Penguin Follower's Journal: my first web journal ;)

I see this journal as blogging (and I've never felt compelled to keep a weblog before). And, I'm not really sure why I'm going to start... But, it's here for the using, and I'm going to try to do just that (at least every now and then). Maybe I'll write when I'm bored in class and usually reading Slashdot anyways :)

I suppose (being my first entry) I could talk about myself; I don't think anyone here (/.) knows much about me anyway.

I sit here with 3 of my computers, typing away on my linux box, and posting this journal entry through mozilla, on Red Hat 7.3... So here it goes: A mini-autobiography (hopefully it's not too boring heh :)

I am 24 years old (as of 12/16/02). I'm still in college. I guess I'll write about my life's journey from age 15 to the present...

I have been "captivated" by computers since I got my very first one in the 8th grade (I was 15 yrs old). It was a 80286 (AMD processor if you're interested) and I had owned it for a whole week when I decided that I wanted to know what made it tick (and off went the cover! :) Of course, I wasn't worried about anything... I didn't pay for it! :) My parents had bought it from a neighbor across the street for $50 as a present (or to shut me up - I had been pestering them for a computer for a while at that point).

At age 17 (during my junior year), I was introduced to Linux by a coworker after school one day. Having been a DOS junkie (initially) and a windows user for a good while, Linux was very different (to say the least) and sparked an interest in things-not-microsoft. It seems wierd now that I look back, because everything I did revovled around a "microsoft world", despite other OSes and software out there. (A perfect argument for having alternative OSes available on computers in stores!) For some reason, I just wasn't aware of them.

Not all bad I suppose. I do consider it a good thing to be familiar, at least, with the most widely used desktop OS. Even if I hate it some days (and there are days I do...). I was good enough to land a job as a PC tech in a local mom & pop computer shop. I figured I wouldn't get the job because I hadn't any certifications. Thus, I walked in with low expectations, and walked out employed. :) And I took pride in my job, there are several Win2k Servers humming along nicely in the Dayton/Springfield, OH, area that were built and configured by yours truly. I was laid off from that job when the economy bombed. Being a very small shop, it took the hit real hard as no one has buying any new PCs, and even repair work was way down. During the time that I did work there though, I had begun to hone my linux skills, because when my coworker quit, I was the only person in the shop (besides the guy who just quit) that knew anything about Linux (at least to the point of taking over a simple webserver and a mail server) So, I became the administrator of a pair of machines, which also double as their own DNS servers due to the owner of the shop not wanting to spend money on another machine to do the work. And he didn't want to pay the ISP everytime he wanted to make an additional DNS entry (even though I told him that wouldn't need to happen often).

So what was going on on the college end of things during that work period? Well, I was attending WSU (Wright State University) as a comp sci major. Well, to make a long story short - I spent 3 years ( and 1 more fall quarter) and quit. Why? Well, turns out calculus 2 was my break point, as was recursion in C++. They say that you have to take calculus because it teaches logic patterns (I think that's what the advisor said) and of course programming is all about logic. Put 2 and 2 together... ok I have a problem with logic?? Well, whatever the case, it had appeared to me I hit a brick wall in comp sci and gave it up.

But not computers overall! A little backtracking here... my last 2 years of high school - I had opted for a vocation. I took "Electronics Technology." You know, AC/DC circuits, semiconductors, oscillators, etc.. Well, my electronics intructor, who I keep in touch with, now teaches "Information Technology". The school killed off electronics! EEK! That rather saddened me, because I had enjoyed that class...:( oh well. Back to the point of this... He showed me that Clark State (community college) had started a collection of IT degrees since I had graduated (but weren't in existence at time of graduation.) So, I'm now back in school, and majoring in Network Administration (which is in the college of business LOL) So I'll be walking, (hopefully) during the summer of 2004, with my business associates degree in network administration

Well, I think that sums things up decently. Here are some quick facts:

• I play the electric guitar
• I like muscle cars, and I'm working on aquiring one. I have been helping a friend build his for a while now. I want one of my own now :) My favorite car is a 1970 Chevelle SS. My first motor is going to be a long-rod 355 (.030" overbore w/ 6" rods)(already have most of the parts for the motor...:)
• I have 4 computers at this time - A Beige G3/233MHZ/256MB running OSX, a Pentium IV (williamette) 1.7 GHz/512MB Rambus(i850)(win2000), a Duron 1200mhz/1.0GB ram (win2000), and the machine I'm typing on, a Celeron 700MHZ/256MB ram, (redhat 7.3) and is equipped with 2 seagate cheetah 10,000 rpm drives (18GB+9GB). I don't have anything really fancy beyond that.
• Operating systems I've had the chance to play with (besides windows): Several linux distros, FreeBSD 4.7 (which initially turned me off, maybe I'll try delving into it again someday), BeOS 4.5 & 5.0 (I wish it were still around), OS/2 Warp 4 (a once upon a time promising OS)
• Well, I've only spent 1 hour learning any HTML, but if you wanna see my newbie homepage, Click Here. It does pass the W3C HTML 4.01 Transitional validator :)
• Maybe interesting to those of you reading this and yet to hit college yet. Here are the certification test that one should be able to pass upon completion of the associates degree I'm going after: A+, i-Net+, Server+, Network+, Cisco (forgot the acronym they use!), and Novell (forgot the acronym for that too, cna maybe?) All of this is in the Network Administration degree at Clark State Community College in Springfield, OH.
• Number of jobs I've had since age 15: Five.
• Job titles I've held: First two jobs where food service, so Food Preparer? would fit. Then I was "PC Tech" or "Bench Tech", but considering I also did on site work (including running ethernet cabling..) "network tech" would fit too. After that job, "Manager" at a small local pizzeria (I hated that job...), and my current title "sales clerk". Hopefully I get back into the computer world soon. :)

Well! I've been up all night, and I've typed enough I do believe... If I actually get any replies to this journal I'll be surprised.

Later!

~Steve~

Surprize!

[rickymoz]

Heh, I didn't have the time to read everything. But I've got a bookmark that shows me all journal entries with the word Mozilla inside ;-) that's why yours popped up in my list.

Not a lot to tell except that I just wanted to make you a surprize :-P

Have a nice day, and hope your teacher is not like me (yep, teacher too): students cannot surf because I can turn off the internet connection from my own computer. Of course, it's always turned off, except during the breaks.

Wow! A reply!

[Penguin Follower]

Well, looks like I got a reply earlier than I ever expected. The teacher could very well shut it off. I am sure Novell has that ability :) (Even though I'm no Novell expert.) We have Windows XP boxes connected on a Novell network, ick! I wish linux got more attention in schools. I'm way above the current classes I'm in... if I weren't broke from a couple expensive repairs (on my truck), I would have taken the A+ and i-Net+ already, and just presented it to my instructor for an A. He gives an A for the course if you have completed the test recently. :)