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Keeping Clear Concise Records of Your IT Assets
George Bardissi, President Bardissi Enterprises
It’s important, today, to make sure that you keep very clear
records in terms of your IT software, licensing, and
equipment. The previous statement would usually make sense
to most people. However, saying things and doing things can
be very different. Why should I take the time to catalog and
categorize all of those things when I have a hard enough
time with every other piece of paper that I have in my
filing cabinet? There are a lot of reasons! First, just like
you probably already do with car maintenance records or
paying your bills, keeping a rolling record of all of your
PC or IT based purchases makes it easy in terms of going
back to look at something when you need information.
This usually helps when you are looking to do an upgrade or
add something to your system and a question comes up asking
do you have this or do you have that. Instead of waiting
until you are in this situation take the time now to make
sure everything is together and where you can find it.
I can’t remember how many times I have been in a situation
where a computer had to be repaired or something had to be
reinstalled and the person does not know where their CD’s
are. At all costs, please save yourself the aggravation and
wasted time. Make sure you have every disk and key code or
license code that you need in one place. I know that a lot
of the software today is being purchased and downloaded
online. Make a copy of the installation files or burn them
to a CD or DVD. Also, print out any emailed codes or
installation keys and keep them with the CD or copied files
in one place.
Also, I cannot count how many times I personally have gone
to reinstall something, on a client’s PC or laptop, only to
find that the software is not legitimate or was “borrowed”
from a friend or family member. Ladies and gentlemen,
understand if you don’t already know it, sharing or copying
software, just like music that you haven’t paid for, is 99%
of the time illegal! Yes, you read that correctly.
Just because someone you know works somewhere and they were
able to take a software package, from their job, like
Microsoft Office and install it on their PC doesn’t mean
that you can then take that CD and install the software on
your system. It is important that you understand, anything
that you install on any computer has a license agreement.
All Microsoft products are very clear in what and how many
machines the particular software can be installed on. If you
are in a business understand that your business may have a
license agreement for your site(s) to have software
installed on all machines. Whatever you do, please don’t go
and take software from your job without making sure you have
permission.
Also, I am beginning to notice that many of the big wig
software companies are starting to audit businesses to make
sure that everything in terms of software licensing is
legitimate. Understand, that if you are a company that is
not up to date in terms of having licenses that have been
purchased correctly and you are “over using software”, which
means you have more software installed than you have
purchased you can and will be fined severely if you are
caught. I am not using this as a scare tactic because
frankly I am not the one coming after you but someone out
there is and I would hate to be the one that gets pulled
into court and faces the possibility of having my business
assets frozen and if you don’t think it can happen, just
look at the music industry and how may cases are in court
over the internet and downloading music, for sharing
purposes only. The companies suiting individuals are asking
for enormous sums of money from average citizens and the
courts are siding with those companies. So, just keep it
legal and you’ll avoid the possible hassles.
When it comes to hardware and equipment, keep a very
detailed log or record of when equipment was purchased and
installed. Also, keep a very clear record of when
warranties start and end on your equipment. This is crucial
when things need to get replaced or repaired so you don’t
end up buying something when you don’t need to in terms of
when equipment goes bad. This also comes in handy when you
are cycling out old equipment and you can take a look at
your existing inventory so you can see what needs to get
replaced sooner rather than later.
Again, I know most of this is common sense. However, many
people seem to forget, whether home or business, that it is
more than just a good idea to make sure all of these items
are in order and easily accessible. As more things in your
life go digital (cell phone, computer, IPOD, MP3 Player,
projectors, etc) you will appreciate the fact that you are
very much on top of the technology at least paperwork wise
than to let it engulf you even more than it may already
have!
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