I'm Back...

I just returned back to the IT field within this last week and the funny thing is it's back to the original place I wrote about in my very first post, and still as a contractor, of course. It's been 1 year and 1 month since I've worked there and it's as if I never left and it's a day later but with total disorganization. Many faces have changed over the last year and the routines and policies and the corporate overhaul are still moving along.

Some things haven't changed, those sucking their way up the corporate ladder are still trying to work their way up even higher. Things are still run half ass, those I talked about are still there and doing what they do best. Only those who obviously weren't sucking properly or even swallowing for that matter no longer work there. The few people that I do respect and work with daily, somehow have survived and know how to hide from the corporatemongers and are getting by just showing up and following the rules and policies that have since been implemented. More cuts are in the works and many are just simply jumping ship before it reaches the deep blue abyss.

I'm happy to be back don't get me wrong it's a job and a pay check. I'll probably only be back for a short time because they have me filling in for a guy that needed surgery. So a possibility of 4-6 weeks and if an EOL rollout is done maybe longer? As I said nothing has really changed, what did I expect? Now there are more policies, more paper trails and more chiefs and less Indians.

Heck you can't even breath without someone asking what are you doing? I was simply thrown to the wolves since I've been there before, now mind you it's been a full year since I've been in this place. They were like, here you go, just do it and here you go, here you go. Since I haven't been there within this last year none of the things I had done to make life easier was kept up to date and instructions and software locations were just simply let go.

I have a tendency to make things work as simply as possible not only for myself but for others, there is nothing I hate more than disorganization. While I was there I kept a list of all software and links to the setups of this software and instructions for all of this software and as I said now none of these links function and the instructions are totally botched.

Not sure if you've ever been asked to do something you have no clue of doing? Well this place loves nothing more than doing this to all the tech's that come in to do their EOL process. For those of you that didn't read my first post this is End of Lease. This company leases all of it's hardware for a set number of months and then everything then needs replaced with new. Last year this process was totally put off and all leases extended.

My question is, do Corporations ever look at the long term? Obviously not. Yeah they saved huge last year by not doing a EOL process but the funny thing is when it does come time to do this, instead of doing say 200-300 pcs per quarter it will be quarters with 1200 or more at a pop. This also means more tech's to do so and with everything else let go, instructions, software locations, policies, routines or should I say anything that was done to make it easier. It's going to be one huge debacle, I'm sure.

While I was in their support center they did something similar they got rid of all their EOL tech's that had been doing it for a few quarters and now had it down pat, and these guys actually enjoyed doing the EOL rollouts, they knew where the software was and just had all the processes down and routines down and knew how to get to all the locations, but at a nice bill rate. They replaced them with nickel and dime tech's to save money, by taking bids by contract companies for the lowest bill rate. Haven't you ever heard? You get what you pay for...

In the long run with support costs to fix all the screw ups because these guys didn't have a clue of the normal processes for doing EOL and were thrown to the wolves it ended up costing two fold. So much for savings. I can't complain it was just job security in my case.

Another thing they constantly say is how can we make this process easier and more routine? I had all of this taken care of for those tech's they had originally, and with me keeping tabs on all the software installs and instructions and bios updates for all of this being on my computer. They'd attach to my PC create bios disks, install what they needed or at least have instructions on how to install certain items. If all else failed they could call me, and if it wasn't for what I called my STUFF folder these poor tech's would have all died of confusion, and shot nerves.

Think of say 15 tech's running around doing images on new pcs and backing up the clients old pcs then doing installs on peoples pcs and not knowing or ever seeing some of the software before, that they needed to re-install and the proper processes to set up a computer on this companies network etc. This is what is going to happen when it comes time to do this again and probably those tech's brought in will have never worked here, making it that much worse.

On my first day back while I had time to breath I created a simple batch file that would install all the Windows 2000 updates from the Windows updates website because while trying to do this on my first PC I had to re-image it took several hours because I had to go out to Windows Update and it took hours to download them all, (Loadbalancing on network) and then hours to install them. I cut these hours down to a 15 minute running batch file. I downloaded each update needed to a local folder on my PC and then of course created the batch file to run all of these in the proper orders and bingo when the PC reboots and you go back out to Windows Update, nothing was needed to download and since everything was now on the local network the installs flew by. I'm just that kind of guy always thinking of the little guy anything to make everyone's life a little easier.

It's simple things like this that can make a tech's life easier and if they would have a central location for all of the software seen or used by this company and instructions, anyone could come in and do this job without even batting an eye. Someone could create MSI installs of everything they use, a simple batch file for others, and instructions for the harder to install items. This would be to easy. See when myself or anyone of these other guys would state something like I just did above you'd be drilled over with all kinds of questions and concerns instead of just getting the ball rolling and getting the job done. If it isn't a full time employee or a second level persons idea it's just gone through one ear and right out the other.

Just by my creating of this batch file and having all the files installed, I'm the one that will get the grief because I did something without consulting a second level or full time guy about doing it. They don't care if it saves you 4 hours to re-image a machine and that I've now cut that down to a half hour, that doesn't matter, it just wasn't one of their ideas or they state they have been to busy to do it themselves. One little thing that I find funny is I created a batch file a long time back for them and it's used on a daily basis and soon as I got back I checked it and of course it still has who created it within the text of it - Me. I sign every file I create. They don't realize that, but it's still there and used daily by the company. LOL.

I have eyes constantly watching over me because they consider me a loose cannon already. Why they think this is beyond me? I'd never do anything to tamper with the system or to lose my job by doing anything illegal. I'm just trying to help and make life easier for everyone and if that is what is being a loose cannon, so be it.

Most probably ask why do I keep going back to this company? Well it's very local for me, it's a good pay check, it is a great place to work by the most part and those I enjoy seeing on a daily basis are there, it has more good than bad. Living near Pittsburgh and all corporations and good jobs being in the city you have to travel 30 or more miles a day, pay parking, traffic, you name it, it's just a royal pain. This company is in a rural setting, free parking, and is only 12 miles away. Where would you rather work??? Well that would just about cover it and I am a glutton for punishment. Until next time.

Ultimate PC Building Revisited

Where to start on this one? My post about building the Ultimate PC still holds up as being one of the most TOP of the line PCs you can build today, but this PC comes with many issues that have yet to be resolved either by Bios or Drivers from the manufacturers. So be warned about building the most incredible system of the future just yet.

If you remember in my earlier post I mentioned that you could add up to 4 Gig of RAM within this system as (4) 1 Gig sticks? Well at least the specifications say you can have up to 4 Gig of DDR RAM? This is where the first issue with the A8N-SLI Deluxe comes in. Originally when I made my post the Kingston RAM I mentioned stated on the QVL list as being capable of being installed with 4 sticks at 1 Gig each and would be in Dual Channel mode. Now the funny thing about this is that if you go to their site now for this motherboard some things have changed???

This picture is directly from their manual - look at the 1024 Kingston RAM and where they have dots for A, B, C which means (4) 1 Gig Sticks are compatible. You can click image for larger view.


This is directly from the A8N-SLI Deluxe Manual

Here is their revised page on their site - look at the Memory QVL

http://usa.asus.com/products/mb/socket939/a8nsli-d/overview.htm

Now on this chart for the QVL of RAM they removed a V from the third column where originally in the pdf format they had a Dot in that column for the Kingston 1024 RAM, so my question is why the change???

My brother actually built this system down to the very last nut and bolt so everything within my original post has been created. He put in his (4) 1 Gig sticks and yet the system sees all of it but the OS was only seeing 2 Gig? He tested all the RAM individually and they are all functioning properly and are in working order. Well after him mentioning to me about this, I went to Asus's site to see if there was a bios setting or something, and that was when I stumbled upon the newly refurbished site for the motherboard and checked the QVL list to see that all of a sudden it's been changed? I then pointed my brother in that direction and stated if I were him I'd call Asus and ask what the hell is going on because this system was built on their original specifications? He ordered the exact RAM that is listed in the above chart from their manual for that very reason to have 4 Gig running in Dual Channel mode.

The only way this motherboard can handle 4 Gig of RAM is with (4) 1 Gig sticks because I've yet to see 2 Gig sticks and with this motherboard having 4 slots for RAM this would be the only way to get it that high.

My brother states that the system and bios see all 4096 of memory but Windows is only seeing the 2 Gig. So this could be a limitation of the OS? Remember Windows 98 couldn't see over 512 unless you edited one of the .ini files. Now I'm really going to have to learn some more... lol.

Now comes the second issue with this Newest Technology called SLI. My brother bought (2) Asus EN6800 PCIe Video cards so that he could embrace this new incredible technology. Notice that these cards are neither GT nor Ultra just vanilla 6800. Now originally on the Asus site any SLI capable video cards could work with SLI as long as both cards were exactly the same. Now they have a QVL list of cards that wasn't there originally. Now mind you it doesn't even have listed its own 6800 vanilla card just the GT and Ultra versions? Anyway don't get me wrong these cards do work in SLI mode but from what I've been reading all over the NET that a serious issue occurs with the 6800 Series of cards, meaning vanilla, GT, and Ultras. My brother tried playing his favorite game which is Battlefield Vietnam and both cards work great in Single card mode so there is absolutely NO issues with hardware with his system and he is using the latest and greatest of drivers and has the latest bios which is what any Techie will tell you did you check this and update these?

Here is a link to a great article mentioning the problems with the 6800 series of cards:

6800 SLI Problems

The answer is all hardware, drivers and bios are perfectly FINE and installed properly. What he stated is that the screen has a fuzzy or messed up line that crosses the middle of the screen as if electrical interference as seen on say a TV with a neighbor with a bad spark plug on his motorcycle passes your house. I've yet to try newer beta drivers with him to see if any of this would fix the issue but from what I've been reading all over the NET this is a known issue but only with any 6800 series of cards? I also told him to contact Asus once again because these are their video boards as well as their motherboard. I'll post back with any results that I can come up with on this story or anything found out from Asus.

He is very happy with the system, its stability, and speed, definitely it's the top and the fastest system he's ever had or for anyone to have for that matter. Currently he is running the system with only 2 Gig of RAM showing and with the cards SLI turned OFF and using only (1) 6800 card. The only regret he has is that he bought the extra video card ($399) and the extra 2 Gig of RAM ($465) and until Asus comes up with a cure to rectify this problem he spent almost $900 dollars with what the specifications stated could be done with this motherboard and set up.

I'd just like to say even though this is the latest and greatest technology and yes it's in its infancy this would still fall under FALSE ADVERTISEMENT. Either by Asus themselves and Nvidia, something needs to be done or there are going to be a lot of computer enthusiasts very upset with their purchase.

More as news becomes available. I currently have sent my brother WHQL 71.24 Nvidia drivers to see if the SLI problem can be fixed with Battlefield Vietnam with these yet to be released officially from Nvidia.

Update: Ok from a lot of reading and many comments I've come to the conclusion that the RAM is being seen properly from the OS but it seperates the RAM into (2x2) 2 Gig configuration this being 2 Gig for Kernel and 2 Gig for Application Space which equals 4 Gig, this is OS specific. This will probably be the case until Windows XP 64 is released or if he would install Windows 2003 Server Enterprise or Linux. As far as the video drivers are concerned they did NOT do the trick. So there still is an issue with 6800 Series and SLI function next he'll be trying a BETA Bios from Asus to see if this problem is fixed.

Support Center from Home

Have you ever tried walking someone through doing something on their computer but yet they don't have a clue about computers and you wish you were sitting right there in front of their PC so you could just do it yourself? This post will explain how you can.

In one of my earlier posts I mentioned how I introduced this to a company and changed the way they do tech support now because of this. This program has been around for years and I'm not sure how many have ever thought of using it the way that I have (I'm sure plenty)? If not, then my mind really does work in mysterious ways. I've been using these tools for over 12 years now on the internet with friends and family, but never got to use or should I say test them until 5 years ago on an enterprise set up and after doing all my own testing and usage of it, what a change it made for doing support and thus the reason of this post.

Back in the beginning of Windows a little program was created for conversing, doing white boards, sharing files, and even to share a program for that matter, and was included in (All) windows and some had shortcuts to it but others had it buried within the operating system. You could also go out and download newer versions as they became available.

The program I'm talking about is NETMEETING. For those with XP you can also use Remote Administration or Application Sharing to do this and I will explain both Netmeeting and Application Sharing within this post.

I mentioned in my very first ever post how I introduced something that was readily available to a real world support center, a free and easy tool for doing support. This post is going to touch on this software and others I use on a daily basis to do support for friends and family without ever leaving my home.

The first of these tools is what is known as NetMeeting and is included in all Windows OS either hidden or just not known on how to start (no shortcut). No matter what Windows OS you are using if you were to go to Start then Run and type CONF (this being short for conference) it doesn't need to be in caps, into this area I'm sure NetMeeting will start within time. If for whatever reason it isn't installed onto your system it can be downloaded and installed on earlier versions of Windows before Windows 2000 by going to this site:

Netmeeting 3.01


Once it starts and if it hasn't been set up you will be asked several questions, you can simply put a period into every field and then click NEXT and any box that you see UNCHECK them and keep hitting NEXT until you get to FINISH. This is how you tell someone to set it up that isn't computer literate. If the person has a clue they can just follow the prompts and fill the information out and go through the Audio Wizard, etc. This can also be done anytime by going to Tools then Options and filling in information and checking boxes etc. Later. Once it is up this is what you'll see.


NetMeeting as seen in XP

This is how you connect to someone if on a local area network or internet. You simply type the persons IP address into the top field and hit the call button or top button on right. You can get a persons IP by hitting HELP and About Windows Netmeeting on top and it will display a persons IP and they can give it to you so you can call them. If you know your own they can call you also, either way it works. If both parties have sound and a mic you can talk to one another if set up in Audio Wizard and you can even use a web cam and do video chat. You can do a whiteboard, share files, share application with this nifty little tool. I use the latter for doing support.

As seen in this next picture is what comes up when you click the lower left hand button for sharing applications.


Sharing Screen

Now for doing support you don't need audio or video all you care about is seeing what the client is seeing. The other problem with using over the internet is if the client is behind a firewall or on an internal address behind router. This is where knowing what an internal or external IP address is? Do your homework on these items.

Netmeeting can be done with dial up, cable, dsl, or on a local area network. If you work for a company anyone on the network can connect to one another because all IPs can be seen internally and if up and on the network. This is how I introduced it to the company I worked for. If you asked the client what their IP was and they said 169.*.*.* you knew they didn't have network connectivity, and you wouldn't be able to connect no matter what. If their IP was say 10.*.*.*, or 192.*.*.* then you were in business whatever IP address scheme your company uses. Of course using those IPs with someone on the internet won't work the same. If you see any IP from a friend that resembles those mentioned they are probably behind a router. If they are like 24.*.*.* or 65.*.*.* then their PC is on an external connection and could be contacted or connected to without incident.

If you use a router and your PC is on an internal address it would need forwarding to be used or UPNP enabled. This way the person calling you would connect to your router and it would forward to your internal address or if a DMZ was configured. You can google all of these terms.

For those having a clue, you'd need to know that external address to work. Those not having a clue you'd need to start reading about all those terms I just mentioned. This is all router stuff. If you were the support contact for a small company say, you'd allow yourself access externally to the internal network of the company. This way a client could connect to you and vice versa.

Once all the networking issues were resolved you'd be in business and can start supporting your company or your friends on the internet.

To do this you just have the person highlight the item you want them to share in the window and click the SHARE button. In the case of Support you want them to share their Desktop. You have them click the Allow button then to check Automatically accept requests for control. Now all you have to do is double click your mouse and you are in control if they want control back they do the same.

Now this is where you could teach someone how to use say Excel, what I call How To sessions and walk them through what you are doing or how to use something. You can check the system over and find trouble spots or fix problems just by being connected. Where this is a better program from say SMS is that all you need is an IP address, so it could be done as an administrator to get a machine back on a domain if all securities etc. Are allowed. Just this fact alone allowed our support center to resolve hundreds of tickets a month they couldn't do before. With SMS if the machine was off the domain you couldn't rejoin it because you couldn't connect to it because it was based on its computer name, the ticket had to be passed on to Second Level for this or you had to try walking a client through it but you didn't want to give that client a username or password of someone with higher security rights - usually a person had to go to it manually with proper rights.

With Windows XP it's added many other features that are really just NetMeeting by a different name or similar in design and this would be Application Sharing or even Remote Administration. Remote Administration is more complex method and for the enterprise but to do exactly what I'm talking about but without the use of NetMeeting. I won't be touching much on Remote Administration but the use is endless. Windows Messenger actual uses NetMeeting for the same task it's known as Application Sharing. You can add contacts in Windows Messenger and with a right click on their name and picking Start Application Sharing you can connect and see the exact same screen above for sharing the desktop. With everything that comes with Windows XP if a company goes to this OS the support tools are all right there under your finger tips and sitting right in front of you in more ways than one. Just depends on what way you want to have your administration as an enterprise.

Support from home can be done with all of these when configured and set up properly. With email, file sharing, application sharing, you name it, support is endless. Those doing support never need to leave their homes.

Even a meeting can be conducted and displayed to a group with NetMeeting or a room allowing multiple connections at once. For teaching say in a class with multiple computers, students just connect to your PC with IP and you can show them all how to use whatever it is you are teaching and following your every move without the use of a chalk board. If I have 4 people that want to learn how to say add hardware to a PC with Device Manager they all just connect to my IP, I accept all 4 people and just go through the motions and all 4 people will see exactly what I'm doing and can learn.

Another software you can add to this mix is that of Citrix where it has a server at say an enterprise with all the enterprise software on it. As with my company I used VPN to connect to this Citrix server to use ARS (Remedy) to put a support ticket in and this would then go to the proper support group if I couldn't fix it myself. This is what else could be used to allow anyone from home to do what they do at work without actually going to work. VPN is another creature all it's own and can make all of those in IT from ever leaving home. With VPN and all the items I mentioned here for support options you can't go wrong.

Everything within this post is FREE except a VPN server and Citrix. With the other tools mentioned they are all included within your OS and if you have Windows, a network connection or the internet they can all work to your advantage.

A company just needs to have the proper people setting it up and willing to allow their employees to work from home and trusting their support staff. They'll see that the money saved by doing this and the employee to employer relationship changed. The company just wants the best support available and the employee just wants a good pay and a pay check, both of these can be accomplished.

Tech Support Company of Future

Tech Support - what a royal pain? I'll explain in this post what I want to do or see in the near future with the technologies that are available today. Anyone with the money or the vision to create such a Support Company, feel free to comment and lets get to work on it, I'd be more than happy to be a part.

I can't believe that Microsoft themselves doesn't come up with this form of support for their own OS and other software, the money that they could gain by doing support for EVERY company in the world using their software would be astronomical, not like they need anymore money or anything. It could become the Microsoft Support Center - a world wide support company, besides, it is their OS and what about Office, programming etc. Who knows it better?

One thing I've always wanted to do was create a large tech support company with employees who would never leave their homes but get paid a 40 hour work week. Telecommuting the way computer jobs should be and the way it was meant to be. Think of it, no travel, no traffic, no baby sitters or day care, no boss breathing down your neck, log in during your hours of work, log off when the day ends. Using your own knowledge, phone, and computer and receiving a pay check at the end of the week.

All of those working for this company around the US or World for that matter could work together by having a tickets system or forum where questions could come in and be left in a queue to be picked up or taken by someone from the support group or multiple people. More complex calls could go to those that would know the resolution, more or less everyone networked together so information could be exchanged easily or a call forwarded to proper support staff. When forwarding these calls it would be calling someone of knowledge at home waiting to resolve the issue as support staff does daily while sitting in the work place. This company wouldn't be an actual building as such but thousands, millions, of homes across the world with someone of knowledge there for your computer knowledge picking. I go to sites daily and help people out or at least try to in forums by answering their questions, why not get paid for it?

Customers hate nothing more than sitting on hold or getting busy signals (Always). People go to current forums or newsgroups but never get the answers to their questions. With millions sitting at home with the knowledge to support many things, software, hardware, etc. Could be set within particular groups and pay scales for that knowledge. You can't leave out time zones either. When I'm in bed, others on the other side of the world are wide awake and into the next day already, meaning never a busy signal and always someone to answer and possibly get your problem solved. You could also have HOW TO and explanations shown to you. Say you want to know how to do a certain function say in Excel? Someone with the knowledge of Excel could walk you through it either visually or vocally. It could also be used for learning or teaching experiences. I think this form of support could become even larger than Microsoft itself and be an even richer company overall. All the technology for such a support company already exists.

Companies would buy into support contracts and all (INTERNAL) IT - Support Centers would become obsolete. The cost savings to employers would definitely be decreased. Everyone that would work for this huge Support company would be a contractor and staying at home. The technology is already here to get this ball rolling. All companies go to outsourcing because of it's money saving factors well this is outsourcing at a whole new level. I don't know of anyone who wouldn't want to stay at home and collect a pay check for doing what they already do by driving 40-60 miles a day - minus - (Risks, Mileage, Traffic, Weather conditions, Parking and Travel costs). You also have people that may supplement current incomes on weekends by doing this, so even the weekends are covered. All hours are covered because people could pick or choose what hours they want to work. You do away with overtime, you set pays per knowledge and complexity and it could be lower than what a company pays already for such support without the knowledge, more or less companies that have people running their support and not really having a clue.

You can take this a step further. Dell, Gateway could hire this company as they already do in some cases (Sub-Contracting). If you want to travel? In your local area they would simply contact one of these support staffers by phone and you'd go to the house of the individual who needs say a new hard drive installed, you've seen the Geek Squad. You could have hourly workers or a pay per work basis. There could be a huge directory of contractors who could do this function or both, during their work hours and those who just want to do vocal or connected support. You would have support staff in every state and every county, and country for that matter, if properly set up. Ones that could travel or do home support and those only doing phone or networked support (Internet). Those at home also are using their own equipment no costs for companies for these computers, the contractor is responsible for his own costs if this is the job he wants.

How about getting someone you can't understand? Example have you called Dell or Gateway from the US and gotten someone you could NOT understand and they tried walking you through fixing your problem (Impossible). In the early days of computers I learned more out of anger of Gateways support staff that I did everything myself and learned countless things on my own. With this set up you could get a English speaking US citizen actually from your area giving you tech support and he could connect to you instead of walking you through it, problem solved.

The support phone number would allow you to choose the language you want and location. Other example if you live in the French Quarter in Louisiana you could get another person that speaks your language, from the French Quarter. With all the different dialects just within the US alone is a problem, this is now solved because the way people speak from say New York to those in the South you get a support staffer in your area - much easier communications.

You can have this in so many forms, you could have a website that people go to and pay per incident at a reasonable cost with credit card or pay pal account. Have a phone number that a person uses for their company alone and a support staff configured for that company only paying a monthly or yearly fee. An 800 phone number for anyone needing support they can use and choose the support they want and it is given to them via the phone or internet and paid for by credit card.

If you like the way your Support Center is already? You use those individuals and give them VPN access and this allows those workers to do what they do now, but from home. Doing all of these mentioned above with the person doing the support, never leaving their home.

I worked in a support center for a company and there was nothing I couldn't do from home that I did there. I answered the phone, took the call, connected to the person and fixed if able, or sent a ticket to next level with software such as ARS and the use of Citrix. These then were picked up from a higher level support person. There was say 15-20 people within the support center and you could just hire these individuals giving them VPN access to their company and these people could do everything securely from their own homes getting the same results with less hassles and costs from both the company and the employee. Making for a much better relationship. I was able to even do this while I worked at this company because everything was already there to do it when set up properly, I would have just needed a way that the support phone line would ring my home phone or a dedicated line.

You can also do away with some of the Chiefs you have within your company saving so much more money with this model. I have many friends that could do this easily with the proper connections and set up saving companies thousands if not millions in support costs. With all these new technologies and communications software's you can have a support center run from your home fairly easily. The problem is how do you get paid to do this?

This is where a huge support company comes in with the same vision as I have and the companies willing to pay this support company for its support or even hiring you as a support representative alone as their support contact say for a small legal firm or something. It comes down to how will they contact you and how will you connect or fix their problem? You answer your phone, get the question or problem, either walk the client through the resolution or connect to them with available software or forward to someone else who has the knowledge to handle a particular software or problem. Then getting paid for this support either on an hourly basis or incident basis.

Just think of all the people that get on a computer and something goes wrong and they have no one to contact to help them through their problem regardless of how minor and at 24/7? If everyone knew of a single phone number or company (such as Microsoft) that they could call or go to internet (Web Page) and ask or get support, don't you think this would be incredible? As an employee don't you think sitting at your computer at home as I do daily for say 12 or more hours a day and actually having the ability to get paid doing it would be another incredible thing?

Here is a link to a site that seems to be doing what this post is about:

http://www.workingsol.com/home.htm

How big and how well it works is another story. I've had this idea for years since my first days with my Gateway and toying with everything that was included with Windows and this will be touched on in my next post.

The wave of the future is NOW and all the things are in place to allow all of this to happen. The big question is WHEN and WHO?

My next post is going to go over the way I could do support from my home with what is available for free today and will explain sort of what I touched on with this article. With this post and my next you should see where I am headed with this. Just need some way of getting paid or someone with a vision to get it started???

Ever Changing Computer Standards

Well I've told you how to build the most ultimate computer. Now with the motherboard mentioned comes a whole new bunch of standards. You may be asking what do I mean by standards?

Every year or say 6 months, the computer industry comes up with something lets say latest and greatest known as STANDARDS that they want all computer builders to incorporate. Standards could be looked at as improvements over what is old and out dated, obsolete. As a quick example ISA slots were replaced with PCI, PCI Video to AGP Slot (Video Only), USB 1.0 is now USB 2.0. These are just a few.

The reason for this post is to point out a few things people should know about building a new computer and that they may over look. My brother actually built the system I posted about earlier down to the last nut and bolt. This is where he mentioned something to me that I was shocked to learn actually. So as I've said you learn something NEW everyday in the computer field.

He tells me that he got a power supply but it only has a 20 pin connector on it but the A8N has a connector with 24??? Now I'm like "Really?"... I stated maybe it's something new (Standard)? I've never heard of anything different than just AT and ATX power supplies.

So I do a little research and server motherboards have had the 24 kind for some time and some Intel motherboards but what is funny is you can't find a power supply that has a 24 connector - barely and not totally true, but hard to come by. So I'm here to warn you about your computer building to know everything about what you are building. From my reading it states the new boards are going to this (Standard) because of the PCIe Bus. Needing more power thus using a 24 connector instead of 20. You can buy adapters that convert from one to the other or after some reading you can still use the 20 connector on a 24 connector by placing as far RIGHT as you can leaving 4 slots open. This picture will give you an idea of what I'm talking about.


20 Pin Connector on a 24 Pin Connector (New Motheboards)

You can also buy converters as I mentioned, like shown here.


20 to 24 Pin Converter

If you are lucky enough you can find some power supplies that have a connector for both or one strictly for the new standard or if you can't, you will in some time. I remember when I bought one of the first motheboards ever to have SATA on it and I had to wait a month just for the power converter from 4 pin Molex to SATA to become available.

Since I mentioned SATA or Serial ATA there is the regular SATA and soon SATA 2 which is just faster than the original. Of course these have replaced IDE, EIDE or ATA and Ultra ATA. These are what you attach your Hard Drives and CDROMS to. So when choosing a Hard Drive you have to know what your system is supposed to use, 33, 66, 100. Here are some good links to see these standards.

Ultra ATA here:
http://www.seagate.com/support/kb/disc/ultra_ata100.html

Serial ATA here:
http://www.sata-io.org/satatechnology.asp

Here you can see the differences of the cabling and the connectors you'll find on the motherboard.


Difference of Cabling from PATA on left to SATA on right


Parellel ATA on Motherboard


Serial ATA Connectors on Motheboard

Making for a much more open case with the new cabling and cooler for that matter. A happy computer is a cool computer. I always hated those bulky gray cables of course they make round ones now but still a pain. It took them long enough? Now someone needs to engineer up a new way to put heatsinks and fans on the CPU rather than those pain in the ass retention clips. I'm working on it and hopefully I'll make billions on it some day, I have ideas but you have to go with what is already there on all motherboards and perfect it.

We can't leave out something else for SATA that is new is NCQ or (Native Command Queuing) here is a link to an informative pdf of this new improvement to SATA.

Native Command Queuing

Our next standard hitting the market is what is called PCIe, PCX, PCI-Express these all really being the same thing. This is to replace PCI and AGP over time. Currently it's replacing the AGP slot but there are network cards based on PCIe also. So in the near future there may be no such thing as AGP or PCI, only time will tell.

Here is a great link to teach you everything you ever wanted to know about AGP:

http://www.ertyu.org/~steven_nikkel/agpcompatibility.html

Now you may be asking what is PCIe or PCI-Express? Everything you ever wanted to know about this can be found on this incredible article. Explains far more than what I can type about.

http://www.d-silence.com/feature.php?id=252

So last but not least you have networking and what has come to be known as Ethernet and Gigabit LAN. We all know what Ethernet is but what exactly is Gigabit LAN?

Another great link for the explanation of all of these is found here, this will fill any Network Gurus mind.

http://www.arcelect.com/ethernet.htm

Of course you have many other things I haven't even touched on, but usually still are part of those mentioned here such as RAID and of cousre a difference between say a Sound Card, Built on Sound and RAM (All those numbers and letters), 2700, 3200, 4000, DDR, DDR2, DDR3. Those are for another post altogether besides my fingers are tired and I think I will end on that note. Hope these links and some of what I've said will open up your eyes to how a computer can change from one month to the next or from year to year. It's an insane market, no wonder things become obsolete the second you buy them. Remember Floppy drives - who needs them - you have a CDROM and RE-WRITABLE CD's to do the same thing or just a bootable CD. Either way happy reading and with all those links and some of what I posted should keep you busy and learning none the less. Until next time. More subjects, hmmm?

Newsgroups (Who needs P2P???)

Newsgroups? P2P? Many are probably asking what are these? Newsgroups are similar to a forum, a blog for that matter, pretty much a meeting place. P2P or Peer to Peer, is a way individuals can connect to one another as if networked together for sharing files, ideas, and music, remember Napster? This topic though is about Newsgroups only.

You can get to newsgroups from your ISP who usually has a news server you can set up (Free) or you can use a Newsgroup Service (Giganews for a monthly or yearly fee) these can be accessed by your basic email client usually Outlook Express and other software just made for newsgroups (XNews, Agent, Newsbin), I'm sure there are many others?

These software's are what are called Newsreaders and pretty much are just ways to make your newsgroup browsing an easier process. Some of these readers require a fee because it is software. I use XNews it's free. These are what Front Ends were to emulation, a graphical user interface to make it easier to do the things needed to accomplish your goals, pretty much doing everything for you. Here is what a newsreader looks like.


Xnews

One thing about newsgroups is you can post anything you want, good or bad, people can reply good or bad. Some newsgroups are beneficial for those with health problems, computer problems you name it. You simply ask your question and individuals who frequent the group may reply with the answer? Most large companies have their own newsgroups with people there to answer incoming questions similar to a forum, just another medium.

You can learn quite a bit from newsgroups. Just about any topic thought of has a newsgroup associated with it. Within your newsreader you search for a topic such as mp3 and this would bring up any newsgroup with mp3 in it's name. You then subscribe to the group you are interested in (no fee associated just a figure of speech). It then would place this subscription on another page within the newsreader for easy access and add to your other subscribed newsgroups (Favorites would be a good example).

There is so much to learn about newsgroups that it would take a 100 page blog to touch on everything. I'll try to touch on the basics and what I can before my fingers fall off. As mentioned earlier newsgroups are free from most ISP (Internet Service Provider) and for a small fee by other news services (Giganews). The differences between the two is of course money, available newsgroups and last but not least, a retention period. What I mean by available newsgroups is that some servers filter out say porn, warez, cracks, things that may be deemed illegal or obscene by your ISP (looking out for your well being), LOL. Retention period is the length of time a news server will hold on to a particular post. Most ISP forms have a retention period of about 24-48 hours, then everything is lost to the great newsgroup gods in the sky, keeping their servers clean. As far as news services (Giganews) have a retention period of months. Retention is a big factor in finding what you want because if you do not read your subscriptions every single hour or day you may miss what you've been waiting for, that answer to your question or that post to your REQUEST (about this in a minute).

There are different forms of newsgroups some are simple text and others are binary which has both. Common sense tells you what text is, but what about binary? Binary is what makes up everything in computers and software - ones and zeros - programming, or life in general. Remember the movie (Matrix)? This post isn't about Binary though sorry. Binary newsgroups are those that turn that text into binary code and vice versa. This allows people to post software, mp3, movies, books, you name it. Now I mentioned Request earlier if you look at the picture above you can see someone placed REQ: within their subject line, this tells you that someone is looking for something and can you fill his Request? If so and you have it, you could post an ISO image or CD Image of this file regardless of size.

Most posts on news servers have a 15MB limit, but no limit on the amount of posts. In effect you can take say a 500MB file and post 15MB pieces of it to the group which would equate to 500 divided by 15 giving you the amount of posts needed = 34 posts, the technical term for this is ENCODING (Taking the binary file and converting it to binary text). Yenc and UUencode are two forms of doing this process of Encoding and Decoding. With the use of certain newsreaders this is done for you when posting or when downloading a post.

In the early days you had to use a program that would do this for you before you could post, but this has since been added or controlled by the newsreaders. Example if you were still using Outlook Express as your news reader which Downloads and Decodes the files to a text file if Yenc'ed. If it were Yenc'ed you'd have to use Yenc32 to turn that text file into it's proper form the actual file, which became a long and drawn out process. You can google about this item and uuencode.

So now you see 34 posts all stating the same thing? Once all of these posts are downloaded or what is known as DECODED (Taking the binary text and converting it to a binary file) say a 500mb ISO. This is very complicated stuff and this is where the newreader comes in and many other pieces of software so with say XNews it doesn't matter if it's Yenc'ed or uuencode it does the work for you. In XNews it's as easy as selecting all the binary posts all 34 of them and hitting F4 function key. Depending on where you Decode these items to, you may see 34 rar files upon completion. Now knowing about rar and zip files or (ARCHIVES) is a completely different subject and at times some downloaded files may not be complete thus needing another piece of software for repairing these archives by the use of Par and Par2 files or posts.

These are those pieces of software needed to accomplish your newsreading experience. Learn everything you can about all of these. You can choose the newsreader you desire, of course these are what I use.

Xnews:
Here is a How To and Download Site:
http://www.slyck.com/xnews.php

Winrar:
This can do just about every format of archive which is needed to extract those downloaded binary files whether in zip or rar form from newsgroups and the internet or p2p:
http://www.rarlab.com/index.htm

QuickPar:
This software is what is needed if you download zip or rar files that are not complete and someone posts Par or Par2 files which actually will fix those corrupt or incomplete files:
http://www.quickpar.org.uk/Download.htm

Once you've mastered these three pieces of software you will see how easy it is to get what you want and when you want it. This pretty much equates to why do you need Peer to Peer? As I mentioned earlier you can get anything and everything, software, ebooks, mp3, movies, books, nothing is left out here. Who says it cost 100,000 dollars for a BMW - if it could be posted in binary and decoded it would be free.

You can also get online newsgroups which I will not touch much on and these usually require a fee or sign up but it's no different than browsing the internet or forum. To learn more about this you can read this article.

http://www.cyberfiber.com/articles/web_based_newsgroup.htm

A few key points about newsgroups (NEVER) use your real email address because a lot of spammers take these from places like this and use them for their spam attacks. Actually never use your email online period unless you truly want to be contacted by someone or site. You may be asking what about virus's? Most servers don't want them either so the posted files are scanned when being posted then scanned again once you download if you use this kind of software and if something does get posted of worry someone will warn you of it with another post. Either way you have risks just use common sense.

Here are two of my favorite binary sites that I frequent. I mentioned in one of my earlier posts about emulation and getting ROMS well this is what you've been waiting for.

MAME ROMS:
alt.binaries.emulators.mame

Anything Software:
alt.binaries.cd.image

As always this is just a brief take on Newsgroups but believe me once you get started you may never turn back. It is very rewarding and time consuming but well worth the effort. You can google as always about anything mentioned within my post and I hope you've all learned something with this post. Remember we are all FREE why not get it FREE.

Game Emulation

For you gamers out there this post is for you. Many may have never heard of emulators or emulation. This is where this post comes in. A Game Emulator is a program that uses ROMS to emulate the real game that we've all come to know and love either Arcade Games, Console Games you name it. These emulators give you the REAL game, not say Pac Man from the Arcade to what Atari did to it on the home console, eeek what a nightmare.

This post will be about the best of them, and that is MAME and it's front ends, there are so many emulators to speak of, ones for the Intellivision, Atari, Apple II, NES, SNES, XBOX, PS2 and anything you like - start googling (Game Emulation).

The most famous of these Emulators is what is known as MAME (Multiple Arcade Machine Emulation). For you Windows people this comes in the flavor called MAME32 and MAME32 Plus which are just different (Front Ends) to the emulator, you can pick and choose what front end you prefer - I prefer MAME32. There are plenty of others.

You may be asking what is a Front End? This is the graphical user interface created by someone, to accomplish in the easiest form, the use of emulation - makes it easy on the user, as Windows did for DOS, catch my drift? If not you can google all these terms from my blog with my google search bar.


The Front End MAME32

With picture above you can see a screen of how the actual game looks on right - (It's the REAL DEAL).

ROMS are what make the emulator emulate the actual game and these ROMS are usually the exact same code that was placed on chips within the actual arcade machine. This information is somehow taken from these chips and put into a readable form by the emulator. Most ROMS are simply zip files that contain the information or binary of what was on those chips, video, sound, button presses, coin slots, dip switches etc. You simply take these zip files and place them within the ROMS folder in your MAME32 folder without unzipping them and the emulator will read the zip file and it's contents by its name. The front end does everything for you it's just a matter of knowing how this all ties together. You can learn anything and everything about MAME from these two links.

http://www.mame.net/

http://www.classicgaming.com/mame32qa/

For those that are my age. Remember all those quarters spent in the arcade back in the early to mid 80's and for those still doing it today? With the onset of home console systems (XBOX, PS2) rivaling what can be done in arcades, this has since changed and most of these games have vanished and so has the arcades.

MAME currently has approximately (5000) ROMS and these are exactly how you saw them when they were in the arcade. Of course getting these ROMS is another process in itself because of legal ramifications and copy rights. Some sites outside the US host them for a fee you can download them with a paypal account. Some people host them themselves by ftp or web sites. My way of getting anything and everything is by the use of Newsgroups and I'll be creating a post on this great little secret later. Now back to emulation.

Once you download the emulator and extract to your favorite place on your hard drive it consists of several subfolders and depending on the front end used allows you to spiff up the front end with screenshots, icons, marquees, flyers and the like. Always leaving everything in zipped form you just place in it's proper folder.
You can click on Front End picture above and see a larger picture of it and see what all the bells and whistles added to it can accomplish.

Those taking the information from chips to file form were unable to extract some sound for some of the games this is where Samples come in and these have the exact same name as the ROM but must be placed within the Samples folder instead to give certain games their sound. Most games have been emulated exactly and these are not needed except for a few. Out of the (5000) games in ROM form not all are working or replicated exactly due to encryption and other factors. Most of the most famous of games are out there and if you name it, I'm sure I'd say yes it's out there.

This hobby has a tendency to take you away from doing your work and what is great is that it can be run in a smaller window which can easily be minimized. Who the heck wants to play Solitaire when you can play Pac Man, Asteroids, Galaga and so on. This post won't be as long as others only because with the links included and Google you can learn about emulation until your hearts content.

These ROMS are free as is the Emulator, its just a matter of finding and downloading everything you want. You will never find the ROMS with the emulator because of legal ramifications so by having both on your hard drive and the fact that you should own the actual game to have legal rights to it - is entirely up to you and solely falls on your lap - this all can be read usually within the Readme.txt or Help file in the Front End.

Not all of my posts will be completely informative because with Google and Links included within my posts more can be learned by the true experts, these are just my take on some of the things I'll be posting on. I'll be posting more and more on the things of interest to myself and I hope you agree are worth the read and want them to keep coming. My next post will be about Newsgroups (Who needs P2P (peer to peer))... I think I'm becoming addicted to Blogging. lol.

Building the Ultimate Computer

Many people today want to have the most incredible and up to date system. I'm here to point you in the right direction to building that monster machine you've always wanted. I'll include links to purchasing these items, pictures, and descriptions to the most current of items needed to build this creature. Current prices can be found by following the links. This system will run you around $4000 but it's well worth it because you may not need to update for some years to come and this would max this baby out and give you the bragging rights for the fastest and best PC that you can actually build yourself.

PCs today are made up of certain components, here is a list of what must be purchased to build a PC with a few suggestions which are what I recommend and manufacturers, everyone has their opinions, these are solely mine - This will be an AMD system only:

Motherboard - Asus, Abit, Gigabyte, MSI
CPU - Central Processing Unit - Pentium 4, Athlon 64 - Intel, AMD
Memory - RAM (Random Access Memory) - Corsair, Kingston
Hard Drives - SATA (Serial ATA) - Seagate, Western Digital, Maxtor
Video or Display Adapter - Nvidia, ATI - PNY, Gainward, Asus, MSI
CD-ROM, CDR, CDRW, DVD, DVDR, DVDRW - Plextor, LiteOn
Sound - Soundblaster, Motherboard (Already Built on) - Audigy, Soundstorm, Realtek, Intel
Case/PSU (Power Supply Unit) with 500+ Watt - Antec
Monitor - CTR, Flat Panel - Viewsonic
Mouse and Keyboard Combo - Microsoft, Logitech
OS - Windows XP Pro SP2, Linux

Most PCs today are excluding a floppy drive because they pretty much have become obsolete.

We'll start with the motherboard, the latest technologies is what is known as 939 and 478, processors are also based on this number so when purchasing items make sure you are purchasing the proper ones. These come in so many flavors and are all based on the amount of pins, 939, 940, 754, for the AMD processor. Socket 478 for the Intel Processor. I'm only including the latest and greatest though and only using AMD.

The reason for this is because, AMD for price and performance as compared to an Intel based system. Personally it is as good, if not better processor in many benchmarks and currently is the reigning champ overall, and the inclusion of 64 bit over 32 bit - the wave of the future. I've also included links to my favorite of online sellers.

Motherboard


Asus A8N-SLI Deluxe Price: $200
http://www.zipzoomfly.com/jsp/ProductDetail.jsp?ProductCode=240418

You can read about all the incredible features this board has by following this link.
http://usa.asus.com/products/mb/socket939/a8nsli-d/overview.htm

Notice by the picture there are two slots for Video Adapters these are the new standard of PCI-E or PCX which stands for PCI Express - the old AGP standard will soon be going by the way side. The reason for two is the new SLI (Scalable Link Interface) feature of adding two of the exact same kind and SLI compatible video cards that can work together as one. Look for this emblem on compatible video adapters.


Scalable Link Interface

More can be read about this new incredible feature here: http://www.nvidia.com/page/sli.html

Next you would want the processor that would be tops for this motherboard and that would fall into the 939 Athlon 64 FX-55.

CPU


Athlon 64 FX-55 Price: $880
http://www.zipzoomfly.com/jsp/ProductDetail.jsp?ProductCode=80723-R

RAM would be the next item to add to your motherboard and with this board you can have up to 4 Gig of RAM or should I say (4) 1 Gig sticks of PC 3200 DDR (400) - At the bottom of the page on the motherboard link above on Asus site you will find what memory has been tested with board by pressing the Memory QVL button.

Of course RAM comes in many shapes and sizes and (DDR 400) Dual Channel is what you are looking for and it may not be on the QVL list from Asus but there are so many kinds to choose from and the risk of compatibility is the only thing to really worry about this also depends on whether you are going to overclock or not and this is where other numbers come into consideration 3200, 3500, 4000? Most sites can answer your RAM questions before purchasing. With most ram coming in what is called matched pairs you can get two 1 Gig sticks and what I've listed is compatible and tested with board with (4) 1 Gig sticks running at Dual Channel.


Kingston KVR400X64C3AK2/2G 2GB Kit DDR400 PC3200
Price: $470 x 2
http://www.zipzoomfly.com/jsp/ProductDetail.jsp?ProductCode=80098-50

Next comes the Hard Drives with the newest of standards being SATA or Serial ATA which has since taken over for the PATA - IDE - EIDE or Parallel ATA. Remember all those big bulky gray cables in your PC? Those have since been replaced by small flat rigid red cables the size of a smashed ethernet cable (CAT 5). The thing with building your system is money and how much do you want to spend and how much storage do you really need. Believe me there is no such thing as to much. So depending on what you do and what you store depends on the price you want to spend on your hard drives. Personally I'd rather have multiple hard drives because if you put all your eggs in one basket - or should I say when the hard drive fails and you only have one, now what? For the price of one super huge drive you can get multiple smaller drives that cost less than that one large drive with actually more storage. This is the way I go about building systems. With RAID and other features you can have up to like 8 drives in one system of course doing RAID is for another story altogether. Seagate in my opinion is by far the best maker of hard drives and I'd say 200 Gig of storage is a good starting point if you would like more just add another one. Pesonally I'd go with 2 of them.


Seagate Barracuda 7200.7 ST3200822AS 200GB Serial ATA
Price: $135 x 2
http://www.zipzoomfly.com/jsp/ProductDetail.jsp?ProductCode=101562

Video Adapters? This one is a tough one because if you like ATI risk of compatibility might be a problem on this motherboard but if you like Nvidia (which I do) you can use two like boards and use the SLI feature or the single board feature it's your choice but since this is the ultimate PC, you'd want two. The problem with Video Adapters for this new standard which is PCI-Express the ultimate video board is almost non-existent which would be a 6800 Ultra - they exist in the old AGP form but finding them in the new PCI-Express form is a much harder item to come by. PNY is my card of choice and until they release the 6800 Ultra PCI-E this section can't be completed but you can go with what is available which is two 6800 PCI-E Boards from Asus and of course sticking with Nvidia and Asus because of the mother board being Nvidia Nforce 4 by Asus and the Asus video boards being Nvidia and Asus, compatibility should never be an issue. Besides I think this would just be a marriage made in heaven. My guess is by April of this year the 6800 Ultra PCI-E will be out and flooding the market and at that point it's up to you what manufacturer you prefer. The cards that are readily available are 6600, 6600 GT, 6800, 6800 GT. Waiting for that extra 10-20 frames per second with the Ultras, you may ask yourself it is really worth the wait and the extra $100 per card?


Asus Extreme N6800 GeForce 6800 PCI Express 256MB
Price: $400 x 2
http://www.zipzoomfly.com/jsp/ProductDetail.jsp?ProductCode=324532

Of course everyone wants to burn DVDR and CDR and all the other forms of burning and of course the ability to play and read all these formats. Plextor is by far the best company when it comes to ROM drives of all kinds, period.


Plextor PX-716A
Price: $150
http://www.zipzoomfly.com/jsp/ProductDetail.jsp?ProductCode=173418

One of the many great features of this motherboard is its built on ethernet abilities and we can't leave out the sound. You save on both of these items because they are actually both built on. Of course if you are some real heavy audiophile then you may need to purchase an add in card such as a SoundBlaster Audigy 4 Pro. Personally I don't think it is needed and just using the onboard sound is more than enough. It's to bad the Soundstorm from their Nforce 2 boards wasn't included with the Nforce 4 but with 8 Channel Audio and all the proper connectors on motherboard for digital out spdif etc. save that money and buy yourself 6 of the most graphically intensive games to take for a run instead or if the built in sound is not enough for you and you think you need more you can add this baby.

http://www.soundblaster.com/products/Audigy4pro/
Price: $300 estimate

The other items needed to build this monster is any case with at least a 500 Watt power supply you should not look for anything less.

Here is a great site for choosing one: http://www.xoxide.com/allcases.html
Price: $200 estimate

With all this muscle you may need additional cooling so add those extra fans where available. You won't regret it.

Monitors:
Viewsonic by far makes the best of these not only because of image quality but the refresh rates you can obtain. I also would mention that it's best to buy a CRT than it is a Flat Panel. CRT are much better for gaming than a Flat Panel and the refresh rates apply here also. Most CRTs from Viewsonic come in a Flat Screen form and are quite incredible when cranking up the refresh rate because you then can turn down some of the video card effects used such as AA and AF because at such high refresh rates it pretty much looks as if all of these are on and of course increasing your FPS (Frames Per Second).

You can obtain a nice 21" monitor from Viewsonic and I might add go with the Graphics Series or G series (best for gaming, CAD).

Here is a link to my choice: Viewsonic Graphics Series
Price: $500

We can't leave out your mouse and keyboard combo this is usually by choice depends on what you like, me personally would stick with wired. I do not like wireless keyboards or mice because they require batteries which go bad and usually give weird lag within some games etc. I also go mostly with Microsoft keyboards and mice.
Price: $75 estimate for both

You should know all of these different standards before jumping into your computer building experience. You can simply Google your way to any of the acronyms within this article to get a better understanding of all the standards and those slowly being phased out. Hope this article helps you build the most incredible machine you can, one that is sure to satisfy you for years to come and bragging rights for the BEST...

The Big Suck and Swallow in IT

I've been in IT for over 11 years in many forms and this is my take on it so far. I've worked at an enterprise environment for almost 5 of those years as a (Contractor). During this time I saw many things. I'm currently unemployed and this is in large part due to the company that I was working for came into hard times and disposed of their disposable workers (Contractors). This worked on the (last in first out) method. I still currently work for my Contract Company but it's now been a year without a single job from them and I've spent this last year working doing swimming pools with a friend of mine to get by until something comes along in IT.

I was making a good living and was doing my best at the job I was doing at the time, which was working for a large utilities company as a Technician, Lead Technician on their End of Lease project (EOL) - (2 1/2 years) and in their Support Center - Support Systems Analyst - (2 1/2 years) as a contractor. The job was great and was right up my alley and paid very well, at least to my standards (40-50k).

While doing this job I saw what really goes on in the IT field and Corporate America in general. You see all the paper MCSE's and those with BS degrees in Information Technology, my take on these is (Bull Shit Degrees) all making even more money than yourself and not knowing a damn thing about computers, software, hardware, network, "you name it" (Most Full Time employees) and myself as a (Contractor) with no degree, an MCP (Microsoft Certified Professional - NT 4.0) , CNA (Certified Novell Administrator - Netware 4.11) and 2 Diplomas from two different Technical Schools and multiple years of hands on, real world with all of the above mentioned (more or less equivalent to an MCSE and BS or even higher degree without the pieces of paper).

I started out as what was called a Logistical Resource, more or less a lower paid Technician for their (EOL project) or End of Lease (all computers were leased and needed replaced on a two year basis). Doing paper work , shipping and receiving for the EOL team (This was my job description), but things were added to my duties weekly if not daily. Reblasting (re-imaging of machines) was added, this was what happened when the support center or second level couldn't fix a pc or problem,"which seemed to be for everything". "As they say shit runs down hill and who sat at bottom of that hill, me. This was 2 guys jobs that had worked as contractors for this company for a few years already, "acting like (Full Timers), soon after this addition to my job description another was added, then doing (New Orders) which was another duty of these two guys which was put off on me as well - (this was if someone ordered a pc or software or peripheral you would image or install the item or software for the client).

This equated to pretty much me doing my job and now 2 other guys jobs while one played Solitaire or dosed off all day and the other sat with thumb up ass and feet up on desk, still wondering what he was doing? I had more certs and knowledge than the guys they had doing the Technician, Lead Technician jobs on EOL and the two contractors who sat around with a few years under their belts, after a bit of complaining to my contract company I was moved up to Technician wage which at the time was 4 more dollars an hour but I was still the low man on the totem pole. My job description now was a page or more longer and the two other guys now got to sit around and take questions when asked and pretty much do NOTHING... Who says there is no I in team? There is a M and E in team and I am me.

I don't mind work it actually made your day go much quicker but knowing that while I was doing all these jobs that 2 people were doing nothing and getting paid much more than I was. I don't blame the manager for giving me all of these new found duties because I was his ACE in the hole and he probably knew the work would and was, actually getting done with it set up this way. I don't think he knew what was really going on in our little world down under in the basement of the company where very few people would ever frequent. This of coursre gave me more knowledge and made me a much stronger person overall but it also gave me one heck of an atitude and serious high blood pressure.

During my time on this job many things happened within the company, the company went through a Token Ring to Ethernet upgrade and from NT 4.0 to Windows 2000 roll out (which I was a part of both) working overtime and learning a bunch on the way and helping in any way I could. Trying to prove myself and to possibly find my way up the ladder by my work and actions and to finally land a (Full Time) position.

Here are a few great stories along my journey of being the low man (Contractor in the old IT field). Before the Windows 2000 r0ll out and still running NT 4.0 the company had many issues with databases on the programming side of them and no one could figure out why? - (this is where I came in) - I was a good friend of one of these people working with databases and I told her what I thought the problem was, now remember I'm a nobody here within the company the only people heard, were the (Full Time) employees or those known as higher ups. (Contractors) were considered scum and I know now what racism must have been like in the 60's. Our words or knowledge meant nothing, we had to park on top of the parking garage or in the back of the parking lot and you were just treated very poorly and looked down upon in general.

Now here is what I told my friend the problem was. The problem was the way the company had their servers and computers set up. On the servers they had Service Pack 4 and all client pcs had Service Pack 6 (creating a conflict) this was my take on the problem and no one else's. The higher ups said I didn't know what I was talking about at least one of them - this coming from a top (Full Time) employee in Second Level - (MCSE). The company upped all the Service Packs on the Servers to 6 and viola the problem with the databases was fixed - the (HERO) the (Full Time) employee who relayed this from my friend to a higher up and after telling my friend I didn't know shit, lol, well now you know the true story.

Another good one was when a lot of network problems arose with computers crawling along yet others would be zipping along - again I'm not a network guru or should I say I'm still nobody. I'm back for the rescue again - all the pc's that were crawling were set to 100 Full Duplex? I suggest why not set all the pcs to Auto Negotiate and this way they will get the proper information and run at what they negotiate at. Again I haven't a clue (Second Levels take on my suggestions) but after my mentioning of this and a Second Level (Full Time) employee passing the information to higher ups all pcs are now switched to Auto Negotiate - another great problem solved - (HERO) the (Full Time) employee who brought this up, lol, again you now know the true story.

Last but not least the BSOD problem with NT machines - now mind you I'm the one having to reblast up to 5 pcs a day because they are un-repairable by second level and tossed down to me to re-image more or less given up on, (NT repair not working). Now not understanding how there can be this many BSODs daily after my reading that it would take an apocalypse or nuclear holocaust to Blue Screen an NT machine (Sort of) - the wheels start turning in this little head of mine and after looking inside these BSOD machines and other machines they have mixed memory in them (ECC and NON-ECC) in the same system (notice the word AND)? You'd think by now I'd learn to just keep my mouth shut? "Oh no, not me", I bring it up, how can this be? You can't mix both within the same PC (Sure you can, they did, but it's a NO, NO). Here I come to find out that all the BIG WIGS (Masters, BS Degrees), Second Level (BS Degrees, MCSE) all went to some kind of meeting when leasing the PCs and were told that they could use ECC or NON-ECC RAM within the PC. When I brought this out about NOT mixing them I was of course clueless again.

They missed something, all of them, while in this meeting the word OR. Which anyone with any sense knows means either ECC or NON-ECC within the system but not both they didn't say AND. I was the only one (Not at meeting mind you, not even knowing it ever happened but I heard what was said later and knew what they meant). From this point on they stopped mixing the RAM when placing orders and even put only ECC and NON-ECC by switching from one system to another to make things right - the BSOD problem was remedied. (HERO) - a contractor who was a Lead Tech for EOL whom had sucked his way up to a second level position mid-stream during EOL. Thus the moral of this story - sucking and swallowing.

You may be asking what do I mean? Well sucking up, kissing ass, what ever it takes to get ahead - this is what I coined as Sucking and Swallowing - something I've never done or ever plan on doing. This individual happened to be in the room at the time of my discovery (RAM issue) and when I spoke out loud he sponged up my information and took it to higher ups and received the congressional medal of honor (Just kidding) but he became the (HERO) in this scenario. This individual went to one of the same tech schools as I did and graduated around the same time as I did and was offered a Lead Tech job with the EOL at the same company my contract company placed me at. He was once a Foot Locker manager and had no computer background other than what he learned at the school we attended which he didn't learn much, but he was good at sponging, this is a term I use for those who sit around and take what is said or can hear something and take it in (not really knowing or comprehending what is said) but able to pass it on as their own. He also got a lot of praise as a Lead Tech and this was only because the guys he had on his team they are the ones that made him look so good. I was on this team for the first week of EOL and later placed at home base doing all those other jobs mentioned earlier. He later sucked, swallowed and sponged his way up the ladder to a (Full Time) position. First as mentioned earlier on Second Level still as a contractor but later becoming a (Full Time) employee within the companies Large Systems Team, more about this tidbit later.

So know those working around you in the IT field or should I say be cautious of those around you, learn to keep your mouth shut. Especially as a (Contractor) in an enterprise environment, only the (Full Time) employees or those on the SUCK SCALE (other contractors that will stab you in back to get ahead) get the credit when information from a person of some knowledge is properly used to their advantage. This is where you'll see you keep your thoughts to yourself in the IT field never giving up to much information or knowledge, only talk when spoken to (answer questions when asked) and don't let it just come out as I did because there could be a sponge at any corner ready to suck and swallow his way up the corporate ladder.

2 1/2 years later. Finally a position became available within the companies Support Center, thinking I could better myself and possibly get hired on (Full Time) (which was my goal) not sucking or swallowing on the way though. I took the available position but still as a contractor. Upon entering the Support Center, I now would have a new boss from the one I had when doing my earlier job. This new boss loved anyone who followed the path of sucking and swallowing. During my time in the Support Center two individuals were hired (Full Time) because they were just so good at it (sucking and swallowing that is) - one being an intern and another being a contractor who actually started in the Support Center around the same time I was hired for the EOL project.

During my years of doing this job I never missed a day of work and was actually a half hour early every single day but yet those (Full Time) employees missed constantly and while in the Support Center these same (Full Time) employees very rarely did their job and pretty much did nothing while the few (Contractors) were the ones doing all the work. Now over my 2 1/2 years in the Support Center I took the Highest Resolution Rate award EVERY single month but 2 and during those two months I did not receive the award, was because another (Contractor) who used me as his encyclopedia of computer knowledge edged me out by point some odd percent, those were the tickets I resolved for him.

Another great item about this was me and this other (Contractor) out of say, 120 calls per day took about 60-80 of these calls between us with a Support Center of 15 people (You do the math), but yet we had the highest resolution rates over everyone for that whole 2 1/2 years, and with the (Full Time) employees looking ridiculous because they couldn't compete with the contractors - it was mostly because none of them had a clue of support, but yet they worked in the support center. Before I entered the Support Center it was coined by many in the company as the SUPPORTLESS CENTER.

Upon entering the support center most people were using SMS to connect to people to fix problems, of course only those that even knew how would use this, did, which wasn't many. SMS has its downfalls especially if a machine is no longer part of a domain you can't connect; it was based on computer names and domains. Not sure how many out there have tried walking computer illiterate people on fixing things over the phone but sometimes it's impossible. I had my own trick up my sleeve for fixing peoples problems instead of walking clients through the fix, I'd just connect to them and fix it myself (much easier) but I used a program that is on every Windows client period (NETMEETING) which uses IP Address, just by using this the Support Center now could resolve hundreds of tickets a month because before they passed the ticket to second level to have them re-join a machine back to the domain whereas I was doing this all along and getting tickets resolved, if they had network connectivity you were set.

I originally used this to fix many problems when being the reblast guy that the support center and second level couldn't fix. I'd be able to connect to the pc from my desk without even going to the clients desk and fix problems that should have been fixed before the ticket made it to me (Pass it along method) because sometimes clients were in different locations which meant they had to send me their pc for the reblast or I'd have to travel to the more local locations for this. If I could save them the loss of their pc for days and for those I could travel to, I would save traveling, boy clients noticed and wondered and always asked, why couldn't the others fix this? They all just said it would need reblasted, I simply said they aren't me. Reblasts was something a client did NOT want to hear, it meant death of the PC and a complete and new re-image, a loss of all data, software, settings, you name it, just like starting from scratch.

At one point by the boss reading my resolutions or possibly someone he put on finding out how I could be resolving so many tickets compared to the others. I put in my tickets that I had connected to the client and the big question was "What do you mean connected" I told them with NetMeeting or at times I placed this within my resolved tickets as to what I did to accomplish my resolution, not thinking it could come back to haunt me. Once this came up they gave another guy who was in the suck and swallow crew of the support center to teach everyone how to use this - (Not me) - so more or less NetMeeting became implemented within the company (a free and easy support tool) of course saving them thousands again on support software. The best part of this was this person had to come to me to ask how to use it so he could teach the others. Of course this individual and the boss became the (HEROS) in this scenario. Once it was implemented within the company as a great support tool and (FREE) just about every IT group was using it to help resolve tickets. We were even told in the support center that our resolution rate had increased by 30% from the date of implementation and everyone using it the boss taking all the credit for such a great find. They even added the shortcut for Netmeeting to desktops within their corporate images so a client could just click on it when an analyst requested to connect to walk a client through a fix or even a how to for software.

You're Welcome - by the way never expect or think you'll get any praise or even a pat on the back, not even a THANK YOU when saving a company thousands, millions, or even giving your boss a hell of a raise and praise he never deserved - (Numbers are everything in IT).

Remember IT can have several departments or groups and of course more chiefs than Indians, also the same with Corporate America. The goal was to have a high resolution rate in Support Center which then took away from all the groups down the IT line (Second Level and other Support Groups) this was every groups routine, to look better than the other rather than working together as one IT.

I actually took more personal calls from clients than through the proper channels (Their Support Line) because they didn't want to talk to anyone else in the Support Center, we had our personal line number and then the support line which went through a queue system, but most only wanted to talk to me, they knew I'd try or do everything possible to fix their problem before passing it along. On a daily basis I had other analysts forwarding calls to me or coming back saying a person wanted to talk to me personally.

We used a system of ARS (Acquisition Request System) a program for submitting support tickets to proper IT groups within the company if it couldn't be resolved by a Support Center Analyst - pretty much all tickets got passed on regardless of simplicity except by two of us in the support center already mentioned above.

At one point our boss tried to tone down our resolution and tried giving us things to do so that we wouldn't be on the phone as much because the differences between us and them was like 30% which meant bump calls to the others to try upping their stats and to maintain ours but when doing this (bumping the calls) they always made their way back around the queue and at this point we ended up having to take them anyway it was like playing PONG between me and the other contractor I mentioned earlier - we'd just volley calls.

One PROJECT- (a way to get you away from doing your real job), me and the other contractor were put on, was what came to be known as their Knowledge Base which was to make it easier for new people coming into the support center (future people to take our jobs) (and those clueless wonders already in there) could use this to find the answers to most of the problems that came through the support center, in other words they wanted our knowledge etched in stone for others to use to up their resolution rates. Everything in this company was based on numbers and by keeping the numbers up the boss looked that much better. I'm sure raises; bonuses and the boss's overall success were taken into consideration by this as well.

The Knowledge Base was a program they spent thousands of dollars on that NO ONE used. They had a (Full Time) employee and the support center boss to thank for this piece of garbage and the higher ups wanted this thing implemented and to show it wasn't a waste of money. So they used the best two people in the support center to try and prefect it myself and the other contractor and make it fly because of the money spent on it and the (Full Time) employee in charge of it who usually just sat and stared at his screen all day (I'm still trying to figure out what he was looking at?). I can't say for sure if either of their jobs ever really depended on this thing flying or not, but it didn't while I was still there.

It was usable but not totally implemented. Between the two of us (Contractors) there was plenty of knowledge added and if someone used it right, it would work. Of course the clueless wonders of the support center could not use this without having their hands held and they simply did what they did best, pass the ticket on without using the Knowledge Base.

Needless to say they are both still there, the boss and the employee, the boss was actually promoted over time, wonder if any of the number increases by the Support Centers resolution increases had any effect on this??? The company then went through some very hard times they let go almost all of their contractors and many full time employees (early retirements) and promoted more bosses, lost all of the Indians and pretty much did away with all of what was good in their IT. Those that remained, not all, were those who had climbed the SUCK SCALE and SPONGED their way to more higher paying jobs.

I was considered LAST IN - FIRST OUT within the support center but my original boss had a trick up his sleeve he could get me back downstairs to work for a bit and to do another project with another contractor by going to New York and closing down one of their offices. Now mind you this boss would hire me (Full Time) yesterday if he was able but he just doesn't have the pull to do this and isn't on any suck scale. So myself and this other contractor went to this New York office and we ended up as 2 men doing a 10 man job. We did EOL, Networking, Telecom, inventory, clean up, shipping of all equipment and the closing of this 130 some odd client office within a week long period of course saving the company thousands more dollars in process. I'm happy for this only because it kept me working in IT and making a pay check only problem was my contract company had to cut my bill rate which in turn cut me 4 more dollars per hour just to keep me working for a total of 3 more weeks. Once this project was completed I was left to the dogs and sent on my merry way to the world of unemployment.

For about a month or so of unemployment I was receiving phone calls at home from people who still worked at this company asking for support because they didn't want to call the, now that I was gone, SUPPORTLESS CENTER. I had become quite a name to some within the company for resolving many problems and from my home I became their tech support guy. To bad I wasn't getting paid for this. I'm just that kind of guy; I even support people over the internet to this day with good old NETMEETING and WINDOWS MESSENGER and its Application Sharing.

The one contractor still remains there that I helped on a daily basis and the boss even told him to actually smoke more to keep him off the phone more because now he's taken over where I left off taking the highest resolution rate on a monthly basis and since him and I were the only two that actually took any calls and resolved anything in the support center, my job was replaced with a (Full Time) employee that became misplaced due to the complete overhaul of the company.

It's now been a year since working at this company and my contract company not calling me with any other positions or prospects, makes me wonder have I been blackballed somehow for not following the good old SUCK and SWALLOW of IT???

Remember earlier in this article I mentioned I'd get to a tidbit later, well here is that tidbit. The one individual who I might add was a JEDI and MASTER of the suck and swallow. Since quit this company after SPONGING all his knowledge from other Contractors, Second Level, and Large Systems to go to another company for more money doing Mass Storage Systems.

Needless to say I thought this was funny, it's more or less a kick in the balls to the company and to those he used to get ahead, but to finish this off was this job then became available and they were hiring to fill this position. Now remember they hired him (Full Time) not knowing shit about computers or Mass Storage, no degrees, no MCSE, for that matter and whomever they hired would be a Full Time employee not a contractor for this position. I figured since I worked at this company for 4 1/2 years and the knowledge of the company's internal structure etc. I could land this position, and would probably be there until my dieing days.

I sent my resume in for the position and with my name and knowledge thinking I should be a shoe in for this position and with people who knew what I've done while I was there and could vouch for my work ethic etc. hands down I could finally have a (Full Time) job, no more contracting, higher pay and a place I've always wanted to work for, for the rest of my life. Once my resume was received it got scanned as do all resumes within HR and sat waiting to be retrieved for a possible position I knew I could do and 1000 times better than the man that left it behind. I come to find out that my resume would NEVER be seen, WHY??? The HR department has filters they place on resumes for certain positions and for the position they were hiring for, you needed a BS Degree (This could be in basket weaving it didn't matter) - So I was sunk again by BULL SHIT. Strange how originally none of this mattered for this position when hiring the other individual he just was so good at SUCKING and SWALLOWING his way up the SUCK SCALE.

I live in the Pittsburgh area and I'm currently looking for that Full Time job at a respectful company that doesn't want BS Degrees or MCSE or should I say pieces of paper from those that really don't have a clue and simply want a person with knowledge and that can get the job done with their actions. I have 11 years of Bull Shit already under my belt within IT, I just want IT not the Bull Shit and a company that doesn't follow any of the practices mentioned throughout this article. If I was to include everything within this article it would never end and there are countless other things not mentioned that have happened along the way, more stories on a daily, monthly, and yearly basis, this is the short version and while only at one company as a contractor. And boy what a long story this one has already become. LOL.

Feel free to reply to this with any offers of condolences or job offers and thanks for reading and learning what goes on in the IT field and what it takes to get ahead in both IT and Corporate America. Now you have a few more terms you can use to describe that individual sitting beside you that has stabbed you in the back on countless occasions and those who've moved up the good old ladder. Who says sucking, swallowing, sponging, kissing ass, doesn't get you ahead in life?