What do you know about Computers?

[vantim]

Here's an interesting subject for a computer forum. What area of computers do you find yourself interested in, or consider yourself extremely knowledgable? If you have any certs tell us about them...

[Zero Tolerance]

I hate everything about computers...they suck....they are slowly taking over the world and we all will be enslaved by them.

Uh....no certs....just a ****load of hands on and real world experience with hardware.....

Uh....yeah I forgot....I have an AS in Computer Science(programming)...and am currently slowly finishing my BS in the same!

Also I owned and operated my own pc biz for about 5 years. Sales -n- Service.

Now I am a SysAdmin full time and part time college student....soon to be baby daddy! :D

[vantim]

Now I am a SysAdmin full time and part time college student....soon to be baby daddy!

Congratulations!!!!!!!!!!

I am an MCSE and A+ but the certs don't really do me anygood anyway. I learned the basics with the certs. I think A+ is kind of worthless. The hardware changes so much it's hard to keep up.

I own and operate a small computer repair service to supplement my income. I stay pretty busy except in the summer. I think that's why I don't do it full time. I also build high end gaming machines for people that actually want them. Don't get very many orders though. They are just too damned expensive. I don't even have one.

Computers are my niche in life. I've never understood anything this well. They just make sense to me. I have spent the last 6 years of my life disecting windows and understanding how it all works. I'm just a pure enthusiast that reads and does everything I can get my grubby little hands on. Networking is a strong point, but has suffered lately since all I do is clean out viruses and spyware. I studied networking protocols and windows servers more than I care to remember. I've built or worked on networks that are anything from 2 computers connected with a crossover cable to hundreds of nodes spanning several countries. I need to get a little more knowledge on the wireless thing though.

I think ZT is right, computers will take over the world someday! LOL... The Matrix will get us sooner or later.

[bigH2O]

My computer experience is pretty much in a niche market. I touched my first computer in 1985 while working as a custom controls engineer for a major international company. It was an original IBM with an 8086 processor that had 2 5-1/4 inch floppy drives and 128k of ram. It was supplied company because they had developed an interface card for programming our PLCs. Previously we had programmed the PLC's with boxes that looked sort of like large calculators. I fell in love immediately. I started hanging around the office after work to play with the machine, and within just a couple of days had written a program in BASIC to calculate an amortization schedule for a mortgage I was getting. It was FUN. I was writing programs for PLCs that controlled about half of the architectural fountains that you see, and also for motor control centers for the South American nuclear industry. I was also designing control circuits and PLC programming for a company that makes ship lifts... lifts that could dry dock an air craft carrier. Those systems consisted of up to 1000 small motors, nothing over 10 hp, that were lined up around the lift platform. Each motor had to be monitored for the strain that was being put on it so that the whole system stayed in equilibrium and roll, pitch and yaw were maintained. It would be really, really bad to flip an aircraft carrier on it's side. This system was so complex and so much fun that I knew there would never be anything I could do to top it for the company I worked for. Then the company promoted me to management and told me that I couldn't do design work any more, that I had to supervise other people doing design work. I got bored fast and quit.

So I started my own company. I specialized in what I knew, industrial automation and I took it to a whole new level. I was an evil bastard. I started specializing in automation systems to put people out of work. Heavy duty serial communication, networking, robotics and database stuff. I'd walk into a factory where three hundred people were on the production line, and when I got done installing my computer systems and writing the software, there might be five people left that were needed to operate it. The software was the key, and every package was different. Most of my contracts ranged in the $250,000 and up range, but plant management didn't care because they knew they could recoup that loss in no time by laying off 200 people. I was ruthless... finding every possible way to automate a factory to eliminate a body. I've automated just about every industrial model you can imagine, from an iron factory that makes parts for cars, to chicken plants. If you look at the barcode on that pack of chicken legs in your freezer, it's most likely tied into some of the software I have written, and that simple barcode can trace the legs in that package all the way back to the distribution facility, the production facility, the line it was produced on, the person who whacked it, all the way back to the chicken house where the chicken was raised. This was a huge boon to the poultry industry because it allowed for selective recalls in the case of contaminated food... and it made me a fortune.

I ended up doing the majority of my contracts through another company who wanted to do what I did, but didn't have the manpower or knowledge. It got to where they were keeping my phone line so hot that I didn't have time to do work for anybody else... not that it mattered because I didn't have to get out and sell. Finally the owner of the other company started trying to talk me into becoming an employee... I said "no way. I'm never working for anybody else again". So then he started trying to buy the company from me, and I resisted for about two years until he made me an offer I couldn't refuse. I burned copies of every line of source code I had ever written and handed it to him in exchange for a very handsome check, and remained available as a consultant for a couple of years. I officially retired at the age of 36. I soon got bored and decided I wanted to open a restaurant. That lasted all of about three years until my hair started falling out from frustration, so I sold it. Now I'm back in the computer business again, but from a different angle that I can't really talk about until I get it off the ground. Java help still needed.

Oh, and I guess I could have just kept the story short and said "My computer experience is simple 101010". That's what always got me through. When you bleed binary, you control the world.

[Zero Tolerance]

Congratulations!!!!!!!!!!


Thanks man!


I've never understood anything this well. They just make sense to me.

Thats because there is not much to understand when its either "on" or "off"

LOL :D :D :D :D

[vantim]

That's me. Simple Minded for Simple Pleasures. I figure I can operate a light switch. So I'm in....

[vantim]

I also look at it this way. Anybody can build a computer, all it takes is a phillips screwdriver and some time. It's configuring it and making it run good that's a real bitch.

[tubago]

Here's an interesting subject for a computer forum. What area of computers do you find yourself interested in
How to build a computer on my own. Funny and you get a cheaper compuetr

[Scarecrow28]

One thing I do know about computing, we will never fathom what a computer is capable of doing,( In the right hands) and what they will be able to do in the future.
Who beside's me wouldn't give his left testie, to be able to look 20 years into the future to see what change's are made?

[lmnobs]

Now I am a SysAdmin full time and part time college student....soon to be baby daddy! by Zero Tolerance
what in tha CornBread Hell is a Baby Daddy ???? If it's what I think it is I will buy the Cigars and if it ain't I will still buy the Cigars and the Drinks.... lol

[Zero Tolerance]

what in tha CornBread Hell is a Baby Daddy ???? If it's what I think it is I will buy the Cigars and if it ain't I will still buy the Cigars and the Drinks.... lol


I suggest you reference Jerry Springer for the definition of above terminology.

:D LOL