New to site, old with PC's

[bits&bytes]

Hello everyone,
Though I am new to the site, I have been working on PC's for almost ten years now. About 3 years ago, I decide to turn my hobby into a career and I am currently attending college at night for my Associates Degree as a Telecommunications Networking Specialist . I also have a part time business repairing PC's and setting up small networks for home and businesses. I have three custom built PC's at my house...My main PC (WinXP Pro) is an AMD Athlon XP 1700+ overclocked to be a 2200+ with 1.2GB of PC2700 DDR RAM, two 120GB Maxtor Diamond Max HDD's, 4X ATI 128MB AGP card, 16X DL DVD burner, 52X32X52 CDRW, Creative Sound Blaster Live 5.1 sound card, a Dragon Ultra case with 5 - 80cm cooling fans, and an 430w Antec PSU. My "dumpster special" PC was a mobo and cpu I found in a dumpster behind a local PC shop that was actually good, but because the cpu cooler was clogged with dust, I guess they threw it away. I just added some parts I had laying around and it works fine It is a Pentium 4 1.8Ghz Celeron with 768MB of PC2700 DDR RAM, 200GB Maxtor Diamond Max HDD, 4X NiVidia 64MB AGP card, DVD rom, 52X32X52 CDRW and it is also a WinXP Pro machine. I also have a server on my network which used to be a HP710 now put into another PC case. It is a 733Mhz Pentium III with 384MB of PC133 RAM, one 30GB Maxtor HDD and one 20GB HDD. It is set up as a Windows 2003 Server on my network that includes a Linksys Wireless router and a Linksys 5 port workgroup switch. I also have a Pentium Celeron 500Mhz PC with 256MB of PC100 RAM that has Linux Fedora Core 4 on it. All of my PC's and my two laptops (Toshiba 305CDS and IBM Thinkpad i1200) can access the internet through my ADSL connection. I also have a couple of Windows 200O machines, but I only power them up if I need to access a setting or set up something. With all of these machines running, you do not want to see my power bill (LOL)...

 

[Lonewolf5460]

welcome to Tf i think you mean pentium 4 1.8 ghz no celeron at the end lol

 

[bits&bytes]

Ooops, I meant Intel Celeron 1.8Ghz, it is the Wilamette -128 CPU...not sure why I said pentium 4...duh....thinking of something else I suppose.......lol

 

[Lonewolf5460]

yah i have done that before lol.

 

[Trotter]

Good to have you, B&B. And it is especially good to have another Southerner on here... too many Yankees running around and all...

I am currently trying to look into what you are doing, as in going to either night school or online college courses. I am mainly looking towardds the certifiacations, not the degree.

Don't be bashful. Jump right in. You'll be glad you did.

 

[SHAWN]

Welcome to the forums!!!

 

[bits&bytes]

Trotter, I am going to college at night as a full time student with some of my courses online. It has been a rough two years with working full time too, but I am almost there now, so there is light at the end of the tunnel. What I thought i knew before going back to school was nothing compared to what I have learned. I set up my own personal network at my house so I could put into play what I learn at school and debug problems I see out in the filed with my also part time business. My part time business has kept me pretty busy with one to two PC's a week that I fix. I have learned a lot these last 12 months with som many problems I have had to fix. I have stumped my instructors at school with some problems, but I eventually figured it out. Patience is the key here sometimes. Well I am off to work and I have some exams to study for. Thanks everyone for saying 'welcome aboard'....

 

[Trotter]

The program I am looking at is set up as a 28 credit hour certificate program that gets you training for A+, Network+, Security+, MCP, MCSA, and MCSE.

All but two of the courses are available online.