For those of you out there wondering...
I am sure that someone out there is curious about what I do for a living. Well, I'll fill you in. I am an agency temp. I work FOR Volt Technical Services AT Microsoft. I work at the Redmond Campus in Washington State. Thie is my third assignment at Microsoft. The first was in 1999. I worked on Service Pack 5 for Windows NT Server 4.0. Those where the days... The second contract was from late 2003 to Dec 2004 working on Systems Management Server, Application Compatability initially and then Operating System Deployment. OSD has made SMS a huge success with the second product version release 2 years ago. After that a required 100 day break in service. Now I am back, and I am currently working on Windows XP Media Center Edition specifically, Media Center Extender Devices. All three assignments have been as a software tester. I am currently a software test engineer II. Please refer to the links for full descriptions. It's just too much to put here. However, put very simply, and extender device allows you to route your tv signal from cable to PC, attached to a network, video goes over the network to an extender device t hat is also attached to the network. From the extender device, your tv signal goes to the television. This configuration allows you to use a very basic set top box, to an xBox for an extender.
You can see how this would increase the functionality of your home entertainment/gaming center. It's a very interesting, and fun job. It is also a challenge. The environment in the lab is very relaxed, yet faced paced. Calm and quiet most of the time, and a lot of laughter from time to time. It helps keep the mood lite. There is so much to learn, so many different pieces of hardware to work with. It keeps a pergson moving along all day.
So there you have it. I have been in the computer industry for 11 years now. And the electronics field for a few more years than that. I don't do much, if anything really, with electronics anymore. It's just not cost effective. However, I have been in the computer industry in many capacities. Ranging from Incomming (taking PC's out of the box, logging them into the database and putting them on a shelf, to help desk, desktop support, build team, rollouts, system administration, and software test engineer. I have seen a lot of different ways technology is being put to use. A lot of things have chaged over the 11 years I have been in the industry. A perfect example of that is me. First, I started out with an i286 machine, then an i386, then an i486 all in a year. In 1996 I purchased two Pentium 166Mhz systms (one for me, and one for my wife). They both had 64MB of ram, 2x CDROM drives, and 200MB hard drives. They were the hot ticket of the day. I kept those two mechines, in use until early 2003 when I purchased 2 systems, both identical, as follows:
CPU: Pentium 4 2.4Ghz
RAM: 1Gb
CDROM: 52x burners (read, write, and re-write)
Hard Drive: 60GB
Network: 100MB Ethernet
Modem: 56k fax modem
Video: nVidia GForce 4 Ti4200 w/128MB RAM (AGP 8x)
Monitor: NEC P95fx 19" (me) Sony Tinitron 18" (wife).
OS: Microsoft Windows XP Professional
I got a far bigger bang for my money this time around. These machines rock, plain and simple. We are very happy. I have upgraded mine with a 10,000rpm SCSI Ultra 3 Hard Drive. It's a screamer. I can finally play all the games that I could not play just 2 years ago due to slow, legacy computers. And now we are on the doorstep of 64bit computing. Systems are already available to the public. I test on an AMD Athlon 64bit system. I am only using 32bit software. The 64bit software has just been released. These machines should be very very fast. Soon, they will be all that is available.
You can see how this would increase the functionality of your home entertainment/gaming center. It's a very interesting, and fun job. It is also a challenge. The environment in the lab is very relaxed, yet faced paced. Calm and quiet most of the time, and a lot of laughter from time to time. It helps keep the mood lite. There is so much to learn, so many different pieces of hardware to work with. It keeps a pergson moving along all day.
So there you have it. I have been in the computer industry for 11 years now. And the electronics field for a few more years than that. I don't do much, if anything really, with electronics anymore. It's just not cost effective. However, I have been in the computer industry in many capacities. Ranging from Incomming (taking PC's out of the box, logging them into the database and putting them on a shelf, to help desk, desktop support, build team, rollouts, system administration, and software test engineer. I have seen a lot of different ways technology is being put to use. A lot of things have chaged over the 11 years I have been in the industry. A perfect example of that is me. First, I started out with an i286 machine, then an i386, then an i486 all in a year. In 1996 I purchased two Pentium 166Mhz systms (one for me, and one for my wife). They both had 64MB of ram, 2x CDROM drives, and 200MB hard drives. They were the hot ticket of the day. I kept those two mechines, in use until early 2003 when I purchased 2 systems, both identical, as follows:
CPU: Pentium 4 2.4Ghz
RAM: 1Gb
CDROM: 52x burners (read, write, and re-write)
Hard Drive: 60GB
Network: 100MB Ethernet
Modem: 56k fax modem
Video: nVidia GForce 4 Ti4200 w/128MB RAM (AGP 8x)
Monitor: NEC P95fx 19" (me) Sony Tinitron 18" (wife).
OS: Microsoft Windows XP Professional
I got a far bigger bang for my money this time around. These machines rock, plain and simple. We are very happy. I have upgraded mine with a 10,000rpm SCSI Ultra 3 Hard Drive. It's a screamer. I can finally play all the games that I could not play just 2 years ago due to slow, legacy computers. And now we are on the doorstep of 64bit computing. Systems are already available to the public. I test on an AMD Athlon 64bit system. I am only using 32bit software. The 64bit software has just been released. These machines should be very very fast. Soon, they will be all that is available.
posted by Jim at 2:31 PM
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