Let me introduce myself. My name is Shane Hicks, and I’m an independent computer consultant and technical trainer, currently assisting my wife in building her company at Absolute Power Computing. I’ve spent the last several years of my life working with PC based systems and networks, from small home systems to WANs deployed across international boundaries for the military. During that time, I’ve often found that the key to solving problems isn’t so much that you know the answers yourself, but that you know where to look to find the answers. You can look in manuals, books, and even find a great amount of information on the Internet. At the same time, there is no better source to draw upon than experience and that’s where the HAN comes in.

The power of the HAN comes in the joint experiences of each member of the network. The intent of this article is to add an extension to the HAN available to each member of the Alamo PC Organization. Each month I will accept questions from the users at large and do my best to answer these questions based upon my experiences and resources. No question is too stupid?no problem is common sense until you?ve fixed it yourself a dozen or more times. I’m willing to field questions from any area of computing, but please keep my areas of expertise in mind and let?s do our best not to infringe upon areas covered by already established authors in the PC Alamode.

In answering questions, there will come times when there is more than one correct solution to a problem. I’m certain that some may even disagree with my solutions from time to time. That's fine. In fact, if someone has something of value to add to my answer, I’ll be more than happy to include their solution in a future article. I’ve never claimed to be a know-it-all, so I won’t start now. If I don’t know the answer to a question, I may need to defer to the HAN — but then that’s the whole point, isn’t it? 

Hopefully, we’ll all learn together!

To submit questions, please send an e-mail to <PowerTalk@absolutepowercomputing.com> with “PowerTalk” as the subject-line. Be as specific as you can with your questions. Without actually being there to witness the problem first hand, every bit of detail that you can provide is vital. If you are willing to have your name and e-mail address printed with your question (so that others may help as we build our HAN), give me explicit permission to include your contact information in the article. I’ll gather the questions together and answer as many as I can in the space provided. 

With that, let’s start with the first question:
 

Well, that’s about all the space I have for this month. We have a powerful HAN in this organization when we all work together. I look forward to hearing from each of you and in providing a valuable resource for all our members.