The End, For Now : Internship Review

   

  I started my internship with a chromebook repair job and ended it with tearing down a classroom LAN and computer lab. Both a sign of the times and maybe a hint of the direction organizations are heading in regards to a lighter hardware load and the implementation of cloud services. I probably touched at least a thousand computers during my time at the Mt. Baker school district. From switching Windows 7 machines out for brand new ones, or in most cases, newer ones that at least ran Windows 10, to checking in student chromebooks (hundreds) and enrolling new chromebooks (500, previously thought was 900). If you throw in the inventory of all the document cams, televisions and voip phones, well we might be talking 1000+. I experienced what I believe are some of the day to day duties of the IT department. This was summer break, so I really didn't get to witness ticket volume one might see when school is in session. There were a handful of individual problems we needed to address, but I'm sure there are many more problems during the regular school year that are attended to. Overall, the experience was really helpful in understanding the breadth of the technical and interpersonal skills needed as IT professional in an organization this size.

    The first few days on the job I realized I really needed to scan through some of my A+ notes. Luckily I had google on hand and when told to grab a vga to DVI adapter, an image search, with fast moving thumbs on my phone, aided me. I definitely got a refresher on monitor ports and power supply and hard-drive troubleshooting. I can also identify at least 7 Dell towers by model name and serial number conventions; probably not something I will use in the future, unless I get a sales job. UPS units were installed in all the MDF and IDFs across the main campus and to the elementary school in Acme and the Middle school in Kendall. There were different size units installed depending on the power requirements. An interesting feature of these units was the option to remove the display and control module and mount them on a wall, if the need of multiple units were required for a room with multiple racks of servers and other network equipment.

Some Group Policy business early in my internship gave me some practical experience with adding and switching machines and users to different OU's. Thank goodness some of that was fresh in my mind so I could at least have a look of comprehension on my face as I was given the details of my tasks. Adding brand new computers to the domain and naming also required some OU adding. A whole new lab of 30 new machines was joined to the domain and customized with required software through group policy. Some of the older machines we used to replace even older machines first needed to be imaged with specific versions of Windows prior to joining them to the domain and dropping them in an OU. We used a network imaging LAN server application running on Linux called FOG. FOG is an open source software that stores and installs images, as well as performing other tasks. I was really amazed how quickly it worked as compared to some of the other methods I have used before. 

Midway through  my internship, the IT department switched to a new a new ticketing and asset managing system called Incident IQ   I was added with privileges so I could do inventory work. It seemed to be a very robust environment with many options for importing and exporting data from many platforms. In our case, we were able to add enrolled chromebooks via a spreadsheet using google sheets. This can be imported to IQ and later be used to assign individual chromebooks to students. In addition to the chromebooks, all hardware, including phones, projectors, computers and printers, were added to the system. For better ticketing efficiency, all of these units were assigned a classroom and will all have a history to refer to once a specific asset has had a ticket assigned to it. Included in the assigned data will be the problem, the person who took the ticket as well as other vital information that might expedite the resolve. Assets can also be assigned to other assets; For example, a laptop could be assigned a charging cart and vice-versa. 

One snag my supervisor discovered early on with the new chromebooks is that they were labeled with barely perceivable data matrix codes. Even the serial numbers printed on these machines required some serious squinting (at least for me) A new scanner was ordered for these tiny 6mm square codes and thankfully it worked upon testing. It would have been a nightmare for teachers to have to type in the 10 character serial number for each chromebook, especially since they are already enrolled and can't be checked out unless there is an exact match in the asset management system. The scanner had to be set up however to only output a single field of data. Data matrix codes have four quadrants of data and output them with a comma separated string. A little configuration with a limiting code fixed this issue.

I definitely entered this internship during a time of change and uncertainty. Wearing a face mask every day at work during the covid-19 pandemic didn't help putting the dark cloud of anxiety out of my thoughts. It did help knowing that a great effort is being made by this school district to try and address the needs of every student and being a small part in the helping the cause by preparing for the distribution of chromebooks to each young learner. Serving in this way gave the work a sense of purpose beyond simply responding to tickets. Being at a job like this long enough you get to witness the evolution of technology as it relates to education. Slide projectors are replaced with high definition movie projectors. Chalkboards are replaced with large touchscreen televisions. Overhead projectors are replaced with document cameras. All of these require preparing and continued support. I can't help but see a parallel between the technology and the young people that flow through the classrooms. Ultimately, the goal of all this electronic wizardry is to aid in the development of minds. For this reason and with the right mindset, there is a layer of nobility in this Gig(abyte).

Chromebooks and Internship Winding Down

I am down to the last palette of Chromebooks, at around 300 per stack. A total of 900+ Chromebooks will be completed on Monday and my required hours for the internship will be complete. 

My resume crafting is improving as I am actually at least getting looks at my submissions through job sites. My goal is to leverage other skills I have with tech work to find some sort of niche industry that is seeking someone that can bridge the gap between network or computer support and creative production and output.

If the IT department at Mt. Baker still needs some help, I will most likely stay on board and work half days after my school credit hours have been satisfied. That will give me larger blocks of time to focus on the job search and perhaps take a well needed vacation.

The experience overall has been good. I have a general overall idea of how ticketing system works in an organization, maintenance and upkeep of server systems and power issues, keeping group policy up to date with changes being made to staff, teachers and computers, updating computer labs, imaging machines using dedicated servers, implementing new ticketing systems with integrated asset management, working with outside contractors for miscellaneous office equipment support, tearing down and setting up a lab and joining the new lab computers to the domain and other topics that I will write about more thoroughly in my final post.

Asset Tags and Labels

  Today I took a new label maker on its maiden voyage. After taking inventory of various equipment across campus and entering in the new ticketing/asset system, we now have to go to all the rooms and place labels with asset tag codes on them.

Luckily, the new ticketing system has the ability to filter assets by room, and then print labels.

filtered view of PCs

Once you find the assets you are looking for in incident IQ, select print labels in the option drop-down menu.

A print window will pop up and you simply select the label printer and make sure the format is set to landscape.

Presto!

Oddly, some of this data collecting and spreadsheet stuff has never appealed to me before, but somehow, maybe the scanners or all the toys involved, I am finding it satisfying. 

Data Matrix, Barcodes and Scanners

The very same Chromebooks we've been enrolling unfortunately weren't labeled with the typical qr or barcode. This wasn't an issue with getting them enrolled, but the IT department had to order a special scanner that was able to scan data matrix codes for checking them out to students at the beginning of the new school year.

Thankfully, the new device arrived at the school today and I got to play with. I have to admit, I might have been a little too excited, but I wasn't alone. I got to geek out a bit with my supervisor. We picked the new one up as we walked through the campus with a barcode scanner and a laptop in hand. We were adding inventory into our new ticketing system, but thought it wouldn't hurt to check out the new device.

The first thing we noticed is that the beam is circular and feathers out.

Here are the scanners:

data matrix scanner

barcode scanner

Scanners set to Stun

data matrix code

The codes on the chromebooks are 6mm x 6mm. and they actually consists of four 3mm x 3mm fields, each with unique data. I learned that these kinds of codes are classified as two dimensional as opposed to the one dimensional like a bar code because they contain multiple bits of information.

One problem we discovered is that when the data matrixes are scanned in a spread sheet, all of the data was entered in a single field. In the case of these laptops, it was serial number, an unknown number, the model and make and then the warranty length. They were all separated by commas.

My supervisor however adjusted the setting of the new scanner so only the first ten characters, the length of the serial number, were entered when the chromebooks were scanned.

Taking Inventory

Breaking in the New System

One of the features of the new ticketing system is the inventory component. Today we began going from room to room, with laptop and scanner in hand, adding document cams, projectors, TVs, phones and computers to a spreadsheet that will later be synced to the ticketing system. One of the fields was simply for the room number, followed by model name, then the serial number. The serial number was entered using a scanner borrowed from the library and to my surprise was just plug-and-play! 

 It was a welcome break from enrolling Chromebooks in, but there are plenty of those left and I imagine my hands will be joyfully tapping away at them soon.

FOG

Open source imaging software

Today I was introduced to an imaging program called FOG. installed on a LAN server running Linux, this software makes easy work of deploying images of  custom configured operating systems and software. 

To use, I had to connect machines to the local LAN with the server running FOG. Since our computers were Dell, we had to start them holding F12 to get to the screen with the PXE option. 

After a brief time the Fog menu appeared and offered a few options. 

While FOG offers many options, a simple deploy image worked for my purposes, which was  setting up a handful of computers to go in the library.

The deployment was surprisingly quick, especially for the older machines I was installing on.

After install, naming and joining to the domain, they were dropped in the appropriate Group Policy OU and sent out to the Library.

That New Chromium Smell

There’s something beautiful about palettes full of  Tech

We received a fresh supply of HP Chromebooks yesterday and today we started to enroll them. Once again, I got to use my admin privileges! It was a bit tedious because today we just enrolled them one at a time. Next week we are going to use an Adriano with a script to enroll them in batch.

Control Alt and E are pressed when the sign-in page comes up after the machine connects to WiFi. If you forgot and proceed to log in before the key combo, you have to implement a power-wash, which is implemented by pressing  shift, control, alt r. This put the computer back to original settings.

Library Complete

All of the older computers we were replacing in the library have been switched. These weren’t new computers coming in, but they were at least running Windows 10. All the keyboards and mice had older serial connectors, so we found some newer usb models in our storage and installed those. Since these computers were previously connected to the domain and still had the domain listed, we had to first create a group to join them in. After we made the other changes we needed to make, we restarted the computers and then joined them back to the domain from the group we added them in. They were all renamed using both a sequential number paired with an easy to recognize name that represented the room. 

It was a nice little trick adding the previously joined computer back to the domain by first joining them to a new group. This avoided the need for a complete reinstall. Then we simply did a restart and added them back in with the new names.

The Library Upgrade Continues

I am almost done switching out some of the machines in the library with one that can run Windows ten. Most if not all the computers we are replacing are running Windows 7 which is no longer supported. Later this week we will rename the newer machines and join them to the network. 

MythBusters: Will A Dodge Ram 1500 properly destroy a storage drive?

To break up the monotony of checking in chromebooks, I took the task of destroying an external hard-drive. To satisfy my curiosity, I was allowed to film my truck tire rolling over the drive.

It did not work

We resorted to using a nicely shaped rock that had the perfect hammering surface. A few blows and our mission was complete.

Nailed It

To honor this most capable rock, we gave it a permanent home in the main IT Supply room.

May it one day see more glory.

July 6-13, A Retrospective

The past 8 work days saw the complete cycle of prepping machines, taking down old machines and  upgrading labs with the prepped computers. Group policy sped up the process of installing required apps and settings, but naming the machines and joining them to the domain was necessary first. There was little inventory work. Some of the electronics were stored away, while others were stacked by a door for a recycle service. 

The repetition involved in setting up these machines certainly improved my aptitude in group policy. 

In addition to setting up a new computer lab, I also learned a new ticketing-asset management system. It was also new to the IT department, so I didn't have to look like a complete rookie, as the learning was shared with my supervisor too. The asset tool was implemented immediately for checking in Chromebooks, but due to a glitch in the software, the efficiency of the process was lessened. The problem was solved but not resolved. An e-mail from my supervisor to the contact of the software was sent and we are awaiting a response. Meanwhile, we need to be alert when checking in, especially when it comes to a service number with specific characters. 

Overall the experience hasn't been too unlike school. Some things go as planned, but a gremlin seems to reveal itself anytime a seemingly straight forward job is attempted. Problem solving definitely plays a roll in the day-to-day work day of the IT department at the Mt. Baker school district.   

The Great Search Box Mystery

After a demo of our new ticketing system last week, we headed to the library with scanners and a laptop in hand to check in some chrome laptops. We managed to enter 248 today relatively smoothly, except for some strange behaviour in the asset input screen on a handful of chromebook service numbers. After scanning some of these, a dialog box would pop-up with a search prompt. If you didn't catch this, the next number would be entered in the search field. A few times we had to back track to make sure we were matching the numbers correctly.

After returning to the office, we did a little sleuth work. My supervisor noticed when he typed in the service number on one of the problem machines the search box didn't appear. We later discovered a correlation between all the chromebooks that were being scanned in. They included an "NF" somewhere in the service number. My supervisor then typed NF quickly in the scan field and we triggered the same search prompt that was giving us trouble. Cody suspected it was a hot key combination, and after I checked the site for a list of hot-keys it was confirmed. The combination of keys opened up a general search window. Suspicions confirmed!

A note was sent to the company along with the problem. It seemed unusual to have a letter combination that triggered a search prompt to be included in a system designed partially for entering serial numbers, service numbers and codes of all kinds. Hopefully we will discover a way to deactivate hot keys, especially since none of them seem that useful in the first place.

  

Breaking Down, Building Up

I realized today that all those Dell machines I checked in for the last few days have a destination; A complete computer lab classroom. I prepped all the machines by naming them with the required convention and added them to the local domain. But first, a little breakdown and some grunt work. The network cables were left attached to the switches as well as the power cords to teh outlets. All monitor cables were left because all the old monitors were staying, but a vga-to-display port will have to be used for the new machines to connect to existing monitors and they are on order but haven't arrived yet. There are 30 computers total. It was interesting carting those across the sidewalks of campus in cart that has probably seen better days.

Overall, a very satisfying day in that I got to see the efficiency of group policy when setting up an entire lab. I also witnessed the life cycle of some of these machines, many only running Windows seven. Most were set out for a re-cycling service and the newer units were placed back in the large storage room.  

IncidentIQ: A new ticketing system

Incident IQ

The IT department had an demo today for a new ticketing system for The Mt. Baker school district.

This system integrates a ticketing system with asset management that offers several levels customization. Assets can be assigned to individuals and rooms or organizations. Those assets, such as laptops, can also be linked to other assets such as carts. Carts in turn can have several laptops which can be linked and can make inventory work much easier.

Meta data is saved on each asset as well and contains information such as users, Operating system version, the dates used and to which room it was assigned. In addition, additional files such as images of damage and repair work can be included in the data.

On the user end, a training module is included and a step by step walk-through for every requester. A list of assets assigned to the requester are presented to select. Once selected, common issue buttons can be chosen to narrow down the exact problem. These issues can all be customized, and due to the meta data on each asset, a history of repairs or software problems are made available so an admin can determine if there is a reoccurring problem or if there might be an update that needs to be installed. If a known software issue is selected, a link can be provided with instructions on how to resolve it. Other customization on the user end can be created as well, such as having requests and all actions on tickets to be forwarded to an e-mail. 

On the admin/agent side, tickets are assigned by default to the person that started the ticket, but can be attributed or changed for someone else's behalf. Multiple actions can be created in response to tickets and automatic "shortcuts" utilized such as a scripted text response. Customized views can be created to make viewing certain data easier. The left console can be populated with tabs each with a particular format and view displaying the ticket timeline or asset lists.

Check It Out - for 7/7/2020

Continuing with the Dell computer check in's. Nothing new to report, but I am learning that sometimes being an IT guy consists of some repetition and not so stimulating activities. Group policy does speed up things quite a bit with loading software and configuring browsing constrictions. Overall, not an entirely stressful day at the office and it sure beats having to ask the question "would you like fries with that?" while wearing a polyester polo shirt and grease stained chino's.

ROAD TRIP!

Traveled to the different branched of the Mount Baker school district to distribute and install UPS units in the server and switch rooms. Acme required two. We were also able to "clean up " some of the rooms by removing any unused patch cables or redundant power supplies.

Back on the main campus we were assigned to troubleshoot the schools digital clock system. It was no longer functioning and there didn't seem to be a known cause. After doing additional cleanup in the main server room, we found that there were some connection problems and some of power cables had not been reinstalled. An easy fix after a bit of fun with tracing cables and cords.

New Computers and group policy

Began checking in 25 new Dell computers. I am naming machines and joining them to the domain. Once they are joined they are placed in an OU that assigns them software and student privileges.

In addition to joining them to the demain, I am acitivating WIndows office to wach machine, as well as removing any "Dell" related software.

Google Sheets and Chromebooks

Using google sheets, a little inventory work was done by checking in ChromeBooks from the students. Over the summer there will be some major work checking in around 900 machines. Along with incoming computers, new scan-able codes are going to be applied to streamline the process for the bulk of these laptops.

Also today, we connected a another diagnostic computer to the network in the bus maintenance building.

Group Policy and ticketing System

This morning we updated some users in Active directory. In the MMC console, I added the active directory snap-in and clicked on the Mt.Baker folder. from the users folder I navigated to the specific school in the district and added new staff to a particular school, then I changed groups for others. I also added some of the existing staff to the Teachers Union. After completing my tasks in Active duty, I made sure I saved my console so that the Active Directory feature remained in MMC.

We also continued to distribute UPS units in the IDFs around campus, which I just learned are Intermediate Distribution Frames.

For the ticketing system, Mt. Baker IT department uses Fresh Desk. It forwards requests to the department Gmail accounts.

Continuing with the UPS / 6-25-2020

I spent the day distributing more UPS units around the main campus. We also transported three of them to Acme Elementary and set two of the three up. The third requires wiring up an outlet with appropriate power, so as soon as the electricians address this upgrade we will install the final unit.

UPS / backing up campus power

Power up - 6/24/2020

The Mt. Baker school district began installing uninterrupted power supplies for all the network closets. The larger ones had greater power supply needs other than what were provided. 

A good part of the day was used installing these units around the DO campus, as well as the Kindel Elementary school in Maple Falls. 

Part of the day was also used establishing a google account for me and sharing an inventory list of incoming Chromebooks used by students from the school year. I was briefed on what needs to happen and we discussed the logistics of checking these in. Google sheets is used as the spreadsheet program. I am considering creating a dashboard to easily view progress and a tally on machines that do not work (with the serial number).

First Day on the Job

  My desk! 

Off we go / 6-23-2020

I didn't waste anytime today getting my hands dirty. One of the Chromebooks supplied to the students was returned with a broken screen, but a new screen was sent along with it by a parent. More complex repairs like these are usually skipped because of the amount of time involved. After two attempts, I got the laptop to fire up after discovering that the battery has to be completely disconnected and the power button pressed for ten seconds for this particular model to take a charge. This is the final troubleshooting tip for this problem on Dell website, luckily I suspected the battery and bypassed several of the steps. 

Mt. Baker School district includes Kindel Elementary in Maple Falls Washington. From the main district office, we made a trip to Kindel and made some room visits that were on a list of ticketed requests. Some of the tasks included removing and replacing a graphics card on a machine running a projector, setting up workstations, and checking a switch closet to establish that the correct port was used for one of the rooms' stations.