The Home Stretch – Semester 1

In order to finish learning everything we need to learn in Semester 1, we need to do the following:

1. Get ready for the final hands-on testing. That means:

1. Practice taking a computer completely apart, putting it back together again, and keeping a checklist of all parts handled during the process.
2. We’ll need to do this on two different computers.

2. We’ll need to practice the Windows 2000 installation from start to finish, using the checklist published recently on this blog.

3. Finally, we’ll need to complete the Computer Technician Study Guide and use it to prepare for a verbal exam, live in the classroom. I’ll go around the room asking questions. You’ll be prepared to answer. If the class shows they have mastered the material, we can avoid a written final. If not, we will have a two-hour written final.

All four documents – Windows 2000 checklist, two computer take-apart checklists, and the Computer Technician Study Guide – will have to be completed, signed and turned in to me before you can pass the semester.

If any of the Study Guides appear to have been directly copied from each other, I will want an explanation, after which the offending students will lose their points. Please study and learn honestly.

Computer Technician Study Guide

While some of your classmates are practicing Windows 2000 installation, the rest of you will use your time well by researching and filling out the Computer Technician Study Guide, which is available here or in the Research Links.

As soon as you open it, save it to you My Documents folder – or you can opt to save it directly into your My Documents folder. However, before you do save it, add your first name and last initial – e.g. JohnS – to the end of the file name. Then reopen it from your My Documents folder. That way you won’t accidently save it to an Internet temp file.

Use any of the other research links or Google or your favorite search site to find out the definitions of any of the terms you don’t know. Anywhere you see a dash, you need to put a complete but brief definition of the term.

Here’s an important tip to make the document stay looking good: Never hit the “Enter” key. This way the document will keep its outline format. And don’t worry because any typing or copying and pasting you do will automatically word-wrap to new lines.

If you do and excellent job on this Study Guide, you’ll review everything we learned in the first semester. This way we can avoid any big test. You can consider this review to be like a semester final.

Setting up the Windows Operating System

In order to learn the basic set-up of a Windows operating system, we’ll use this check list:

1. Install Windows 2000, Service Pack 4.
   • Delete any existing partitions. If Windows 2000 has been recently set up on your practice computer, the set-up disk with recognize that and ask if you want to “Repair” the installation. Don’t do it. Instead, hit ESC to install a “fresh copy” of Windows. That will let you delete any partitions, which you want to do.
   • Format using NTFS file system.
   • Follow the installation process.
   • Use Typical settings.
   • Name the computer “image1″, with the number following in sequence from “image1″ to “image22″, as necessary.
   • Name the organization “ncoe”.
   • When asked, always name the computer image1, etc.
   • For “WORKGROUP” use “ncoe”. Leave the top button activated, and don’t change to domain setting. We want the “network without a domain” setting.
   • Don’t enter any password when asked.
2. When Windows 2000 is fully installed, we need to upgrade Internet Explorer from 5 to 6.0, SP1 (Service Pack 1).
   • To do this, go to the Microsoft Online Support. You can do that by clicking on Help in Internet Explorer 5, clicking on ”Online Support,” and searching the page for links to Internet Explorer. You’ll find a link to download Internet Explorer 6.0, SP1.
   • When downloading, choose “Run,” not “Save.” This lets you install from the Internet without downloading an actual file.
   • Follow the installation process.
3. We needed IE6 so we could install Symantec Anti-Virus. So, next, we will install SAV from the disk I’ll provide you.
   • Click on Install Symantec Anti-Virus, twice.
   • Choose “Client”.
   • Choose “Complete.”
   • Choose “Unmanaged”.
   • Choose “Auto-protect” (default) and “Live Update” (default).
   • Once it’s installed, you’ll need to run Live Update to update to the latest program files and anti-virus definitions.
   • After that, you need to right-click on the gold shield in the system tray (the SAV icon) and choose “Open Symantec Antivirus.” Next, click on the File menu and choose “Schedule Updates.” Then, set the schedule to check for updates “daily” at 8:15 AM.
4. Now we’ve got a clean image of Windows 2000, with anti-virus security.
5. Next, we need to configure Windows for Automatic Updates.
   • There will be a little icon of a world with the Windows logo in the system tray.
   • Click on this icon, which will allow you to turn on Automatic Updates.
   • Choose the ”Download Updates Automatically” setting.
   • Let Windows update until any new updates have been installed.
6. Install any applications the computer will need when it is deployed. This usually depends on the computer’s use. (We don’t have to do this one until we’re really creating student or office workstation images.)

A Meeting of the Minds – final comments

First, let’s thank JFetzer for this great tip. There’s a site that looks great for improving our communication skills:

http://www.mindtools.com/page8.html

Check it out.

Here are the final guidelines for the presentation:

• Only headlines and key points and terms or short descriptions on your slides
• The rest should be in your notes or narrative or script, which you will hand to me after you present your portion
• Save your URLs for a combined Citations Page, which we’ll build right at the end
• Let me know when you’re done with your slides, so you can drop them into our file server for assembly; then you’ll join the assembly team
• Once we finish, we’ll give the presentation, with each of us leading the presentation of our particular topics

I really look forward to our final presentation. Please remember that a key goal is that we improve our presentation skills, which are a key part of communication skills for later on in life, in school and in the workplace.