A+ Hardware Service Technician: Computer Hardware, System Boards, and Storage Devices

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PDAs

A Personal Digital Assistant (PDA) is a commonplace item in many businesses and homes. Spurred by the success of Palm Pilots, the PDA industry has had tremendous growth in the past few years.

A PDA is a device which allows an individual to keep their notes, email, schedule, small documents, and other information with them at all times. It is a useful device for record keeping and usually syncs with your computer to allow your contact list and emails to be "in sync" with each other in your handheld and normal computers.

Palm Pilots are the most prevalent PDAs on the market, with a market share of about 30%.

Most PDAs are based on either the Palm operating system or the Microsoft PocketPC operating system.

Palm Pilots present an interesting challenge to IT staff who are trying to support it. At one firm I worked at, we went through several different policies in regards to supporting PDAs. Originally, we would not support any PDA, though if a member of management were to purchase one, we would support them individually. Eventually, we decided on a standard and if anyone were to buy the standard PDA we would support it. This allowed us to designate an expert (which coincidentally happened to be me) on PDAs and be able to develop support procedures for the specific PDA we would support.

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