Unfortunately you don't need a router to get an Xbox 360 online.  Just plug directly into the cable modem and off you go.  Setting up the router can most certainly be a problem, but mostly because you may not know the passwords to get into the setup for same.  If you have the passwords, Microsoft's own sites have plenty of walk-thrus that could get a 10 year old up and running in short order.  I would hope that their mommy and daddy know what they are doing and/or that they have configured their home network to be more secure than just something that the kids setup for their own use.

On our system, you do, terp, because we use static IP's. You need the router as the DHCP server.

Ouch!  Cavtel tried that when I had DSL, and it sucked on both the customer end and the ISP end.  Why not just use Reservations?  You would still control the IPs, but at least changing subnets would be a lot easier and a lot fewer phone calls.

I think that is a symptom of society's general belief that IT people are a type of overpaid handyman. (Society has similar disdain for actual handymen who are likely also more skilled than we think.)

In general it seems that people assign a low value to knowledge they don't have and tend to have little knowledge of complicated subjects. Hence many complicated subjects are believed to be easy to understand if one has the time; which again means that an IT professional, to many, is simply somebody who had to the time to read a manual while others had more important things to do.

Learning how computers work is immensely difficult and most people realise it when they try and then stay away from the subject, using the excuse that they don't have the time to learn what is, they regard, an easy field.

From that grows society's general understanding that it is socially acceptable to know absolutely nothing about computers. I know people who refer to a monitor as the "computer" and the computer itself as the "hard disk". If I displayed a similar ignorance of, say, cars, and referred to the steering wheel as "car" and to the actual car as "radio", people would find my ignorance hard to believe.

There was a Dilbert cartoon many years ago where the secretary (or "senior associate") told Dilbert that "my oldest is flunking all his classes; I hope he can get a job involving computers" and Dilbert replied "carrying them?" which the secretary did not find amusing. That attitude is actually quite common.

Computer skills are not regarded as real skills and it assumed that anybody can learn them (which is for the mast part true) and that it doesn't take long and little effort (which is not).

A 55-year old acquaintance of mine recently told me that he was thinking doing something "in computers", and learn how to program; he asked me where he could learn and he wouldn't mind if it takes a year.

He was then surprised that my flatmate and I were watching a video podcast about the Cocoa platform (i.e. about programming). "I thought you can program already?"

I told him that there are several platforms and that after several years of studying one has to learn one or two and that it never ends.

I work with Visual Basic .NET and C# in the office and am constantly buying (and to an extend reading) books about C#, the .NET framework, and the Windows Installer (and if you think that has anything to do with installing Windows and clicking on "yes" to format the disk you are probably part of "society" and not of the IT skilled). In my free time I now study Objective C and Cocoa because I am very bad at memory management and pointers. (All my C programs either leak memory or were supposed to terminate after giving a result.)

Technologies that I try to stay on top of:

• .NET framework (except WPF)


• Cocoa framework


• Shell scripting


• Windows Powershell (if only I had the time, get it?)


• Active Directory as it is relevant for my IIS and SQL servers


• Microsoft SQL Server


• IIS 6, IIS 7 and Web servers in general


• Classic ASP and ASP.NET


• Build automation


• Source control


• Windows XP/2003/Vista/2008


• SOX

Technologies I try to comprehend in my free time and for fun:

• Mono


• Cocoa# (Cocoa bindings for C# and Mono)


• Python (if I ever get to it again)


• C


• REALbasic (for my home projects until I figure out Cocoa#)


• Interix (Windows Services for UNIX)


• DSLinux (Linux for Nintendo DS)



Those are typical subjects for an IT professional to study ALL THE TIME. I doubt that most people who hope for an easy career in IT would understand even all the words in the list even after they read the definitions.

In short: I agree.

Leauki,

I think part of the perception you point out, was the Computer mills. They talked about taking a class, getting a certification, and then earning "$75k per year" (this was during the Y2K run up). So people started looking at it like it was a cinch! If you can take a class and then be a professional, there must not be a lot to it.

I had some friends approach me during that time talking about going to one of those boot camps so they could make those kind of bucks as well. I tried to nicely explain to them that "paper certs" would not earn them that kind of money. Employers wanted to see that you could do the job, not pass tests. And the certs worth getting would not be achieved in a few weeks (with one exception, all of mine required a battery of tests - all with a long study path to them).

With Y2K over, I have heard less of these boot camps proclaiming easy money, but the perception remains.

I think it all comes from the 90s when I the only difference between tech support and the user was I had a handy flip book from which to reference questions like, "is your modem plugged in?", "is it turned on?", which took care of 90% of online problems. :~D

I get laughed at a lot when playing Guitar Hero (although I do love the game), it seems actually being able to play guitar just gets in the way. ;~D

I am sure they do. They just do not seem to be as vocal as they once were. And your experience is worth a lot more than any paper from a paper mill (although many do want to see that paper as well). My friend is a very good worker, and is doing a good job. But he is the first to tell you that he has a long way to go before he is an expert in Cisco.

Back in the 90s, I was hiring network professionals. You would not beleive the number of paper certs we got applying. They "use to be" accountants and such and were downsized. And as part of the severance, the company paid for a retraining. They got it, and then wanted to start at the top (not totally unexpected as they had been near the top in their previous field).

But ask them one question not in the books, and they were clueless.

Like the guy that grumbled about paying me $100 for PC repair. I told him if he'd turn around, I'd gladly undo everything I did and he wouldn't owe me a dime.

He got the message.

See, and I'm the reverse. One of my beefs with much of the IT training in the US is how M$-centric it is. There's a reason for it, of course, because M$ pours a lot of money into it remaining so.

I'll learn Macs eventually, but finding schools that will teach it is not an easy task.

Yeah, that's where my Linux experience comes in (home).

I can't afford a Mac. I've thought about buying some used equipment just to play with it.

But I will get some practical experience in Macs soon.

I have noted that most network engineers (the routers, switches and firewall guys) are Mac users. Either solely, or as their platform of choice. This is since the advent of OSX since it is Unix based, and knowing Unix is almost a requirement for working on the above mentioned devices.

I am still primarily windows, but I do likes me Macs as well.