Class Blog Post Week 2

"What are your Strengths and what is your greatest weakness."

I've realized through working on my practicum what a few of my strengths are. I do well at listening to directions, I'm good at OS installation and machine setup. And I'm still very good at working on the internet and doing anything creative, as yesterday I created part of a Wordpress website.

If I had to confess one of my weaknesses it would be that I'm very analytical. I press for as much details as possible and when I decide on a solution it needs to be a complete solution. If a company wants me to only do a patch job because they want it to cost less, I will refuse, because it will only leave it open for more problems in the future.

Practicum Day 3

Today was a VERY busy day. My host and I went to a company called "Phoenix Restorations" (I know, i thought it was clever too). Today many of their offices were being switched around, and we were there to help change telephone connections in the server room, and install computers. Much of the computer setup was similar to what I had already done, and I set up about four machines today, but the telephones were different. You see every office has a phone, and has to provide internet to at least one computer, every room had a kind of...outlet, with one port for Data (D-1), one for Spare (S-1) and one for Telephone (T-1) and they're all connected to big switches in the server room.

In one situation, in a room that had two desks, each with a computer, the keystone for primary Data in the outlet had chipped and sunken back into the wall. My host taught me how to take off the wall cover, remove the keystone, and crimp on another one, which was pretty cool!

We were there for about 5-6 hours, did a whole lot of work, and a Glass skylight exploded in the center of the building. That was fun.

We also went to Encore art group, a printing company that he goes to every week (which, being a former visual arts student, I cannot wait to return to. He showed me around the complex, the server closet, and introduced me to employees. After that we stopped by Ingram Micro, a much larger distributor than Lin Haw, and we picked up a XEROX printer, which we will be installing at an Accurate Security location tomorrow.

Practicum Day 2

Today was quite relaxed. Since my host is an independent contractor (and a Christian) he also manages anything technology related at his church. We arrived this morning to set up for a memorial service that the church was holding today for a woman who died at 87 years old recently. The family had supplied music (for when people were seating AND during the service) and a thirteen minute long video montage of photos.

We set up the computer located on the balcony, as well as the projector and the sound system. We imported the media the family gave us, created two separate playlists for the music, and set up the video play on the projector (which was set up as a secondary display). We then discovered we had arrived hours early. Before we left, we took a look at the pastor's computer which was having internet compatibility problems. We found that someone had overwritten the settings for his computer's DNS Server and changed it to 4.2.2.2. We fixed it and then left.

We then drove out to a distributor called "Lin Haw". It was a really cool place, and since my host is technically his own company he get's a corporate discount. We fixed up some speaker wire for one of his future jobs and then we returned to the church. It was fairly simple once the service had begun, My host put me in control of the computer and activated the music and video when the time came. All in all it was very successful, and the food after the service was pretty good.

After that we went to the house of one of the church's members. The grandmother who lived in the basement had recently got a smart TV and they had installed Telus Optik TV Lite but her cable was not working. Luckily, as someone who owns Telus Optik TV, i knew how to reset the box. We were done very quickly.

And that's my second day. Sorry this entry is late and as long as the last one. I promise it didn't take more than 20 minutes to type up though.

Practicum Goals

"What are your goals for this Practicum? What do you hope to Learn? What do you hope to Improve?"

For my practicum with my first host, I'm not entirely sure what I hope to learn yet, since In one day I don't think I've acquired a complete grasp on what it is he does. I know what he does with his most frequent client, but the fact remains that he does have other clients. I think I'd like to learn more about Printers, Virtualization, and Remote Desktops but that's only from my first impression of this practicum.

As far as what I intend to improve, besides EVERYTHING, I'd like to improve my knowledge of how machines and components work together. I've learned a lot about individual parts and machines, but seeing the server room yesterday, I realized that "I have no idea how all of this works with each other".

Practicum Day 1

Today was the first day of my practicum. My host, being an independent contractor, took me to one of the businesses that his most frequent client, Accurate Security, owns: Mark Anthony Academy of Cosmetology. The school's front reception desk computer had lost it's operating system due to a power surge, and before today Darren had re installed windows 7 onto the machine. I was tasked with setting the computer in place and installing the usual connections, and then installing a bunch of programs that the receptionist will use (Microsoft office, Google Chrome, Adobe Reader, CutePDF, and AVG protection). The key that we installed office with actually ended up being incorrect as the suite would not activate, so we learned how to change the product key of office through Programs and Features.

 Then came our most daunting task of the day: installing the printers. The computer had to communicate with two printers in the building: A Xerox printer, which I never actually got to touch, and a small Epson tm-t88iv (which is a thermal receipt printer). The xerox was easy, I merely had to install the drivers that Darren brought, but the Epson was more difficult. First we had to find the driver software online, then when we tried to install the printer via a parallel port, the computer wouldn't let us, so we had to go through the BIOS and enable the computer's parallel port. That worked for printing locally, but unfortunately we weren't done yet. 

You see, the Academy, and a few of the neighboring buildings that re owned by the company, have to communicate with the servers located at Accurate's head location in New West Minister. The computer we were working on runs on the server via Remote Desktop, and jobs from the server had to reach this printer as well. After a lot of tinkering a playing with ports, we got in running. Then after we were done Darren took me to Accurate's head location in New West where we did a virus sweep of the system for a Trojan virus that was being held at Bay by their SonicWalls. MalwareBytes had not solved the problem by the time we left though.

(Totally) My Sliderocket Post

BOOM!

GOT THIS ON THE BLOG BEFORE EVERBOY ELSE HUEHUEHUEHUEHUEHUEHUEHUEHUEHUEHUEHUEHUEHUEHUEHUEHUEHUEHUEHUEHUEHUEHUEHUEHUEHUEHUEHUEHUEHUEHUEHUEHUEHUEHUEHUEHUEHUEHUEHUEHUEHUEHUEHUEHUEHUEHUEHUEHUEHUEHUEHUEHUEHUEHUEHUEHUEHUEHUEHUEHUEHUEHUEHUEHUEHUEHUEHUEHUEHUEHUEHUEHUEHUEHUEHUEHUEHUEHUEHUEHUEHUEHUEHUEHUEHUEHUEHUEHUEHUEHUEHUEHUEHUEHUEHUEHUEHUEHUEHUEHUEHUEHUEHUEHUEHUEHUEHUEHUEHUEHUEHUEHUEHUEHUEHUEHUEHUEHUEHUEHUEHUEHUEHUEHUEHUEHUE