iAdam's Hunt for Red Oct... er, IT Certification

[ross549]

(rant on)

 

Yes, a fast Ethernet port CAN be a WAN connection!

 

(rant off)

 

Adam

[rolanaj]

Congratulations Adam!!

[ross549]

 

Got them! Only 35 bucks!

[ross549]

 

And this has taken over my life. :'(

[V.T. Eric Layton]

Oh, man! You're having fun now!

 

By the way, Odom, the fellow who wrote those official study texts, is a very knowledgeable fellow when it comes to Cisco products. Unfortunately, you'll find that he is probably the most droll technical writer you will ever run across. I found his books to be better than two Sominex®, one Quaalude, and a shot of Jack Daniels, as far as sleeping aids go.

 

Be sure to be WIDE awake before attempting to study Odom. Do not read in bed, on a comfortable chair, or even sitting down.

[Guest LilBambi]

So true Temmu!

 

Same could be said of old school UNIX/Linux man files.

 

By the time you understand them, you don't need them except maybe for syntax.

[ross549]

I skimmed the introduction of the study guide, and I may not have to read the whole thing, especially if I know the area really well. There are quizzes where you test your knowledge at the beginning of the chapter. If you are good, a light review would be in order, and then you have time to focus on the stuff you struggle with more.

 

 

Adam

[Guest LilBambi]

It's good to know the book learning. But also to be flexible. Some things that they don't teach are also possible. Some people even say they are not possible and Jim proved them wrong.

 

Not for the tests, but for real life.

[mac]

Books/Tests ≠ "real life"

[ross549]

Oh, I know. My troubleshootin' skills are up to the task, but If you throw me an ipv6 address and mask, and ask me to subnet it.... I'd have to sit down and spend some quality time working it out.

[V.T. Eric Layton]

Troubleshooting skills are worthless without the knowledge of the systems you're troubleshooting. You'll need to know what's in those text books for the exams AND for real life should you ever actually work with a Cisco network in the future.

[V.T. Eric Layton]

Now, to be honest here, I will agree with Mac to a point. When it comes to theory, it's great for a full understanding of how something works and what it's supposed to do. However, as far as practical repairs go, that theory isn't as important as experience is. I don't remember ever whipping out my calculator to figure a final output transistor's beta to determine if it needed replacing. I had no RF output, yet I had pre-amp stage integrity. I checked the final for physical damage and relative DC resistance between BCE and ground. Ooops! Dead short between B and E. Transistor is toast. Who gives a rat's patootie what the beta value was when it was working. I already know the transistor info from the schematic or the device itself. SHOTGUN! Meaning R/R the faulty part, test, wrap up, ship. That's the prime directive as a bench tech... FIX STUFF!

 

OK, then...

 

You'll still need that theory that you learned in those textbooks to understand the systems; expected operation, expected output, etc. You cannot fix anything unless you know how it works, what it does, what to expect. Oh, you might get lucky sometimes, I knew a couple techs during my career that learned everything they knew from looking over a master tech's shoulder as he worked, but these guys were invariably stumped if they had to work on a piece of equipment outside of their experience. This is because they had no real understanding of how anything worked. They only knew what Craig did when he had a unit with that problem. These guys were not ever considered good techs by anyone they ever worked with. They just got by

 

In a repair environment, the NUMBER ONE TALENT YOU MUST HAVE is to be a fast and accurate troubleshooter. The only way to achieve this is with barge loads of theory and experience. Remember, in most jobs of this nature, time is $$$. Downtime for your company's equipment or a client's equipment is a very bad and costly thing. The faster you get that equipment working, regardless of what it is... lawn mowers, computers, router networks, or F-14s, the more your boss will LOVE YOU!

 

I sound like I know my shiite, huh? Wish I could get a job.

[ross549]

I don't ascribe to the theory of fast troubleshooting. It may be in part because I am working for the US Government, but in reality I have this philosophy- "Slow is smooth, and smooth is fast."

 

I have to take the time to understand the problem. I have to understand the parts, the interactions they all have. The number one problem I fight in the Navy is interfacing between systems. If I do not understand how they interface, I simply cannot troubleshoot effectively.

 

Repair is one thing, but I need to take a methodical approach to solving the problem, especially when i am dealing with a dozen interconnected systems talking to each other.

 

Adam

[V.T. Eric Layton]

As long as you're working for da gubberment, you'll be fine. When you get into the private sector, if you ever do, slow is means FAILURE! You have to identify, simplify, fix, and verify... then SHIP IT! I've known many of those slow, methodical type techs. They all failed at being technicians and became clerks or managers. No lies here. I'm telling you the absolute 100% truth of it. Remember, NO ONE CARES about you or your methods in the private sector. All they care about is THE BOTTOM LINE! Let me repeat that for you...

 

THE BOTTOM LINE

 

_________________

[ross549]

 

Slow, being a relative term......

 

I don't want to give out the impression that I am lazy. I'm not. I see far too many people flailing at things where they would actually save time by simply slowing down and analyzing the problem. In the long run, it saves an incredible amount of time. But, they flail away at it...... over and over again.

 

That is what I mean by smooth is fast. You make far fewer mistakes.

 

Adam

[ross549]

And we are becoming more and more networked. That means your analytical skills must be up to the challenge. Something many have yet to truly understand.

 

Adam

[Guest LilBambi]

Slow or fast depends on the situation, the job, the complexity of the troubleshooting needed, the experience level of the tech, the parts available for in place troubleshooting, etc.

[V.T. Eric Layton]

I don't want to give out the impression that I am lazy.

 

I know better than to think that.

 

And fast being a relative term for what I'm talking about. I'm not saying that a successful tech is a haphazard fellow who zips through the repair process. What I'm saying is that he's a fellow who has developed and very honed skill set that allows him to zero in on a problem and resolve it quickly and efficiently.

 

Here's a great example,..

 

In my 20+ years of documented electronics service and the 10 years of hobby-craft prior to that, I discovered that the most skilled and efficient fixers always preferred "piece work" - commission pay. Their reasoning, and mine also when I got to that skill level early on in my career, was that income is limited only by the number of hours you cared to work and the amount of equipment available that needed fixing. Hourly wage techs tended to be lazy slobs by comparison.

 

At one company I worked for, I would work Monday through Thursday about 6 hours per day. I consistently earned weekly paychecks netting $500+. This was back in the early 90s when $500/week was some serious clammage. Ah... those were the days. I remember once at this same place, I went on vacation for about a week. I went to spend Thanksgiving with my mom in our cabin in the NC mountains. Well, I got snowed in (not really, just what I told my boss) and had to stay an extra week. Everyone was panicking because my workload was backing up. I was the only tech specializing in that equipment (high end consumer audio) at this facility. All the other techs were TV techs.

 

I finally arrived back at work after the second week. There were about 35 units awaiting repair on the IN shelves. It took me nine hours (lunch included) to empty the IN shelf. My pay for that nine hours work on that Monday afternoon and evening was about $700 before taxes. I really miss those days. Really, I do.

[V.T. Eric Layton]

...the parts available...

 

Indeed! The best places I worked (Sony and Sears) were the facilities that stocked HUGE and varied parts inventories.

[ross549]

Parts would be nice these days.

 

Adam

[V.T. Eric Layton]

Nah... the only people who need parts to facilitate repairs nowadays are little Chinese girls.

[Guest LilBambi]

Sadly electronics are so tiny in new electronics that very few techs do board level diagnostics and repair anymore. It has mostly gone to board replacement that was not cost effective years ago.

[ross549]

Yep, everything is chips. And then I get questions about why I can't repair it.

 

It's sad, but at the same time, it is the march of technology. We want more power, less latency, and higher bandwidth.

 

These things demand VLSI.

 

Adam

[V.T. Eric Layton]

Sadly electronics are so tiny in new electronics that very few techs do board level diagnostics and repair anymore. It has mostly gone to board replacement that was not cost effective years ago.

 

True to a point. However, the exodus of component level repair started long before micro-miniaturization became a feasible technology. It was an exodus inspired by greed; more for less investment = advantages to the BOTTOM LINE.

[V.T. Eric Layton]

Yep, everything is chips. And then I get questions about why I can't repair it.

 

It's sad, but at the same time, it is the march of technology. We want more power, less latency, and higher bandwidth.

 

These things demand VLSI.

 

Adam

 

This is ONLY true for small personal electronics. If you open a TV or a stereo or a commercial band two-way radio or even your desktop computer, you will see lots and lots of discrete components in there. You'll see transformers, capacitors, resistors, coils... some surface mount, some radial/axial lead installations. All of this could still be designed, manufactured, and serviced in this country, but it's not. Why is that?

[V.T. Eric Layton]

Oh, and if I seem angry about all this, it's because I AM, D*MMIT!

 

I spend time, money, effort and years of my life to learn, gain experience, and maintain a career in the electronics service industry. One day I woke up and went to work and found that my entire career had moved to China.

 

Yeah. I'm a bit peeved about it still. It's one of the reasons I'm in my current financial situation (read as bankrupt, living in poverty, destitute).

 

I'm not one to whine and pin all my ill fortune on others or circumstances. I'm a rare person who actually admits that life is nothing more than a cause and effect relationship between your decisions and the results of those decisions. I am where I am due to some poor decision making on my part. However, that being said, how was I to know that my career choices at 17 years old would end up being so wrong?

 

Sorry for the rant.

[ebrke]

I do think something that appears in retrospect to have been a poor decision was not necessarily a poor choice when the decision was taken. Our society is rapidly becoming a place where people are berated for not anticipating absolutely every outcome of every potential setback that could develop in their lives and taking action to prevent all the possible adverse consequences of any of the possibilities. Those who favor this viewpoint are doing nothing more than trying to reassure themselves that these things won't happen to them because, unlike others, they have made the right choices.

Edited April 25, 2014 by ebrke

[V.T. Eric Layton]

*sigh*

 

I should have chosen to be born into the Rockefeller clan.

[ross549]

This is ONLY true for small personal electronics. If you open a TV or a stereo or a commercial band two-way radio or even your desktop computer, you will see lots and lots of discrete components in there. You'll see transformers, capacitors, resistors, coils... some surface mount, some radial/axial lead installations. All of this could still be designed, manufactured, and serviced in this country, but it's not. Why is that?

 

Because our time is better spent elsewhere. Globalization is an interesting phenomenon.

 

My job in the Navy is on a lifeline too. Much of our stuff is moving to data networks. Our workhorse VHF/UHF radio is now a relatively compact box running five vxworks CPUs with SDR cards. There's very little I can do in order to repair the radio set without touching the software at some point. In fact, most of our work on the system was either replacing high power amplifiers or reconfiguring the software. The two times in three years that went outside those were simple fixes, like a failed wiring harness and a power supply that died.

 

The time we spend troubleshooting and repairing that motherboard is simply not worth it any more. The cheap parts that can be found and the relative stability of analog components these days simply means our time is best spent doing more awesome things.

 

This is the main reason I am counting my blessing on this training I am getting. It is truly where the field is moving. the days of soldering components and re-engineering circuits is truly behind us.

 

Adam

[V.T. Eric Layton]

No further comments from me would be appropriate at this time.