Post by GeorgeHi William,
after our last communication I went ahead and took the plunge with Free
Geek. Due to a very heavy work schedule I am only able to volunteer
on Saturday afternoons and that really slowed my initial progress. I
was only able to get in about once a month and that seemed like it was
just too long between sessions for this poor old geezer to retain
anything. I took about four months to clear the initial hump and that
really opened up the schedule for me. It only took a few weeks to clear
the next phase and, as of yesterday, I am now ready to start actually
building a computer.
The resources here are terrific. In the initial phase, System
Evaluation, I took apart around a dozen machines separating the trash
from the treasures. If I had relied on training myself at home I would
never have had the opportunity to tear down that many (any?) systems.
Every box had something unique to teach me. This step was completely
flow chart driven and there seemed to be no end to the flow charts. To
prove that I had mastered this step I had to train a newbie to navigate
the flow charts. That went much better than I had anticipated and was a
real morale booster.
The phase that I completed yesterday included Quality Checking six
machines that had been built by other volunteers. (Special
circumstances gave me a chance to pick up a weekday shift.) Even with
just the Saturday afternoon schedule I've been able to get in often
enough to really retain what I learn from one session to the next.
Now, I have to build five computers for Free Geek and then number six
will be for myself. After that I will decide how much further I wish to
go with this. So far it has been terrific fun!
Apologies for not replying sooner. I'm becoming a bit of a slacker on Usenet
myself:-(
Have fond memories of my "Install and maintenance" class almost eight years
ago. After we completed our assigned tasks with the schools old junk, we
started brining our own old junk boxes in. I had a recently been given a couple
of old servers. Managed to get both working, though not at the same time due to
'borrowing parts. Put some flavor of Linux on one, and IIRC Windows 2000 server
on the other. Have never even booted either since that class... Should have
sold them while they were still worth something. (Five grandish new, in theory
still worth a few hundred bucks or so in 2003, and totally worthless today)
One of the other students brought in an even then ancient 486 in a full tower
case he had found beside the dumpster at his apartments. When he opened it up
is was apparent it had been in a flood since there was water damage and a nice
coating of dried *mud* in the bottom couple of inches. Naturally it was
immediately nicknamed the mud monster. Booted after a bit of work but every one
lost interest in it quickly since it was so slow.
Post by GeorgeGeorge
P.S. This may be a sign of the times. On 1/18 I lost my Usenet. I
phoned my local ISP to determine if the problem was on my end or if they
had curtailed service. The secretary that I spoke to had no idea what I
was even talking about but transferred me to one of their computer
techs. He had no clue either but assured me that his boss would be in
later and would call me. The call never came.
Next, I emailed customer service. That email was never answered.
Finally, on 3/2, more than a month after losing Usenet I stopped in at
the local phone/ISP office. The secretary that I spoke to paged the
computer service supervisor---finally I got to speak to somebody who had
heard of Usenet. He told me that he was not aware of any problems but
he would check into it and call me with any news.
When I got home from work there was a message on my phone telling me
that service had accidentally been cut off but everything should now be
back to normal. It is.
I don't know if I was the only one affected by this problem or even if I
was the only one to complain. Anyway, I (and maybe every customer) went
without service for more than a month due to an undetected mistake.
Maybe this is why Usenet is dying.
Not only were some ISP's dropping Usenet like flies a few years ago, but almost
one new has been coming to (text) Usenet in recent years. Not to mention all
the folks who got fed up with spamers and those 'other' lovable nuts who I
shall not mention. Even with all of this there are still a *few* thriving
groups left. Some of the craft groups are still hanging in and the newsgroup
for the TV show Lost was absolutely kicking up until the final episode aired.
Sad because Usenet has features that no other style of forum will ever have.
--
William