How To Become a Computer Technician

So you want to be a Computer Technician, but you don't know how? Well guess what, I am going to tell you how.

First things first, I am blunt and to the point. I hate typing and thinking about grammar, that is why I went into the Technology field.

I have over 10 years experience in web design, computer networking, hardware, software, java programming, Apple & IBM (pc) format computers, telephone work, home theatres etc, etc, etc, & I make a lot of money doing. So basically I know what I am talking about & I am going to give you some advice that took me 10 long, hard years to learn.

How To Become a Computer Technician

1. MOST IMPORTANT: LEARN how to find the right answers. This can be true for ANY field, ANY person works in. You do not need to know everything, and guess what, if you spent the next 10 years reading, going to school & obtaining certifications, you still wouldn't know all there is to know in the field of Technology. But if you can figure out what resources will help you find a solution for you the fastest, then you are on your way.

2. Go to school and/or get certifications. Of course you need to learn about computers, software, hardware etc to become a computer technician. Find something that fits you, something that makes you excited to go. 4 year schools are not for every one, so make sure they are right for you if you choose to go. In my 4 years in college the only thing I learned to do is program at Level II in Java (a blind monkey could program at that level) and drink a lot of beer. 2 year schools are good because the get straight to the point about the actual jobs you will be doing out in the REAL world. (I was offered a teaching position at one of these 2 year schools at the ripe old age of 25, I laughed in their face & said no because of the salary they were offering). Certifications are important regardless if you get a 2 or 4 year degree. They tell other people that have NO CLUE about technology that you, indeed have a clue about technology

Did you follow that?

A couple of certifications that I highly recommend are the A+, Networking + and any Microsoft Support Certification.

3. Be patient, with yourself and the people you work with. You will always be learning if you become a computer technician. The average lifespan for a particular model of technology (ie computers) is about 2 years. Meaning as soon as you buy it, it is OLD. Things change everyday in Technology and you have to keep up with it!

4. Have a Positive Attitude! Remember, when people call you or you are dispatched out to work on someone's computer, TV etc, they usually are frustrated. Most people will try to fix the issue themselves before calling anyone because they are cheap. By the time you or I get there they are ready to cry. A positive and friendly attitude will go an EXTREMELY LONG WAY. You will be their savior and they will tell all their friends about you. This point might be the most difficult, especially in Technology because not very many people understand how it works and because our lives are so dependent on it.

That is it, 4 simple steps.

Can you handle it?

These are the 4 things I have tried to do over the last 10 years. Trust me, I am no genius, not by a long shot. But I figured out how to find the right answer for the problem, combined with an education, some certifications and the right attitude, I have people knocking down my door for my services.

Read this article a couple of times until this info really sinks in. This advice works so use it!

Stop sitting there and get busy!

For more information on How To Become a Computer Technician, check out a couple of this sites I have listed in my bio, those will help.

Good Luck!

OUT

How To Become a Computer Technician
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Motorola SB6141 - The Latest Motorola DOCSIS 3.0 Cable Modem Is Here

First of all before I tell you about the Motorola SB6141, the latest DOCSIS 3.0 cable modem from Motorola in this review, it is important to at least have a high level of understanding of what the DOCSIS 3.0 specification is and what are the advantages it provides to a modem that is built to that specification.

DOCSIS stands for Data Over Cable Service Interface Specification. As you can tell from the version number, the 3.0 specification is the third and the latest version of DOCSIS; the 3.0 specification was actually released way back in August 2006 by a consortium of technology companies led Cablelabs of which Motorola is a member to use channel bonding technologies to provide ultra fast broadband services.

So how does this channel bonding technology helps to improve the data transfer speed? In simple terms, a modem like the SB6141 utilizes the channel bonding technology together with the DOCSIS 3.0 standard to cleverly harness the extra unused bandwidth capacity to provide the boost to users.

Motorola SB6141 - The Latest Motorola DOCSIS 3.0 Cable Modem Is Here

Imagine combining eight already large data pipe of 40 Mbps of data per channel to give you a theoretical total downstream capacity of 320 Mbps? In the theoretical or optimal case, you could utilize data rates of more than 320 Mbps downstream and 160 Mbps for upstream channels.

However do note that like all modems, actual data throughput will generally be less due to physical layer overheads e.g. error correction coding, burst preamble, guard correction etc

Also do note that you get what you pay for. For example if you subscribe to a 20 Mbps package from your ISP, you will not be able to take the full advantage of the SB6141's data capacity due to the capping from your ISP.

Even though users cannot make total use of its theoretical through put, most users of the Motorola SB6141 would feel the speed surge immediately when they switched over to the SB6141.

The Motorola SB6141 supports both IPv4 and IPv6 and is also backward compatible to the original DOCSIS/EuroDOCSIS and includes an internal filter to eliminate potential interference from MoCA signals' inter modulation beats.

The Pros and Cons of the Motorola SB6141

No matter how good a product is, there will always be some weakness. However the SB6141 is an excellent product that has evolved from its solid predecessors the Motorola SB6121 and SB6120, so there are few flaws. In fact these should not be termed "Cons" as it is not the weakness of the Motorola SB6141 but rather the accessibility provided by the ISP Comcast:

Comcast does automatically not support the SB6141 at the point of writing. However some customers have managed to get Comcast to manually provision their SB6121 for them. Once that has been done, s reset signal will be sent to the modem and you have to repower it to get it working. Also to make sure that you buy the appropriate Comcast package to make full use of the Motorola SB6141's capabilities i.e. you pay for the speed

These are some of the Pros of the Motorola SB6141

It now supports AES traffic encryption for enhance security Easy to set up Has a build-in internal filter to reduce potential interference from MoCA signals' inter-modulation beats Cheaper than its predecessors the Motorola SB6121 and Motorola SB6120 Capable of channel bonding up to eight downstream channels and four upstream channels. This offers a potential increase in data rates of over 300 Mbps for received data and over 100 Mbps for sending data Shares the same firmware image as the hugely popular SB6121 and SB6120. This helps to reduce operator qualification time and eliminates configuration management problems for the ISPs

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Overall, if you are looking for speed and if you are willing to pay for the speed from your ISP, then the Motorola SB6141 is the modem to go for. Click here to buy the Motorola SB6141.

Regzooka Review - Should I Use Regzooka?

Are you wondering if you should use Regzooka? Well, a group of experts and I have purchased a variety of different registry cleaners and put them to the test to see which software is the most effective for our consumers. Regzooka was among one of those registry cleaners that we have tested.

On paper, Regzooka is an award winning registry cleaner that is created by BluePenguin Software, a technology company that is known for creating systems utility tools for removing spyware. Keep in mind that "award winning" should not be a deciding factor when choosing which software to use because most programs like this have won similar awards.

Upon doing additional research on their company, I discovered that they have received a very poor rating in the BBB (Better Business Bureau) Business Review. In fact on September 28th 2010, BluePenguin Software had their accreditation revoked by the BBB's Board of Directors.

Regzooka Review - Should I Use Regzooka?

Now that we have reviewed the facts on Regzooka, let me report to you exactly what we discovered after having purchased and tested this program ourselves.

After the results for Regzooka had come in, we were not surprised when we found that this registry cleaner was classified as mediocre among the other programs tested. This software was a fairly decent and had all the necessary functions to do a thorough scan on your computer, but lacks some advanced options and special features such as the System Optimizer or Evidence Eraser that we want in these programs.

The interface was not as user-friendly as we hoped for. Some features were hidden away and might require a few minutes of digging before you could find them. Novice computer users may not be able to navigate this program as well as advanced computer users, however all the basic functions to perform a computer scan were simply laid out.

One thing that set Regzooka apart from the other programs we tested is its 100% guarantee of error removals. If this software did not clean out 100% of your computer errors, you had 60 days to do a complete refund. This was a nice option, however many other programs also offered 100% 60-day money guarantee if you were not satisfied with the program.

Overall, we give Regzooka 6.5/10 because it is a fairly decent piece of software that could potentially remove all the errors and help speed up your computer performance.

However, within the given price range, there are many other registry cleaners that offer much more in terms of special features.

Regzooka Review - Should I Use Regzooka?
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Want The Best Registry Cleaner For Your Computer? Visit: Best Registry Cleaner

Google Chrome Keeps Crashing - How to Fix It

There are many reasons for Google Chrome crashing. One of the reasons could be an old version of Internet Download Manager. To resolve the crash due to this reason, update to IDM v6.03 beta, or disable the 'Advanced browser integration' option within IDM by going to go to Options and then General.

If your Google Chrome is crashing when trying to print on an Asus EeePC with an out-dated version of Asus WebStorage, you can solve this by downloading the latest version of ebStorage.

Another common cause for the crash is the incompatibility of Google Chrome with much software, to solve this, current approach is to try and disable the software or try getting an updated and latest version of it to see if this resolves the issue. Different software which have been identified so far being incompatible to Google Chrome are out-dated versions of iS3 anti-spyware (STOPzilla), NVIDIA Network Access Manager, NVIDIA nTune,NOD32 version 2.7, Hide My IP, Venturi Firewall, out-dated versions of WinMount and PPLive. There have been incompatibility issues causing crashes reported with NVIDIA Desktop Explorer caused by the nvshell.dll library. You can try to resolve this by removing nvshell.dll.

Google Chrome Keeps Crashing - How to Fix It

Another common cause for the crash is the user profile of your browser being corrupted. You can fix this problem by creating a new user profile to replace the corrupt one by following the steps below.

Completely exit from Google Chrome Go to the Start menu > Run. Type in either of the following directories in the text field and press OK. Windows XP: %USERPROFILE%\Local Settings\Application Data\Google\Chrome\User Data Windows 7 or Windows Vista: %USERPROFILE%\AppData\Local\Google\Chrome\User Data Rename the folder called "Default" in the directory window to "Backup default."

Open the Google Chrome again which will create a new "Default" folder automatically, which should resolve the problem.

Google Chrome Keeps Crashing - How to Fix It
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To fix this error and many more errors easy, safe and fast you should get a registry cleaner toolkit. I have made a comparison chart about the best registry cleaners that you should check out.

With my 12-years computer experience as an software developer, I know about the windows platform more than anyone else. It is so complex that you cannot keep you system in a good condition manually.

How to Recover Data From Failed Hard Drives

There are two main methods of recovering data from failed hard drives.

First of all, you can run specialized data recovery software that could retrieve all of your important data files. In the majority of cases, you will be able to recover the data from your failed hard drives without too much trouble using data recovery freeware, or purchase fully supported software if you prefer.

Please note hat data recovery is not always possible if the actual problem is due to aging or faulty hard drive component such as a broken head arm. In those extra-ordinary cases you would have the hardware fixed by an expert technician before being able to access any of the precious data on the hard drive.

How to Recover Data From Failed Hard Drives

As far as data recovery in concerned, there are no limitations to the physical size of your hard drive. Whether you are trying to recover data from a 1 MB pen drive or a 300 GB Ultra-SCSI drive, you should still be able to recover the data.

Additionally, there are no limitations to the different types of operating systems which you may be trying to recover data from, such as Microsoft Windows to Linux systems. This also extends to include different file formats such as FAT32 and NTFS which are very common file formats for Windows systems, or the Mac OS file system used by Apple Macs.

Information can be retrieved from all sectors of the hard drive - even files that you may have deleted in the past which had ended up in recycle bin prior to your hard drive failing would be recoverable.

Secondly, data recovery experts will be able to recover lost data from most damaged hard drives. It's not surprising that most common damage is attributable to drop damage and spill damage, especially in the case of laptops.

At the corporate level, most companies use RAID (redundant array of inexpensive disks) configurations to protect their data and to negate the impact of a single hard disk drive failing. There would be no loss of data if one of the disks in a RAID 5 disk-set failed as you would be able to re-construct the data for the failed member from the remaining disks. However, if the entire RAID volume failed, then that would be a cause for concern.

In the case of a RAID volume failing you would have little alternative but to send your hard drives to a data recovery expert to restore the RAID configuration as well as the data. This would also be the case if your disk partition failed and you were unable to access the data held on that particular partition or disk.

The recovery of your important data and files from failed hard drives is possible using data recovery software. If your hard drives are badly damaged, or the RAID volume-set has failed and the data on the hard disks is inaccessible, requesting professional assistance from data recovery experts would be a better option.

How to Recover Data From Failed Hard Drives
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For practical advice and information on data recovery freeware, software programs, tools and utilities to help you safely recover your data, please visit our website, http://www.datarecoveryfreeware.net

One Method of Data Recovery from a Dead Hard Drive

Here is the situation. A laptop comes to us with a dead hard drive. Unfortunately, the user needs some files off the dead drive. After much research on the internet and a couple of data recovery quotes we decide to try and recover the information ourselves.

Luckily for us the drive won't spin up at all. I say luckily because the usual problem is that the circuit board on the bottom of the drive went bad. That doesn't mean that something else isn't the problem, but replacing the circuit board is the simplest thing to try.

The first thing needed is another hard drive. That may sound easy but it isn't. You need an identical hard drive, and by identical I mean the same model number, part number, firmware, everything. In our case we had a Hitachi Travelstar hard drive that had three numbers to match. The important numbers were the model number, part number, and MLC number. I believe the MLC number has something to do with the firmware revision but don't quote me on that. After speaking with Hitachi I was referred to a company called CueTech. They specialize in finding "hard to find" or obsolete computer parts. The wanted to charge between 0 and 0 for the drive, which I thought was reasonable for the work required to find one. Instead of using them I decided to search on my own and after two days, still had not found another drive for sale that met my needs. We then started looking in house for similar laptops and found one that had an identical drive. Now we were in business.

One Method of Data Recovery from a Dead Hard Drive

Now that we had our drive, we needed to protect ourselves because the user wanted their machine back in working order. So before we started any kind of surgery we made a ghost image of their hard drive. After waiting the 20 minutes or so for the backup to finish we began the surgery. First we removed the hard drive from the working system and laid it on a static pad with the circuit board up. We then used a T-5 Torx drive to remove the screws securing the circuit board to the hard drive. Your drive may need a different size or style of screwdriver. We then repeated the process on the bad drive. We put the circuit board from the good drive onto the dead hard drive and placed it back in the laptop. It booted! As soon as we new it worked we then setup the system to make a quick drive image. After waiting another 20 minutes we had a drive image of the bad hard drive and our data was recovered.

To finish the process we had to put the circuit board back on the original good hard drive and verify that it was working correctly. Once that was completed and the laptop returned to its owner, we installed a brand new hard drive in the system that had the original issue. The last step was to restore the drive image to the new hard drive, verify that it worked, and give the laptop back to the owner.

One Method of Data Recovery from a Dead Hard Drive
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Gary Higbee

[http://www.greatnorthcomputing.com] - A community for SysAdmins and Programmers.