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Post by puffy on Jun 30, 2018 14:06:00 GMT -5
In 1984 I was sent to school to learn how to use computers 3 different kinds,A Zerox copy machine almost as wide as the small room it was in.And 5 different kinds of print machines.You're right no way I learned all of that in the 6 weeks I had..Lucky for me though I had some Tech Support guys and some friends to help me along the way and a year to practice before we started building cars in this big new building that I had been transferred to..It was full of robots and computers,and print machines In the 10 years I worked there I learned enough to barely get by and I made it..All of that is obsolete now and I'm an old man struggling with a smarter than me phone and this one eyed monster called a PC...Today I noticed that I have changed my email since I joined this Forum so I decided to update.They sent me a code by email to put in to activate my account.I tried several times but It kept saying it was incorrect.I called my smarter than me wife.A couple clicks of the mouse and it was done..As I said it all started in 1984 and I'm still struggling with these high tech gadgets...I don't expect it will ever stop.
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Post by Dramatwist on Jun 30, 2018 14:09:42 GMT -5
...just keep trying, Larry... it'll get easier...
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Post by Deleted on Jun 30, 2018 14:14:16 GMT -5
Takes both time and patience. You might have been using caps or spaces when you shouldn’t have, probably something simple. Glad your wife was able to get you into your new account. You get FOUR chances to log into an Apple device, on the FIFTH mistake you’ll be prompted to go to your local Apple store. If you don’t do it often Apple is now helping with login issues over the phone, guess they’re tired of being inundated at the Geek bar in the Apple store.
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Post by Legend Lover on Jun 30, 2018 17:30:11 GMT -5
I used to be the computer geek that people went to when things went wrong. Now I'm having to ask those younger than me. Every time I do that a little piece of me dies.
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Post by trailboss on Jun 30, 2018 17:34:53 GMT -5
I have a buddy that is an IT guy and a wizard on technology.
He has saved my bacon more than once...he comes over for periodic tweaks...I think the next thing is a solid state HD replacement.
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Post by Matthew on Jun 30, 2018 18:25:26 GMT -5
As I get older,my patience gets thinner and thinner. If I get too stressed,I have a computer repair tool in the shed.A ten pound sledge. Fixes my stress right quick.  |
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Post by Deleted on Jun 30, 2018 18:33:16 GMT -5
As I get older,my patience gets thinner and thinner. If I get too stressed,I have a computer repair tool in the shed.A ten pound sledge. Fixes my stress right quick. |
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Post by Deleted on Jun 30, 2018 19:03:39 GMT -5
From the work years I can make just about anything happen with an Excel spreadsheet, Power Point and maintain my military bearing speaking to 200 people. Job security, probably the only reason I wasn't fired about five times over the years.
On the hardware side, the old man was in the Air Force, an electronical engineer by trade and made computers himself for both of us. When he passed, I inherited his computers, one of which is so fast the CPU is water cooled. He really dug flight simulator games and it's pretty jacked up. It's been almost two years and I still haven't gotten anywhere near the bottom of the barrel with that one, probably never will.
I'm typing this on a $235 ASUS Chromebook they give to fifth graders here which is more my speed these days.
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Post by bambooshank on Jun 30, 2018 19:16:35 GMT -5
Playing with a TI 99 I got the PC bug and bought my first one in 89, a newly debuted motherboard the 386sx which was technically a hybrid since it was a 32 bit technology chip input with 16 bit output but with adding a 387 coprocessor it was,the bee’s knees. Got it stripped down so I could learn how to,add components on my own, it came with a 90kb 5 1/4” single sided floppy drive, a 42Mb MML hard drive, 1 Mb of dip memory which I paid $400 for the second 1 Mb and installed all 17 dips in the sockets available. I then added my own video card and a state of the arts Zenith 14” flat screen. It came with DOS 3.1 and I needed to format the hard drive to accept DOS and went ahead and formatted the first DOS disk in the floppy drive. That was the beginnings of what became a passion and ended up becoming my job as an IM/IT Specialist for the US Navy, running 4 Naval Clinics in the northeast, being the database administrator for the CHCS healthcare system program, the ADS program that provided their coding and encounter sheets, the UNIX Systems Administrator and Security Officer, plus I managed the LAN and WAN, hard to believe I’d get to that point that day I formatted that DOS disk, cheers, oh a lot of it was self taught but there were specialty schools for the administration positions which I flew through with flying colors. Regards.
banjo
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Post by Cramptholomew on Jun 30, 2018 20:11:38 GMT -5
I'm in IT, and I have to do everything I can to stay relevant. It feels like a losing battle sometimes. There's just SO MUCH. And a niche for every niche. It's just impossible to stay on top of everything. Plus all the stupid buzz words, which confuse the hell out of everything, and just complicate things totally unnecessarily. JUST USE FRICKIN' ENGLISH! So, I'm in the field, do high level stuff, and I feel like I know nothing. You don't need to feel bad.
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Post by papipeguy on Jun 30, 2018 20:36:57 GMT -5
 , find a 14 year-old. They are not daunted by anything. When I get stuck I hand my phone to my 33 year-old daughter and ask her to straighten things out. |
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Post by Dramatwist on Jun 30, 2018 20:44:04 GMT -5
, find a 14 year-old. They are not daunted by anything. When I get stuck I hand my phone to my 33 year-old daughter and ask her to straighten things out. I have an IT degree, and my children (in their 20s) save my arse all the time. |
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Post by Matthew on Jun 30, 2018 21:09:06 GMT -5
Honestly,like bambooshank, I used to build my own system. I started with a 8086 with a 10 meg HD and a monochrome (green) monitor.But DOS 5 was on it and that was a little bit easier to work/screw with. First thing I added was a 2400 baud modem,then about a week later moved up to a 286 motherboard and a 20 meg HD. Funny thing about the HD,my controller was for the 8086 and to get it to function on the 286 I had to not install it in the cmos. I could read from it but I couldn't erase or format it.Also the case I was using was for the 8086 and the power supply didn't put out enough,so I had a second power supply of to the side with wires running in to power the floppy drives.(two 5.25's)I picked up a 386 mother board and a better case/power supply but it was almost a year before I could get memory for it,another six months before I got a VGA monitor and video card.First IDE hard drive I bought was 140 meg and I didn't know about FDISK so I had some learning to do then.But the friend that sold me that first 8086, handed me a stack of floppies and dared me to format c:.So I did. And went from there.Now I've got two laptops one with XP the other with Win 7,two Android tablets and my desktop with Win 10.And I am more than happy to let my son fix it when I screw up,cause I just wanna beat the Damn Thing.I have a 42 in monitor and have to sit about a foot away from it to read text.Finding the keys can be irritating cause I keep hitting the wrong keys cause I have no depth perception.So all that is to say that these things make good boat anchors.Grab a pipe and a rod and go do someting RELAXING. |
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Post by Deleted on Jun 30, 2018 23:29:59 GMT -5
From the work years I can make just about anything happen with an Excel spreadsheet, Power Point and maintain my military bearing speaking to 200 people. Job security, probably the only reason I wasn't fired about five times over the years. On the hardware side, the old man was in the Air Force, an electronical engineer by trade and made computers himself for both of us. When he passed, I inherited his computers, one of which is so fast the CPU is water cooled. He really dug flight simulator games and it's pretty jacked up. It's been almost two years and I still haven't gotten anywhere near the bottom of the barrel with that one, probably never will. I'm typing this on a $235 ASUS Chromebook they give to fifth graders here which is more my speed these days. I use Excel, too, for about everything. I learned PC's back in 86 when Reflex by Borland was a better spreadsheet and a tenth of the cost of Lotus 123. Word Processors were 400$. Lotus may have been up to 1K at one point depending on how many users. DOS, just to boot your PC up was a hundred. I learned on breaks in between sweeping floors and would go home and work on mine. Water cooled CPU sounds wild. I'm typing on an HP Mini, which is similar to the MAC Minis. I think your newer Chromebook beats the snot out of this one. |
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Post by Deleted on Jul 1, 2018 5:17:06 GMT -5
Chromebook is based on the Linux OS and does what’s called a clean boot, any malicious code is removed before it will post. Keeps the file system clean.
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Post by Deleted on Jul 1, 2018 6:42:22 GMT -5
Chromebook is based on the Linux OS and does what’s called a clean boot, any malicious code is removed before it will post. Keeps the file system clean. I wasn't aware of that. Sounds super cool. The old man was a big believer in Spybot. I run it regularly on the main frames and think it's saved me a couple of times. What's the best thing we can do to run a relatively secure system? |
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Post by exchef on Jul 1, 2018 7:02:42 GMT -5
Chromebook is based on the Linux OS and does what’s called a clean boot, any malicious code is removed before it will post. Keeps the file system clean. I wasn't aware of that. Sounds super cool. The old man was a big believer in Spybot. I run it regularly on the main frames and think it's saved me a couple of times. What's the best thing we can do to run a relatively secure system? Disconnect it from the internet, unplug it from the wall and put it back in the box.
Since I got out of the restaurant industry and into tech, I have done a couple stints working internet security. While there are many things that can be done to make you "safer" while on the internet it's teh same concept of the lock on your front door. Locks are for honest people. More and more bugs are being discovered and exploited day after day and there seems to be no end in sight.
As far as attempting to mitigate exposure and the like if you are going to be in the internet, I have found WebRoot to very good, one of the things I like about it is that there is a website plugin that will verify sites and is pretty accurate. If it doesn't give you a nice green check mark probably a good reason to stay away from the site.
Anyway, my $0.02 on this.
ExChef
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Post by trailboss on Jul 1, 2018 10:34:18 GMT -5
I am sure that it is just a coincidence, but when my son moved out, so did all the security problems.
He would download game cheats, and software to root his cellphones... when he rooted cellphones with the intent of getting rid of “bloatware” built in, he constantly had major issues with phone reliability.
A coworker has a son that had been logging onto pornhub for all the “free” content, he said that is a minefield of disasters for your computer.
So far windows defender does a pretty good job for me, occasionally I run the free malware bytes just to check up. I pretty much go to regular sites or long standing ones. I click on nothing in the email inbox unless I know the sender, even then dirtbags create emails with official looking logos.
For my bank Chase, I manually log into their website and check messages, same with PayPal, EBay etc...
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Post by bambooshank on Jul 1, 2018 12:23:24 GMT -5
Any email that contains an attachment is automatically scanned before it gets opened but scanning alone doesn’t make you totally secure, like trailboss if I don’t know the sender, or am expecting a response from someone that is not in the subject line I dump it. And do NOT ever open any email you get w/o a subject, if it is from someone you know send them an email with email with no subject in the header then ask them if they sent you an email.
banjo
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Post by Legend Lover on Jul 1, 2018 13:52:15 GMT -5
Ahhh Excel. I love my macros. It got to the point when I was moved out of a position in my work to pretty much write macros exclusively.
I created a bespoke database for a pharmaceutical lab with user login, protection, 21cfr part 11 compliant etc.
I was so proud of it... Then I left and it was never rolled out cos nobody knew how to troubleshoot the code. Still, I had fun making it.
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Post by Dramatwist on Jul 1, 2018 13:55:06 GMT -5
Ahhh Excel. I love my macros. It got to the point when I was moved out of a position in my work to pretty much write macros exclusively. I created a bespoke database for a pharmaceutical lab with user login, protection, 21cfr part 11 compliant etc. I was so proud of it... Then I left and it was never rolled out cos nobody knew how to troubleshoot the code. Still, I had fun making it. ...lol, Excel was my thing as well, for the last 10 years of my working life. No one else at Kaiser Permanente could do Pivot Tables, so I ended up doing that full-time... |
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Post by Legend Lover on Jul 1, 2018 13:56:39 GMT -5
Ahhh Excel. I love my macros. It got to the point when I was moved out of a position in my work to pretty much write macros exclusively. I created a bespoke database for a pharmaceutical lab with user login, protection, 21cfr part 11 compliant etc. I was so proud of it... Then I left and it was never rolled out cos nobody knew how to troubleshoot the code. Still, I had fun making it. ...lol, Excel was my thing as well, for the last 10 years of my working life. No one else at Kaiser Permanente could do Pivot Tables, so I ended up doing that full-time... excel is a masterpiece of computer programming. And we don't tap into the half of it |
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Post by Dramatwist on Jul 1, 2018 13:57:45 GMT -5
...lol, Excel was my thing as well, for the last 10 years of my working life. No one else at Kaiser Permanente could do Pivot Tables, so I ended up doing that full-time... excel is a masterpiece of computer programming. And we don't tap into the half of it ...indeed, it's amazing... |
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Post by Deleted on Jul 1, 2018 15:36:25 GMT -5
Amazing how fast things progressed. I was looking at a Targa Graphics board in a store one time. Images were great for the Eighties. I had been into digital capture but was looking for a bridge between PC Monitor and Television. The geek selling the Targa Board said that would never happen. by 2000 I was watching what little hi-def channels they had on my PC monitor. Everyone kept telling me (in later years) that I needed a high def TV. They didn't believe I had one in the Monitor. Since then my TV became my monitor. There's not a lick of difference in the two with HDMI, VGA inputs, etc. So much for 1980s computer geeks
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