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Everyday I get someone who asks me to make a recommendation on what they should do with their software. They don't like making their own choices. Basically they want the program to do everything they need it to do out of the box or they want to call up and have us tell them exactly what to click.

This is a lot like going to a store and expecting the cashier to tell you what you should buy. Especially after all you've told them is that you have a three-bedroom house and a car. So, ok, the cashier figures you should buy some wool carpets, and maybe a couch? So you the customer dutifully go off and put those things in your cart and take them home.

... when you get home you realize that you already have a couch! And upon carrying in the rug you find that you are allergic to wool and now you're itching all over.

Now, you are an unhappy customer and you go back to the store and complain to the cashier's manager that you bought these things, one you didn't need and the other that caused you problems, and it's the cashier's fault for telling you to buy these things.

Yeah, right.

Don't get me wrong. I have no problem guiding someone in how to use the program. I also am happy to tell them how to do a specific action they want, when they don't know how. Using my previous example, in which I am the cashier...

Customer: I want to be able to put drinks and my tv remote on something in my living room.
Me: Ok, the purchase you need to make for what you are asking for would typically be a coffee table. Do you have room for a coffee table?
Customer: I think I do.
Me: Ok, you go to department 5 to get the coffee table. When you get it home, make sure you set it on it's legs.
Customer: Thanks, that's all I needed.

See? See how easy that is? The customer told me what he wanted and I told him how to get it!

The things you as a customer need to know before you ask me these kinds of questions:

1. What is my environment like? (In the case of computers this means... how much RAM do I have? What kind of CPU do I have? Do I have other software running on this machine?)
2. What do I want this software to do?
3. Am I prepared to work? (Meaning, at the computer and without other distractions)

So, Mr. Admin, call support! But don't ask them to make up your policies for you or do all your work! That's what you get paid for!!

Labels: admin, advice, phone, phone support, question, questions, ram, requirements, software, support, system, technical, technical support

I started this blog as a place to vent my frustration with my customers. People who should know how to do everything I do and then some and often do not. I think I'm going to add a series of "How to's" because, well, maybe they don't know these things because they couldn't find them. I've already done one - how to find your Windows Management console and the Services console.

Today I'm going to add another one. This is less of a "How to" and more of a why.

(Get to the point...skip the story)

In the world of software, there has come to be a misunderstanding when products are labeled. If you look on the side/bottom/back of a box for a game or other software you'll see the system requirements. It will advise you that you need x amount of RAM.
As an example: I have the game Guild Wars, and it's system requirement is 512 MB RAM. What this means is that the game requires 512 MB of RAM free. Not total.

When I'm running this game, pretty much everything else is out of the question, because it uses so much of my RAM. I have 512 MB. (I'm getting more SOON) Luckily for me, Windows is usually pretty smart, and keeps enough for itself so that it doesn't crash, and I have a swap file that covers alot too. (I may explain swap files later, who knows...lol ) So overall, the game runs pretty well, but often lags and takes a long long time to load.

As I mentioned before, I do technical support for some mail scanning software, and this mail scanning software requires 1 gig of RAM. If your system doesn't have enough RAM, this mail scanning software will take it. Unfortunately for all other software on the system, except Windows, that means that it could potentially crash your system.

Seeing as most of these systems (well, lets be real here... ALL these systems) are mail servers, the system crashing would be a bad thing.

What these admins need to know is... if you have Program A that requires 1 gig, and Program B that requires 512 mb and Program C that requires 512 - 1 gig (depending on the usage) you should have 1 gig + 512 mb + 1 gig = 2.5 gigs just for the software + 512 (at least) for the Operating system -- All in all this comes to 3 gigs.

If you didn't have 3 gigs in this situation, and these programs are all running at the same time, your system will flop. End of story.

For a normal consumer this isn't a big deal, because they don't tend to run multiple programs at once all the time. On a server, however... well, I think you can see what I'm getting at here.

The moral of the story is:
The amount of RAM required on the outside of the box is the MINIMUM required just to run that program and no other.
The amount of RAM required on the outside of the box is the amount that you must have FREE in order to use it.

Labels: 1 gig, 512 mb, admin, advice, help, how to, mail software, microsoft, ram, requirements, system