A Little Bit About Me

I figured I could post something to get back in the swing of things and to let anyone who reads this know a little bit about me and my experience with things I am blogging about.

I will not claim to be an expert in anything, but I have been working with computers and Information Technology for a while now.

I began tinkering with computers as a teen and took programming classes in Pascal and Visual Basic during my junior and senior years. 

Photo Courtesy of: CampusExplorer.com

 

From high school, I went on to South Hills School of Business & Technology and earned an Associate's Degree in Computer Information Systems, following their networking tract.  While I had my own laptop during this time, I still built myself a home desktop computer while I was enrolled at the school.

Photo Courtesy of: Tv.Comxa.com



My first job working with technology was working in the Call Center and then Internet Support group for AccuWeather, Inc.  The focus was mostly on troubleshooting issues with the company's free and subscription based websites, as well as the ForecastFox FireFox add-on and other Desktop Weather products.

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hoto Courtesy of: WHEC.com

 

From AccuWeather, I moved to Penn State University, specifically Telecommunications & Network Services in Information Technology Services.  I was in the Network Operations Center for a little over two years, where I fielded calls from the Penn State University main and branch campuses for troubleshooting of data, voice, and video systems.  Through this position, I gained a lot of knowledge with troubleshooting and configuring Cisco, HP, and 3Com switches, using network monitoring tools and Cisco VoIP phones.

From the NOC, I moved to another group within TNS, called Network Planning & Integration, where I currently still hold a position.  My duties in this position consist of speaking with customers after they contact NP&I regarding a service that TNS offers and determining the best equipment and configurations for them to achieve the result they are looking for.  TNS generally offers LAN services on Cisco, HP, and Brocade (Foundry) equipment on a variety of switch port configurations and SFP types.  To further assist organizations with keeping costs down and to look toward the convergence of all network connected services, TNS has recently begun offering VLAN setup as part of their service catalog.

Another item that I am involved with at TNS is fulfilling requests for IPv4 and IPv6 address space.  A service offering that I am so involved with that I became part of a team that is evaluating a new system for tracking and assigning the university IP space.  I may be able to post more information about this once a purchase has been made.  At this time, I am bound by a non-disclosure agreement.

 

Photo Courtesy of: CheckPoint.com

I have recently embarked on becoming more knowledgeable about are CheckPoint Firewalls, which are used throughout Penn State University and recently attended a course taught by Barry Stiefel, who is the person that started the CheckPoint User's Group (http://www.cpug.org).

Also, I am looking into learning C/C++ Programming, which through the university I have access to a free e-learning course on. From here, I may explore other programming languages, such as, Perl, Python, or C#.

So, in a nutshell, at 30 years old, I have spent nearly half my life tinkering with and learning about computers and look to continue to do so throughout my life.  I would like to put together a gaming-class desktop computer for home use, but for now, I will stick to my company provided Dell E6400 (up for renewal next spring) and our Dell Inspiron 1750 at home.  I may put up a parts list of the components that I would like to include in a build.

CyberPowerPC

While putting together different scenarios for a potential gaming rig, either with all new stuff or a rebuild of my old Gateway PC, I came across several "pre-built" systems by CyberPowerPC.

They all seemed reasonably priced, but I started out under the "I want to build it" mentality.

After finally visiting the CyberPowerPC Website I am starting to second guess that...

They are offering you numerous choice on almost every component that would go into the computer, including (but not limited to) case, motherboard, CPU & cooler, RAM, GPU (up to 3 in one system), SSD and/or HDD, PSU, ODD, sound card, monitor, keyboard, mouse, etc..

Then you also have a choice of software including the choice between Windows 7 or Windows 8 and warranty.

I priced out a system that was very similar to what I thought would be the cost of the parts to do my complete system build (not rebuilding old computer) and thought, hey it's about the same price.  Then it dawned on me that my price was sans ODD, OS, keyboard and mouse (though I have the keyboard and mouse covered).

If you are looking for a gaming rig or even just to put together a nicely powerful system for general use, check them out.  I will note that I have absolutely no ties to them at all and have no advertisements that I gain from for them.