With IronSerif givin' PR a good shot of humor with the "2AM Funny", I thought it'd be a good time to add a couple of true "Dojo" training sessions in between my attempts at humor.

It's been awhile, and I want to remind every the Dojo is still a place of learning! Rock On!

PC REPAIR VERSUS PC BUILDING:

When I applied at my last job in PC Repair... my soon-to-be boss says, "Dave, what is your experience?"
I went back through my background, and he stopped me by laughing.

I immediately took the defensive, wonderin' what the hell I'd said that was so humorous... I'm pretty laid back, but when it comes to a job interview, usually laughter is a bad thing when you're trying to be serious.

Then he says something to the effect of, "The other guys applying for this job mentioned they could build a rig, but never mentioned ever repairing one except for maybe friends."

Now then, as a former network admin, working with VERY non-technically proficient people... troubleshooting has been most of my career. Still... I had limited experience with the average user (I was a corporate repair type... business machines, that kind of thing)... I learned this lesson the hard way.

This kind of got me thinking... You can build a 1,000 rigs... it doesn't mean you know crap about what to do when someone downloads every friggin' thing off the internet and wants to know why their computer is slow... or that you can identify a virus, or even third-party software activity. It just means you know enough about computers to slap the peices into place, and load drivers. A new computer is like a new car. In most cases, it shouldn't have problems until later. Yes, sometimes driver loads can be a pain, but most of the time, in a new system, it goes fairly smooth. It's not as hard as when you've upgraded the same rig four times and it's decided to blow it's mind.

Repair isn't based solely off hardware issues either. A lot of times things that are earmarks of bad memory, or possibly inadequate resources can be solved with a reload of the operating system. If someone has a virus, those depleted resources could be the virus replicating itself... or busy demolishing your belov'ed information.

WHAT TO STUDY?

Unlike programming, repair is based more of experience than referencing the manual.

I'm not saying "don't hit the books", because a LOT of repair information that is BETTER than the way you know how to do things might be available.

A prime example was one day I was about to reload a system when my former boss told me it was an error in the autoexec... which could be fixed by deleting two lines of code.

My solution: Would work.
His Solution: Would work better.

Also, I knew a bit more about Dell commands as I ran 50 stations of Dell in my network days. Commands like "ZZTOP" (run from the DOS prompt, if your system will support it, it will automatically put the computer back in factory condition... use with caution or you're gonna be one sad little pimp when all your files are gone) and the fact that Dell puts the product key in the program files made my way with Dell's a little better.

His Solution... Run FDISK, reload O/S. My Solution: Run ZZTOP, and let the machine put itself back to the way they wanted it.

My Solution: Would Work better
His Solution: Would Work.

Read as much as you can.. but none of that knowledge is really going to sink in unless you try it. If you're afraid to try it on your own rig... are you gonna choke when it comes time to run it for a client? Practice whenever and where-ever you can!

In closing, building is awesome... it's rewarding as hell, and it's fun to boot... but it still isn't true "repair".

Please note: I've been kickin' this one around for a little while. I'll have a more "hard-core" dojo post up here hopefully soon!

The second part is so true... I am a programming focus in comp sci, and its really all books, but until you use it, you dont know it

Experience, Grasshopper; that is the true measure of a geek.

I've got the biggest job interview of my life coming up on Tuesday. I have to convince them that I am the best PC troubleshooting and repair god that ever walked the earth. Shouldn't be too hard.

ZZTop?

Hojo.. It's Dell specific to their newer (last few years) models. Go to DOS and type in "zztop" from a straight C: prompt... it'll start the Dell Recovery software. No disc required...

Thats a friggin cool little ditty to know, does anyone know other things like this?

That only works if the original recovery partition is still intact. Usually it is, people who buy Dell's don't tune, tweak, and modify their computers like we do.

Akita... when ya have a network filled with people who can do enough damage at slow speeds... it's usually wise to keep their destruction rate slow

The scariest user is one with a little bit of knowledge. I had one Colonel, great guy, but he fancied himself as a "power user". He insisted on admin rights and he was my boss, so I had to give them to him. Man, if I only got paid by the hour for the amount of time I spent bringing his computer back to life I would have a brand new Harley in the driveway right now.

LOL i fancy myself a comp repair man, but its not my life, i do it on the side for friends. locally and with my family ive become know as the computer repair man. LOL its nice to a extent sometimes they can be overbearing.

Well I'm only 16 but I've been messing with comps since I was 11, when the neighbors threw out a 286 which I dunno how but I got to work ofcourse it died the next day...(LOL). I kept at my PC hunt begging mommy to get me one then guess what I got!, A commadore 64 oh boy that baby rocked! Untill my bro let it fall and it died (2 days later go figure). Then I got my first real pc 386 loaded !!! with Win 3.1 and all this good stuff it ruled! blahblah I'm rambling sorry....lets just say I have some trial and error under my belt which comes in handy now and then

Jest... ph34|2 my l337 IBM 8086.

My first PC, my old man used it for work, and I could play "Zork" as it was pretty much the only option at the time...

8088: Zork
286: I could play King's Quest
386: Darklands, Street Rod and Spelljammer
486: I begged and I begged... mostly so I could play "Doom"... never got one.
586: AMD K-5 Still have it... but it's too slow to even use as a file server. Was able to play Doom, Duke Nukem 3D, Blood, Shadow Warrior, but it was WAY too slow to play Blood 2...
686: Another "begging" deal. I'm GLAD this wish didn't come true... Cyrix was absolute crap.
Pentium 2: Missed it.
Pentium 3: Family bought a Dell P3 750... Still plays most games!
Pentium 4: Have more fun building and tweaking than with the games... these days... it's ALL GTA3!

Ahhh... I love a good trip down memory lane... I think I'm gonna make a spot for my 586 when I move... I miss my old DOS stuff...

Wow...you said "kings Quest"

I've never "played" the game, but I believe I own it, and a couple other Kings Quests....

How many of them were there anyways? lol

Iron.... I've beat 1-7 (didn't like seven... too cartoon-feeling to be taken even semi-seriously).... I think there was an 8 though.

Wow, that's crazy bro. Were they decent games?

I wonder if they have some sort of special collectors edition for like $10 or somethin lol

I played all 7 as well... KQ 1-4 were good, old school style. 5 was revolutionary... I still remember playing it on 5.25" disks and switchign between screens! 6 was a long time later, and it rocked hard... 7 was like crap, it was a good gameplay game, but it had the feel of a childrens cartoon... 6 was probably the best, maybe 5.... they should remake 5!

wow i feel outdone......first computer was a 300mhz........my rents hated run and gun games, so i couldnt do any of that, so i stuck to command and conquer!!!
i have EVERY single C&C game that came out
c&c, covert ops, red aleart / aftermath and counter-strike, tiberium sun / firestorm, ra2 / uries revenge, i even got C&c renegae (which sucks....) i have yet to get generals thought, but that is on my list, im pretty burnt out on those games though....my dad is addicted to tiberium sun....other than work thats all he does...haha
neways, i asked and asked for half-life pack (with all the games, the name has left me right now) neways i finnaly got it
started playin CS been addicted to it eversince, i always wanted to do UT so i finnaly got the demo of UT2K3 addicted to that too
i was deprived of games....my rents never let me have console systems or anything.....
ive had a 300mhz
then i got a 900 for christmas
thought i needed to upgrade a couple of months later
bout a 1800+ with the ECS k75sa (that is EVERYWHERE) been usin the 1800 ever since and have switched different hardware countless times.....
i still feel like a |\|00|3 to yall
hahaha o well its all good

I liked KQ 1 and 3 the best... I guess I liked the storyline.

I do have the collector's box of the first 7 games... got it at a swap meet for 10 bucks about 4 years ago...

edit: Dammit... it was 8 years ago... I was still in California... Man... time flies!

lets see mine comptueres kinda went like this
1.Commandor 64
2. Tandy 100mhz Pentium
2. Special made 300mhz AMD K6
3. Then i got my first computer which was a 333mhz Cyrix II
4. Then dad got a Compaq 933mzh P3
5. (Then we got robbed) and i got my current pc AMD XP 1700+
6. Dad finally replaced his with a P4 2.4ghz

So ive been around the block with computers and have seen the then "flaghship" proc when first released. So its all good, seen both amd and pentium short falls, and have expericed many amd shortfalls with the K6 2 proc.