Okay... CAPELLA! I need you. I have that interview thing to do, and I decided to use you, since you're the only person I know who's even been remotely officially stationed in a technician environment. (A help desk job is actually exactly what I want to discuss.) The only problem is... I don't have any questions yet and I don't even have your email address to contact you when you're off IMs. So, uhm... Yeah. If you read this, get in contact with me! Or you can just email me, too... germanshepherd@ that nice Google emailing place.

Er, and for the rest of you 2 readers completely in the dark about what's going on... I started college again. I pretty much killed myself a little with the huge load of classes last semester, and this time I've only taken 4 classes: Windows Vista Ultimate, Windows Server 2003, English Composition, and Pre-Civil War American History. Yes, I know... English and History isn't exactly what I would be using in a computer technician environment, but colleges are stupid about prerequisites, and History was an elective out of a lovely group of things like sociology, psychology and philosophy. Granted, I could have also picked American Literature or British Literature, but then I would have had the brilliant luck of having to give an in-depth review on His Dark Materials or Harry Potter or something.

The Vista class? Well... laughably light. You know me! Microsoft fanatic. I bought Vista the day it came out, so I know the ins and outs as much as anyone else on this fair planet. Chapter 1 was installing and listing features. Blah-blah-blah. Did you know that the Aero Glass interface requires a video card with a GPU? Holy gosh, man, I totally did not! Oops, wait. I lied. I had to take screenshots of amazing things like switching users and installing the thing. Except... I don't think the instructor exactly realized that you can't take screenshots of the Vista log-on screen, and you can't take screenshots of the installation process... Like durr. They say use a Virtual Machine only as a last resort, and I don't need or want one, so there was no way to get a screenshot of this stuff. So I had to do a little creative thinking.

The Windows Server 2003 class is pretty much stagnated at the moment. We don't have the academic server download keys, yet, and that's kind of important to have before we continue very far in the book. Luckily, I have a purely theoretical knowledge of how Server 2003 works, and coupled with my extensive knowledge of all other Windows systems, I think (no, I know) that this class will be a breeze, too. Most of the harder stuff like Active Directory and such were already covered in my Network+ class, so this is just to prove that I know how to actually use it. (Technically, the Vista and Server classes are Microsoft certifications, not A+. Easy to do, essential to have.)

English... Oh, where do I begin? Massive amounts of reading that turn out to be nothing more than professional insights in to how to do National Novel Writing Month, so I skip over a lot of it. Especially when they decide to give you 75 pages of examples of other people's writing. It's interesting for the first 25 pages, but then gets insanely boring and repetitive. It's supposed to "enlighten" you as to how to write, but I've been told by countless people that I can write as well as anyone, so I'm taking a little leeway with this, too. I have the first draft of a paper due in a couple weeks, so we'll see how this approach works. This is where I need Capella or anyone else with professional computer technician background. (By which I mean anyone who's held a real job in the field, dealing with people.) I think my paper's going to be on the multitudes of people who simply plop their computer down and say "it's busted" and expect us to fix it. Not that I don't appreciate a challenge, but it'd be better for everyone involved if the users would document the problem they're having before they come to us. That'll be the subject...

History. Ultimately pointless in a technical situation, but it was better than psychology, and my school (technically homeschooled) was intensely focused on history, and I've developed a sort of liking to it, so I decided to take it. I already know most of this stuff, now that I read it again, but I wanted to see what it was like and how much of history has been screwed around with. (You know it happens, don't give me that look.) It's interesting to read things from a secular perspective, although it is obviously incorrect. Native Americans coming over a land bridge at 20,000 "B.C.E"? What is that? Before Current Era? We couldn't have just stayed with BC "Before Christ" could we? Nooo... Too religious, I guess. Can't have that anymore in our enlightened society (that's spiraling the drain of moral corruption). Yes, they came over a land bridge, but I'm going to have to say that it was after that great global flood, where everything was fundamentally different and the water levels were all askew. Yeah. Also, they made absolutely sure to mention that the evil Christians were traveling to America, saw the peace-loving Natives and how they were worshipping spirits and using shamans, and decided to either convert or destroy them. (Excuse me? Convert or destroy? I think you're getting use confused with, oh, I don't know... MUSLIMS?) At least learn to differentiate between Christians. Come on, you're a HISTORIAN for crying out loud. The Catholics are the conquering zealots. That was the entire point of the Protestant Reformation! The Catholics were going insane with power (still are) and were burning heretics at the stake for challenging their authority. Yes, I already know I'm going to enjoy this history book. Lots of reading, little writing... Although I have to write a class paper on this, too. You know who it's going to be about? I just came up with it last reading session!

Martin Luther. The guy behind aforementioned Protestant Reformation. He had a tiny little snippet about how he was defying the Pope, and then they moved on. Way to skip over the good stuff. This should be interesting...

This entry was posted on Friday, January 25th, 2008 at 12:08 pm and is filed under College.