What's the difference between a northbridge and southbridge chip then?
I think you answered that, and probably learnt something on the way ;-) Maybe I'm just a geek then. And why would you want to fix a CDROM drive belt when you are in contract? You wouldn't if you were in contract, but the college I worked at were out of contract for their machines and to replace something like 15 drives that had no need of replacing was pathetic; instead, I took them apart and re-attached the separated drive belts, giving them a new lease of life :-) Why would you need to know about the PCs architecture? Building them, analysing them, using them, programming for them..and so on. On every hardware course I've been on from Tresham to correspondence, the north and south bridge ICs have been mentioned..maybe you have been missing some of the fun? I don't question that some here know more than me (I know they do), or that some MCSEs have the knowledge they profess on paper (some do no doubt) I just haven't met any! Software knowledge doesn't make a rounded technician; neither does solely hardware knowledge--it's having a good combination of these and other skills that makes a marked improvement upon the time it takes to fix/install/upgrade things. The moral of the story is that the IT industry is a dynamic industry, and we all need lots of skills in many areas to even have the chance of being employable. If that means I have to take an MCSE though, I'd rather not! Paul <who can even point to a north and south bridge chip>
On 2 Nov 2001, Paul Munro wrote:
The moral of the story is that the IT industry is a dynamic industry, and we all need lots of skills in many areas to even have the chance of being employable. If that means I have to take an MCSE though, I'd rather not!
Are there any really *rigorous* qualifications in existence that will demonstrate computer skills? I'm thinking of the following sort of tests: 1) You are faced with an operating system that you have never used before and given the admin password. The machine has an empty PCI socket. Install a network card and get the machine to the point of being able to browse the web. 2) An obscure command-line utility has only a brief README file explaining what it does, without documenting things like syntax or possible options. Figure out what all the options are and how to use them. Also find out which ones to avoid using. 3) You have the source code for what looks as though it could be an excellent application. The source builds, but then the application segfaults immediately on startup. The source code is documented in Swahili (replace with another language if you can actually read Swahili). Get it working. 4) As for (3), but with the program being written in a programming language that you have never come across before. These are all real problems that I have had to solve[1]. If I knew that someone applying for a job would also be able to solve them, it would mean a lot more than any CV blurb or 'toy' qualifications a la MCSE. *** PLEASE NOTE: We are NOT currently looking to take on any more *** *** people, even if they would be able to solve these problems. *** (I don't want to be deluged with CVs, sorry). Michael Brown Fen Systems Ltd. -- [1] OK, so it wasn't Swahili. It was German, but my German is pretty non-existent.
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Michael Brown -
Paul Munro