IS 480 Journal & Progress Report

 This week I worked a full 40 hours. This brings this quarter total to 40 hours as last week we were on spring break.  Again since I wasn't working spring break, I didn't have any work expected to do and in general has been very slow for me. There is a lot of things that need to be done but most if it is things that I am not allowed to work on or has to be done by the system admin as I don't have access etc... I've mainly just been resetting computers as they come in and restarting the computers that show the security feed for both James Taylor and the high school.  I did have a side quest to find a 2.5 inch drive as the computer we use for engraving took a dump when we had a power serge and windows got corrupted. The laptop is over 10 years old and originally came with windows 7. As you may know we have a $0 budget so we have to reuse and source parts where we can. My co-worker asked my boss to get a new HDD but he said no we don't have any funds. I then suggested ...

Welcome back to a new quarter and the last quarter of my Bachelors degree!  This week, my work is on spring break so I will be working 0 hours this week and will start back up again next week. I left off working on a few student laptops and all but one was finished. I expect it should have finished updating to windows 11 by now and I will hopefully come back to not a lot of work to do. 

I worked 40 hours this week, bringing my total hours for the quarter to 360. This week was packed with tasks, and honestly, it’s hard to keep track of everything I did. There’s never really a set list of things to tackle — issues pop up randomly, and I handle whatever comes my way. I started the week with 28 more laptops that needed either the DRC testing software reinstalled, Windows updates, or a full reset. After that, I helped a teacher at the other high school who was having Wi-Fi issues. I suggested using a USB-to-Ethernet adapter to hardwire her computer for a more stable connection. She wasn’t a fan of that idea since she wanted to keep using her external keyboard and didn’t want to be "tethered." I explained that it was either this or continue dealing with Wi-Fi drops until we could figure out what’s going on in that room. Later, I teamed up with our tech specialist to troubleshoot a middle school projector that wasn’t displaying anything. Aside from the rack being c...

This week I worked a full 40 hours bringing my quarter total to 320 hours. This week I expected to get computers in to repair as WEDA testing is still going on. Only the first three days this week they tested and the rest of the days had no testing. This was nice as there wasn't as many laptops to come in that needed updates or to be reset. A nice addition for Wednesday and Thursday was the System Admin let me configure our server to host Virtual Machines.  The host server had windows server 2025, our newest server OS (or other ones are running server 2012 and 2019). We are slowly trying to shift the server roles to the newer servers and update them to server2025 as the older versions are no longer going to be supported. So on the host machine I configured Hyper-V and restarted it to enable the feature, I was remoted in so I had to wait a few min for it to restart so I could re-connect to it. I then set up a VM and passed in our Volume License key so the VM was activated. This is g...

 This week I worked my full 40 hours, bringing the quarter total to 280 hours. This week I did not know what to expect as I had just come back from our mid-winter break. I did expect to get more laptops back as students are doing WEDA testing and I was right. I got about 18 computers that need to be either reset or updated so that the testing software could run.  This week has been a mix of slow and busy days. It feels like its been 2 weeks since I was on break but its only finally Friday. There has been a mix of things that I have worked on like resetting and updating student computers, setting up a new staff laptop and customizing his settings to be like his old computer / downloading software for his curriculum next year. I also fixed other miscellaneous issues such as frozen computers, monitors not working, preforming inventory control (tagging tech and adding it to our inventory software) etc... Next week I expect to do more laptop repairs and not a lot else as they ...

This weeks report is going to be a relatively short one. This week the school is on "Mid Winter Break" so that means I don't work this week as its not in my contract to work. This brings this weeks hours worked to 0, leaving the total hours the same. Before I left on Friday, a few teacher had issues with their surface laptops and one has ransomware on it. We disabled all her accounts and let the system admin take the accounts from there while I reset the Laptop with a fresh install of windows and reinstalled all the drivers. Another teacher had Windows 10 v 21h1 and was so outdated they couldn't update or use outlook. I had to manually install Windows 10 22h2 then I was able to install Windows 11 after that. When I left it was still installing so I hope it finished.  I expect to hand back those two laptops as soon I get back on Monday then deal with any weird issues that seam to come up whenever there is a break. 

This week I will have worked a full 40 hours, bringing my quarter total to 240 hours. This week started slow and slowly had things come up here and there. I worked a little bit on some server rostering stuff, contacting our Class-Link rep to help remove duplicate students and make sure the rostering is correct so students can sign into their portal to have SSO for all their curriculums programs like McGraw hill and Project Lead the Way.  Before winter break, we had a middle school student being malicious with the school network and computers, therefor his technology privileges were taken away and it became an admin problem. It was a whole thing I was assigned to work on and discover what he was doing, how he was doing it etc.. Most recently he was given his technology privileges back and they are again up to no good.  This time taking things a bit further  by using his share point to send bat and other script files to students and teachers, letting them gain remote access...

With all the snow this week I only ended up working on Monday and today (Friday) so that gives me 16 hours worked this week bringing the total for the quarter to 200 hours. I will make up the missed days along with the students on the makeup snow days later in march.  There was nothing really expected to get done this week and since I was only here two days there wasn't much to be done. A lot of teachers and students did not come to school today and there was only one tech issue all day so I took the opportunity to do coding homework. On Monday I changed out two projector bulbs and repaired two computers and that was about it. Next week students will be doing testing again so I'm sure I will be needing to update more computers to make sure that they can access the testing software.

This Monday was a paid holiday, so I worked 32 hours this week, bringing my total hours for the quarter to 136. The focus this week was resolving ongoing technical issues and addressing tickets as they came in. One significant project involved troubleshooting the auditorium’s projector system. Currently, devices connect to the system via HDMI through a wall port, which then converts the signal to Ethernet and runs to the booth. At the booth, the signal passes through a junction box that allows switching between multiple sources. From there, audio is split from the signal and sent to the amplifier system to power the speakers. The video signal continues through HDMI to an Extron transmitter box, which, along with an RS-232 connection for projector controls, converts the signal to Ethernet. The Ethernet signal travels to the receiver box, which converts it back to HDMI for video and RS-232 to control the projector. The issue lies with the Extron boxes, which are broken. This means device...

This week I worked another full 40 hours. This will only change if students have a day off, or there is a holiday / break. This brings my total hours for the quarter to 96 hours.  Last week we scheduled for a lift to come to the auditorium but the person in charge of bringing it was out that day, so we never got to take a look at the projector. I was also able to finish all the remaining laptops that needed repairs and send four of them off to Dell to be repaired under warranty.  During our team meeting, we discussed the possibility to get Extron training and to get certified to work with Extron equipment (install and program). After the meeting my boss had said that if I need any help working on a cert like A+, Network+, Security+ etc.. that he would find something for me to work on to help with the test and to get more experience. Some issues that arose: Had two teachers not able to do any updates and computers were acting slow and time clocks were off. Clocks issues was due...

This quarter started at a weird time and on a Thursday. I have been at my job since September of 2024, and this quarter started on a Thursday and wasn't a real "week". Starting on Monday, I have worked 32 hours and by the end of the week I will have a full 40 hours. This quarter I would have worked 56 hours.  So far this week, I am caught up on all of my tickets and have only a few laptops left to repair and rest. I have more done than what was expected of my boss.  Here are a few issues that arose.  Computer had malware   Was given a laptop that would pop up with "Norton" and "MacAfee" say we need to download an update when we don't use either of those programs. Standard procedure is to wipe the drive and preform a clean install of windows. Reset device and scanned and tested for any potential left over malware.  Students Broke laptop screen Laptop came in and the screen was cracked end to end. My standard is to check to see if we have an active w...