Update & Excuse

I was told by my cousin today that I had not updated my blog in awhile… He was right.
I will re-devote myself to updating this site on at least a weekly basis.

College:

I have finished my core technical classes for my associates degree and have moved into my education core. This term I am trying online classes again. I have to say that they are much harder than in-seat classes. I hope that I will get an A in that class but at this point I am worried. Otherwise I am doing well in school and am actually learning quite a bit about routers and switches as I had never messed with them before.
I will be graduating in June and hope that all the hard work and missed time with my family will pay off soon.

Personal:

Home life is also great, the Wife and I have adjusted well to the little man and he is learning so much. Day after day I come home to “Guess what the baby can do now” The highlights are: He can stand, eat table food, Laugh, cry (loudly ) and say da-da! He is so much more mobile than he used to be and he is getting better at visual and speech recognition.
The wife is baking her head off and has made several great tasting contributions to my belly. Bread, Muffins, Cookies, and Strawberry sherbert for the baby come to mind.

Work:

My work just finished it’s second round of lay-offs in a restructuring plan that will hopefully drive the company to be more productive and profitable RF’s Restructuring Plan. I still have my job (thank god) but several people in the GSO area have lost there jobs. I hope that the restructuring will lead to new job openings.

Site:

I am hopeing to re-design the site with my own design instead of using someone else’s as I am a graphic designer. It is hard to do your own design however as you always try to incorporate to much. If any of you has an idea for a personal logo for the site or myself please let me know.

Thanks
David Bates

Update 3-19-07

I havn’t posted a all-round update in awhile so I decided to get on the stick and write one.

College:
I am nearing the last part of my technology classes and I have to say that I am disappointed with the education I have received so far. I don’t feel like the I got my money’s worth as I now have upwards of $24,000.00 in debt for school and no great learning to show for it, in fact I have had to teach most of the teachers in the new way of things. There are a few exceptions and I have learned quite a few tips and tricks as well as an underlying knowledge of how things work. Right now I am posting this from a scripting class that is not at all challenging.

Now I do have to say that this is not my schools fault as they normally cater to gardeners that want to become IT Professionals. I believe they just don’t know what to do with me. Anyway, I made an A in all of my classes since my last post and my GPA is still a 4.0 so that is something. I will be glad when August comes around and I am finally out.

Job:

My job is going well, they are starting to utilize some of my talents rather than just troubleshooting systems. In fact I have been scripting and trending more than I have been actually working on systems this month. I believe that I will be moving up soon (I Hope) as soon as we get out of our hiring freeze which is expected in April. That would make for a great birthday present.

Home:

My home life has went well these last few months as well. The wife is hotter than ever and the little guy is learning so much everyday that it is hard to keep up. His recent accomplishments are sitting up on his own, seeing his shadow, eating lots of different foods, and having a ton of fun. The wife took him to get his easter pictures recently, I will try and post them when I get them in.

Tech:

I am delving into VBScript more and more and becoming acquainted with the Windows way of programming. I recently had to write a script that would deploy our preferred wireless profiles which was very tricky, I hope to post about that soon. I have also learned a few of the win32 API’s by scripting. I am also learning about more about routers and switches which I am highly interested in as well as Vista deployment which seems to be a lot easier than XP when you use the new SMS server (it is called something different now.).

All in All my life is running smoothly at the moment and everything seems to be great. I bought a grill last weekend and hope to break it in over the holiday.

I wish you all a happy easter.
David Bates

Is A+, Net+ really neccesary?

I have pondered the above question for many days? now and the short answer is that it depends.
Let me explain why the question came up and why I believe that there is no generic answer for everyone.

My school ECPI currently gives each student three vouchers for certificates and those three vouchers are primarily used for A+ and Net+ certification test through Comptia. However, I spoke with several teachers, students, and alumni from ECPI and they all said that A+ and Net+ will only get you in the door of a company which I already have done, and that those certs only proved that you have a basic understanding of hardware and networking which my experience already shows. So after hearing that I started to question whether I wanted to use my vouchers for those certs or if I should try and go for more focused certs such as MCITP or Linux+. This question has boggled my mind for a couple of reasons.
1. If I am a MCITP shouldn’t that say that I have more skills that just A+?
2. Which ones will my employer appreciate more?

After thinking about this I realized that it really has nothing to do with the certs themselves but rather what I plan to do, and with that knowledge I decided that hardware is cool but I don’t need a cert to prove that I know how to change the toner cartridge in a printer or install a HD, I would rather tell my boss “Hey, I am a Microsoft certified IT professional”.

So after I found out what was right for me I say that everybody else needs to look at what certs matter to them. If you have never changed a printer cartridge or being able to rattle off the speed of firewire is important to you then defiantly go for the A+ that’s why there are so many. But be sure that you know what the certs are saying about you.

I would also like to say that this post is an introduction to a bigger question that I have. Which matters more Certifications or Degrees, Which does a company recognize more someone with an associate?s degree but high level certs or someone with a Bachelor?s but only introductory certificates?

As a footnote if any of you have read through my blog or know me personally and can think of a certification that you think would better suite me let me know, make a comment and I will check them out.

Thanks for reading
David Bates

Class Update

I am still enrolled at ECPI full time earning my associates degree in computer science and have maintained my 4.0 GPA. Classes are getting more interesting and I am finally starting to learn some new things. I have decided that I will pursue a certification as an MCITP (Microsoft Certified IT Professional) instead of the normal A+/Net+ certifications as my experience should account for those. I am running into a roadblock however trying to find information on about a certification on a product that is still in its beta state is hard (Windows Server 2008). If you have any sites or suggestions on how to find material for it I would be very interested, please leave a comment. I have just finished Windows Server 2003 and Network Security I and will be taking Network Security II and Advanced Windows Management after our much needed Christmas break. I don?t have to return to school until Jan 7th and I must say that I am very glad we are having such a long break; The baby and I have needed some time together, my wife calls it daddy time.

Thank you all for reading and have a happy new year!

The College Dream – Debt

Yesterday I wen’t to class just like any normal day and before I sat down the teacher told me that Financial Aid needed to see me before I could enter class. Now, most of the time this trip to financial aid is to sign paper’s where they forgot to dot an I or cross a T but this time it was to hit me up for another $11,000.00USD. Geez I said; you just got 11 grand from me less than 6 months ago. This would all be fine if I would have actually learned something substatial since April but I have found myself on more than one occasion correcting the teacher and for the last three terms have just been bored out of my skull.

Now, I am not blasting my school I think it is great with all of the hands-on training they give and all of the bonuses it just seams that I have paid a lot of money and have not recieved an education. In my schools defense, I do have 10+ yrs of experiance in the field that I am going to school for and have been doing High-Level programming for the past 3 yrs. So I am not there average gardener turned computer wiz.

What is your take?
Should there be a further accelorated program in college that would allow people like me to reach a higher level faster?

Thanks for reading and let me know
David Bates