The art of Task Automation and Corrective Processing
The last few years were a very good time for the IT market. After a great depression that occurred in the beginning of the decade, the future looks very promising. It is also much easier to find a job in the IT market. However, when you are trained in using task automation and corrective processing methods, your chance to find a job grows even more along with your potential salary. Those skills are in high demand now!
What exactly is task automation and corrective processing? Nowadays those two skills are used in almost every aspect of computer science. If you find a job as a network administrator, or as a programmer, you will use those two methods almost every day.
First let’s take a closer look at task automation. Let’s say that someone finds a job as a system administrator. He could easily spend every minute of every day at work performing periodic maintenance tasks unless he finds a method of automation. Automation entails creating scripts that the system can execute at a particular time each day, week, or month. Automation also includes the simplification of interactive tasks by creating scripts or programs. Tasks that are repeated often and are complicated or tedious are good candidates for both simplification and automation.
As you see, task automation is in fact a very simple process. Corrective processing is a little more complicated. However, this method also can, and sometimes must, be used almost everywhere, even outside the IT industry. Almost everywhere where data processing is used, there is a place for corrective processing. It may be something’s as simple as purifying html code, to a little more complicated calculations involving Hubble’s telescope.
In the IT business, corrective processing is mostly used to check for errors in new software, but that~s not all. It is also used for optimization, like clearing or simplifying the program code to make it run faster or be better read by search engine robots. There are also many new IT companies where you can find a job that is concentrated solely on corrective processing. Such companies are usually sub-hired by other, bigger ones to check on their product. Even one of the biggest producers of antivirus software is outsourcing corrective processing of its products, so the demand for corrective processing specialists is high indeed.
But the real art is connecting task automation and corrective processing into one, single process. People who have obtained both skills can find a job almost everywhere, and for quite a good salary. So, if you are currently trying to find a job, it would be a good idea to learn at least one, if not both skills. Your chances to find a well-paid job will grow!
The power of Automated Alerting for hard drive recovery
You are sitting in a cafe with your friends when suddenly your cell phone rings. When you look at the screen, you see the new messagereport. While reading it, you find out that there was a power shortage in your company building and that hard drive recovery of all of your computers was successful. Then you can sit back and enjoy the rest of the evening or run to the company’s office depending on the specific situation. You know everything, and you can react accordingly with no need of people screaming on the phone. In fact, there is no living person needed to do that. How can that be possible?
The answer is: automated alerting applications. There is an enormous amount of automated monitoring systems around us. Personal life alert devices, fire sensors they launch a signal that is automatically delivered to a proper service. It is because automated methods cost less and it is becoming very common. From hard drive recovery reporting to stock notifications automated alerting systems are used everywhere.
There are four main methods of sending an alert report. The first and the oldest one is using a dedicated, specially designed alarm line between the sensor and the proper alarm station. It usually triggers some kind of a sound alarm. Because in this method one sensor is dedicated to one indicator, the source of alert can be easily identified. This method, however, has many flaws first of all, it is extremely expensive. Another thing is that it only notifies you about an alarm being triggered there is no detailed data given (it is good for fire alarm, but it won’t tell you if hard drive recovery was successful or not).
Another form of an automated alerting system is a pager message. Unfortunately, it slowly becomes obsolete. Recently, the cost of pager services became too high, but this method made possible to provide as many details as was needed – even the number of files that were lost after hard drive recovery.
The method of sending an e-mail report is the third method. It is by far the cheapest and most detailed one. There is, however, one major flaw and the successful delivery depends on constant access to the computer. Sending a message about a hard drive recovery process or about a burglary attempt has some sense only when someone can receive it, thus making this method less effective.
That’s why the last method is near perfection. It incorporates all the best aspects of other methods, while lacking their flaws. The use of a short message system is currently the best way of sending alerts: very detailed, almost instantly delivered and economical. From the emergency service doctors to company owners; from fire fighters to hard drive recovery trained personnel they all have one thing in common the cell phone.