BSIT200

This week we primarily discussed the hardware and software involved for SOHO printing devices. I think out of all the topics discussed in this course, this may be the one with the least overall application for the majority of techs. With printing itself (Paper) quickly becoming a thing of the past for a lot of business processes, printers themselves are becoming more rare and having to deal with regular maintenance for them is becoming even more rare with the low print volume.  Printing is also at the stage of its life where everything is already kind of figured out with them. Driver installation is usually taken care of automatically with whatever OS you plug it into, network configuration is a set it and forget it task, and maintenance still needs to be performed, but very rarely.  I work at a small non-profit with about 80 or so users, many of which being sent home with a small HP laser printer. The only tickets I see come across my desk for them is the occasional "I got a ...

This week, we discussed the internet and portable/mobile computers. One of the assignments for this week was to come up with a scenario in which we had to find replacement parts for a laptop, and how to go about doing so. What I want to talk about is the classic “Engineers vs Mechanics” debate. For those who are unfamiliar, mechanics (those who work on cars) are constantly cursing engineers for designing something in such a way that seems to only be created to give extra work to mechanics who must work on the stuff. Things such as putting a cross-member in the way of an oil drain plug so it creates an absolute mess if you don’t remove the cross member (unnecessary on a good majority of vehicles). Or using a bolt 4 inches longer than it needs to be, so you need to remove the entire engine to replace a pulley. Stuff like that. That same principle transfers over to the laptop engineer/technician world. One of the laptops I’ve had in the past was an MSI GS65 Stealth Thin. The only th...