NOTE: Answers to the following questions must be specific as to dates and
employers. If this supplement is used as a screening tool, some answers may be
rated based on months or years of experience. Reference will not be made back to
your state application or resume. **IN ORDER TO RECEIVE MAXIMUM CREDIT, PLEASE BE
SURE EACH OF YOUR RESPONSES IS SPECIFIC AS TO
DUTIES/PROGRAMS/APPLICATIONS,
EMPLOYERS, DATES, LENGTH OF TIME (DURATION), ETC.
1. What education/experience do you have with computer technical support
related activities in a customer oriented environment? How was the support
organized?
I have accumulated approximately 93 months of experience in computer service and support
related activities.
The earliest customer support experience I have excluding actual computer repair was for
Computer Repair of Montana, LLC. (C-ROM) In 1999. C-ROM had acquired and was responsible for
administration/support for some 300+ customers' dial-up Internet and email accounts. Support
generally consisted of a phone conversation, logging the customers' issue, investigation, and a call
back. The most common problem I have encountered in this case were customers experiencing
timeouts while receiving very large email attachments of several megabytes or more over a dial-up. I
would then get the customer back on the phone and notify them of the large files “clogging” up their
email. If the data was important it would be preserved before deletion to a zip disk or CD-ROM to be
picked up at the office or mailed. Organization was done primarily with an access database to keep
track of customer information and issues. < 1 Year 4/1999-1/2000
While working for OneWest.net, Inc., I was employed primarily as a Network Operations
Center technician with a secondary focus of system/network security analysis. We were using a
CRM/Trouble Ticket Resolution system developed in-house specifically for the OneWest
infrastructure. Trouble tickets not cleared by subscriber support staff would be escalated to the NOC.
An on-duty NOC tech would check for new trouble tickets hourly and resolve them if possible. In this
capacity my job was to provide support to the subscriber support department as opposed to directly to
the customer. In this case support was organized through custom CRM software somewhat similar to
Outlook calendar and task collaboration. < 1 Year 10/2000-7/2001
The bulk of my technical support experience is via the telephone, email, and remote
login/desktop while working for computer sales & service shops. I have used Microsoft's Remote
Desktop, VNC, PC Anywhere, and Citrix Winframe/Metaframe to provide live support to customers
where possible. I have a very strong working knowledge of Microsoft operating systems and windows
applications on an end-user level as well as from a developer/administrator standpoint. 8+ Years 1999-
2007
2. What education/experience do you have performing computer operations tasks
on a mainframe, a midrange and/or a personal computer? What did you do on each of
these platforms?
I have little experience using a “Mainframe” computer in the true sense of the word. I have
performed assisted contract maintenance on very large IBM systems running the z/VM hypervisor and
instances of Linux/390. I worked on these systems as contracted eyes and ears to facilitate software
upgrades for a financial company.
I have been using computers since the age of ten, my first computer was purchased for me by
my parents when I was twelve years old. I had leaned BASIC at school on an Apple ][e, and continued
at home with qbasic on my 386sx16/2MB/40MB at home. At this time my primary interest in
computers was programming and learning about IBM/PC Clone hardware. I had become quite adept at
reinstalling my operating systems (MS-DOS 6.22 and Windows 3.1 at the time) due to the use of
bulletin board systems combined with a lack of anti-virus software.
I began working for a computer shop after school while I was in middle school. I was trained as
a bench technician and learned basic hardware configuration and troubleshooting of PC/XT and PC/AT
systems. After Windows 95 was released I became more interested in the Internet and various on-line
services. My computing focus began to lean toward all things Internet, graphic design, and web
development. I had began using Linux around this time due to it's similarity to SunOS (which was my
initial Introduction to the Internet.). My Internet access was through a shell account with the Montana
Internet Cooperative. Using this account I learned to use the UNIX shell, Internet applications such as
pine, lynx, ftp, irc, and trn, among other things standard to a UNIX system of the time.
In 1998 some friends and I decided to put up a server in our apartment. We had a USWEST
DSL line and a block of static ip addresses. Our server ran Slackware Linux 3.x and provided shell
access, ftp, email, and web/domain hosting. It was more of a learning experience as we gave accounts
to friends and family and did not attempt to capitalize on our services. It was around this time that I
gained an interest in the Macintosh line of computers and began acquiring older models.
Until I have mostly used mainstream PC and Macintosh systems in my computing. An
exception is in a few SUN, SGI, and DEC systems I had picked up to learn about their hardware,
operating systems, and how the were similar or different to other systems I was familiar with.
In summary, I am familiar enough with all makes and models of Intel/AMD based PC's and
Workstations, and their operating systems to be able to provide excellent, intuitive customer support via
telephone, email, remote access, and in person.
3. What experience do you have with Internet technology, (browsers, web page
development and maintenance, etc)?
I have been using the Internet in some form or another since 1994. I was introduced to the
Internet via a UNIX shell account. I am familiar with most current web browsers and several archaic
ones.
Browsers: Internet Explorer 1.0-7.0, Netscape 3.0-4.7x, Firefox 1.0-2.0.0.11, Mosaic 1.0 + 2.0,
Opera 3.0-70, Lynx
Development: My web development experience with HTML 1.0 and 2.0 was initially done
using a text editor such as vi or pico on the host machine. Eventually I found it easier to do alterations
locally and use ftp to update the server content. I have some experience with Microsoft Frontpage 98
and Frontpage 2000. I have had to use it for several customers who's websites we developed with
Frontpage initially. I had attempted to use Frontpage for my personal use, but found it did not behave
correctly with a Linux server without installing Frontpage extensions (Big security hole) and that it
would mangle my code to it's liking. This would break cgi, javascript, and DHTML among other
things. During my experience as a web developer for the Independent Record the team developed
helenair.com exclusively with a text editor for HTML coding. Various positions, ~3 Years 1997-2000
4. What education/experience do you have with various hardware and software
products for which you are technically proficient such as computers, printers,
operating systems, word processors, spreadsheets, e-mail, FTP, programming tools
and database systems?
Equipment:
Intel/AMD based PC's, Workstations: all makes and models,manufactured or custom built.
15+ years, service and repair, maintenance, troubleshooting, all-purpose use
Intel/AMD based servers: most makes and models, manufactured or custom built.
8+ years, service and repair, maintenance, troubleshooting, all-purpose use
68K/PowerPC/Intel based Macintosh computers, all makes and models
9+ years, service and repair, maintenance, troubleshooting, all-purpose use
HP Laserjet 4000 series: cleaning, maintenance kit installation
Printers (general): Network configuration/sharing, local setup
Operating Systems:
MS-DOS 5.0-6.22, Microsoft Windows 3.1, 3.11, NT 3.51, NT 4.0, 95, 98, ME, 2000, XP
Installation, configuration, troubleshooting, software development
Linux 1.0-2.6.x, NetBSD 2.0, 3.0, FreeBSD 3.0-6.0, IRIX 5.3-6.5.22m, SCO UNIXWARE,
SCO OpenServer 5.x, BeOS 5, QNX 4
Installation, configuration, troubleshooting, software development, use in production
Windows 2000 Server
Installation, configuration, troubleshooting, domain configuration/maintenance, use in
production
Productivity Suites:
Microsoft Office 95,97,98(Mac),2000,2001(Mac),2003,2004(mac),X(Mac)
Installation, configuration, troubleshooting
Experience with Word + Excel, maintenance of Access databases
Wordperfect 5.0-Wordperfect Suite 12
Installation, configuration, troubleshooting
Experience with Wordperfect word processor
OpenOffice 1.0-2.3 (Windows + Linux)
Installation, configuration, troubleshooting
Experience with Writer + Calc
Email clients:
Eudora, Outlook 97-2003, Outlook Express 5.0-6.0, Thunderbird 1.0-2.0
FTP:
cli ftp (any OS), scp, sftp, scripted ftp on Windows + Linux/UNIX
Programming tools:
DOS: Qbasic, GWBasic, FreeBASIC, Batch Language
Windows: Visual Basic 3.0, 4.0, 5.0, 6.0, .NET 05, .NET 07, FreeBASIC, Batch Language
Linux/UNIX: FreeBASIC, scripting using bourne and bash shells, back-end cgi scripts to
interface with Apache
Database tools:
Microsoft Access 97
Database maintenance, general < 1 Year 1999-2000