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Well my favorite author of all time is Isaac Asimov. He tends to write in a very direct way without flowery language, which I appreciate. Anything he writes is fantastic, but some specific starting points:
The Foundation Series is probably his best work.
I, Robot is probably his most famous work because of the film which has LITERALLY NOTHING in common with the book. It is very good and a great way to see Asimov's approach to robotics (a term he coined, by the way; he is credited with first usage of the word 'robotics', which is now a fricken major at most universities)
Nightfall is an amazing short-story-turned-novel. Read the short story version, it is better.
He also wrote [The Galactic Empire series] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galactic_Empire_(series)) and the Robot series which tie in to the same universe as the Foundation series, they're all good as well, but I'd probably focus on the Foundation series first and see if you like how that goes

Other great authors of golden age sci-fi include Robert A. Heinlein, and from him I recommend The Past Through Tomorrow a collection of his short stories. Fun fact: the secret service raided Heinlein's apartment and interrogated him on how he has written such an accurate description of multi-stage rockets, as those were currently not public knowledge and highly classified. They were convinced he was a spy or was being fed information from a spy. He was really just a very good writer. He is most famous for Starship Troopers because of the movie of the same name. The thing with Heinlein is that later in life he became a dirty old man, and his writing reflects that. Evidence is Stranger in a Strange Land which is a very good novel, but there is a lot of describing the female form in it, and quite a bit about humanity's attitude toward sex. A very good book and I recommend it, but he was clearly becoming a bit of a lecherous old fart.

Leaving the golden age for a moment, we enter the 'New Wave science fiction' where I'd have to recommend the Ringworld series by Larry Niven. And later Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card (a fantastic book despite controversy surrounding the author). Currently I'm reading the Spinward Fringe series by Randolph Lalonde which is recent enough it doesn't have a wikipedia entry, and is not yet finished.

For a brief overview of the author's comparative styles; Asimov is very cerebral, his books don't contain much, if any, action and are mostly about exploring interesting concepts in a brilliant way. Heinlein was focused on the near-er or alternate versions of the future and had a little more action than Asimov tended to include. Larry Niven is renowned for being a very technically accurate writer and some physics professors have actually used his science fiction books to teach in class (he explores the concept of the dyson sphere and applies it in a real-world situation). Card is a mixture of action and psychology, a very deep book with a decent amount of action. Lalonde's series is very action oriented, but he creates a complex galactic community and small innovative details that make the series interesting. There are so many more I want to recommend, but I think I'll leave you with just the 6 paragraphs, lest I get too wordy -_-

I thought it was spelled Murlock...but whatever anyways!

/u/Hansoda seeing as the thread that spawned initially wasn't super helpful, funny tho :P, what you want to look for is entry level helpdesk support or chat support or anything like that. ISPs are typically ALWAYS looking....but if you can avoid that hell please do, you'll keep your sanity a bit longer then us here :)

But yeah in short the things I would tell you to get an understanding of are simple really:

• Learn everything you can about Windows 7 / 10. Try to get some Mac OSx knowledge if you can (atleast like how to browse through the computer like you do Windows, probably haha) and definitely try to atleast get a grasp on how simple programming works (like how to make a batch file would be good to know...but again google is your friend. I have figured out how to make service tasks for Windows 7, make a cloud server for free in Nextcloud, edit the properties of an installer so it would natively install for all users on the computer and not just myself, etc all through google!).
  
  
• DO NOT WORRY ABOUT NOT KNOWING WHAT A DOMAIN IS. It is just a network that companies sit on so they are more secure then without and also allows access to network drivers from the server that is also attached to the domain (simplified explanation but it works).
  
  
• Know how to build a computer and fix things with it.
  
  
• Know how to correct issues with iphones/android (software, like updates or how to edit an emails password).
  
  
• Know how to use GOOGLE, it is seriously our best friend in IT.
  
  
• Make sure to ask questions on anything you have a question on, if you're boss can't answer it then google....okay reverse that, ask Google first then your boss).
  
  
• Don't worry about servers or anything like that, they are not complicated (although people make it out to be) - they are basically just a computer in a sliding rack.
  
  
• Don't worry if someone asks you if you have ever worked with AD (Active Directory) - it is SO EASY to understand, if you can build a computer and fix software problems within Windows or a cell phone then AD would be a breeze for you. You basically have a set of folders (OU as its called) that contain users (say: John Doe)- you want to reset John Doe password you go to the folder he is in, say Marketing and click that folder and then find John Doe and right-click his name and click reset password, that is it basically.
  
  
• You can find AD information through YouTube or online guides :) I advise learning it as it is soooo sooo simple and almost EVERY company will use it.
  
  
• If you can: learn how to disassemble laptops and replace parts within them (trust me I had never done it before either and I've taken laptops apart many times since 2 years ago when I did my first disassemble for work). This site here is VERY good at telling you what to do :) I advise getting a set of magnetic tools and a magentic bowl to hold all the screws in a secure location while working on them so you don't lose any.
  
  
  Um...that is about all I can think of :P sorry for the super long post mate but I hope this helps and gives you a better idea of what to learn/watch/know. This all comes from my own experience and knowledge as a person who started his IT career back when I was 18 for a Call Center/then my own business/then doing work for realtors/then consultant style work/and now I'm at what is basically a bomb and munitions disposal company haha; also I'm now 27 so quite a long time doing various IT work! :D

Well, I'd caution first time dog owners against adopting a stray off the street rather than through a rescue that has evaluated it. If its a puppy its one thing, but older dogs who have been strays or ferals for a while can come with some challenges. If nothing else, do try to rescue the pup and contact local rescues (especially if you can guess the breed and find a breed rescue) as puppies get adopted pretty fast. If you do choose to keep the pup yourself, search for a local trainer using the terms "Positive only," "positive reinforcement" and "clicker training" to local a positive-based trainer. Avoid trainers who advertise "balanced," "traditional," or talk about "dominance", "pack leader", or "alpha."

There are a ton of wonderful resources out there, and here are some very worthwhile books to look into

Before And After Getting Your Puppy

Puppy Primer

Power of Positive Dog Training

Family Friendly Dog Training

And specifically addressing house training -
Way to Go!

Anything by the following authors (who also have online articles) is pure gold:

Patricia McConnell

Pat Miller

Ian Dunbar

Suzanne Clothier

Grisha Stewart

Pia Silvani

Jean Donaldson

Sophia Yin

Also check our Dr. Yin's amazing series of youtube videos

And for general training (as in obedience and tricks) Kikopup is phenomenal.

I've worked in rescue for years and I foster harder dogs. If you every need any advice or questions answered you are welcome to contact me individually as well :-)

First of all, going to D.C. will not save any money. There will be loses every time you convert from A.C. to D.C. and every time you go up or down in a D.C. to D.C. conversion.

And the losses can become quite significant.

My goal for D.C. was reliability. I operate my own servers and I am working on a telephone service, therefore having power at all times is very important to me.

Having D.C. for other things is nice, but I wouldn't have installed any of the D.C. power were it not for needing power all of the time for work.

Having said that, it was a simple matter to setup D.C. for the CPAP machines, some of our lighting and I will keep expanding into D.C., putting more and more of our living space on it.

I don't currently have the fridge or anything else on D.C. though I am starting to look into moving that direction.

To use D.C. there are three primary subsystems, the charger, the batteries and the load.

The charger:
I have a Stinger SPS70 charger with a charge control module to keep the batteries going.

http://www.amazon.com/Stinger-SPS70-Power-Supply-Charger/dp/B001TH8O9W

The charge control module monitors the amount of drain on the battery and only provides that much charge to the battery. So as long as power comes to the charger, the battery floats in the circuit.

That means, after the battery is fully charged, if 20A is being drawn from the battery, the charge control module measures it and provides 20A to the battery.

For a short period of time I used a regular battery charger, with a 50A rating. The problem was it always pushed 50A to the battery, regardless of the drain. The excess energy was wasted in heat and the water in the battery would boil out. Not only would I have to refill the battery a lot, but I had to constantly monitor everything to make certain it didn't get too hot. It just got too crazy and even though battery chargers are inexpensive and easy to get, I needed something with more smarts.

I tried a couple of smart battery chargers, but they proved to not be reliable enough to use.

With A.C. available, generally speaking, for every 10A of battery you will want 1A of charger. That will get the batteries charged quickly, within a half of a day, and still let you operate the devices you have attached. Remember, that is a general rule of thumb.

That means with the 70A charger I have I am able to provide enough charge to the three batteries I currently have and simultaneously run the attached devices. When I add the next battery I will still go with my current setup, but I will need another charger before I add any additional batteries after the next one.

When looking for a charger, try to locate something that is reliable and has good efficiency. I am told by the manufacturer the Stinger is about 65% efficient. While price is a consideration, being reliable and efficient is more important.

When I moved from a regular battery charger to the Stinger, I have not had to add water to the batteries since.

The batteries:
Batteries are the key to making this all work. You will want what is called marine or deep discharge batteries and not a regular car battery. I will let you look up to see what the differences between the two are, so no need to go into it here.

You will need to put the batteries somewhere kids can't get to them, but you easily can. You will need to check their water level every month. That means moving each battery so you can get access to the top of the battery for both a visual inspection and to add water. If the batteries are difficult to get to, you won't do the maintenance.

The batteries contain acid. If any acid gets out of the battery, say from overfilling one, then it will spill onto the floor and damage anything it touches.

A battery will die from any of the following; no water, too little voltage, too high of a charging or discharging current, old age.

With the setup I have I have to monitor the voltage. That means when the power goes out I have to watch the voltage until it drops down to about 12V and then shut everything down.

I am typically at home so it is not an issue. If I am not at home, I am very rarely more than an hour away. I have six hours of standby power so if the power goes out I can easily make it home, monitor battery charge and do a shut down as needed.

It is possible to automate the shutdown circuit and I will probably do that next.

Batteries are heavy and large. I have a very sturdy shelf they sit on and have made a dolly that can lift them up a few inches and roll them off the shelf for inspection. I have my batteries so I can shut each one off individually so I don't have to shut the entire system down to do maintenance.

I will eventually have eight batteries. That is a big commitment to time, space and money. So I can't afford to let them go bad.

Each battery is rated at 12V and 200A for a total wattage of 2,400.

The batteries must be stored in a place that kids won't be playing. While batteries are generally safe, it is possible to get hurt. If a person touches any metal between the positive and the negative side of the battery, well that would be bad.

The metal will be melted. If you were to have a ring or a watch that shorted out a battery, the ring would be melted. And so would your finger. And it would be incredibly painful while it happened. If the metal is larger than can be melted, the battery will melt instead. And when a battery gets too hot is can potentially explode.

That means acid and fire in the area it is stored in. And big boom booms.

I have never had a battery fire. I have never shorted out the two poles of a battery. I take a lot of safety precautions when I am in the area of the batteries.

To put it into perspective, I have a 40A circuit from the street, running at 125V for a total of 5,000 watts.

With the three batteries I have 7,200 watts of power and when I have all eight batteries there will be 19,200 watts if power. Definitely something to be respected.

You will need to vent the batteries. When they are being charged, all the time, they produce hydrogen gas. The area they will be stored in will need to be vented to outside so hydrogen doesn't build up.

Finally you will need to keep the batteries at about 65 degrees Fahrneheit. They can be hotter or colder, so if you are comfortable in temperature so will the batteries. If they get cold or hot, their ability to store a charge will decrease.

The load:
I have all of my computers, the KVM, the LCD screens, the gateways, switches and router, all of the fans and lights in the computer area running on battery power.

I had to replace the A.C. power supplies in my servers with D.C. power supplies. For the RAID servers I had to go with 500W rated supplies, but most of the servers operate using 250W supplies.

For other devices I had to use voltage regulators. Battery voltage floats between 11.8V and 14.4V depending on the load and the available charge.

Generally speaking, devices that operate on D.C. have a small fixed voltage they can use. I use the mini-box.com DCDC-USB voltage regulators. They will take a wide input range of voltages and turn it into a fixed output voltage. The nice thing about the DCDC-USB devices is through jumpers I can select an output voltage. If I have a device that uses 9VDC, I can set a jumper for that voltage.

Other thoughts:
There is a wide selection of devices like fans, lights and small appliances, by buying devices that were designed for automotive, marine or camping.

If this seems very complex, get help.

I hope this all helps and best wishes.

Cool beans! I'm still awake and I have a bad habit of late-night online shopping, so I'll do your research. Prepare for some sleep-deprived rambling about tech accessories. (Or what do you call them if you're just referring to cases? Computer clothes?)

Speck only seems to have folder-style tablet cases, so you're out of luck there. I just looked on Amazon and this TPU case seems like the best one--full coverage, relatively cheap, no stupid-looking logos, and a durable material. There is apparently only one left in stock... so go for it? Amazon quality can vary so obviously it's up to you. (Protip: With a college email address, you can get six months of Amazon Prime for free. If your school allows email aliases, you can do this indefinitely.)

I've been thinking of changing my laptop design lately too, since the cats can get old, and since I collect washi tape it'll be pretty easy to make a cool pattern. Here's a DIY idea!

As you can tell, I love dressing up my electronics. On my laptop I also have these keyboard stickers with this other set on various keys including wasd (a nice visual cue because I'm really clumsy in Minecraft). My 3DS is a cat thanks to this case. When I feel like having everything stolen at once, I use this wallet case on my phone. (It also has a cat. Maybe I'm a little obsessed?) Otherwise I use the X-Doria Dash Icon case.

Also, I just remembered that when I was going through the airport to come home for winter break, the TSA lady saw my laptop case and said "Well, the cat's out of the bag now!" when I put it in the bin on the conveyor belt. It inspires all kinds of terrible puns.

I hope you like these ideas! I definitely wrote too much.

I dont do too many field-fixes anymore... Im now in startup land where everything is shiny & new, and we get what we need.

 

My things that were stupid-useful that mostly haven't been listed so far:

Klein Tools electrician scissors - Most useful cutters ever. Take-a-finger-off sharp, cuts though thick cables, the top is great for straining phone / ethernet cable. A cable puller had a set, and he sold me on them in 30 seconds when he raked the wobbly cat5 strands across them, and they were perfectly straight. Would have been worth the $$ at twice the cost.

I replaced my mismatched tools in my bag w/ a iFixit toolkit when I needed to start buying new bits for iPads and the tri-lobes for macs. Ended up being about the same cost as those bits alone, and it had them, and a bunch of other stuff that was better then my cobbled together tools. The screwdriver is far-better made then the little plastic ones I had before. They have a new-toolkit, but I haven't used it.

A roll of Velcro ties Far more useful then zips. Use the scissors above to trim as needed.

Mars-eraser. Great for cleaning toner from printers, and cleaning up corroded connectors (first pass).

Melamine Sponge (aka Magic Eraser) - They clean up things nothing else does like the weird tint that macs wrist guards get from skin oil. Also great for getting toner off of the outside of printers. Also good for cleaning up cherry-coke from a $25k piece of sound gear.

Deoxit - You can use the cheap stuff that was like $5 a can at any automotive parts store, and that will work for most things. This is for more sensitive stuff. I used this repairing contacts in audio-control-surfaces, rebuilding DSLRs, etc. Its for when more then a mars-eraser is needed.

There's a difference between yellow smart attributes (which means the attribute has errors but is not totally dead, just worn) and red smart attributes (the attribute has many errors and the drive is basically dead). Many SMART reading softwares won't even show yellow marks.

You seriously think you need to replace mechanical drives every year? Wow. Average drive life for one of those is roughly 3-5 years. And an ssd even longer.

Also, I'll say it again. 300dollardatarecovery.com

We use HDDScan in our shop to run sector by sector scans and run smart reports.

EDIT:

Also, you are spending way too much on those drives if that's where you are buying them from.

Same WD Black you linked: http://www.amazon.com/Western-Digital-Black-Notebook-WD5000BPKX/dp/B00DSUTWMQ/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1422507435&sr=8-1&keywords=WD5000BPKX&pebp=1422507422065&peasin=B00DSUTWMQ

Same Samsung EVO you linked: http://www.amazon.com/Samsung-250GB-2-5-Inch-Internal-MZ-7TE250BW/dp/B00E3W1726/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1422507502&sr=8-2&keywords=samsung+evo+840+250

Either way, 80 dollars is a lot of money just to gain some extra performance and longetivity that the kid is never going to notice anyway. It's still about half the cost for a 500GB mechanical (a very good mechanical at that) than a 250GB SSD with a serious performance issue unless you perform a firmware update on the drive.

Double EDIT: I just noticed that that is an Australian site. Disregard the amazon links. But my point still stands.

There's a ton of cookie cutter quotes that I could throw out your way here...but none of them would cover exactly what I'm trying to say...so here goes...

Our capacity for pain and loss...our ability to recover from trauma and damage, is limitless. Just as is our capacity for love and joy.
If it was not, there are many "great" people who would never have attained that lofty title...Otto Frank, The Dhali Lama, Ishmael Beah, not to mention all the day to day heroes, whose will to go on, and to keep pushing, and keep striving, show a resilience not only of mind, but spirit and heart as well.

That may feel like a comparison....saying your pain, or your loss is not as great as many other people, and look what they have accomplished....and to be honest, to an extent, it is. It is not, however, intended to belittle your loss, as each loss is different, as is each person carrying that loss. It is intended to say this.....the option to live and love greatly still exists, and it exists for you. You are the only person in the entire world, that can prevent yourself from grabbing life, and savoring it to the fullest....from finding love, and happiness, and pure joy again. It simply requires you to commit EVERYTHING you are, back to the cause. If you hold back, if you hide away that part of you that's hurt so badly, you only do a disservice to yourself.

I believe you will find this life one day..that you will rediscover true joy, and love. Yes, you may suffer another loss someday, and yes it will hurt, but once you've found your way back to the path once, it becomes easier again, and again. This is the secret that those "great" people hold......"There is no loss, that cannot, with time, be healed; There is no spirit, that is better for remaining isolated; and there is no heart, that is made whole again, without love"

If the client can hear a difference that they appreciate, is it really ripping them off? I've worked with some seriously high end speakers and amps and given a proper configuration (with cables, source, etc.) I can hear a very large difference.

But i agree, BOSE has a great marketing team that established them as a top shelf product (in the mass production world) Personally, I have a list of products in their price ranges I would rather purchase / use. Given a fair, blind, A vs B comparision I've seen people be shocked that product A outperformed Bose. It's like Beats, they had a great marketing department with big names saying how great their products are. But in my personal experience, I can get Sennheiser headphones that sound better for less with the types of music i listen to.

Audio is like a computer. Garbage in => you know.

Step 1: Get Stereo amp Link to example
You'll also want an 1/8" headphone to L/R RCA Y cable.

Set the gain on the amp at a reasonable level and just teach him to make sure the amp power is on when he wants sound and use the PC volume slider to handle the volume of the sound. Done.

If he had decent speakers, maybe he would listen to music instead of the solitare sound effects?

Edit: Removed the smack talk about BOSE because I was feeling nice

A 3.5" floppy is, on the high side, approximately 3.3mm thick.

A stack of 5,970 3.5" floppies is therefore roughly 19.7 meters - over 64 feet - high, until it inevitably tips over.

Now, you might be thinking that it'd be easiest to make a bunch of smaller stacks, and you'd be right. A hundred sixty-floppy stacks would fit neatly on a pallet; each stack would be a quite safe ~198mm in height - 7.8" - and the whole operation would be less than a meter across each way (~90cm by ~94cm). All of these dimensions are rounded up, if anything, to allow for a bit of pallet wrap, paper dividers, whatever.

"The pallet is overkill, Val!" Perhaps so, for a cuboid that small, but at a weight of ~19 grams per diskette, we're looking at over 113 kg - 250 lbs - of floppy.

Hmm. Let's divide this up so that it can be carried up the stairs by hand.

A standard case of paper, here in the States - 10 reams of 8.5x11" writing paper (like A4 sheets but shorter), has roughly 11x17" usable footprint and 8.5" height - about 28x43x21cm. This lets us put twelve stacks of up to 65 floppies in each box before we consider how many we can stuff down the half-floppy-width gap in the side - may as well not bother with that, honestly, if it only saves one person one trip up the stairs and disrupts the order of the disks. These 780 floppies weigh about 14.8 kg, or under 33 lbs - light enough for an out-of-shape PFY to handle.

Now we're only looking at eight boxes of floppies, with the last box being only two-thirds full. This is a totally reasonable backup solution!

Okay, there are a few missing details here - reliability issues (with both disks and drives!), the number of man-hours required to have someone swap and label the disks, and, of course, the $2,500-plus-shipping cost of the disks themselves, even from the suspiciously-cheap brigade - if by some miracle the disks all work out of the box.

Now you know!

If cleaning PCs for dust and hair is something you do regularly, I highly recommend investing in one of these. Way more powerful than canned air and never runs out (I was able to use mine to clear my deck of leaves). I have one at the office and one at home. They're great. Cheaper in the long term too.

This is something every tech department and techie should get. Its a vacuum that is just a bit bigger then a can of air and it blows much harder. Its nice not to have to wait for the can to warm back up so you can use it again. I love this thing it totally replaced cans of air for me. This was posted on here I think a while ago and it has saved me so much on air I take it whenever I have to go to a client.

Anyone ever read the book "The Cuckoo's Egg", by Cliff Stoll? It deals with mid-80s cybercrime (true story) but there was something kinda similar to this, where early on he tracked the bad dude down to the country (but didn't realize it yet because the answer initially sounded so ridiculous to him) by figuring how long it took for data to travel.

Fantastic fantastic book. I'm on my second copy--read the first one literally to pieces.

got one of these though work, really nice, was like $17

Blow instead of suck. Everyone has a vacuum, but there's still a big demand for those compressed gas "duster" cans. It's because it's always better and safer to take the computer outside and blast the dust away. They usually come with a small diameter straw to direct the air into small spaces. I've also used an electric "duster" that's highly rated on Amazon.

Have you read The Cuckoo's Egg by Cliff Stoll?

http://www.amazon.com/The-Cuckoos-Egg-Tracking-Espionage/dp/1416507787

The call he made to the Los Angeles Air Force Base when they were getting hacked bad is one of my favorites. To paraphrase, he was tracking hackers, and they got into LAAFB's computer. He called the duty officer. He told them someone had broken into their computer, duty officer said "impossible, it has a password". And Stoll said "yes, the password is "sysop", the default, it was never changed". The duty officer yanked the connection out of the wall as I recall, or something like that.

If you have not read it, it is a GREAT book, and well ahead of its time, highly recommended.

I have given books from this series to multiple relatives over the years. Then, keep referring them to the book, and telling them that if they won't call things by the proper name, I can't help them. It's been a great thing.

https://www.amazon.com/Teach-Yourself-VISUALLY-Windows-Tech/dp/1119057027/ref=sr_1_fkmrnull_1?keywords=Learn+Windows+10+Visually&qid=1550159752&s=gateway&sr=8-1-fkmrnull

May I fix that for you? I'm tempted to give more of my money to Amazon for this one.... But then again, I'll confess I haven't bought flash drives in a while, so I don't know if that's a good price or not.

here is the ESD safe updated model.

http://www.amazon.com/DataVac%C2%AE-Electric-Duster-Anti-Static-Blower/dp/B00U01YVYK

ESD safe version

Get one of these babys if you gonna clean your computer
Maybe not so much if it's just your keyboard though.
http://www.amazon.com/Metro-Vacuum-ED500-500-Watt-Electric/dp/B001J4ZOAW/ref=sr_1_cc_1?s=aps&ie=UTF8&qid=1335438894&sr=1-1-catcorr

You need one of these: