Hello, my name is Frank and this is my first attempt at a blog called TechFrankness. I intend for this blog to be a combination of a personal engineering log and tech reviews/editorials. When I was taking classes at a local Cisco Academy we were encouraged to keep a log of our notes and observations. Like a lot of people in class I had lots of notes but that three ring binder is somewhere gathering dust. My notes now are kept in OneNote while I am studying for certifications. I am hoping a blog might be a better medium than three ring binders or OneNote pages locked in a single notebook computer. Google has much better servers that can back up these notes than I do and can provide better access to them for me and others. Hopefully a blog will be a good place to share my little discoveries and frustrations about the technology that I am currently working on. If I have a question or a dilemma then I am sure others do too. Maybe this blog could help others and maybe I can get some feedback that will help me. The choice for the name of this blog as TechFrankness is both a play on my name and part of its mission statement. That mission is to honestly record my experiences and observations about computers.
I have been volunteering for about seven and a half years as a teacher's aide in a Computer Maintenance and Repair class. In that class I help students put computers together from individual parts and load operating systems. These students range from people wanting to get into the computer industry to people that just want to understand how their computer works under the hood and become more independent. I started taking classes in order to get a job working with computers and volunteered to get some work experience and learn the subject of computer repair more thoroughly. Having to explain something forces you to really understand what you have learned at a deeper level. Instead of just doing what you were told you have to know why in order to explain it to someone else. While volunteering on the weekend and at night after my regular job I pursued several certifications. I have an A+, Network+, Cisco CCENT, and Microsoft Office Specialist (MOS) certification in Word 2007 and PowerPoint 2007. Currently I am finishing studying for the MOS in Excel 2010, learning my new MacBook Pro, playing with Linux, and studying to recertify for my CCENT while trying to keep up on the latest tech news. During the day I work in a records department of a law firm with 60 attorneys that keeps me busy while I study on my lunch hour and breaks. The reason for the "mini" resume is to explain where I am coming from as a blogger. I know some stuff about computers but I don't know everything. I am in the process of learning more and I am hoping that this blog will be another learning opportunity.
