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Quick access to information, information sharing, e-business, dot-com; do you recognize these popular terms of the twentieth century? I hear them everyday as part of my job and they are just a few of the terms related to the exciting, growing field of computers, the field I have dedicated myself to for two decades. Working in the information technology field has been an interesting and exciting career choice. I have advanced my career from entering information on a single computer and generating printed reports for others to recommending, designing, and installing local area networks (LAN’s) that help businesses maximize their access to vital business data. Computers have become an integral component of the business world and I have been fortunate to be a part of that growing community. A LAN is a group of computers, printers and other components connected by some hardware source, either wire, fiber, or radio waves. A typical LAN consists of a server, which is a central data repository, the physical connections to the computers, and the clients or workstations. There can also be other peripheral devices that can be shared on a network such as printers, fax machines, modems, and scanners. The ability to share these devices among several users results in lower costs for organizations, helping them to raise profits. Prior to networks becoming commonplace in organizations, data was often shared via sneaker-net. Work done on one computer would be saved to a floppy disk and then hand carried to someone else to work with on another computer. I began working with computers while serving active duty with the United States Army. I was assigned as a Computer Operator on a Honeywell computer system, an assignment that initially sounded exciting, but actually turned out to be quite boring. My duties consisted of keypunching, mounting tapes (similar to audio reel-to-reel tapes), and taking reports off printers, separating them, and preparing them for distribution. During that period, the computer system I worked on was fully enclosed in a semi-trailer, capable of deploying to the field along with my unit. During my tenure in this job, I was lucky enough to take part in the development and testing of a new field system. That field system was based on the use of personal computers (PC’s), a new inductee to the computer industry. That involvement started me on a path that eventually led to a rewarding career in computer networking. After leaving active duty, and venturing out as a civilian, I began my employment with an industrial painting contractor. I worked as an Accounting Clerk, entering receipt and billing information into the computer. To ease the tracking of progress and profitability on projects, I developed and implemented spreadsheets. Much of my attention was devoted to the execution of a system used to simplify the company’s process for estimates, related to bids they were working on.
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