Need some good advice from Senior and Ultimate members:

[struggles]

This summer I took 3 courses at a local college, on getting A+ certified. Took and passed both tests this past friday, (yippee).
I know this certification is somewhat meaningless as I am not worthy enough to carry a notepad for some of you guys. Besides hanging out at sysopt and reading 100 posts a day, how can I become a great tech? What should I study next? Net+? MCSE?I think I might find networking boring.Got any suggestions? where's the future going? Web publishing? You guys seem awful intelligent.

[Ed_S]

First, member status and computer expertise do not go hand-in-hand. http://sysopt.earthweb.com/forum/wink.gif

For example, you're ahead of me in the certs already. But I've got years of hands-on as an amateaur. Been building 'em for friends, family, & coworkers for a long time now.

And that may be what you need next - experience. http://sysopt.earthweb.com/forum/smile.gif
Also, jump in & answer questions more often (when you've got a good response http://sysopt.earthweb.com/forum/wink.gif) As you know, you can learn a lot here. But you'll get more out of participating than just reading.

Ed

[tkray]

I just gotta suggest some things. Get your hands on hardware. Find the businesses or schools that sell old hardware on a regular basis, get a bunch of it, and mix and match components. Build a small client/server network. Set up security and try to break it. A part time job at a small computer store helped me. They let me experiment with the old stuff, and I learned a lot.

[RobRich]

I started big into computer technology by reading a regimentation of 100+ computer news/reviews site a day. I still hit 20-30 sites on a near daily basis inorder to keep up with current industry trends.

After asborbing so much information, I guess the hardware side of computers just came naturally.

As for the future, anything IT positions associated with the Internet technologies should provide a moderate to high-level income. There is good money in networking, especially if you move onto your MSCE, Novell, and/or Cisco certifications.

Another growing area is site design, but this means much more than HTML. If you are interested in this route, then you will need to learn how to perform scripting and moderate programming with possibly database coding. Other topics include DHTML, Java, ActiveX, CSS, and countless others.

If you have a particular area of computing your interested in, then taking a couple of free exams could help to determine both your strengths and weaknesses regarding your interested field. I would recommend scrolling through some of the free certification tests offered at sites like Brainbench. Here is the link:

http://www.brainbench.com

BTW, you could always try the journalist side of computer technology. http://sysopt.earthweb.com/forum/wink.gif

Best of Luck,
Robert Richmond

[Szech]

I think the important thing struggles, is what do you want to do? What do you like doing? I personally think that's more important than where the money is headed.

And A+ certification isn't worthless, but it's not the end of the road either. If I'm not mistaken, you can work on hardware without voiding warranties like me.

[CMonster]

A+ certification is like getting a high school diploma for PCs; then it's time to get experience and further your education.

You've got some good advice in this thread, but I'd have to echo tkray for giving you a very good tip on building hands-on experience. Occasionally you might also offer to work on "friends" computers for free.

As far as Szech's comment about working on boxes that are still under warranty - it would be a good idea to check with the manufacturer's tech support and see if an incident number is required before opening the case.

[Beemer]

Get rid of wives, girl friends, friends in general, be independently wealthy, don't have a life. I think that covers my last 3 years of obsession....

When I got into my first computer I read the warrantee info. I had one year to get really good so I don't have to pay anyone to fix my computer. I also had ICQ installed on it and I proceeded to make some friends. All my friends had problems and I offered myself up as the researcher to end their problems. I found it quite easy after a very short time and I was teaching things like software upgrading and general Windows operations. figured out a good file system approach, wanted to teach the world so I made a web site that included many areas, tips being one of them. Now I don't have to type so much and all my friends have great running puters. I still have many of the first people I met on ICQ on my list and we talk and of course it is about some little glitch they have in their system but we have become pretty good friends over the years.
So now what?
I found SysOpt.
Now I can help out lots more folks like a good little hacker.

I do searches on yahoo.com with keywords such as tweaks or tips and tricks or file system...etc...etc. Watch out for tips and tricks. over 2,500 hits and yahoo will only let you go through about 650 of the listings before it cuts you off. Each site has links to other sites and I went through all the other sites as well. After a while you kind of get caught in a loop.

Java is the world of the future I have heard on a few sites.

Get a good book on Zen philosophy, apply the teachings to computers, and then you may grab the hibachi with your bared forearms and proceed in to the world of computers.

Cheers!

[Beemers]

Oh! and here is my other status. I hope I qualify...lol

Cheers!

[struggles]

Thanks alot for all the great advice. I'm gonna try to get the most experience I can, in the shortest time. I think I'll start by fdisk'n my system at home, and startin from scratch(a kind of celebration!)My company has enough PC work to get me some experience, but I can't help feeling I'm headed back to school.
BTW, how do you become an ultimate member, without knowing how to format a hdd?

[jl123]

The status is based on how many posts you make not how much experience or knowledge you have.

I'm only 15 but I consider myself pretty knowledgeable about computers. The reason for this is because I have experience. I do a lot of work for friends and family. My mom also works at a church with a 7 computer peer to peer network and I am like their volunteer tech(I didn't volunteer, my mom just says "We need your help"). I am constantly getting experience. I have worked on 386's all the way up to socket A systems. http://sysopt.earthweb.com/forum/smile.gif Now I want to move toward working on dual cpu servers. Building your own computer is a great learning experience in my opinion.

Hope everything work out for ya man.

[Beemer]

I've been a starving carpenter for the last 12 years and I bet in 10 to 15 years being a carpenter will be a thing of the past and the carpenter rate will sore through the roof. Any labour intensive field will be needing recruits. Everyone is going into cerebral work positions and no one is headed for the trades.

Cheers!