CTP Skill Center

Our employment services exercise for today was to send an email requesting an informational interview from a professional in the field we are interested in. One might tend to think it is an easy task. However, for one who does not have a lot of professional contacts or a limited networking sphere – it can be tasking. Finding a contact email for a hiring manager or an agency is simple but professional emails are harder to come by. I think it took me more than an hour to find someone to contact.

We also watched a video about how to use a Linkedin account and how to create a professional profile. Currently, I have simple Linkedin profile and the video suggests some useful tips in sprucing it up.

Today we had our 2nd quiz which concentrated on terminologies and concepts involving Voice Over Internet Protocol (VOIP). I think everybody did pretty good.

Time surely flies and it’s now a month since we started the CTT. Alex did a review involving everybody in a question and answer of things that were discussed this month. It jarred memories and reinforced what we learned in class as well as in a practical sense through the lab assignments.

We also had an introduction to some basic ports representing services like port 80 (Hypertext Transport Protocol), 22 (Secure Shell), 25 (Simple Mail Transfer Protocol), 53 (Lightweight Directory Access Protocol), 443 (HTTP Secure), etc.

Today we revisited some of our past lab assignments to see if we were able to complete the objectives. I added the Graphics Workstation in the BIOS lab assignment and went into its’ UEFI console which was cool.

We were also asked to provision three new phones. I partnered with two classmates Frank and Jimmy and so was able to provision two phones. The phones were of different makes so they had different factory resets and username and passwords. Interestingly, one was a POE phone and the other was not so we had to use the DC adaptor for it.

Finally, with Alexs’ help we were able to set-up an Interactive Voice Response (IVR) for the phones. This was done by recording a response whenever someone calls the Direct Inward Dialing (DID) number of CTP. Both Allen and Frank had a try with recording the response.

We started class today by testing a networking tool called Nmap – a network scanner. However, it should be used with caution and must only be tested within ones’ own network because it is an intrusive tool which must not be used haphazardly especially in the public space. So we downloaded the Nmap program and installed it via the site. Using the command prompt and navigating to the folder c:\ Program Files (x86)\Nmap we entered nmap -sP 10.61.0.0/16. Nmap then pings the full range of IPs in the 10.61.0.0 network.

The output was interesting. It showed the devices that replied, their IP address, MAC address and the manufacturer information. Using a web browser I tried the IP address 10.61.0.99 which opened up the console for one of the IP cameras at CTP.

Afterwards, we finished the IP phone provisioning assignment.

Today we had an overview about Voice Over Internet Protocol (VOIP). This is a fascinating subject and complicated subject. However, a technician will encounter VOIP phones regularly and having an understanding of the basic concept of how it works is truly relevant. I am impressed by the innovative solution Alex came off with in addressing the need of a student to have an analog phone work on the VOIP server. In all honesty, I haven’t worked with VOIP at all and listening to Alex explain the subject in a application case is truly helpful.

We also did a lab assignment about how to provision a VOIP phone. Although we ran out of time to finish I am sure that we will be able to tomorrow.

Today we learned the STAR method of responding to behavioral-based interview questions by segmenting the response as a situation, task, action and result. The assignment is to pick 3 questions from a list of interview questions and apply the star method in the response.

We also practiced behavioral interview questions with a partner and reversing roles as interviewer and interviewee. Practice does make it a little easier and less stressful.

We continued where we left off with the assignment yesterday. After we imaged the computer we had to rename it and join the domain for CTP which is EVO. It is recommended that renaming the PC and joining the domain be done separately to avoid any Windows quirks. Renaming the computer can be done by right clicking the Windows logo then clicking System, renaming the computer. The computer restarts with the new name applied. Joining a domain is done similarly with a changing from a work group to domain which in this case evo.ctp.lan. One can also search the domain in the search bar. A pop-up will ask for the credentials in order to join the domain. Then the computer will restart and at that point one can login as ‘other user’ and login using his class credentials.

Next we performed a imaging using an image of Windows 2010 with Office 2016. This was done with essentially the same procedure as the first imaging we did. However, we discovered that this image was not syspreped and was not giving the Windows OOBE we wanted. So we had to perform a sysprep on the machine to have the OOBE. This can be done in three ways – use the run command to run sysprep, locate sysprep via Graphical User Interface (GUI) and double click the .exe file and execute syprep using cmd. This restarts the computer which runs the OOBE process including the creation of the local admin. Logging in as the local admin allows us to change the computer name and join the domain. After the two consecutive restarts we can log in as ‘other user’ with class credentials with the new image of the computer now with Office 2016.

Fast.com – kind of an interesting interface and had some details other speed tests do not.

Today we learned all about how to image a computer. I remember a couple of times I had to image my computer because the hard disk on my computer was failing. However, I don’t often use imaging on a regular basis. However, as a technician one is expected to know how to create an image and image computers especially in an enterprise setting.

Our lab assignment for today was to image a computer using an image located in a network storage. We used the Acronis True Image software to recover the image to one of the vacant classroom computers. Our first try was not successful due to the size of the network image we were using and probably because we were accessing the resource at almost the same time. Anyway, we learned a lot and were able to install a new Out of the Box Experience (OOBE) of Windows on the target machine. Tomorrow we will continue with the final set-up the computer.