Well the science of the modern world is IT, computers, programs.
Most of the progress and new fields that it opened up , are not as big as the revolution yet.
The program, the logic, the algorithms, the complexity o f tasks. That’s something you can’t invent.
When I studies computer sciences back 10 years ago, we studied theories…The theories and more theories behind the so called computer.
Now this is funny to say but when I got out of school I barely had touched the ‘thing’, the machine. At the time Macs where black and white with a very small screen. PCs where a little more colorful and where running let me think, windows 98.
Now things have evolved and I spent a lot of time in front of those equipments, from the home computer to the group of them in data centers. There are fascinating because I know all the theory behind it.
So I can think like them. I know what happens from the moment you turn the switch on…
If it’s plugged in, it will behave differently than if it’s not.
And if it’s plugged in a few things happen… depending on the architecture…
Well I know all those things, does that help me do my job better. Yes but not by itself.
In combination only…in combination of understanding the user, the end user, the necessity behind it.
See there are technicians, there are engineers and there are computers. But without purpose, they don’t do much, if you have a monitor attached to it, it might give you less light than a spot light. So without purpose, it’s useless.
So here I go, I had skills, and I had no inspiration so I went into IT. Where I found people with tons of inspirations and no skills.
I started working with creative types early in my career. Coming from the dotcom era, a lot of us reconverted in niche markets. Believe it or not, I chose Macs.
There were no genius bars, there were no OSX, there were no cat names, such as Jaguar, Panther, Leopard or Snow Leopard, for those who know the Apple Macintosh.
No, when you had a problem, you had to deal with tech guys, that were saying, yes, so you open your computer and right click on the desktop… And the poor consumer was saying. I only have one button on my mouse, it’s a Mac. The tech always responded, “I don’t do Macs”, or “I don’t know Macs”.
So after the dot com bust, we, techies, were on the job market like ants on a piece of food… I called my local computer store, “hi, I am looking for a job, I do computers”
He said: “ I don’t need computer guys, I have tons of computer guys, what I need is someone that does Macs.”
Now I didn’t do Macs, but my wife at the time, she had a “Wallstreet”, I found out later. Anyhow I knew she had a MAC. ( Macs had funny names then like “Pismo”, “Wallstreet”.
So I said: “I do Macs”.
He said: come meet me, I met him and he sent me to my first client the next day.
Now at the time, I asked my wife, what is there to know about those things to fix them. She said: “you have to rebuild the desktop”.
Now that sounded like Chinese to me, but what it means is that you hold 2 keys on the keyboard at startup and the computer does a maintenance routine when it finished booting.
That earned me my first $35, and I was an official Mac guy.
Well now I know a lot more things about those things. I learnt in 10+ years to make Macs communicate with PCs. I make Macs communicate with file servers, I made Macs communicate with printers.
Little by little I became more expert in my trade.
I found out there were no virus on macs, but there were problems, there were bugs, glitches, things that need to be troubleshooted by an expert troubleshooter.
It took me years to find out I am excellent troubleshooter, I reverse engineer geniusly and I just understand machines. I am the doctor, the computer wiz, the wizard of the electronic information. An aficionado of the device. I have special interests in everything electronic and programmable, I am a fan of PCs, Macs, Linux, Desktops, Servers, Networks, Routers, Switch, Handheld. It boots, it’s my hobby.
I remember criss crossing the streets of Los Angeles with my yahoo maps. Going to clients, customers, home business, small business, corporations, people’s home, home user. Whatever…
Then GPS changed everything…With a Yahoo map in LA, a road was blocked, that became adventure, as turn by turn directions printed on paper, don’t help much when the street sign is down or the street is blocked.
But I did it anyway, for 3 years. That was warming up my geeky brain, I had to get to my client, I had to think hard. I always think hard. I was naturally in my head then.
Then I got in my heart, ah what a breakthrough, a genuine state of the art advancement in technology, a leap. Well that helped me to understand users better, you know the person in front of the machine responsible for more of the errors of the computer…( sorry an industry joke, I call it error ID ten T)
Game: to find out what’s the error ID ten T, just write it down on a piece of paper…)
Answer: It will look like this: ID|0T
Oh well, nerds have the sense of humor.
So most errors are ”ID Ten T” errors. But eh that was my bread winner. And Windows, G*d I love PCs. They crash, they have viruses, spywares, All Microsoft Windows flavors age badly and require serious maintenance otherwise the user is harassed by error codes more puzzling than ID10T.
Hello Concepts? What error &33543!#%72724-34353 ?
Yep… how thoughtful of programmers, to display an alert for the user.
So they knew right there, I need to call a computer guy. That was good advertising, thank-you Microsoft for making us a living. With a message like that, you need a computer geek, an expert, the doctor, the wiz, the genius, the tech extraordinaire, the talented guru, well…me.
I didn’t want to be on a pedestal, people gave me names like that, and the funny thing is that machines started to behave like I was the doctor. Usually I showed up somewhere and the problem was gone as I got in.
Well there is an explanation to that phenomena.
The explanation is that users fight with a problem for day, then they call me. I tell them I’ll be there tomorrow, they shut down their machine.
That’s something they hadn’t done in days of troubleshooting attempts, monkeying around, wasting time.
So when I arrive, the machine had a long night sleep. I push the button and voila, $85, it’s an hour minimum. Well those machines they are my friends, they are extremely sensitive to electrostatic and human stress. Yes, I did enough work in Santa Monica CA, to know that what I am talking about is reasonably crucial to understand as it is crucial to laugh for others. Anyway I now firmly believe there is a correlation, and of course I have implemented the big smile and good thoughts to whoever client I now go to.