CompTIA A+ Hardware/Software – 11/10/2009

Today’s class covered chapters 10 and 11.

For us, that meant a slight break from the normal intensity that is NSA 150/151, and a look at the larger picture of safety and customer service.

Computers are electronic objects.  As such, they have the capacity to hurt us.  Just like any electronic object.  Are the chances good that they’ll hurt us?  No, but anything we can do to improve our odds of not being hurt or killed is a good idea in my book!

So, how not to get hurt?  Well, first of all, I’d suggest leaving the guts of the power supply and any CRT monitors you may still have alone!  Printers?  Well, be careful.   The main thing to remember with printers is not to get yourself destroyed, but to keep the area around you clean.  So doing things like not turning hte printer upside down to shake something out is a good idea.

Also, dealing with safety, cords can be a monumental issue.  So any cables that are on the floor need to be packed under a floor cable guard, and it’s generally a good idea to bind up any cables coming off the back of a desk up out of the way.  I realize that I’m a hypocrite on both of these counts, but note that I said it’s a good idea, not that I necessarily follow that good idea.  Heh.

My wife will appreciate taking care to keep the environment safe as well.  As tempting as it is, please do not put old computers and monitors in the trash, as these electrical components have lead in them that can then leak into our water supply.

We also talked about protecting the computer itself.  It’s a known fact that electrostatic discharge can fry the snot out of computers, and to keep ESD at a minimum is absolutely required.  We can do this by way of anti-static mats, wristbands and just grounding yourself against metal inside the computer case (my favorite grounding spot?  The power supply.).

The next chapter covered communication skills.  It’s no secret that most computer people are NOT people people too.  And most normal people are not computer people.  This combination can equal disaster, and it’s important as professionals to remember that not everyone knows the facts that you do about computers.  In summary, pick out something you know very little about and think you’d feel if someone berated you for not knowing about it.  There ya go.

Homework:

• Chapter 10 Review Questions
• Chapter 11 Review Questions

CompTIA A+ Hardware/Software – 11/3/2009

Today we took a look at basic networking topics.  Since almost all computing we do today has something to do with networking at some level, networking is actually a very important part of PC repair.  We discussed what a LAN, MAN and WAN are and what the similarities are between them.  We also looked at peer-to-peer distribution models and compared them to a client/server distribution model and discussed the pros and cons of each.  Next, I introduced the concept of topologies, there are four physical topologies (bus, star, ring and mesh) and two logical ones (star bus, star ring).

Next, I introduced the concept of the OSI model.  We didn’t dive too horribly deep into this, since we will cover this in depth next quarter in Network+ (just ask JD!), but for now, just be able to reproduce it.  We had a brief introduction into IP addressing and finally ended up the chapter talking about common network connectors.

The next chapter took networking concepts and went just a little further with them, exploring the security angle of things.  Our technology is so exposed to the rest of the world today, and its important to be able to know about the security technologies in place that are designed to protect us.

Homework:

• Chapter Eight Review Questions
• Chapter Nine Review Questions

CompTIA A+ Hardware/Software – 10/27/2009

All we did today was the midterm!  Hope you enjoyed it!  (HA!)

Homework:

• The least I could do after a test and a joke like that is give you the week off, so I am!

CompTIA A+ Hardware/Software – 10/20/2009

Today we finished up talking about operating systems (for now!) by talking about the way they boot up and then the ways the screw up.  We spoke about the main files that Windows NT requires in order to boot up and revisited the idea we briefly explored last week with killing James’ NTLDR file. 

We then switched gears and talked about different printing technologies.  We talked about dot matrix, thermal and laser printers, how they are all different and the pros and cons of each.

Remember, next week I will be out.  The only thing on the agenda will be the midterm exam (yeah, it’s that time already), and then you’ll have the rest of the day to do whatever you want!  When we come back the week after that, be ready to jump back in and hit it hard.

Homework:

• Chapter 6 Review Questions
• Chapter 7 Review Questions
• Study for your midterm!  Chapters 1-7

CompTIA A+ Hardware/Software – 10/13/2009

Today was career day!  We started off by having Clay Plymale, a support technician from ISTT, come in and tell us a little about his job.  Around lunch time, we had Scott Duvall, an IT administrator from Holland CPAs came by and told us about his job.  We all nodded in extreme interest.

We covered chapter four and five today — chapter four introducing the concept of operating systems, and representing an area I am fond of, in my own geeky way.

We looked at some OS constants, such as version number, source (being open or closed), the shell, the idea of a GUI.  We then covered Microsoft Windows, and I gave an interesting-only-to-me history lesson on Windows and how far its come since version 1.0 back in the 80s, during which time we actually installed an older version of Windows — Windows XP.  Once XP was installed, we examined the command prompt, and took a look at the registry, and played around with boot files.

Homework:

• Chapter Four: Review Questions
• Chapter Five: Review Questions

CompTIA A+ Hardware/Software – 10/6/2009

Hi, and welcome to a normal day of class!

Today we discussed the day to day usage and upgrading of personal computers, which if you are interested in PC repair, this was right up your alley.  We looked at a number of different things including hard drives and other storage devices, monitors, keyboards/mice.  We had a pretty good discussion about how different hardware solutions work for different people, and how things that might have worked as recently as a couple of years ago might not be “acceptable” to your clients.

We then talked about a troubleshooting process.  What you’ll find as you take various computer classes is that many of them have troubleshooting steps that have differing numbers of steps.  It’s important to remember with these that you want the general idea of the troubleshooting process and to not get mired down in the number of steps!  For example, you always want to define the problem, even if the troubleshooting process you’re looking at spells it out or clearly defines it.  You always want to document as you go along, even if the process list puts documentation at the bottom of the list.  You get the point.

Next, we talked about laptops and about their similarities and differences between traditional desktop PCs.  We all got in a circle and helped me get through my irrational fear and reluctance to working on laptops because of the scarily tiny screws that hold them together.  Someone brought a guitar, and we all sang hippy songs into the night.

Homework:

• Chapter Two Review Questions
• Chapter Three Review Questions

CompTIA A+ – 9/29/2009

Welcome to the NSA program!

After some introductions, we dove straight into a practice exam!  I’m sure that’s what all of you were expecting on the first day of school, right?  Remember, this test is not for a grade, but it’s a way to measure where you stand right now and how much of this stuff you already know.  If I were to give this test around Christmas, I suspect all of you would do quite well on it!

After that, we dove straight into computers.  Literally.  We actually tore them open and disassembled them.  It’s always a lot of fun for me, as an instructor, to watch a bunch of students have a computer in dozens of parts spread out all over the place.  Next we did some fast-and-furious fact flying about the different parts of the computer, starting with the motherboard, and going through processors, memory, peripherals, storage, power, cooling, and a bunch of other stuff too.

Homework:

• Chapter One Review Questions