Skip to main content

Completing a Coursera Specialization for Free

Coursera provides continuing education just like Udacity and offer the full learning experience that I am accustomed to, including lesson videos, reading materials, projects, discussion forums, and graded projects which are peer-reviewed. I recently completed the Full-stack Web Development in React specialization from Coursera, all for free. It’s called a specialization because it is made up of three courses below each with their own certifications and which takes 4-6 weeks each to complete: 1. Front-End Web UI Frameworks and Tools: Bootstrap 4 2. Front-End Web Development with React 3. Server-side Development with NodeJS, Express and MongoDB I started the program in December 2021 and finished it in June 2023 however. The intent of this post is to explain how I was able to fund the entire specialization for free. In December 2021, I read on social media that Coursera allowed for one free course per year if you were a student and had an email address from a partner school. I gave my stu

IT Support, Do You Need It?

This is a guest post written by Muhammad Azam and he is known for his expertise in technology and IT support and solutions. If you are searching for reliable Manchester IT services or IT solutions for your business then read his blogs. 
 —
Businesses always need better ways to reduce their operational costs, without compromising the effectiveness or quality of work that is being done. Businesses today are driven by profit and every decision that is made is for increasing the profits and to make better use of company’s resources. In this era, new and unique ways are being developed to help businesses overcome hurdles and reduce the running cost of the businesses. Outsourcing of operations is one of the most unique and most reliable ways to do so because with the help of this method, a business can easily reduce its work force and the cost associated with employing such a work force. Whether it is the finance department or the IT department, services are being outsourced to companies all over the world that can provide reliable and effective services for a very low cost. However, outsourcing IT services to overseas companies is not an option many businesses explore because there are limitations when it comes to outsourcing IT services. This is the main reason why businesses are forced to hire managed IT services that are situated in their area or city. Hiring a local professional IT company is a far better option as compared to an overseas IT support company because the services provided by IT support companies often requires visits to the business location, especially when a problem arises that cannot be taken care of remotely.

IT problems can arise at any time of the day or night and sometimes, it requires the presence of the IT professional on location to ensure hardware related issues are taken care of, if there are any. When you are thinking about hiring an IT support company, there are a few questions that you must answer in order to ensure that you are making the right decision for your business. Justifying the decision of hiring an IT support company is the most important thing because for this, you need to identify the reasons and their arguments as to why hiring an IT support company is the best course of action for your business. This is done before the managers start working the numbers and figure out if this option really is cost effective and reliable or not.

One of the most important questions to be answered is that, does hiring an IT support company directly contributes in the growth of your business, in the short-run and in the long run? If the services offered by an IT support company are not suitable for your business and if you think that, you will end up spending more than the budgeted amount on this decision, then it is obvious that the decision of hiring an IT support company is not in the best interests of the business. However, this is a rare case because the cost of running an in-house IT department is often far greater than the cost of hiring an IT support company. Although, this might be true for large enterprises, but same can be said about small business that are looking for reliable IT services.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Completing a Coursera Specialization for Free

Coursera provides continuing education just like Udacity and offer the full learning experience that I am accustomed to, including lesson videos, reading materials, projects, discussion forums, and graded projects which are peer-reviewed. I recently completed the Full-stack Web Development in React specialization from Coursera, all for free. It’s called a specialization because it is made up of three courses below each with their own certifications and which takes 4-6 weeks each to complete: 1. Front-End Web UI Frameworks and Tools: Bootstrap 4 2. Front-End Web Development with React 3. Server-side Development with NodeJS, Express and MongoDB I started the program in December 2021 and finished it in June 2023 however. The intent of this post is to explain how I was able to fund the entire specialization for free. In December 2021, I read on social media that Coursera allowed for one free course per year if you were a student and had an email address from a partner school. I gave my stu

Udacity Front-end Developer Challenge Daily Sprint Updates

As per the Next Generation Tech Booster Challenge Program, we are asked to submit a daily progress report on slack. We just need to answer these three questions in the post: • What did I work on today? • What I will work on tomorrow? • What issues are blocking my progress? I take this logging opportunity to also report on the progress I am making with my Coursera course “Server-side Development with NodeJS, Express, and MongoDB”; and my Linux Foundation course “LFS258 Kubernetes Fundamentals”.  To help with completing above, here are some links posted by the slack moderators that I try to use to get through my workload: How to Organize your Desk like a Pro Tips on how to achieve consistency Strategies we can employ to stop Procrastination Eliminate Time Wasting Activities by Using the Eisenhower Box Warren Buffett’s “2 List” Strategy The Ivy Lee Method The 15-Minute Routine Anthony Trollope Used to Write 40+ Books The instructor for the course is Daniel and is pure entertainment.  Ther

Logitech Circle 2 Security Webcam has gone Offline (SOLVED)

In November 2022, I realized that my webcam had stopped working. I took it down from above my door mount in order to troubleshoot closely. The unit would power on with a steady white lighting around the front but I was used to seeing green. When I press the button to reset it, it would reboot and start flashing different coloured lights but when I release the button, all lighting would stop.     I looked at Logitech’s support site to find out how to properly reset it. It was simply to hold the button a few seconds until lights start blinking, which is what I have been doing. I had the wired model so I plugged in the unit via USB to my Windows computer to attempt to connect to it. I had a hunch that there was a firmware update that it automatically tried to download and run, and that update caused this. I was right. A few other users on the Logitech forums reported the same symptoms I was experiencing with my Circle 2 webcam. Here was one specific post that I responded to: https://suppo