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“Oh ya that’s the computer guy!” I heard as I was walking down the hallway of the middle school, one of several I take care of in the school district. The generic title of ‘computer guy’. Computer related activities have progressed so far, and have split into many groups. Web developers, database engineers, programmers, designers, network administrators, and this is just scratching the very surface. Even the broad generic title of ‘web-developer’ is deeper still with other titles like ‘web-server administrator’, or ’seo admin’. The computer guy is no-one but he is everyone. He is the guy that people call when their VCR stops working, or they are having trouble hooking up their speakers. I have even had calls to fix cell phones, and the stray wire or two.

If it plugs into a wall or has buttons you can be sure that there is a computer guy to dump all this stuff on. I am not a pro at AV equipment, but I constantly get calls to fix it. Luckily I work in a small school district, everyone is like family, and at the end of the day it only takes the bare essentials to impress people. These essentials can be nailed down to;

1. Show up: If there is one thing I have learned in my many vocations is that most people can simply be happy if you just show up. In fact if you don’t show up often enough, you may have to dust off your resume.
2. Be friendly: Even in the face of screaming people I have been amazed time and time again how people respond to friendly computer guys. Now I am not saying you cannot be firm, or emphatic, but at least be nice. It can really get on your nerves having to fix that AV microphone, or a silly over-head projector, but you will be shocked at how many points this will earn you.
3. Act like you care: Many people will off-load a ton of information on you. Most of this info you don’t need or care about. I call this (for lack of better terminology) Verbal Vomit. Just a barrage of endless words. It’s obnoxious and nothing pisses me off faster than the minutia. Smile, and go to your happy place. You will be rewarded for it.
4. Under-promise and over-deliver: This is the key part.  If you promise by saying things like, “Hrmm I think it can be done, but I probably won’t be able to get to it this week.”  Then showing up the next day and performing the task can make you a hero.  But if you say, “Sure I’ll be there in five minutes.” and something comes up that keeps you from performing, then you are a goat, and people will have the perception you are un-reliable and cannot do what you say you can do.

Being a ‘computer guy’ (or gal) means you can do it all, whether you can or can’t.  I can’t fine tune a database, but I can create one, and get it to at least a 3rd normal form (thanks to E.F. Codd father of all databasing) and I can create a semi-workable front end with Java.  But guess what, people don’t care about that stuff.  Only us geeks do.  “Can you make my internet work?” and “Can you make my email work?”.  That is what people care about.  Sure there are those jobs where fine tuning databases is the very crux of your job, but when you are the ‘Computer Guy’ it really isn’t.  Being a jack-of-all-trades is really a fun way to play with computers and try a number of different things.  And you will learn stuff you just simply cannot learn in your Masters degree.  I now know how to troubleshoot an over-head projector.

So when I walk into a classroom, I smile and just simply say, “Hey, I’m the computer guy.  Can I fix anything for you?”

Firefox has been my companion for some years now. I love hacking the little guy as much as humanly possible. So many add-ons, so little time. Some things are very productive, however other things are just a waste of time. They are generally fun wastes of time, but wastes of time nevertheless. Occasionally I put in a plugin/add-on that really makes Firefox act weird, or I hack the Chrome of the browser that makes it behave in strange and unusual ways. Recently my Firefox has been acting very, very strange. I was hacking my default Firefox on my new XP laptop, when all of a sudden my Firefox browser window started shaking violently! Then the window would inadvertently resize itself to fit exactly half the screen size. Continue reading ‘Firefox: Shakes Like Mad!’