iYogi Re-Defines Technical Support – BizTech2.com

Remote managed services are gaining a lot of attraction these days. Companies are looking to outsource the maintenance and monitoring of their IT infrastructure to a third party to improve efficiency and save costs. BizTech2.com caught up with Uday Challu, founding partner and CEO, iYogi, to see what the company has to offer in this space.

As far as Enterprise and SME customers are concerned, which verticals are you focusing on?

Our focus will mostly be on small companies with around five to 100 users and also firms that have multiple small branch offices like travel agencies, retail stores etc.

What kind of support services do you provide to your customers? What is the Green PC service?

iYogi provides the next generation of remote computer support services for consumers and businesses. For consumers, our live 24/7 support extends to technologies we use everyday, including hardware, software applications, devices, peripherals and networking equipment. iYogi also offers a full range of business IT solutions including managed monitoring, managed services, set-up and installation services, and incident-based services.

Green PC Service

With the current state of the global climate and increasing dependency on the computer, iYogi helps PC users reduce their carbon footprint and save money at the same time. iYogi’s Green PC service is the first in the independent computer support industry to offer customers a way to save money, conserve energy and protect the environment by optimising their PC’s efficiency. Consumers and businesses can save up to $200 per year, per desktop, in energy costs with iYogi’s Green PC application. This green application makes the computer environmentally friendly by reducing power consumption by almost 50 percent.

Our Green PC dashboard helps customise power settings and calculate power savings in kWh (kilowatt hour). The Green PC dashboard also gives a status on the reduction of CO2 and how responsible usage will benefit the environment by saving trees. A customised service that increases the energy efficiency of computers, undertakes the below-mentioned three primary initiatives:

- Computer assessment, analysing settings and PC energy use
- Customised efficiency planning geared specifically to the individual’s usage patterns
- Implementing setting changes to maximise the computer’s energy use

What are the technologies that allow you to offer 24/7 support and ensure there is no downtime at the client site?

We have invested significantly in developing a comprehensive monitoring and management tools stack. This enables us to manage and monitor all devices in the office network as well as for branch offices and mobile users. Our tools continuously monitor the customer’s network and notify our NOC (Network Operations Centre) in case of problems. Based on the set of events, tickets are automatically generated and escalated to corresponding teams. Over and above our proactive approach, the customer always has an option to call our 24X7 support line for issues that are not identified via the monitoring tools.

Please throw some light on your proprietary iMantra technology.

iMantra is a CRM system, which is tailor-made to suit the emerging business needs at iYogi. It allows for the formation of individualised customer relationships with the aim of providing personalised services to each subscriber. This tool is built on the latest java technology with a layered architecture that makes it scalable and secure. This architecture provides a seamless workflow and independent channels for various business needs: sales, support, quality and customer service. The entire system can be exposed in the form of secure APIs and Web services, which makes it a re-usable entity.

Your business model is similar to BPOs in India providing technical support to offshore customers. What unique values do you bring to this ecosystem that would help a potential client choose you over a competitor?

iYogi’s business model is different from traditional BPOs. Some key factors that differentiate iYogi include:

- Direct-to-consumer and -small business: iYogi delivers technical support services directly to consumers and small businesses and is a global technical support brand based out of India. Unlike traditional BPOs in India, iYogi does not provide any private label support and/ or work on behalf of large OEMs or software publishers.

- Optimised Processes: iYogi has developed proprietary processes for consistently delivering on a resolution rate of 87 percent, which is among the highest published benchmarks in the support industry, where averages hover in the range of 50 percent.

- Comprehensive technology platform: iYogi’s global delivery platform, iMantra, gets smarter with every customer interaction. It documents every problem, the solution and relevant hardware and software aspects, while capturing each customer’s demographic information and creating a behavioural profile. All of this information is at the fingertips of iYogi’s Global Tech Experts. This set-up combines a knowledge base with a comprehensive set of tools and technology expertise. iYogi offers a range of tools that complement its remote support services for helping customers maintain technology at peak performance levels. iYogi’s products include iYogi Smart PC Scan, iYogi Support Dock, iYogi Green PC and iYogi PC Optimisation.

How do you plan to move up the value chain in the times to come?

The growing use and penetration of the Internet and new Web-based applications has consequently opened the door to threats and vulnerabilities, which affect the system performance and ultimately lead to degrading performance. If the threats are diagnosed early on, the impact on efficiency can be minimised considerably. Currently, a user only realizes that he needs technical support once the damage has occurred and reactive methods of support are used to recover from the loss.

At iYogi, we are developing our capabilities to not only provide support when demanded, but to also monitor, pre-empt and fix threats before they can cause any damage to the computer. This will be possible only by combining technology with processes that are capable of re-defining the way technical support is delivered today.

What is your India strategy?

Technically, we are capable of servicing any geography including India. At this stage, we are looking for the right kind of partners to find access to potential customers and provide them a consolidated, 360-degree solution and services for issues relating to hardware, software, network etc. We aim to launch our India services in the coming six to eight months. Our services will offer clients a one-stop solution for all their business needs.

Source : BizTech2.com

Increase computer speed through virtual memory

Memory on your hard drive is much less costly then RAM, so optimizing your virtual memory settings is a good choice to make your PC run as fast as possible. These days hard drives are filling up faster then ever, and all the time programs are leaving massive chunks of files behind, that even tried and true cleaning programs like ccleaner can not get rid of.

For virtual memory to make your PC as fast as possible you must have the extra space on your harddrive to allocate away from the storage of files and for the use of extra RAM. This is where a visual hard drive program called Tree Pie, Visdir or Disk Explorer saves the day. These programs show a graphical view of your hard drive allowing you to to see exactly what folders are taking up the most space and organize your machine better. in the Windows 95/98 era, conventional wisdom held that you should manually set your virtual memory, (ie., pagefile) size to at least 1.5 times the amount of RAM to optimize performance.

This still holds true but particularly for older machines, with less RAM, a very new and high end machine with a lot of RAM may see little to no performace increase while an older machine may see large benefits. for example on an old machine i tested this on i got around a 10 percent jump after upping the original pagefile size to two times the amount of RAM. Allocating any more virtual memory then this will make no difference to the speed of your computer and may have adverse effects.

To make sure you have enough space to set for virtual memory, lets get into a visual hard drive application, download either Tree Pie or Visual Directory Explorer. Check to see where you may have duplicate files, or junk files taking up unnecessary space. Many applications after they are deleted leave behind large files, using these programs as well as ccleaner, can greatly increase performance and extra space. Ccleaner can be used to quickly uninstall programs then delete the leftover registry entries for these programs, ccleaner can also delete, shady Active X registry entries and other registry entries that point to dead ends. Ccleaner will also do the standard clearing out your temp folders, cookies and recycling bin. Here is an episode of Hack5 that covers Tree Pie.

Right click on my computer and go to properties –> advanced –> settings
Then you will be in performance options, click change and roughly double your ammount of Virtual memory then you must click set, then OK out of all th windows. To do this in Vista click “Advanced system settings” in the System Control Panel and do the above instructions.”

Testing the parallel port

Diagnostic software such as CheckIt or Norton Utilities can test the integrity of your port by using a loop-back plug attached to your parallal port. This type of test can also be performed on your serial portes. Be sure that you use a loop-back plug compatible with the testing software. This is because manufacturers utilize different loop-back wiring schemes in their products.

The loop-back plug test may not find every parallel port problem, but if it does indicate a printer troubleshooting, it’s probably accurate.

If you find a bad parallel port on a motherboard with integrated peripherals, you can disable the port in the CMOS Setup and install an add-on parallel port if you have an unused ISA slot. But check prices before you do this. You may be able to replace your motherboard with a new one for very little more than the cost of a new parallel port card.

Source:
http://articles.techrepublic.com.com/5100-10878_11-5032833.html

How To Print Pictures in Windows XP

Unlike previous versions of windows XP has simplified the process of printing color photos. Whether you took the picture yourself or received it via email, printing pictures has never been so easy.

Find the Pictures you want to print
When you save a picture from an email, or from your digital camera, XP should automatically save them into your My Pictures folder. To find the pictures you want to print, click on the start button, and then click on the My Pictures menu item, which is usually near the top on the right hand side of the menu.

Using the Photo Printing Wizard to Select your Photos
Once the wizard appears, click on the next button, to move to the photo selection stage. You should now see your thumbnails of your pictures. If you have a lot of pictures, then use the scrollbar on the right hand side to scroll through them all.

In the top right hand corner of each thumbnail there should be a small box with a tick in it. This means that the wizard has selected that picture for printing. Usually the wizard starts off selecting every available picture for printing. Now select the individual pictures you want to print by clicking on the empty tick box in the top corner of the picture.
Please note, that the tick won't appear on the picture when you print it out.

Selecting a layout
Once you have picked all of the pictures you want to print, click on the next button a the bottom of the wizard. Most people only have one printer installed so you should just see your usual printer listed on this next page. If not, select the printer you want to use from the list provided, then click next.

Once you have the layout you want, just click the next button and windows XP will start printing your pictures.

Source:
http://windows.gumph.org/content/printing/printing-pictures-in-windows-xp.html

A Browser Is a Search Engine according to most of people

Apparently, many users don't know what's a browser and they think it's the same thing as a search engine. users didn't like Chrome and they thought that the previous search engine was better. "I want the old Google search engine, not Google Chrome. How do I go back to regular old Google? I want to change my default search engine from Chrome to Google this Is what one of my friend was saying james"

Scott Suiter, a former Google intern, asked 50 passersby from New York what is a browser and the responses were almost unanimous: a browser is a search engine. Some even said that their browser is Google.

According to Wikipedia, "a web browser is a software application for retrieving, presenting, and traversing information resources on the World Wide Web." But search engines are the applications that help you find web pages and they're so important that they became synonymous with web browsers. It's an involuntary synecdoche, a figure of speech in which a part of an object is used to refer to the entire object.

Source:
http://googlesystem.blogspot.com/2009/06/browser-is-search-engine.html

All about the wireless network setup in Windows XP

Development is base of the life, people started with simple computer, after some time they started using laptops, same was the case with networking, started with wired networks, but now we have moved forward to using wireless networks.

Microsoft also understands the need of wireless networks, so Microsoft added the feature of wireless network in the Windows XP , but the most important thing in wireless network is computer security
.

Now the question arises how to create wireless network.
There are four steps to set up a wireless network
1 Choose your wireless equipment.
2 Connect your wireless router
.
3 Configure your wireless network.
4 Connect to the computer.


1 Choosing the wireless equipment is the one major issue , as the strength of the wireless network is totally dependent on the wireless equipment . So select a good wireless router for creating the wireless network.

2 Second step is connecting the wireless network.
For this step we need to have Internet connections to the wireless router.

3 Now the third and the most important one is configuring the wireless router
For configuring the wireless router using network cable connect the router cable with the network port of the computer temporally. Open the Internet explorer, and type the IP address of that router. With default user name and password. After that Internet explorer will open a router configuration page on the IE with the fields detailing
Wireless network name, called as WEP
Wireless encryption key (WEP)
Your administrative password.

Save the settings and click OK.

4 Connect to the computer.

And last but not the least, connect to the computer is the most important factor.
If you do not have computer support for the wireless network in that case we need to have network adapter. Having its antenna, when we connect that adapter to the computer USB windows XP SP2 will automatically detects the wireless network. It will prompt antenna like icon on the task bar
Once that icon start prompting

Right click that (wireless network) icon > click the View available wireless network.
Once Network connection appears, then wireless network connection is connected. > Click Refresh network list and after that click on the Connect. After that Windows XP will ask to enter a WEP key and that only those are able to connect to the wireless net work

Finally remove the wire which we have connected between the router and computer.
Thus the wireless network is mainly used for the laptops, it remove all the hurdles faced during the wired network.

Source:
http://www.articlesbase.com/computers-articles/all-about-the-wireless-network-setup-in-windows-xp-961478.html

PC Optimization Services

Pc optimization is a new buzzword gaining popularity because of its abilities to keep your PC error free. It provides tune up to your precious computer to help it stay in top performance. The procedure is much of like PC upgradation, without which, your PC will soon suffer from faults like slow speed, crashes, hanging applications and get exposed to spyware and hackers.

Optimizing a computer is not a difficult task. With the right knowledge, it only takes a few minutes and a single click of a computer mouse. Following are some of the benefits that you get on tuning your PC:

* Enhanced PC security
* Fast PC startup and shutdown
* Applications will not hang or crash
* Faster switching between applications
* Easy and Fast Internet Browsing
* Watching video and playing audio will be smoother and faster
* Faster downloads

Large stuff gets accumulated on your PC’s hard disk thereby creating mess. It needs to be cleaned on regular basis. A proper PC optimization includes deleting Internet cookies, removing temporary files, rearranging data; automate Microsoft update, cleaning disk errors, and installation of Antivirus and Antispyware programs. It can be a little difficult for any non technical person to perform all these tasks. These services should better be performed by expert computer technicians to avoid any kind of errors in operations.

Nowadays, you will get thousands of resources offering PC optimization services online. This saves you from hauling your computer to any computer repair showroom and you get everything at the convenience of your home. These resources have technicians to help you set your system correctly. Within the net minute your PC is optimized, you will see dramatic increase in your system’s speed while opening applications, browsing the Internet, starting up and shutting down.

These computer repair technicians are highly proficient in their work and hold vast years of expertise. You can contact them instantly simply by dialing on their toll free number. The only thing you need is to subscribe yourself with your chosen computer support company. You can call them anytime as they are 24x7 available.

Source
http://www.articlesbase.com/computers-articles/pc-optimization-services-917055.html