Hello everyone!
I am new to your forum but I thought that I might find some help here. Less than 6 months ago, I bought a used rooted and unlocked HTC Dream ( Google G1 ) cell phone on Ebay. I had been using it on AT&T's network. A couple of days ago, I accidentally washed the phone in our washing machine inside my pant's pocket. I have tried everything to dry it out and revive it, to no avail. It will not power on, charge etc. at all. I called HTC. They said that they would replace the mainboard for $378! I called local cellphone repair facilities. All of them said that there was little hope.
I would be willing to ship the phone to anyone who has the ability to cheaply fix it. ( Perhaps by replacing the mainboard ). I have a lot of computer and electronics stuff around the house that I don't use that I could offer the repairer on top of a modest amount of cash ( I really don't want to spend more than $50). The items that I have include an old video card, a fully functional Epson Stylus Color 860 Printer ( its old, but it works, however, the ink sometimes stops coming out if it is not used regularly), and like a typical geek I have drawers full of cables, network cards, etc. I really love this phone! I called AT&T and they offered me the Motorola BackFlip. By all accounts that I can find on the Internet, this would be a horrible choice, and AT&T conceded that they would force me to have a $30 a month data plan (which I did NOT have with the G1.)
Anyway, help would be greatly appreciated. I am a strong Linux advocate, and I run a Linux website: acrossad.org. Thank you! You can contact me by email at acrossad dot oggcast at gmail dot com.
P.S. I forgot to mention that I also have a TON of books on a variety of topics that I could offer as compensation as well: Linux, php, mysql, programming, various engineering topics etc. I have 2 bookshelves full of college textbooks and technical books.
http://www.engadget.com/2011/03/06/olivetti-launches-olipad-tablet-second-coming-of-the-typewriter/
Looks exactly like a G-Tab. Right down to T-N-T.
its funny how a tech blog doesnt catch that they keep posting stories about the exact same tablet with a different label on it
I'll try to keep this brief, however summing up one's station in life is normally not such a task that lends itself to brevity. If you want to skip all the background and go to the reason for this thread, start at the paragraph that begins with an asterisk.
I'm almost thirty, doing the whole wife and kid’s routine, and I find myself truly perplexed on what course to take in my life. I've always loved tech, I can remember my first real fascination with something was when I was in my early teenage years and my Dad bought a computer. It was Hewlett Packard, with only dial-up, AOL at that, and I wanted to know how it worked. My very first book I ever purchased with my own money was "DOS For Dummies". I was enthralled; I went through all the commands learning what each one did. I can't count how many times I had to format that computer and start over, and the frustration it caused my Dad as each time I broke it he thought for sure, that was the end. Yet every time, no matter how bad it got, you could format it and start over. I always liked that, most people dread a system format, but for me it was so liberating, I was never afraid to break anything because I knew I could just wipe it all and start over. Things like installing drivers and resetting system configurations totally engaged me, and still do. Either way with this DOS book, I was hooked, I loved being able to manipulate the computer from the command line, show off the "cool" things I could do. I should have known right then that this is what I wanted to do with my life.
However as I got older, I didn't stay in computer land; I ventured out and found girls! Sex, drugs, and... well techno actually. I spent a lot of time partying, and only went to college as a last resort like a lot of kid’s do, to get their parents off their back. When I graduated, computers still being a hobby, I was obsessed with being a millionaire. I saw quickly money could get you things that made you happy, and I remember distinctly looking at the tech industry and thinking "there's no money in that". I floated around aimlessly, even managing to start my own company, which was short lived and closed after a year. I'd worked a lot of jobs, but nothing that made me really happy. I had found becoming a millionaire quickly was no easy task, and with the wife and the baby was not something I could afford to gamble on anymore. I needed to find work that fulfilled me, that I enjoyed.
So two years ago I decided to go back into something tech oriented. I had a small background with HTML and tried to masquerade as a web designer. I got a job through a friend of the family, only to find I was severely out of my depth. With no formal training and close to 10 years passed, web development had changed a lot! It wasn't just HTML; it was CSS, and PHP, a lot of other acronyms and two or three big software programs you needed to understand. Not feeling too thwarted because I knew my heart wasn't in web design, I answered an ad for a "Junior Developer", "no experience needed, will train". I thought this is it! Programming was like my DOS books I started with so long ago. I could actually learn to TALK to computers and make them do what I wanted.
While the company that hired me had the best of intentions, they had never taken on this task before, of hiring a programmer with no experience and teaching them. The owner was swamped with his own projects, and within a month had paired me with another Access Database Developer. She herself only had a few years’ experience, and was NOT the teaching type. She was cold and impatient. She also gave off this threatened vibe, like the owner had hired me to replace her. As you can imagine it didn't last long either, after three months of that I was brought into a conference room and told "we just don't see you progressing to the level we'd need you to be at for this to make sense." Imagine that, a guy with no programming experience, was paired up with an employee who'd never taught anyone, and herself had a full workload of clients to satisfy, who needed to teach me not only programming but database design concept and implementation with ACCESS! Looking back on it now, I see how unreasonable it was for them to think I could be a competent programmer in three months’ time. However at the time I really beat myself up about it. After all this is what I wanted to do, the owner was such a smart guy, and I studied every night. Maybe it was me that just wasn't cut out for programming. It actually still bothers me now.
Thankfully, they saw a passion in my heart for tech. It just so happened their hosting manager was a one man band, and was having a tough time getting his job done with all these lower level phone calls and emails he had to deal with. So they created a Help Desk position for me, which I've thrived in. I have almost a decade of customer service experience working for call centers, and I love solving problems, so the position was a natural fit for me. This was about eight months ago. Since then the hosting manager also introduced me to the networking side of things, how to work with servers and hardware etc. I found all that equally as fascinating, he was nothing like the girl who had "tried" to train me before. He was knowledgeable, smart, and patient; he had a great sense of humor, but was ex-military and had a way of dropping the hammer when he had to. Right as he was beginning to open this whole new world to me, last month I found he's leaving the company. He's a giant whale of a fish in a tiny pond and he's got to move on. Before he did, he got me on a path to work on my CompTIA A+ Certification. I feel very prepared and I'm sure I'll pass it.
* Here's where my problem comes in. Ever since starting the Help Desk job I've loved it. For the first time in my life I'm not watching the clock. I'm not waiting for lunch time to come, and quite often I'm even staying hours past my punch out time because I'm so into my work. However I've handicapped myself. While others have had fifteen years to be doing this work, I'm just now getting started at thirty. My two greatest traits are my knack for dealing with people and my tenacious problem solving skills. When I don't understand something, or can't figure it out, I'm not a pass the buck kinda guy, I'll spend hours on it until I can figure it out. I enjoy the satisfaction of giving the client a great product, and the "eureka" moment when I figure out the issue is like a drug for me! I LOVE the sensation that comes with understanding.
The thing is after my A+ I want to move on to my next cert and start tackling it. Not just to say I have the cert, but to gain the knowledge that comes with it. Problem is I don't know what my next move should be. The "tech industry" is so wide open. In my heart, I think I want to go back into programming. I like the idea of speaking with computers, making them do what I want. However I have the bad taste of the failed Access Programming job fresh in my mind, I wasn't "getting it". Was it that I needed to give it more time or was three months long enough to understand the foundations? What's worse, where I was comfortable with the command line, now I'm intimidated by it. I seem suited for networking, talking with people and tracking down problems. Or do I just feel that way because I had a better teacher in that field and had a more positive response?
I guess that's why I wrote this beast of a thread, to give you a little background. I'm hoping there are some more seasoned professionals out there who can say "you sound like you'd be a great _____ " or "your mindset sounds geared toward _____ ". Again there are so many specialties, maybe there's some other field I haven't even considered. I don't know many experienced tech professionals, so I don't have anyone to talk with about this. All I know is I LOVE technology, I love problem solving, I'm about to have my A+ and 1 years’ experience as a Help Desk Analyst... where do I go from here?
Okay well it doesn't have to be all about me. If someone wants to share their tech career stories, how they started of in the business and where they are today. I could really use some kinda discourse on the subject.
me too
Thanks for Sharing your story, man. After reading, I am moved to share my position in life as it is increasingly similar to yours; I'm thirty, I love Tech and my career is at a crossroads as well...
It is a bit late right now so I will update this tomorrow and.. who knows maybe you'll have some advice for me.
The title says it all. I am trying to teach myself how to repair smartphones. A lot of family and friends ask me to do this and now other people are starting to ask me too. But getting a hold of official service manuals sometimes seems to be a challenge. I found one recently on here for a Sony Xperia Z2, which was excellent, highly detailed with diagrams and videos and everything one would need to effect a first class repair. But it took considerable effort and time to search for and find this.
I know I can look on YouTube, but sometimes these videos aren't all that helpful, as they can obscure parts of the process. I'm not even sure if most smartphone producers release their service manuals to the public?
Anyway it would be great if there was a single repository I could go to to download any and all of the latest phone service manuals. If they were all as good as the Xperia manual it would make my life massively simpler.
Hey there! My name is Mike and I've been making apps for a few years now. I am making this post because I want to get your opinion on something, so I can check whether your experience with programming is similar with mine. Here's some context:
I am now working as a full time developer. A few days ago, I randomly thought back to the days where I first started coding.
Interestingly enough, one of the emotions I remember most vividly from back then was feeling very, very confused. All the resources I needed to be able to become a great developer were there for free - the internet had my back on that. But there was a problem - there was so much information out there that it was hard to know where to start. Everytime I tried to learn something new, it felt like a gamble - will I learn something new that will completely change the way I write code, or will I hit a wall and be stuck for 2 months, spinning in circles, getting nothing done?
And then I realized - in the 2 years I've been working as a full time dev, I learned more than in 6 years fooling around by myself. Why was that? The answer was pretty simple - I was surrounded by people who have already been there before. But, the fascinating thing is the following: these people never once took my keyboard and started typing away when I asked them for help with a bug. They didn't go to the closest whiteboard and hold a 45 minute seminar whenever I was confused by some obscure design pattern. They simply told me - "oh.. why don't you look X up on Google", or "check out this class, it does something similar to what you need". And that was it; they just told me where to look, and that made all the difference.
So, this is what I want to get your opinion on. Do you relate to this as a senior developer looking back on your early days? Are you just starting out and feeling overwhelmed? Did you just save the new collague 4 hours of work by telling him where to look in the code?
I've made a survey to see what your experience looks like. It takes around 2 minutes, here it is:
https://forms.gle/3Wed1psohJEmfnVJ9
Thank you for your time!