dave4shmups

Thank you! This post proves that people have a right to be upset about this. For crying out loud, you can walk into a Micro Center and get a perfectly good refurbished PC or laptop that has, for example, a 6th gen Intel Core I5 that can run Windows 10 just fine and should be able to run Windows 11 just fine as well. Four years, especially with the chip shortage, is not that long. I think Microsoft should double that to 8 years. I don't hate Microsoft or Windows 11, but this is so anti-consumer it's nuts.

Well, I joined a Geek Squad Reddit group and was told that the two in-store Geek Squad jobs (as opposed to jobs that require a lot of driving around) are Consultation Agent and Advanced Repair Agent. The latter is listed as an entry-level job, but requires "6+ months experience diagnosing, troubleshooting, or repairing technology products"-and I don't know where they expect you to get that.

I really like both HTML and CSS, but I don't know if I could specialize in both of those, because internet sites also require JavaScript which I don't like as much.

Yeah, I'm in my early 40s. What about Best Buy, and working for the Geek Squad? Would I be driving all over the place, or could I just work at a store, like I could with Micro Center?

I know they don’t need to, but I thought that the Samsung software was great in that video, and am wondering if any other brands include something like it with their SSDs.

So I recently watched a YouTube video where the guy was upgrading a laptop that he had from a mechanical drive to an SSD. It was a 2.5'' Samsung SSD and I was really impressed with the data migration software that it had. Do any other brands, like Western Digital or SanDisk, come with data migration software?

If I worked as a tech at Micro Center, I wonder how much time I'd spend selling vs. repairing? They have a listing open now, but you have to do some sales work, which sounds like a weird requirement for a computer tech.?

What do you mean by different design architectures? X86 and ARM are the only two ones that I'm aware of.

I meant $15,000; whoops!

I've thought about being a programmer as a career option, but I don't want to spend $15-$20,000 on an coding boot camp. I know I could get started with, for example, Python on a site like Udemy.com, but I'm concerned that I wouldn't have as much of a chance at getting a job as people who go to those expensive boot camps do.

OK, thanks for all of the replies!?

So I've heard about electromagnetic interference (EMI) being an issue around PCs, and I'm wondering how to avoid it. I'm also curious as to why it's even an issue these days, since I grew up using an Apple IIe at school, and there were signs warning against having magnets near disks and things like that. However, with people today using magnetic screwdrivers, and PC cases having magnetic dust filters, I really didn't think that having anything magnetic around computers was an issue anymore.

What about working on point of sales systems?

What could I do with a Linux+ certification? That interests me more then Information Security.

Well, I already have a BA that I got back in 2001. I just love computers, and computer technology and I think it would be fun to work on computers for a living.

Gotcha, thanks! Would working as an Apple Certified Technician require A+ certification?

OK, thanks! But what about having to calculate in binary? In other words, does the exam give you a set of 1s and 0s and expect you to know (for example) what IP address that would translate into?

In order to pass the test, do I need to be able to calculate in binary, or do I just need to (for example) be able to recognize an IP address from a subnet mask address?

Well that's good to know. But I'd still need to know all of it to pass the exam.

The stuff on Networking for the 220-1001 exam is pretty complicated; at least to me. I mean, I'm in my 40s, so it's not like I thought that the internet was simple to run, but all these port numbers, IP address numbers, MAC address numbers-in hexadecimal. I was never that great at math, and then the guy starts getting into binary-OK, I know the basics: a 1 is on and a 0 is off. But if I have to do binary math on the exam, that would be a real headache for me. Apart from the networking content, it wasn't so bad.

What do you mean by co-op? A community college that's not to far from me has a certificate in computer repair. I already have a BA, and right now I'm at a point in my life where it's just not a good time for me to study for another Bachelor's degree

The thing that worries me about getting into Cyber Security is all the data/privacy breaches that seem to happen (at least) on a weekly basis now. So I worry that I'll end up being cut even if I was doing my job. Somebody has to be the fall guy after these events. Or maybe I'm just worrying too much, which I have a tendency to do. The other thing that concerns me is how to get hands-on A+ experience-should I build my own PC and take video footage of the process? I did watch all of the online video courses, through Udemy, for the 220-1001 exam, and took all the quizzes and they emailed me a certificate of completion. Unfortunately, that doesn't count towards getting a discount on the exam, which is a bummer.

So I've thought about taking the CompTia A+ exams-both the 220-1001 and the 220-1002. but I have some questions for people who are professional computer techs. Would I be driving around a lot, or could I just be based in a store like Micro Center, and work on computers that need repair that come into that store? Also, could I specialize in one area-let's say I love working on laptops; could I just (or mostly) do that?

What about displays like the one on the Kindle Paperwhite? I would love to get one of these as it would save me a lot of space, since I don't really have a lot of room left for more physical books. And the screen doesn't look anywhere near as bright as the one on my iPad Air 2.

That’s great news! Thanks for the reply!