December 2017

S M T W T F S
     12
34 5 6789
1011 12 13141516
1718 19 20212223
2425 2627282930
31      

Style Credit

Expand Cut Tags

No cut tags
jarandhel: (Default)
Saturday, November 26th, 2005 04:09 pm
Just thought I'd give everyone a quick update on how my classes are going. We've had three classes and gone through two chapters already (the first class was really more of an orientation, we got our books and stuff and pretty much just went over the syllabus.) So far, it's been an interesting mix of review and new stuff for me. I think I'm learning a lot. I already understand a lot more about what specs are important to look for in a computer, beyond the basic stuff like high amounts of ram and hard drive space and processor speed. I've also been learning about some of the things that go on behind the scenes when you start up a computer, and about some diagnostic and repair utilities that I never knew about when using windows systems before. I've even learned about binary and hexadecimal, two number systems used by computers (base two and base 16, respectively) and can convert both of them to decimal and vice versa. And so far, we're still on what the course considers "the basics".

We've had two quizzes already, and I've gotten perfect scores on both of them. On Monday we're going to start some hands-on stuff with partitioning hard drives, configuring bios, installing an operating system, automating the install, installing drivers, and updating the OS. Some of this I've done before, some of it I haven't, and if it's anything like the other material we've covered I think I'm going to learn new levels of information even about the things I've done before. At some point after that, not sure which day exactly, we should have our first major test. Wish me luck. :)

I'm really enjoying this so far, and I think I'm getting a lot out of it, though it's definitely keeping me busy. But by the end of this first course I should be able to build computer systems from scratch and perform routine maintenance and repair on both the hardware and the OS itself, and that's something I'm really looking forward to.

Hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving. I'll try to keep in touch and let you all know how things are going as the course continues.
jarandhel: (Default)
Tuesday, November 22nd, 2005 12:00 am
I think everyone is already aware of this, but just in case I've missed anyone: I'm going to school for Computer Networking and Security. 6pm-11pm, Monday through Friday, for one year. My first class was today; we're starting with A+ Hardware.

I'm really excited by this, I've taken a look through our textbook and it looks really interesting, I also really like our teacher and think I'm going to learn a lot from the man. He's talked a bit about what he is going to be teaching us, and he's apparently going to go a good bit above and beyond what's in the textbook. He himself is working on getting his CEH, and it seems like he's going to be teaching us some things along those lines as well. Learning to think like your enemy, and all that.

I'm going to get a lot out of this class. I can hardly wait for class to start again tomorrow evening. In one month, I will have the skills to build a computer from scratch on a fairly tight budget... not to mention perform general repairs on computer hardware. Operating System Technologies for the major PC operating systems come after that, followed by Computer Forensics. I forget what comes after that, but I really think this is going to be fun. *grins*