by hacker.

I will be posting details on next topic to cover each one of these options to finish up the setup…

How To:

1.  Right click any where on the Taskbar. If you see “Lock the Taskbar” is selected just click on it to de-select.

2.  Once your Taskbar is unlocked then left click and hold then drag to where ever you want to move it to.

3.  Once you have moved to right place then right click on Taskbar to lock it.

LEFT side Task panel View:

TOP side Task panel view:

RIGHT side Task panel view:

1. Right click on the “Taskbar” then click on “Properties”

1. Click on “Start Menu” then choose “Start menu” for XP view.

1. For Classic view click on “Classic Start menu” then click ok.

How to create shortcut of program:

1. Go to “Start”> “All program” then choose the program that you want then click on “Send To” then choose “Desktop (create shortcut)”

How to create shortcut to file:

1. Right click on file that you want shortcut. (It does not matter if it’s local file or network file) Then choose “Send to” then “Desktop (create shortcut)”.

2.  All shortcut have arrow on the Icon as you can see in the screen shot on the bottom:

1. Open Internet Explorer 7 (IE7) then Go to Tools>Delete Browsing History…

2. You can delete following things one at a time or delete all at once:

• Temporary Internet Files- these files are copies locally to your computer every time you visit website.
• Cookies- These files stores your settings and login info.
• History- These are www address stored.
• Form data- These are forms that you fill out on website’s.
• Passwords- These are password that you saved for secured sites.

Recommended option is to delete all for security of your information’s while you browse the Internet. Even though secured sites have encryptions, but hackers can creak it and steal your personal information.

3. When you click “delete all” you will get this dialog box select “also delete files and settings stored by add-on’s.” Some sites requires you to install add-on’s to view their site and some of these add-on’s are not safe so you can delete unless you know they are safe. Once you make your selection click “Yes”

Another way to delete Temporary files is:

1. Open Internet Explorer then Click Tools>Internet Options

2. Click on Delete… then follow the Steps 2 and 3 above.

Why you run Disk Clean Up?

Because, running disk clean makes your computer run faster and keeps your hard drive last longer.  Also, you will gain more free disk space and may.

1. Go to START>RUN> type in “cleanmgr” then hit ENTER

1. This dialog box comes up:

NOTE: Time it takes to run this may very depends on how big hard drive and how many files and folder you have moved. Also when was last time you ran.

1. In this Check off most of them, but don’t check off:
   1. “Office Setup Files”- This one keeps the setup info incase your office get some error you can repair you don’t need CD most of time. If you delete this one then you will always need Office CD in order to do repair.
   2. “Compress Old Files”- This is ok to delete but it’s good that you don’t because this compress old files are files you have not been using for awhile and if you delete this one then quality will decrease depending what the type of data it is.
   3. When you select the Item from list it gives you “Description” and some you can even view the files then make a decision if you want to delete or keep.

1. Once you Click OK then you will see this dialog box when it finish cleaning up what ever you selected then it’s close it self.

That’s it you should gain some free disk space.

Organizing files on your computer is very important. It can get out of control very easily without you noticing until you come to dead end. When you see the message that says’s “low disk space” that’s when you realize that you been saving files that you did not needed or already saved somewhere else. What do you do? Then quick solution is copy files from one place to another place. But, when you needed it you don’t know where it is so you download again and save it until you see message again “low disk space” Organize it before it’s too late. Try following to help you organize files.

Basic and easiest way to Organize files:

1. Save all your files to one place in “My Documents”.
2. Within “My Documents” by default windows creates folder called “My Pictures” save all your pictures there.
3. Within “My Documents” by default windows creates folder called “My Music” save all your Music there.
4. Within “My Documents” by default windows creates folder called “My Videos” save all your Videos there.

NOTE: Windows saves files by default in these folders.

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Advance Way to Organize files:

1. Create One Folder on C Drive or if you have bigger storage on another drive called “My Files”

2. Within Folder called “My Files” Create More Folders Called “My Pictures”, “My Music”, “My Videos”

3. If you download lot of stuff from internet then create a folder called “My Download” Within this folder you can create more folders like “Test”, “Useful Utility”, “Driver”, “Software”, etc.

NOTE: Windows does not save files on these folders by default. You need to browse to these folders.

Tips: Only create Folders as you need it. Don’t create too many folders that you may or may not know where to find when it comes to saving files to write folder. Also, names files that mean what’s in the files. It helps later when you searching for it.