Universally Accepted

Today was a busy day for once! We had three different issues to work on today. The first problem was a computer in Lathrop. The user had spilled maple syrup on it (I decided to not ask how or why it happened) and said that the computer was moving slow. We showed up and checked out the computer, but it didn’t seem like the maple syrup had affected anything. We stopped a couple of processes and lef.tThe other two were both hardware installs: one regular printer and one copier/printer. As usual, the copier/printer combination was much more difficult. We managed to do both successfully in a short amount of time.

5/3/07

Today was interesting. I had to install XP clean onto two separate laptops, which was an interesting challenge. It wasn’t too hard, but there was a lot of steps to follow. It became somewhat difficult to keep track of which computer was at what point, especially when one messed up and the other didn’t.

5/8/07

Today’s problem actually led me to mess with my own computer, and improve it slightly. A professor called about disabling a button on his laptop. Whenever he was typing, he would hit the button on accident and lose pages of work at a time.

In order to fix this, Steve downloaded a program called Sharpkeys. This program is a registry hack that allows you to set any key on your keyboard as any other key, or disable it entirely. Steve disabled the problem key and we left.

When I got home, I reset three of my own keys. I turned my “Clipboard” key into a “Pause/Play” for Windows Media Player, and the two Windows buttons were turned into volume up and down.

5/15/07

Today was a day without much accomplished. There wasn’t much to do, so I went with Tanasee to install SPSS on a computer. She wanted to me to try to do it on my own, so I installed it… but incorrectly of course. While I was working on that computer, they asked to have it on another computer as well. While I installed it on that computer (correctly) Tanasee fixed the other computer.

However, it was all for naught. We installed SPSS 15 and apparently the servers were not set up for an install like that yet, so the program ended up not working anyway.

5/17/07

Today was a very good day for me. I felt I actually accomplished the one thing I needed to do before I left, which is good because we don’t have much time left.

I started off the day by cloning a couple of new laptops for a professor. This was quite a bit easier than the other laptops I had to install, because much of the process was completed with cloning. However, I was still unable to complete the task by the end of the day for a couple of reasons, mainly my other tasks.

The new computers arrived on campus, and I helped bring the monitors into Media Services and the actual computers into our room in Edwards. This didn’t take too long, but it was good exercise.

Near the end of the day, while I was unpacking some of these computers, Tyler called Colin for some help. He didn’t know how to access techserv if typing in the IP didn’t work… and I did. I offered to go over to Tyler and show him how to do it so that Colin could continue with his own work.

Finally knowing something another IT professional doesn’t know, and being able to explain it to them… that made my day. It was the kind of experience I’ve been trying to achieve for at least half of a year.

5/22/07

Today was a pretty dull day. Tanasee and the rest of the crew were out doing installations of the new computers we received, and so I was left with little to do. I ended up helping Shaun carry stuff to the surplus box in the loading bay, and then had a hamburger and pasta salad courtesy of Tanasee.

Unique

Today was quite unique. Since Begy was late (as usual) I followed Lyudmil to his first task. I haven’t gone with Lyudmil before to do anything, so this was a different experience for me. Our task was to fix a floppy drive in a computer that was recently installed.

We brought a new floppy over to Lennon and got to work on installing the new floppy drive. Although it was somewhat difficult to maneuver around in the computer, we managed to install the new floppy. However, for some reason it didn’t work. We analyzed the problem for a little while, and managed to figure out that one of the pins was bent on the floppy drive. Once the pin was unbent, the drive worked perfectly.

As we walked back, Lyudmil shared an interesting thought. He likes working on hardware because there’s only so much that can be wrong with it, so it’s easier to troubleshoot. With software, it could be incorrect settings, conflicting settings, or something completely random. On hardware, you plug it in and make sure it looks like it’s supposed to, and if it still doesn’t work, it’s probably not fixable.

Later today, Emily and myself went over to Tuttle to fix a printer problem. I’m not quite sure what fixed it, as she was moving around between two rooms a lot, but from what I can tell, the fact that one of the computers was left on for too long messed up something, and so rebooting that computer fixed the printer problem.

SPSS Licensing

Today has so far been a pretty easy and dull day. I’ve had two tasks so far: to relicense SPSS 13, and to gut a few computers of their hard drives and RAM.

The first task was the SPSS licensing. This turned out to be a long process, though it was an easy one. We had to install a couple of small registry changes to the laptop SPSS needed to be relicensed on (otherwise techserv couldn’t be accessed) and then do the actual relicensing. Since 14 is the newest version and we did not have any licenses for 13, we ended up installing 14 instead of just relicensing 13. A long process, but we didn’t have to do that much.

My second task was to gut the three computers. One of them ended up being empty, but the other two had retrievable pieces: a 40GB and 20GB hard drive, and one stick of RAM each. I then put the computers in the surplus pile.

3 Part Problem

Today we only had one major problem to deal with. A professor’s computer had three separate, yet equally annoying, problems with her computer. Her keyboard wouldn’t work right, her computer wouldn’t boot up, and her printer was broken. All of the solutions for us were pretty easy. We began by loading the BIOS to fix the computer problem. It turned out that the time on the system had reset, and so the computer was not working properly. Once the time was fixed, the computer booted up fine. (However, Steve believes that the problem may be a little deeper: that the battery on the system is actually dead, so power to the computer must always be on.) For the keyboard issue, we simply got a new keyboard from Edwards and brought it back to her. The last problem, the one with the printer, was not an easy fix. However, our printer guy is Gary, so all we had to do was refer the problem to him, and our work was done.

Most of the work I’m experiencing now is pretty easy. I may actually be able to go out on my own sometime before the end of the year.

Buffet

Our main problem of the day was attempting to fix that USB problem mentioned previously. I loaded the drivers needed onto My Scratch, and went over to the problem computer with Steve. However, our attempts were still futile. No matter what we do, it doesn’t seem to fix the problem, even if it should.  I also Googled more information today, but found nothing more than what we tried already. We may need to replace the computer.

On the bright side, I got to experience a little  more of the college life today. I was taken to a buffet type meal in Brockway. After eating there, I can understand why so many people have problems with the “Freshman 15″.