Advice on courses please.
johnny-go-go
Posts: 153 Forum Member
✭
Hello
I live in rural Cumbria. I am not a computer expect, all I know is what I have learned using a computer every day for the past umpteen years. I would say that the majority of our village are retired/ not of a generation used to the technology that is forced upon them.
I helped a neighbour fix a minor problem a while ago, unistall and reinstall the printer, and now everyone thinks I'm an I.T expert who can sort out all there P.C problems. So far it has been really simple things but have been stumped a few times, which really frustrates me as I really do feel sorry for these people trying to keep up with technology.
What I really need to know is where do I start if I want to train as a computer service and repair technician? There are lots of courses advertised on-line but have no idea which ones woulds be most beneficial. I would be starting from scratch really as I do not know the technical jargon. Any books to read either?
I do understand that the training will be tough and probably long so that is why I need to start asap.
If anyone could advise me where to start it would be very much appreciated.
Thank you.
I live in rural Cumbria. I am not a computer expect, all I know is what I have learned using a computer every day for the past umpteen years. I would say that the majority of our village are retired/ not of a generation used to the technology that is forced upon them.
I helped a neighbour fix a minor problem a while ago, unistall and reinstall the printer, and now everyone thinks I'm an I.T expert who can sort out all there P.C problems. So far it has been really simple things but have been stumped a few times, which really frustrates me as I really do feel sorry for these people trying to keep up with technology.
What I really need to know is where do I start if I want to train as a computer service and repair technician? There are lots of courses advertised on-line but have no idea which ones woulds be most beneficial. I would be starting from scratch really as I do not know the technical jargon. Any books to read either?
I do understand that the training will be tough and probably long so that is why I need to start asap.
If anyone could advise me where to start it would be very much appreciated.
Thank you.
0
Comments
Twit podcasts are free. http://twit.tv/sn
The hardware podcast is ok as well for keeping up with news.
Tech guy podcast would be ok for you to learn as well, its a bit to general for me now but he does answer the questions you need to know about.
Thanks for the advice, you are right, I need to read a lot more to understand all the jargon. It hasn't been my hobby but aside from my original post, I feel I also need to equip myself so I don't become one of the people I intend to help.
Just be careful trying to help people when you don’t know something fully about the problem and resolve yourself – you don’t want to make someone’s problem worse than it already is!
You don’t need fancy courses to learn, just willingness to f**k things up good and proper and then try and figure out how to make it work again. At the very least you will come to know how to reinstall an operating system blindfolded.
I took a 3 year IT course I thought would help me learn more. All it did was teach me how to do paperwork more then actually learn how to fix a computer. They wont give you a PC each day and say’ right today were going to show you how to get this printer to work with windows XP when the drivers it comes with are for vista only’.
The type of problems you face from Joe blogs on the street are way different to the type of learning you will receive when trying to understand computers from a course.
I'm not saying a course wont teach you something valuable or there all useless. Just that you should first try and make sure you know what it is you want taught to you and if the course will do that. You sound like you want to fix a 60 year old grandma's computer when she tells you it won’t turn on. Only seeking out the answers yourself will you gain the knowledge you need to do that. You wont necessarily learn that to fix it you just need to pull the USB stick out of the USB port so the computer can boot from the HDD again rather then the USB stick, from a course.
You’re more likely to learn a process or mechanism that helps solve any problem. Via something like a flow diagram then know the reason someone’s computer just went to Blue Screen of Death. Knowing processes and mechanisms like that can be very useful ‘ground work’ but I would say its more for those that want to do IT in a business environment not necessarily to help fix Mrs Carter down the roads computer.
Just my 2 pence...
I am a dancer by trade and nearing 40 so I do need to think about how I am going to make a living in the future. I am considering making a career out of it as I think there would be a good customer base where I live.
There are two companies offering this service in the local paper so I asked the neighbours etc why they don't use them? They tell me that they wouldn't trust them as they think they will steal their identity, tell them things were wrong that weren't etc, basically rip them off.
Word of mouth is the best form of promotion with the older generation as I already have the reputation of being trustworthy, which goes a long way.
Your 2 pence is worth a lot, thanks for the advice. I have an old 2007 dell inspiron laptop running xp, so I think my first task will be to get it running smoothly again in the way you suggested.
Sounds like a good start.
You could look into upgrading the memory or hard drive as well as the OS and see how you get on with it all.
I know where you are coming from, I hate it when guests fiddle around with mine. I will only help people if it is something I have had to do myself. I will not go in and change setting or things like that, unless I knwow how to change it back.
Recently an 80yo neighbour told me his printer wasn't working, I checked in devices and printers, for some reason it was checked in the microsoft xps document writer. I explained to him what had happened and changed it back to his printer, problem solved. He called and said it had happened again, I went and did the same thing.
His grand children came and after they left the printer wouldn't print again. I checked and this time his printer wasn't even there. The only thing I could think of doing was uninstalling and re-stalling it again but this didn't work.
I set the laptop back to a restore point from before his grand children came and when I checked, the printer had come back. We were looking at it and feeling really pleased when it disappeared in front of our eyes. That was it for me but I did try unistall/reinstall again and all seemed to going well when it failed to recognise the device.
I haven't a clue what to do but my only solution would be to ring the the HP helpline so they could talk me through it. My neighbour wouldn't dare ring as he doesn't understand what they are trying to tell him to do. I find this the case with a lot of people.
Try the Government's adult career advice service
Details at
https://nextstep.direct.gov.uk/Pages/home.aspx
Yes but is it actually worth pursuing.
First you should find out how much people actually make, getting money out of old people, is going to be hard. Such "help desk" jobs are very entry level and dead end jobs. At best it is an interim job until you find a better career.
I used to do same as others mentioned mess the computer up and don't stop till i fix it.
I am educated to Level 2 OCR In ICT(standard I think), I'd love to work with computers but I've tried college twice at 2 different ict courses and they are so boring and just reading and listening to the teacher babble on about nonsense.