12/18/2013 - Practicum Blog

Today was my last day with cfsbc so I couldn't really take a big order or anything, instead Robert had me collect around 35 Toshiba A6s and unlock the BIOS password on them. If you flip over the laptop and remove the RAM cover, you will see a piece of black plastic covering the board. Once you have peeled it back you will see by the pins some writing that says "CMOS CLR1" I use paper clip and touch the two capacitors with both ends to short circuit the password. Once you boot up you will be prompt saying that the password has been reset and you will now be able to access the BIOS.

After lunch I had all the laptops passwords reset so since I had nothing else to do I started to swap the hard drives and put 2GB of RAM into them and was going to start a XP install before I left but I ran out of time, I had to give my order to William to finish for me since I'm done today.
Overall cfsbc was the perfect place for me to go in my opinion because I feel like I'm walking away with a lot more knowledge and confidence then ever before.


I'm really fortunate to for Robert and Marry Em to accept me and give me this chance to develop more skills, and making me a better technician. Thank you :)

12/17/2013 - Practicum Blog

Today I spent most of my time installing software. First I installed Office onto the 10 laptops I had running but found out after that I installed the wrong version. So after I uninstalled them on all the laptops I got the right version in its place. After I had that all done I brought them into the cleaning station and removed all the tags off them and gave them a good cleaning. Once they were packaged up there wasn't much time to start a new order, so I helped in the back sorting old printers and cleaning up the warehouse.

Thanks for taking the time to read this~

12/16/2013 - Practicum Blog

Today when I got in I got a order for 7 free level laptops and a different order for 1 free level laptop. I'm using 7 HP laptops and 1 Toshiba, all of them needed a dban and they take 3 hours so I had a lot of down time today. I had a issue with a couple of them were the BIOS was locked and I couldn't get into it no matter what trick I tried. Peter, a fellow volunteer that has a lot of experience with HP showed me a neat trick reset the password. He opened up the cover for the RAM on the bottom of the laptop and lifted up the thin piece of plastic covering the board. He then showed me were it says CMOS CLR and told me to put a piece of metal and touch the two jumpers, it will short circuit and clear the passwords, and that worked perfectly.


After lunch I had XP installing and they finished just before the day ended so I'll have to finish up the orders tomorrow morning.

Thanks for taking the time to read this~

12/13/2013 - Practicum Blog

Today when I got in, Adam and I finished off the keyboards for the big order we had and got everything all wrapped up and ready. After that I was invited to the Christmas lunch that they were having so I didn't do much IT work today. I extremely appreciate them inviting me too, that was really nice of them :)

After checking my log I will be done my practicum on Wednesday so I'm going to try to get a big order done before my time here is done.

Thanks for taking the time to read this~

12/12/2013 - Practicum Blog

When I got in today the computers where already running and ready for me to install Win7, unfortunately the customer changed the order and is asking for no OS. So that means Adam and I have to get the computers back and run DBAN to clear the drive on all of the computers we did the previous day, which was 67 of them. As you can tell my entire day consisted of disk killing, we did manage to get all 67 completed and cleaned before the day ended so tomorrow we just have to get all the keyboards/mice/cords ect ready so we can package everything up.

We were using a disk to run the DBAN on the computers and we came across 2 computers that were not wanting to boot from the CD-ROM. First thing I did was check the boot order and made the CD-ROM first but that didn't work, I then disabled the hard drive and the network from the boot order completely but that didn't fix the problem either. Instead of going to deep into it I tried swapping out the CD Drive to see if thats whats causing it, and what do you know, I was able to boot from the CD right after i swapped them. The second computer had the same issue so I managed to get 2 more computers to fill the order :)


Depending how long it takes to get all the cords/monitors/keyboards/mice ect all together I should get a new order tomorrow.

Thanks for taking the time to read this~

12/10/2013 - Practicum Blog

Today when I got in my supervisor printed out a order of 100 desktops for me and Adam to do. We don't have 100 of the super slim desktops that we're giving them but we have to use them up then find a different kind to finish. They need 2 GB of RAM and we need to swap the hard drives then do a burn in following the OS installation. I got around 10 of them 100% done but I spent the entire day opening them and adding hardware since I had to wait for the OS to finish. So on thursday I'll be installing a lot of hardware lol

I came across 2 issues today while I was trying to install Win7. One being on boot up I got a black screen with a " BOOTMGR cannot be found" and I used THIS website to help me figure it out. First I thought the files must be corrupt but the other 3 next to it worked, so I tried a couple more times and same thing. before we left Mat and I we're doing a test to see if the hard drive is failing but the day ended before it could finish so I'll have to find out Thursday since we have First-Aid tomorrow. The second Issue I had was pretty simple, I put the stick in DIMM 2 instead of 1. A decent tip I've found is the black plastic around the RAM slots normally means DIMM 1, I was putting RAM in the bottom white slot and thats how I found out.

Thanks for taking the time to read this~

12/09/2013 - Practicum Blog

Today when I got in I did some final updates to my order and gave them a good cleaning, then spent a good hour or so getting them into boxes, stuffing them with foam and shrink wrapping it to be sent off.

After lunch I was going to ask for a new order but Robert asked if I could get a head start on a big order they got which calls for 400 something desktops. The computers we're going to refurbish for them are neat little things, they are desktops but they take all laptop parts even down to the charger being the power supply. Here's a picture I took of them

for this order we just need to give them 2GB of RAM and do a burn in and I believe that's it. So its simple but time consuming since there are so many we have to do. I'm not sure if I'll start doing my own orders or continue on with this task tomorrow or not but I'll let you know in tomorrows blog

Thanks for taking the time to read this~

12/05/2013 - Practicum Blog

Today when I arrived I finished off my order form yesterday and started off with a new one. This one calls for 2 super upgraded laptops with Win7 and Office with a laser printer. I put all the hardware in pretty quick and started the Burn-In and installed Win7 when it was done. While the OS was installing I grabbed another order which calls for 3 free level laptops and 1 upgrade laptop. I had problems booting up the 3 dell laptops because there was a Admin password on the BIOS so I couldn't enable the NIC and boot into the network. I looked online for ways to disable the password and came across this website where you have to enter in the service tag and it will generate the Admin password, and it worked perfectly! I can't find the site I used because I was using the computer at the shop but I'll defiantly get the site to share with you guys tomorrow

After I got the 3 dells doing a OS installation I started working on the order I'll do tomorrow which calls for 39 17" monitors. Its pretty easy, I just gotta inspect to make sure they work and give them a quick cleaning. If anyone is still looking for a second practicum I highly recommend working at cfsbc.ca if you don't mind commuting out to Burnaby each day that is. You'll be doing hands on work 24/7 and getting a bunch of experience too.

So yeah that was my day, I'll let you all know how things go in tomorrow blog~

12/04/2013 - Practicum Blog

Today I got six new laptops to replace the ones I was using the day before because they were the wrong ones and some were broken. I started off by replacing the first laptops hard drive to come to see that its a IDE hard drive and we don't have a active way of mass whipping IDE drives, only sata.
I put the hard drive back in and booted into the network and used Active@Kill to kill the hard drives in the machine since we can't swap the drive yet.

After I got 5 of the laptops running the disk kill, Greg showed up, we had a small meeting then I showed him my work station and the warehouse to give him an idea of what I do each day. Hoping he didn't have too hard of a time finding the building lol


Once lunch was over I had 2 old IBM laptops with supervisor passwords on boot. First thing I did was I took the keyboard out and palm rest panel to get at the motherboard and removed the CMOS battery and booted it to see if that would work, It didn't. I then tried to short circuit the jumpers but that didn't work either. I had to move on and get 2 different laptops because I couldn't spend too much time on them. I'm currently looking up a solid way of disabling it and I'll let you all know in tomorrows blog.


Thanks for taking the time to read this~

12/03/2013 - Practicum Blog

Today when I got in I got all the monitors done with the help of everyone there which was a big help because I was done before 9:30! I was then able to start my new order which should be done tomorrow. I just need 1 Laptop with a new hard drive,RAM with Win7 and 6 other laptops with XP. I got it done around 2pm but my supervisor and I picked out the wrong computer so I had to put them aside and get the other laptops. I'll hopefully get them all done around lunch tomorrow and I'll get to start a new order.

One tip that Dave showed me was if you press Ctrl Sift P you'll browse with InPrivate, In a Private Browsing window, it won't keep any browser history, search history, download history, web form history, cookies, or temporary internet files. if you use your computer you don't really need to use this but if you are using their computers its good to use.

So that was my day, I'll let you all know how my order goes tomorrow,

Thanks for taking the time to read this~

12/02/2013 - Practicum Blog

Today I started off with my order from last week and I managed to get all 60 desktops completed today so the only thing left I have to do is, inspect/clean 49 monitors and to package up 60 keyboards/mouse's and 60 avi/vga adapters. I should be done this order tomorrow depending how long it takes to get through all the monitors. One good tip/trick I learned last week was to press Ctrl Alt Del when booting up if you need to restart instead of waiting for it to finished or holding down the power button and ect, it just makes things a lot simpler lol

I'm really hoping to get into networking sometime this week or next week because I think this will be the more useful skill to learn. So that was pretty much my day and I look forward to what tomorrow holds!

Thanks for taking the time to read this~

11/29/2013 - Practicum Blog

So today I spent the day working on the order that I currently have and I think I'll have it done by Monday or Tuesday now. Currently I have around 42 of the desktops ready but I can only Burn-In around 12 each day so depending if I run into some issues with some of the remaining desktops I should have them all done no later than Tuesday.

One issue I had today was 2 of the desktops were not wanting to take power at all, so naturally I assume the power supply is no good and put in ones that works, and It just so happens that was the problem and got them running again.

I'm absolutely loving it here and I look forward to each day because there is always something new to keep me busy. As soon as I'm done my order I get a new one right away so I'm always working and getting experience. I'll more than likely do my second practicum here as well, I don't see why I wouldn't. So yeah that was my day today, I'll inform you all how things go on Monday!

Thanks for taking the time to read this~

11/28/2013 - Practicum Blog

When I arrived this morning I had 12 desktops that were doing a Burn-In over night so I got those out of the way and got new ones in there places. The Burn-Ins is whats going to make this a long order but I should have them all done by Wednesday I'm hoping. But this is what I like doing I'm getting a lot of hands on work and some troubleshooting skills along the way, so that's always good.


Tomorrow is going to be the same thing, more Burn-Ins and adding hardware, really hoping I can finish Wednesday so I can start my next order. Overall this place is great, I'm loving it there and I'm enjoying each day :)

Thanks for taking the time to read this~

11/27/2013 - Practicum Blog

Today when I arrived I packaged up my order from yesterday and got that all done and out of the way, then I got right into my next order. This order calls for 60 super upgraded desktops, and all I had to do was pull out the old HDD, put in a new one and add 4GB of RAM to them. Seeing as the order calls for 60 desktops I was pretty much doing hands on work all day, which I love!

So after lunch I hooked up 8 desktops to do a Burn-In test on them and went right back into upgrading desktops since Burn-Ins take 3 hours per PC. here's a picture of the desktops I'm working with,



This was pretty much my entire day, and it will probably be working on them all tomorrow too since its such a big order.

Thanks for taking the time to read this~

11/26/2013 - Practicum Blog

So today was day two of my practicum and it was really good, I started off with my two orders right away which was setting up five upgraded laptops to be shipped, and my other order was to inspect and clean thirty 19" screens. I got the five laptops done quick today because I did most of the work on them yesterday.

I did manage to get the thirty screens ready too just before the day ended so tomorrow I'll have to package them and they will be done. Then I have to get some new orders so its going to be a mystery tomorrow because I have no idea what I'll be doing. My supervisor told me that he wants to get me some server experience but I have no idea when I'll be doing that. I hope soon :)


Thanks for taking the time to read this~

11/25/2013 - Practicum Blog

Today was the first day of my practicum and it actually went really well and I enjoyed it! I'm currently doing my practicum at Computers for Schools B.C which is a non profit organization that supplies computers for libraries, schools and ect. These are a couple pictures of what the place looks like.
















The back area is pretty big warehouse where all the computers/monitors/printers are stored. It looks a lot bigger in person. So once I got there in the morning I was given an order right away. I had to get 5 laptops and make sure that they have the specs that are requested in the order. It took me pretty much all day to get all 5 ready to be shipped because I had to put in the appropriate hardware in them and then do a Burn-In test and install Win7 onto them. While the laptops were doing their thing I started my next order of 30 monitors, which is a pretty simple order, you just have to clean them and make sure that that actually work so its not hard at all, just time consuming. So that was pretty much my first day and I'll inform you guys what I do in tomorrow blog


Thanks for taking the time to read this~

11/20/2013 - Blog

Today was our last day in class pretty much since are we starting our practicums tomorrow, so we spent the majority of the class working on our study notes and just doing a few little catch up assignments to get in some last minute marks.

After break we had a little task where we had to make some flashcards and put on some questions on them and then later we asked the class a question on one of our cards. I had some basic ones like what is "CLI" and if anyone doesn't know THIS will tell you everything about it,

I'll be starting my practicum on Tuesday so I'll start my practicum blogging then,

Thanks for taking the time to read this~

Late Blog Post -

Here I am doing some old tasks we had to do the past 2 months, The first one will be about my 7.1 Paint setup. The picture explains it all!

This is the Sound Card That I chose for a previous Task-

Creative Sound Blaster X-Fi Titanium HD 24-bit 192KHz PCI Express x1 Interface Sound Card powered by THX TruStudio Pro Price: 159.99$

11/19/2013

Today in class we had our last Final, which was Living Online and I was told it was the hardest one so I was a little nervous coming to class, but I did manage to get a passing grade. I just have to pass my re-takes on Friday and I'll be set

After break we finally managed to get all the networking figured out and we played Risk II for a little while which was a lot of fun haha. Other than that the majority of the day consisted of the test and more review.


Thanks for taking the time to read this~

11/18/2013 - Blog

Today in class, we started off right away with our IC3 Exam, I felt like I struggled more with Excel than I did with Access which is strange because I feel more confident in Excel. I unfortunately was like 3% away from getting a passing grade so I'm going to have to take a re-test which I don't mind doing.

After that we got right back into our study notes and working on the practice tests to prepare us for the finals in January. I don't mind spending the days doing review because its only going to benefit us. After break we worked on our networking task where we have to get 9 computers in a single game, but we were having issues with the wireless card drivers, but we got them and now we only need 2 more PCs working and we'll be able to play!

If anyone is curious how to network bridge I recommend THIS, This will help you figure it out

Thanks for taking the time to read this~

11/15/2013 - Blog

So today in class we had our first final exam, and even after all the review we've been doing and all the studying I'm doing at home, I feel like I could have done better. I did manage to get a better mark than what I was getting on the practice exams, but I still feel like I can get a higher mark. I'm really going to study this weekend so I can be happy with my mark on the next final on Monday.

We spent the majority of the class doing review and finishing those study tests which I'm happy we did. After break we tried something new where we tried setting up the LAN so we can have all of the students playing in the same RISK game but unfortunately we ran out of time and didn't get to do so.


Thanks for taking the time to read this~

09/30/2013 - Late Posts

This day we had to spend the gift cards to purchase 2 video cards, this is what I picked out




And this is my Meme Projector Power Point

11/13/2013 - Blog

Today in class we started to review from our IC3 book to get us ready for the upcoming finals. We have our first one this Friday which I'm really going to have to study for because I would really like to get a good mark on it. We spent some time printing out more labels with all the names on separate labels which was pretty easy since we have done this before.

After break we were each given small tasks to go do, and I got the one to configure the
wireless modem. It took me a bit to figure out but now I find it easy, I just had to reset the modem, change the SSID and the encryption to what the task asked, and that was it. THIS was what I used it and was easy to use, so i recommend this to anyone who needs help on setting up your Dlink Router.

Thanks for taking the time to read this~

11/12/2013 - Blog

Today in class we started off with presenting the posters, my topic was RAM. I'm glad I had this topic because I found out a lot more about RAM that I didn't previously know. One neat thing I found out about RAM is, Say you have a computer with 16 GB of RAM and you have a 32 bit OS, the computer will only address up to 4GB with a 32 bit OS, you have to have a 64 bit OS to address the full amount of RAM. I didn't know this but I'm glad I do now

Near the end of the day we started on coding. I have zero experience with coding so I found this a little tricky, Greg's got us off on something fairly easy to start off with and  THIS is one of the many programs that we're using. Its really simple to get it ready so I recommend it to anyone thats curious to try it.

Thanks for taking the time to read this~

11/08/2013 - Blog

So today in class we did some IDS preparation, we spent some time asking everyone some questions that could be asked during our IDS powerpoint presentation, as well as answering those questions. I personally need to work on talking about myself, because I'm not so great at it. After that we worked on the actual powerpoint that will be presented.

One task we did was to 'break' a computer for someone in the class to fix it, I don't know a bunch of ways with keeping someone locked out, only the basics, but I was going more towards locking someone out so that they HAVE to use a certain tool that Greg is wanting us to utilize. Just in case you guys forgot or maybe this is a hint to how to fix my compaq, I suggest giving THIS a read over.

Thanks for taking the time to read this~

11/07/2013 - Blog

Today we started off with a video project, we each yelled out what topic of IT we would like to make a 1 minute video of, and I chose Hardware. I had fun doing this and I look forward to seeing the finished video that our group came up with.

After that we took some time into creating a reset disk to where we can reset passwords for XP machines, I didn't manage to get it downloaded in time because it was gonna take an hour plus, but I've took some time into reading the steps online, so If anyone is needing help with this please take a look at THIS

Thanks for taking the time to read this~

11/06/2013 - Blog

So today in class we started off with working on the compaqs making sure they all had a running copy of Win XP, After that we started with some notes on Virtualization, we played with a few programs to get an idea of what it does, and personally, I don't think I'll use this myself, but it's certainly a good thing to know about because there are a lot of instances where it will be extremely useful.

We were also given a task where we had to give our reason for why a company shouldn't use the setup they were using and my answer to that is.. I wouldn't because if a single computer went down, all the others would suffer for it, You would have to have a extremely good PC for it to handle that kind of work.

After the notes and break, we started a project where we will have to do a 5 minute presentation about a certain part of a PC, I chose RAM, I'm pretty confident I can ramble on for 5 minutes about RAM so I'm not too worried.

I'm not 100% with Virtualization so I took some time into researching more about it and I came across THIS,  I can't say this made me understand it completely but it did help me a little bit, so maybe it will for you too!

11/05/2013 - Blog

So today we didn't have our regular class, it was our WHMIS day, we spent a good 4 hours reviewing and talking about what WHMIS is and what to do when we encounter a situation when we are around hazardous materials. After we did our review we started with the test. I'm pretty sure I did fine because there was only a couple questions that stumped me but I manage to get a answer written down. We'll have to wait and see till next week if we passed and get out WHMIS certification.

Today was also picture day, Greg did not mention this to us! haha but I didn't mind. After class Curtis, Brandon and I worked on our IDS project and managed to get another class filmed, and for the most part, we got it done fairly quick.

Thanks for taking the time to read this~

11/04/2013 - Blog

So today in class we started off with a practice exam which I was not ready for at all, I did manage to do better than I expected but I'll definitely have to study before the real exam. After the exam we took notes on Securing Computers and talked about polices and securing your computer. These are some policies that I found that would be useful to implement.

1. Maximum password age.
2. Minimum password age.
3. Minimum password length
4. Password must keep complexity requirements
5. Store passwords using reversible encryption

They are pretty self explanatory and I'm sure know why you would want to think about enabling them. After notes we spent the remaining time of class playing around with our compaqs where we had to lock them to stop unwanted users accessing them. Curtis and I found out a neat little trick on how to disable the BIOS password which is extremely good to know :)

Thanks for taking the time to read this~

11/1/2013 - Blog

Today was our final day with IC3, we finished lesson 16 which was about finding information online. We spent a good amount of time doing browser related searches which I found kinda entertaining. We also spent a little time on Ergonomics where Bryce and I got to point out the discrepancies of our computer lab, which I think it was pretty easy to do lol.

Near the end of the day we had a good ol debate, the debate was basically about Ultrabooks vs Giant laptops, I'm not going to go into details but our group (Ultrabook) won

We also had to do this task where we have to choose a specific license for our company and explain why, and show the other companies we'll have to out play. This is what I came up with,


Thanks for taking the time to read this~

10/31/2013 - Blog

Today we started off with the usual ICS Lessons, we finished lesson 14 today so I'm pretty sure tomorrow will be our last day of IC3. The main thing we worked on was Communicating Online and getting some practice of how you should present yourself. After break we were paired up and given a task to make a PowerPoint about points on communicating online, Thomas and I completed this fairy quick in my opinion, this is what we came up with..






Thanks for taking the time to read this~

HAPPY HALLOWEEN!! >:D

10/30/2013 - Blog

Source: http://goo.gl/IMC5W

10/29/2013 - Blog

Today we started off with the usual IC3 lessons, with the main chunk of it was networking once again. One of the tasks Greg was wanting us to do was to post 2 videos onto our blog that would explain Peer-to-Peer networking and Client/Server networking.

This video will explain Peer-to-Peer networking~




This video here will explain Client/Server networking~



The other task we had to do was about Static and Dynamic IPs. the advantages to Permanent or Static IP address is you will be having a unique identity. You can announce yourself to the internet and people can access you, say for example you are running a web server from where people will see your website, you may be running a file server from where your clients are downloading or uploading critical data. You need a static IP only when you need to be permanently visible to Internet.

Now if you were ever wanting to obtain a Static IP you can purchase one from HERE for 9.95/Mo

What can you do with a Dynamic if you need it to appear Static? I recommend THIS hopefully this will answer some of your questions!

Thanks for taking the time to read this~

10/28/2013 - Blog

Today we started off with lesson 12 in our IC3 books, the lesson was about World Wide Web. The first thing we did was comparing search and speed between different web browsers, and from what I've noticed Firefox was the best. After that we got into Networking and took notes for just under an hour. The first task we got was locating our NIC card and finding the speed of it, if anyone was having troubles finding where your NIC card is located follow these steps below!

1.) click the start button in the bottom left

2.) type in Device Manager into the search bar

3.) locate "Network adapters"

thats where you'll find your NIC card!

After we did that task, we were asked to put some computers into a home group and see if you can still share folders/files and what happens to non windows 7 computers in this situation. I could not finish this task because of this..

After this we started to do some basic electrician stuff where we had to strip wires and put on crystals and test them with a multi-meter to see if we did it correctly, I didn't get to do all of them because we ran out of time but I'm looking forward to doing more of that tomorrow, I enjoy doing electrician stuff :)

Thanks for taking the time to read this~

10/24/2013 - Blog

When we got to class, we dove a little bit more into printers, the main task we had to do was to print this file we got as a brochure and make the printer staple it in the middle of the page. After that we did some more note taking about Authentication and Authorization in XP Vista/7

Near the end of the day we got into groups of three and each group was given different tasks, The task we had to do was to set up sharing settings to where 3 normal users can send in files but ONLY a Admin be able to read them, As we found out with the XP versions we had, its impossible. This is the video we filmed, Sorry for the quality and the backround noise

Thanks for taking the time to read this~

10/02/2013 - Blog

We did this task a while back when we were learning about PowerPoint. The main task that we had to do was to create a power point where we ask 5 common IT questions about troubleshooting. THIS is the power point I created.

10/23/2013 - Blog

We started off today with some notes, but we started something new.. Printers! we took notes for a good hour where we learned about how a printer functions and actually prints something onto paper. Near the end of the day some of us were given some label stickers and we had to print off some information onto a single sticker. Once I finished that we were given 2 tasks that we should share onto our blog. One was create a memo on how a laser printer works, This is my memo~





After we finished that we also had to compare Inkjet printers with three lesser common printer, This is what I came up with








Shortly after starting these tasks class ended, So we'll probably dive into more printing stuff tomorrow or sometime in the future.

Thanks for taking the time to read this~

10/22/2013 - Blog

So today in class we started off with notes instead of the usual IC3 lessons. The notes we were taking were mainly about how to do certain things with XP and Vista/7. I still use XP on my computer at my house so I'm more familiar with that but since this laptop, I think I'm switching over to Vista/7. One of this things we had to do on our laptops was to set a back up, which I've always wanted to do but I always put it aside because I was wanting to do other things instead of setting a back up so today was a good excuse to finally get that done.

Another thing that we did was adding a new table to our DB we did on Monday which we had to name it as HDD/RAM and add Speed, Part,Brand and computer name and we would get extra marks if we did it within Greg's time limit. Me and 2 others I think we're the only ones who got bonus marks which I was surprised because it was fairly simple. So I figured I would post the steps I did to complete it.

1. Create a new Table

2. Save it as HDD and RAM

3. Enter in... Speed - Brand - Part - Capacity - Computer Name

4. Enter in the data you obtained from your compaq into the appropriate fields

5. In the Create tab click Form

6. Save it and you're done.

It really is that simple so I hope this helps you guys out.

Thank you for taking the time to read this~

10/21/2013 - Blog

Today during class we focused only on Access, I personally did not like doing Access stuff at all but after getting to know more about the functions and the purpose Access I've become to like it more. We did a few tasks which I had a hard time at first but its not too bad once you get to know it. We were also given a few questions to answer on our blog so here you go, the questions were...

Why track this type of information in a DB instead of a spreadsheet?:

Answer: In my opinion its better to use a DB instead of a spreadsheet simply because of the reports you can make, Its even more organized and gives it a professional look.


Describe  at least two ways you expect to retrieve the data:

Answer: Two ways of retrieving data would be to use a Form and a Query


Right after break we were right back into Access, I'm not that great with Access so I've been looking online for some tips for using it, and I found THIS it gave me a few ideas and found out some stuff that I didn't know about so maybe it could help a few of you guys out.

Thanks for taking the time to read this~

10/18/2013 - Blog

Today we started off with more IC3 lessons but this time we were working with PowerPoint to get us some more practice. We had a couple tasks where we had to create and edit presentations to make them more professional. Exploring Seattle is one of the presentations that I edited. We also created another presentation but this time when we were done, we had to hook it up to a projector and get that working as well, I even manged to figure out how to have notes up on my laptop that I could look at without it showing up on the screen. I'll provide you with some basic steps on how to get a projector working Here

At the end of the day we finished off with more command prompt where we had to create, then copy/move that file, I noticed a few others as well as me having some trouble doing so, This is a basic guide on how to copy/move a file, I hope this can help some of you that were having troubles.

Thanks for taking the time to read this~

10/17/2013 - Blog

Today we started off with the usual IC3 lessons where we focused more on Excel. We did a few tasks where we had to organize peoples budget/income sheets and also create a graph for this tour group that shows how active it is on each month.

Here is a link to the tour group Excel sheet that I did, Personally I found doing this a lot easier than the other task we did, mainly because I don't have the hang of formulas at the moment. This is the link that will show you the organization we did for Lynda's financial record, I had a hard time with this and I'm not sure if its 100% complete yet. I will be working on it more though was just wanted to show you all what I got done in class today.


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10/16/2013 - Blog

Today in class we started off with the usual IC3 book. To be honest I really appreciate this book because its pretty much a manual for Windows 7 and Microsoft Office on hand. One of the lessons we did today was to make this documentation look more professional and add some "features" into it, I'll provide a link to my post earlier today so you can see what I did. Life's Medicine Post

After break we went to our compaqs to play around with the Recovery System and some of the features it can do. I noticed that a few people either didn't note it or forgot about the commands that would be useful so I thought I should provide a link to the notes that we took that pretty much have all the answers for what we did today. Commands and Command Prompt


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10/15/2013 - Blog

Yesterday we spent the day doing more lessons from our IC3 book where the majority of it was playing around with customization and learning the tools of Microsoft Word. At first while I was reading it sounded extremely simple and pointless to read, but really it wasn't as simple as it looks. I learned a good amount doing the lessons and I'm glad about that. It should help me out with the final exam (I hope)

Near the ending of class Curtis and I had to wipe a hard drive that was no good anymore, and we used the UBCD I had to do so. I made a valuable mistake where I nuked the hard drive along with my USB that had UBCD on it so now I know what NOT to do haha. So if I have any tips for anyone who's wiping a drive with a USB, Make sure you know what it is exactly that you're wiping.

Thanks for taking the time to read this~

09/10/2013

This day we started to learn about PowerPoint, and we we're given an assignment to put together a PowerPoint of Goldilocks and the three bears. This is the link to my slideshare that I have posted it on. Goldilocks

10/16/2013 Life's Medicine Task

Life's Medicine Task

10/11/2013 - Blog

Today we started off the day by doing a practice exam, I got 662/1000 which honestly I thought I was going to get less, I was not prepared for it. But now I have an idea of what I need to focus learning more on so I'm glad that we had this exam.

After break we focused on what we have to be ready for with our practicum interviews/phone calls and I don't think I'm 100% ready for it. But from hearing everyone else I'm pretty positive I know what to say and how to handle it, I just gotta rehearse more. I took the time to read this article about how to prepare yourself for an interview and I would like to share it with you, If you have some time to burn I recommend giving this a quick read. Here

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10/10/2013 - Blog

Today in class we started off with more IC3 lessons. The main task we had to do was to create a FlowChart for troubleshooting a non working mouse. This is the fowchart that I created. Greg also gave us a wireless mouse and told us to use our Flowchart to figure out why it would not work, Phillepe and I found that it was the wrong receiver for that mouse haha.

After that we were back at our computers where I managed to add a partition to my C drive, that also had my OS on. I was lucky enough to not have it conflict and i managed to not lose any data off it! Also, if anyone is having trouble with Gparted I highly recommend using the UBCD  that we put on our USBs a while back ago. It worked like a charm for me!

Thanks for taking the time to read this~

10/09/2013 - Blog

Today in class we did the usual, IC3 We we're given this task where we had to create a template for this small company and provide some programs that would be useful to him in Excel. After that we went right back to our computers to have some "fun" as Greg would say haha. after getting WinXP to install on my computer from a USB, we had to install the right dirvers which i managed to do from trial and error. After that we took some A+ notes which I will need to study more for tomorrow test.

If anyone is having problems with finding the right drivers for their compaq, I recommend this website! Here I got both my Video drivers and LAN drivers from and they worked perfectly.





Thanks for taking the time to read~

10/08/2013 Blog

Today we started off with the usual IC3 lessons which was about the Control Panel. Some of the tasks we had to do was personalizing our desktop/screensaver which was pretty much refreshing our memories and getting us used to the steps. We we're given two tasks where we had to make an awesome theme, and a very ugly theme (had fun with this one), here are the screencaps.

Ugliest Theme

Best Theme

After we finished with the IC3 tasks, we resumed to getting WinXP onto our USBs and applying them onto dekstops. I noticed a lot of people did not see the email Greg gave us, so I thought I'd share it with you in hopes it will help you http://goo.gl/WkyNOC

Thank you for reading~

10/07/2013

So today we worked more on IC3 doing some of the tasks which i found kinda fun. One task we had to do was create a shopping list for this family and we had a 5000$ budget to do so. The other task was to find some sort of computing device for someone who was going to be away often and needed to be able to use skype and take notes when needed.

After we did those tasks we started working on what we've been doing for a couple days now which I spent trying to get UBCD onto a USB and get it to run on my computer "Chronos" and I finally did it thanks to this website! http://www.linuxliveusb.com/ If anyone els is having problems with getting ubcd onto a USB and running it on your compact, i recommend this!

Thanks for reading~

Computing Device

Shopping List

24/09/2013

 

 Today in class we leant about OpCodes, and the main topic today was Power supplies. I had no idea how much went into a power supply, also found out that you do NOT want to open them up because you could cause a lot of harm to youself lol, We also had some tasks we did which are the pictures below, i didn't get them all complete but i do intend on improving them.

Flashing a Dell System 755 Blog Sept 16th

Today we learned a good amount about Cmos and Bios and flashing.. We even got some hands on experience with doing so, our group was handed a Dell System 755 and we had to fugure out how to flash it, down below are the steps we did complete it

The first thing we did to flash the ROM was the following…

Step 1 -Run the bios to get the model name

 Step 2 – Exit out and goto the website to get the right download for your model ( in this case it was Dell System 755)

Step 3 – goto the right download and run it, and click continue to perform the action.

this process took us around 5-7 minutes

Sept 13th Blog

This will be blog for September 13th,

Over the past week we have been learning a great deal about IT, I now know how to use Microsoft office more effciently and learned a good deal with PowerPoint. Another thing that I'm really interested in learning that we started the other day is Hard Drives. I'm eager to learn more about them and i'm really looking forward for the next few lessons, We even got some hands on experience and it was a lot of fun. I still need to find more information about all of this but so far its going okay

September 12th

Razer