Are you a professional?

I am curious to see if some of you are professional computer technicians, system administrators, or IT people. I am an elementary school teacher; I currently teach grade 3/4 in Northern BC, Canada. I am a technology hobbyist who thoroughly enjoys learning about Linux and Unix. I am not a professional IT person. What are your interests surrounding Information Technolgy? Profession?

 

Depends upon your definition of the word 'professional' - I didn't finish high school, yet I've been making money from computers for 40 years. For a while in the '80s and '90s, computer fabrication/repair was a major part of my income, but with the advent of the superstores and with handheld electronics becoming the norm, computer work has become more of a secondary job/hobby for me.

Awesome: My parents were teachers, my wife and sister are teachers, and I taught military electronics and special weapons courses - keep up the good work! :wine

 

Like Caliban, I didn't finish school. I drove Semi for about 25 years but always had computers from the old TI-99-4A days, that would be back to the mid 1980's. In 1995 I decided to go full bore into computers and haven't looked back. I now manage IT services for 4 small businesses and run a small repair shop out of my home along with doing computer Recycling. I also run 3 Arch Linux based WebServers. I have built and continue to host a few sites on those servers.

Am I a professional? I'm not sure. I don't have any specific certificates or credentials but the 4 business clients I have aren't looking for anyone else and I continue to get repeat customers and new word-of-mouth customers.

 

I'm under the amateur/hobby catagory. I'm an automotive technician (that's what they call us now) and keep the system running smoothly at work. I know very little compared to most people here, but at work I'm the man:-D.
Most of my co-workers fear computers so when I tell them what to do to be careful they listen.

My wife teaches a 3/4 split here in Cranbrook, hitest. She loves technology, I-Pad, phone etc. She uses 90% of the devices on our home network. She makes fun of me when I can't do something basic on her phone:-o.

 

Strange. My degree is in radio/TV advertising. After becoming a victim of the radio station mega-mergers of the '90s, a friend told me (half sarcastically) that, based on my knowledge of PCs, I should get a job selling or repairing them.

Fast forward 17 years: After stints as a PC sales manager for two (now defunct) electronics chain and several years doing IT/setup work for a big-box furniture chain, I've opened my own PC repair shop.

Among other things,, I do complete virus removals and tune-ups for a fraction of the price of Geek Squad, Staples, etc. -- usually in 24 hours or less. Business is picking up based mainly on referrals and (hopefully) I'll open a second store in the next few years.

 

For myself, mostly as a hobby type of thing to help my friends and get a few bucks from time to time.
Professional? Not by the wildest stretch of the definition or the imagination.

 

Not even a distant cousin to a professional. I started building my own computers because at that time pre-built computers cost more than I made in a month and didn't have the features I wanted while being loaded down with a bunch of stuff I had no interest in or use for.

Well...I guess technically I could be sort-of considered a professional, as I've been writing for a tech site for a few years and they pay me. And I just received my first gadget to do a full-length review on (it's kind of a trial by fire...if I write a decent review, more and better things will appear on my porch to review). But it's certainly not my main source of income.

 

My official job title is similar to "tech-problems analyst". A fancy way of saying I work in a hardware tech support call center. I'm the one you get transferred to when the front-line people are stumped and don't know what to do next.

 

currently laid off from metal work. so back to reading here. its hobby for me.

 

I am hoping to retire in 3-4 years. At that time I may explore some more things that are IT related, maybe take a course or two. That might be fun.

 

You've obviously been calling the wrong companies. Our front line people are good enough I hardly ever have anything to do.

 

I currently manage a IT company, so maybe that makes me an IT professional. My interest have changed over the years. I started out as a technical person, doing freelance work. I taught myself system administration out of necessity in grad school. I was working in biology lab with no funds for a sysadmin. So if I wanted to run computer simulation, blast data to GenBank, I had to learn how to use and maintain an old SunOS server.

Cheap dedicated servers came along (thanks Robert Marsh @ Rackshack) and I jumped into that market. My focus was still tech.

However, since then my focus is more business oriented, which is good as I spend less time on technical issues these days.


For kids, I would say embrace what they like.

Some ideas:

- Get them to think about how to do things better, especially with the User-Interface. The iPad has completely changed how many people interact with IT. AJAX and other technologies have changed how we interact with the web. This may appeal to more graphically oriented students.

- Get them to program simple pages. Ruby, PHP and other languages can be easy to learn. This may appeal to more logically oriented students.

- Have them fix stuff. Problem solvers and helpers may like to fix things others have broken.


Just some thoughts.

Right now my main focus is on keeping IT simple for small businesses and start-ups, especially those who depend heavily on IT services.

Too often, small businesses overly complicate their IT environments and fail to outsource strategically. They complicate their environments and waste their time managing IT, when they should be focused on their business.

This is what motivates me today. When we have a client that actually makes more money each even after paying us our fees, that's invigorating.

If you want technologies, some of my keen interest are:

- Cloud computing vs. Virtualization vs. Datacenter Automation
Underneath the hood there is not a lot of difference, except the time in which changes can be made.

- User interfaces
The web as an interface is very poor.

- Mobile
Mobile is a game changer. Your phone knows who you call, who you email, where you travel and win. That is a lot of information that can be put to good and bad uses.

 

I am currently going to school for IT. Network Administration is where I want to end up.

Am I a professional? Depends on who you ask is all I can really say.