9 Tips Show How to Become an IT Technician

Getting your first job as an entry level computer technician can be difficult.  This is especially true for someone with no experience.  The job market for computer techs is very crowded and there are lots of new people trying to get in.  Before you decide to enter the market yourself, you need to gain a competitive edge.  In this article, I would like to share with you 9 tips that will help you gain some experience and set yourself apart from the crowd.

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How to Find Drivers for Unknown Devices in Device Manager

Unknown Device IconYesterday I reinstalled Windows on a laptop for one of our users at work. When the installation was complete, I popped in the driver CD to begin the process of installing the drivers that Windows didn’t install. For some reason the CD only contained two of the eight drivers that I needed. Normally, tracking down the right driver can be a huge annoyance, especially when your devices are showing up with generic names like PCI Device, Video Controller, System Device, or Unknown Device. But with the help of a little utility, I was able to find all of the drivers that I needed saving me lots of time and frustration.

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How to Become a Certified Mac OS X Leopard Technician

OS X Leopard IconApple certifications are some of the fastest growing certifications in the industry and becoming an Apple certified tech is a great way to make your resume stand out from the crowd. With the release of Leopard, Apple has been updating their certification program to support their new operating system. I would like explain these newly updated certifications and show you what is required for each one so you can be on your way to becoming a certified Mac OS X Leopard technician.

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How to Manually Download and Install Windows Updates

Updates Icon Recently I was faced with a situation where I had an automatic update that wouldn’t install. To try and troubleshoot this issue, I needed a way to download the update so I could install it manually. Since Microsoft doesn’t offer such an option, I had to look elsewhere for help. Luckily, there is a program that was created to do just this.

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How to Create a Windows Offline Update CD

CD Icon Creating an offline update CD is a great way to update a Windows computer without having to connect it to the Internet and risk the chance of it being compromised. It is also a great way to update a computer that either has no Internet connection or is still connected to the Internet through dial-up. Since Microsoft offers no easy way of doing this other than ordering one of their update CD, I would like to show you how to create one yourself.

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How to Find and Change a Windows Vista, XP, and 2003 Product Key

Keys Icon I was recently faced with a situation where someone had used a "leaked" product key when setting up some Windows machines that I now manage. Not only did the computers start receiving very annoying error messages every time they started up, but they were also unable to receive Windows updates. To fix this, I was able to use a very simple utility to change all of the keys quickly without having to reload Windows or edit the registry. In the following tutorial I would like to show you how to do the same.

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How to Copy Windows Drivers from One Computer to Another

Hardware Icon In the following tutorial I would like to show you how to backup Windows drivers so you can copy them over to another computer or restore them back onto the existing computer. This can save you lots of time, especially after a reload. You can also use this same process to backup Windows drivers so you can add them to your Windows unattended installation CDs.

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How to Create a Windows Vista Unattended Installation CD

CD Icon The other day I showed you how to create a Windows XP unattended installation CD using a program called nLite. Today I would like to show you how to create an unattended installation CD for Windows Vista using a program called vLite. This unattended installation CD works the same way as the one for Windows XP and allows you to automate the whole process of installing Windows, drivers, updates, as well as configuring Windows just the way you like it.

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