Tag: Computer

Why most computer technicians are all over the place.

Paul
Miniature Computer Technicians

Too many things and to few technicians

This is really the most common problem.   If you haven’t been watching there seems to be a labor shortage, that means most jobs aren’t getting filled even in the really tech related market.  I can pretty much say with some certainty, businesses are going to be picky who they hire and why they will not hire others.   They might have a goal, or want to fill a position with the best possible candidate.   I am sure most of the businesses are trying to fill the positions but people have thought long and hard and wanting to be appreciated.   This is going to not stop the labor shortages anytime soon.   You can expect that the shortage to last for some time in the future as people rethink what they want to do and how to get that dream job.   It will make it harder on the technology industry also because they will always be short handed until this levels off and the work load gets back to normal.

Most technicians are probably ADD(Attention Deficient Disorder)

Yes, you’ve probably guessed right.   We tend to be more all over the place due to to have the attention span that is normal with working on computer.   There are some that are way better at hiding it or maybe they don’t have it in the first place, but I’m willing to bet at least half do have some form of this disorder.   It’s got to be because it’s why we got into the computer field.   We enjoy seeing what might be around the  corner or what will a customer bring into a computer repair shop.   That’s something we have a lot of experience with is seeing how broken the system is due to inexperience people.

Most technicians have high level of intelligence


This could be bad or good depending on how you see it but I’ve found this to be true with most technicians.  If you seen the Big Bang Theory and seen how Sheldon reacts that is kind of what a technician might do.   Technicians sometimes don’t have those filters you would expect them to do have but they are very friendly.   I am sure if you think about Sheldon on the Big Bang Theory, you might see some of what I am talk about.

Technician’s are not socials sometimes

It might not seem like but sometimes I tend to stay around people they know or maybe even be around people that know about computers.  I know myself, I rarely go to events that isn’t interesting.   If it interests me we can talk about it for days but if it isn’t that interesting, I would probably fall asleep.   This is where computers for me at least brought me into the field of being a technician.

I know this is a short post but I thought maybe some of you would like to know what a technician might be or how he might react.  Do you have suggestions on why a technician might be all over the place or even why he acts the way he does.   Why Not leave a comment and tell your story or tell me what you know.

More advice for new computer technicians

Paul
Photo by Dmitriy on Pixabay

Job Searching is outdated!

In My previous post, Some advice for computer technicians, I did talk about what a technician usually has to do to fix or repair a system.  He even has to deal with some very difficult customers.

Now with that said I wanted to change directions and talk about the job search area and what you should expect.  Being a computer technician that has the educational background but not the experience of actually being a computer technician, can be quite frustrating sometimes when it comes to job searching.  It can just make me scratch my head when they require a 1 to 2 or even 5 years of experience to even start doing the job we went to school to get the education to do the job.  How is any employer going to over a entry-level job and still require some sort of experience that shouldn’t even be a requirement to get the job.

This just seems like someone is not understanding what the word entry-level means and why it shouldn’t require much to get that job or position.

Don’t Apply for every job

This one just seems like it needs to be said.  Just because you have the education, don’t apply to all the jobs that you are interested in before doing a little research.  Figure out what you want to do and how much you are worth.   Use places like Glassdoor and indeed to make sure the company you are considering applying for has a good reputation or at least got some good reviews by previous employees.  You know you will have to deal with bad bosses from time to time, so you can figure out if you want to apply for a job that has a bad boss or if you might just hold of on taking that job or applying for that job.

You are worth more

This one is even better because some people will take these low paying jobs because they want to get their foot in the door or get the experience.   I say don’t do it, find an employer who will pay what you are worth.   I could go down the street and get paid to bag groceries than maybe an employer who only wants to pay me 12 or 13 dollars to start off on.   That just boggles me, that I went to get an education and still can get a job that pays more than what I got my education for.   If we stopped allowing them to do this by not applying or accepting those jobs, the pay will eventually go up but we must be able to say no.

Don’t expect that Dream job

I say this with some trepidation that we shouldn’t expect to find that dream job right away.   In fact, we will probably have to work at a dead end job for a year or two at the very least to be able to have the requirements to get that dream job.   In truthfulness, you could easily find that dream job right after getting your education but the chances on that are slim to none, I’d say.  This is something, I’ve seen time and time again that people loss hope right after getting their education to be stuck in a dead end job.   This is the time to keep looking for a better job and create notifications to help keep you looking for a  better job down the road.

Avoid Job text Bots

This one seems quite common.  You get the text that says you’d be a great fit or something along the lines and you ask a question in text and it says “Perfect . . . .“.  These are just bots that I have come across, this is how lazy recruiters are trying to recruit people for their job.  If anything, his means the job might not be all that it is worth and they are having people quite left and right and this is the easiest way to try to find people to fill the job position.   Seems kind of a catch 22 in my book, if they aren’t going to actually read my question and answer it then the job isn’t for me.  I’ve turned them off by texting stop when I find out it was bot that answered me or when I get the perfect or some other way to say we want to talk to you before they even read your text.

These are just what I’ve seen in the job market as of late and thought I would talk about some of these and others ways to find a job in the computer repair or a technician jobs.  You can even figure out how much a computer technician should make by using Glassdoor or even Indeed to find out the salary rages someone would be making in your area.

What are some things you’ve seen that makes you cringe when looking for a job as a computer technician?  Have you seen some of this?  Leave a comment below and tell me your experiences as a job seeker.  If this post has helped you consider using my affiliate links to say thank you for this great post.

Offline Update 5.0, Clone of Autopatcher to Some!!

Paul

Offline updater 5.0 has been released a couple months ago and I just realized it now.  This is an excellent tool for IT professionals who want to keep all your Systems up-to-date with the last patches from Microsoft.  The systems it supports are Windows 2000, Windows XP, Windows Server 2003, Windows Server 2003 x64, And Windows Vista / Server 2008.(32 bit and 64 Bit updates).

ct-offline-update50

[ad#ad2-right]I find this a very useful program for people who have a multitude of problems, from not being able to get on the net to computer virus infections.  This is really good for big businesses that want to update a lot of systems in easy way without having to wait for downloads of updates to install.   You can take a DVD and update on the fly within Mins.   DVD being Cheap or buying them in bulk helps saves time and money for the company.   Less time spent downloading the updates and more time actually getting work done.  As with the Conflicker, Downadup, and to some the Conflickr Trojan, if you got infected with that little worm.  This would help install the updates that it prevented you from doing in the first place.  I also found that once you download do the update the files are kept on the hard drive so you no longer have to redownload them again.  You just update the updates every second Tuesday of the month and it downloads the newest patches and creates a whole new ISO for you to burn.

Q: How can I create the offline update CD images automate, for example via a “scheduled job”?
A: Create a new batch file in the “cmd”, eg “DownloadUpdatesAndCreateISOImage.cmd”. Add the desired calls of

“DownloadUpdates.cmd” and “CreateISOImage.cmd” with the necessary parameters in this new file. The file might for

example have the following contents:

@ echo off
call WXP download updates eng
call CreateISOImage WXP eng

Then set a “time-controlled contract” for the new script “DownloadUpdatesAndCreateISOImage.cmd” to your desired

time. For example, after each Microsoft Patchday create new images, select every second Wednesday of the month.

[Via The FAQ’s Documentation (Translated Via Google)]

As you can see you can have it do a script and be ready for you in the morning.  You then just take it out of the drive and install where you need to install the day after the updates are issued. On another Note if you have clients who use Windows office Xp, 2000, 2003, 2007 then this will also help:

ct-offline-update50-1

This is nice if you have clients who use the Microsoft Office Suites also.  Some Malware will often try to infect people’s systems through a office script or some other vector.   So this will also prevent infections or hackers from getting onto the system by updating this also.  You can have this added to each and every DVD ISO you make to include these as you update the patches also.

Download:

Microsoft Keynote CES 2009

Paul

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Some Key topics talk about in this Keynotes are:

Windows 7 — Lighter, Faster, and Reliability. Windows 7 Should boot quicker and faster, and enables cool new interface touch.

Windows 7 — Beta will be available Worldwide on January 9, 2009 and will be available for download on MSDN and Technet.  Also it will be available at : http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windows-7 For those who want to download it from Microsoft directly.

Windows Live Essentials — Windows live Messenger, Mail, and Photo Gallery works with Windows XP, VISTA, and Windows 7. It is available for download worldwide. Dell will also be putting this on their consumer and small business computers.

Windows Mobile — 11 Different Mobile phones.

Verizon Mobile —  Windows Live Search will be available through Verizon and it’s a partnership with Microsoft.

Demo of Windows 7, Live, and Mobile:

Windows 7 will have Windows touch and be able to use net books with Windows 7.

Windows 7 has been designed with the Touch DNA in mind.

Windows Mobile demo with an Panoramic display.

Windows Live Demo —  Various things they discuss here including Photo’s and Silver light.

Windows XBOX:

[ad#ad2-left]Halo Wars — Strategy game and will Available February 28, 2009. The Bungie Will have a demo version February 5, 2009 and will be available for download.

Halo 3 ODST — Will be available in the Fall of 2009. New Characters, new events and will be like Halo 3.

Various stuff about Xbox Live 360

These were just the main things that I thought was important to let people know what was mainly the important highlights of this keynote. I will recommend everyone to go and watch it for yourself, I am sure I’ve missed something that someone would consider very important and understand that. This however is a personal and will be different in everyone. I watched this and am excited and can’t wait for windows 7 to be released so I can get my hands on this and see how it fairs with a Vista CPU and GPU. So only time will tell. I hope you enjoyed this little run down. Please feel free to leave a comment and talk about this or anything else in the Disqus community.

Disaster preparation 101 — Data backup

Paul

In this one I will talk about Disaster, it happens to all of us from time to time. A fire, a earthquake, a stolen laptop or any number of ways. So what happens to your data, is it stored on the laptop? Is it important very sensitive data? Could you get fired if you lost that data?

[ad#ad2-right]These are all questions you must ask yourself when you have laptop. How do you backup your data or even do you have a backup? Having seen this with my own clients, I must wonder if there are people out there who just don’t care. I had a client the other day who gotten a virus and this was a really mean virus. Deleted some very important files when you tried to clean the virus out. She called me in a panic because she couldn’t load up windows? I asked if she had any backups, she said “what’s a backup” . So I sat there discussing this with the client for over 20 minutes. Finally she started to understand, she said she had the OEM Backup DVD but nothing else. She also said she needed help with getting data off the computer. I told her that I would be able to come the next day and I was lucky the virus didn’t do anything else to her data. We were able to retrieve the data from her system. That is where I start my rant , Why would anyone not have backup of there most important data?

So How do you backup your data? This is controversial and somewhat depends on how much people want to spend to keep there data safe and not loose pictures or music. There are several ways to do it, each way has it’s pitfalls or short comings and requires a little more effort:

Kinds of Backup

Hard Medium – DVD, CD, External Hard drive

Although,  The hard medium is usually used that doesn’t mean you can have a backup other than hard.   Here are some ways to back up on the internet.

Internet Medium:

  • Jungle Disk — Provides online storage through the Amazon s3 service.   Only pay for what you use.   It works well with most Operating system.  I’ve used it on Vista so it is really nice.

  • Carbonite Online backup –Another good Online storage.

  • Some Other Online backup — Here a list from Amazon to better help you find the type of software that you might need.

These are just a few options, if you want to look for other you can.  The important thing to do is BACKUP because if you need some data that gets wiped or destroyed.  You will be kicking yourself for not backing up.