Where to go for education

[RetiredGuy1000]

When I was in the financial world we had industry meetings about 4 times per year. Two big meetings where everyone around the country get together and two smaller get togethers that are more local.

They were very educational usually. Main stage presenters with afternoon conferences on multitudes of topics.

Is there anything similar available to us in this profession?

 

[Sky-Knight]

I'm a recent subscriber to pluralsight.com, there's more IT training in here, as well as some peripheral fields than I'll ever be able to consume.

I'm thinking that if I had done this instead of wasting 10 years on BBB membership my company and myself would be in a very different place today.

There's a 10 day or 200 hour trial for free, give her a whirl.

 

[RetiredGuy1000]

Cool. I will check that out.

I am more looking at meetings. I mean, is CES considered such a conference or is that just way too big?

 

[Sky-Knight]

There certainly are many conferences, CES, Ignite, and who knows how many others. But getting into those things is expensive in both time and money, I've never had the luxury of the latter to make it worth it.

Also, Pluralsight's more popular competitor is called CBTNuggets, they might be worth looking into as well. But glassdoor doesn't have good things to say about them currently, and indicates they're in decline.

 

[NOLA IT Pro]

Pluralsight has a great trial option, try it.
Check out what resources are available via your local library. In Jefferson Parish, I have access to Lynda.Com through the library.
Microsoft makes all the sessions from Ignite available shortly after the conference.
Here is the link to 2018. https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCrhJmfAGQ5K81XQ8_od1iTg/featured
Microsoft also makes a lot of information available here https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/learn/
I would also look at various podcasts. This thread has a lot of info https://www.technibble.com/forums/threads/podcasts-i-listen-to-regularly.76498/

 

[RetiredGuy1000]

i think i will def go to CES. But i don't expect too much education. Seeing all the new tech though would be great.

 

[Markverhyden]

The finance business is very difference from IT stuff. There's all kinds of Federal and State regulations coming into play so I'm sure many of those talks are lawyers, regulators, etc covering those things. Sure, we do have some things coming into play like HIPAA, PCI, and Sarbanes-Oxley.

I used to go to the local ones here back in the '90's and early 2k. M$ and Apple had them every year or two. But Apple's last one was in the late 90's and the last one I saw from M$ was around '08 or so plugging Server '08.

 

[Diggs]

I admire your drive for information and education but honestly much more is to be gained by working your way through difficult problems. I learned more about the back end of iTunes/iCloud/iDrive (below) than I ever would in a round table discussion.
https://www.technibble.com/forums/threads/comment-from-prospect-via-facebook.82013/#post-673193

Same with the thread on my missing SATA port where a few of the supportive members opened my eyes to alternative possibilities. Not something I would have picked up too many other places other than working through it.
https://www.technibble.com/forums/threads/vanishing-hard-drive.81719/

Regardless - You know what works for you and an appetite to learn with an open mind is what is best.

 

[Sky-Knight]

This forum is a good resource, as are many others. But I caution against the purely experience based learning model. I'm right there with you, and I do the same things, and certainly we do learn more from doing. But you do need some amount of pure theory, otherwise your gut can fire in a bad direction based purely on experience.

What balance to strike? That's... the real question!

 

[nerd2u]

Don't count out free resources like YouTube and Google. Just because you didn't have to pay for it doesn't mean it's not good information.

There are also sites like Udemy similar to CBT Nuggets that are a wealth of information.

I've been to some conferences that are great and a wealth of knowledge and have been to others that were a complete waste of money and wanted nothing more than for me to sign up for additional paid services with them.

Sent from my SM-G870W using Tapatalk

 

[Markverhyden]

Hands on stuff is a very important part of training coupled with theoretical. With a past employer I was a part of a training group which was tasked with moving things beyond OJT for employees. We found that theory only went so far. This was before the Wintel world, DEC PDP-11 and microVAX. But the same principles applies.

We'd do it all. Putting complete systems together from parts. Sabotaging assembled systems to find the faults.

These days the hardware is dirt cheap for consumers as well as SMB. For learning purposes a recent desktop and some extra RAM and HD's works very well as a server. Virtualization is available at no cost along with the guests with trial licenses. Try to build it. If it fails then figure it out. If it works then break it and fix.

 

[GreyWolf]

Most evil thing I have ever seen is removing the metal piece from a jumper and placing it back to the correct connection. My electronics teacher was the essence of pure evil his motto was trust no component.

But yup theoretical training can only give so much you need to get your hands dirty and work with what you've got.

 

[Sky-Knight]

Lol that's not a troubleshooting exam it's an eye exam!

 

[fencepost]

You can likely get a lot out of Youtube, but there may be problems with deciding what's actually relevant to you from the firehose. I highly recommend the videos from Lawrence Systems and Willie Howe, Louis Rossmann is entertaining (but likely not covering anything that you should consider getting into). Electronics can be entertaining but likely not relevant to what you're going to deal with. The Podnutz weekly Computer Repair Podcast show on Sunday afternoons is likely worthwhile for you to listen to and go into the archives on (that's live and you can get into the IRC chat, it's released as a podcast episode on Thursdays). Youtube will be particularly useful for repair of particular systems (or for letting you look at a video and say "no chance I'm going through that for a $100 repair.").

Online training like Pluralsight, Lynda/LinkedIn Learning, etc. might have useful materials for understanding how a lot of things work, building from what you know now. They may be less useful for the practical day-to-day stuff, but understanding at least the basics of how the systems you're working on work is unlikely to be a bad thing.

Conference-wise there's the TechCon Unplugged conference in late September which is supposed to be fairly technically-oriented I believe and if I can swing it I'll be going to that; there's also ITOCompass in Chicago April 25-28 which I'm also planning to go to. My feeling is that both of those are descended from the 2016 and 2017 Unconventions (run in part by folks from right here, IIRC). ITOCompass was somewhat intended to be a 2018 continuation of those (or maybe just marketed as such) but was heavy on marketing/business consultants who would be happy to sign you up as a client and that turned off a lot of folks (I missed the second day due to a family health crisis, but I think it was supposed to be better and more technical). I'm pretty sure a bunch of the TechCon Unplugged folks are ones who were disappointed by ITOCompass last year and are trying to get back to the Unconvention feel.

I do have hopes for this year's ITOCompass, particularly with Karl Palachuk keynoting since I just this month incorporated for possibly spinning off on my own. Since it's happening less than an hour drive from me it's not like I have to justify thousands in travel expenses. (I may even get a chance to use some gift cards for a couple expensive steak places down there since I'm usually not in Chicago in the evenings).

 

[timeshifter]

What about an A+ Certification for basic computer technology? Or some other basic training. I mention this because I'm concerned you don't have a great handle of some of the basics, mainly based on how you've described RAM in one of your blog posts and your recent newspaper ad. Maybe you do understand it well enough, but your not representing your understanding of it well.

The good news is is that if you have a good fundamental understanding of how a computer works - RAM, CPU, drive interfaces, peripheral interfaces, etc., then everything flows from that. I've been in this field for over 30 years. I learned those basics back in the 80's. It all still applies today, but things have just gotten MUCH faster and better!

 

[RetiredGuy1000]

i know SATA and IDE and the like. But your suggestion is a good one. Ill look around for something.

I have personally built two computers, in addition to working on my own computers over the last 20 years, so you have to know something even though it is fairly simple construction.

At the end of the day you are on the tail end of a long career...I am just beginning(mine should only be 15 years long since I am 50...although I do plan on continuing repairs into my 60s and 70s). I imagine things were different when you began. Knowledge-wise.

 

[fencepost]

i know SATA and IDE and the like.

I will suggest that if you encounter IDE in any systems the only thing you should be doing is assisting with data migration off of it. IDE has basically been dead for more than 10 years now, and I suspect that the only systems that shipped with it in use in the last 12-13 years were using it for optical drives. IDE systems are 99% going to be running XP.

 

[RetiredGuy1000]

Thats good to know! I do have an IDE to Sata kit that has a separate power cord for the power Its just to fire up that hard drive so I can transfer data out as you suggest. If I encounter a IDE hard drive anywhere. You never know.

 

[Sky-Knight]

But... what about RLL and MFM?

 

[RetiredGuy1000]

Im all ears...