There appears to be much confusion amongst the press and the general populace regarding the One Laptop Per Child Project, which I blogged about earlier. This article in the Murdoch press, for example, has stimulated some of these misconceptions. They stem from the false assumption that the OLPC is a computing project. "Don’t these kids deserve food, water, clothing and shelter first?", some people ask.

The fact is that the OLPC is far more than a simple computing project. It is an education project, or more broadly, a development project. The computer is merely the tool to enable education and creativity. How can one learn when a textbook costs more than an average weekly wage? Imagine if you could interact with your textbook, in the form of games and exercises. Imagine if you could learn to write your own software for this device, and distribute it to help others in your community. You can create your own artworks, write your own novel or make your own music. Wireless mesh networking allows the distribution of data between computers, and even the sharing of one Internet connection across a villiage. For many households, the keyboard lights will be the only form of artificial lighting. The possibilities are effectively limitless.

The point that I am trying to make is that it is not the computer that is important, it is what you can do with it that truly matters. The computer is an enabler, a tool that allows people to ultimately create their own livelihoods and futures. There’s no point in keeping people dependent on handouts. Let’s encourage them to stand on their own feet.

Back in the developed world, I was able to attend a panel discussion for NSW ICT for the forthcoming state election. Pia made some good analysis of the event. In summary, the representative for the Liberal Party was completely and utterly useless when the question turned to open standards and FLOSS. Moreover, both sides (Labour and Liberal) would seemingly deliberately confuse open standards and open source when questioned about them. The key when questioning such people is to not mention open standards and open source together. Force them to address the issues separately, or they will conflate the two. The City of Munich was disparagingly referred to several times as an extreme case. What disturbs me is that there was specifically strong emphasis on NSW as a procurer and consumer of ICT, rather than as a producer. So while projects like the OLPC can promote local education and industry, the NSW government wants to keep us dependent upon foreign providers.

The penguins are on the march in India. It’s wonderful to see the states of Kerala and Tamil Nadu taking their future development seriously by adopting free software on a wide scale. My parents are from Tamil Nadu, and most of their families still live there. Some of them have been involved quite considerably in educational and computing projects, which have unfortunately been based around Windows. This doesn’t help anyone in the long term (apart from the vendors controlling the lock-in), so it is terrific to see them working towards some autonomy and freedom.

P.S. As of today, I am a quarter of a century old. Howzat?!

Update: On the converse, we have absolutely appalling conduct in the so-called ‘developed’ world. How can a democracy function when the mechanisms of government are hidden behind proprietary data constructs? Is it truly wise to hand the keys to public information over to corporations that have zero accountability to the populace? Even their so-called ‘open’ formats aren’t really open at all.

This is quite disturbing:

A 2006 Gallup survey of American public opinion found that "many Americans harbour strong bias against U.S. Muslims".

• 22% say they would not like to have a Muslim as a neighbour.
• 34% believe U.S. Muslims support al-Qaeda.
• Only 49% believe U.S. Muslims are loyal to the United States.
• 39% advocate that U.S. Muslims should carry special ID

The fact that such a large percentage of the population harbours resentment against Muslims may explain much of America’s aggressive Middle East policy from Israel to Iraq. It’s a lot easier to play with the lives of millions of people if you don’t think of them as civilised human beings, but terrorist supporters.

This appears to be consistent with other studies:

The Media and Society Research Group of Cornell University conducted a survey in November of Americans with respect to their attitudes towards Muslims. Nearly half (44%) of respondents favoured restricting the civil rights of Muslims in some way.

Such attitudes often stem from ignorance. It is exceedingly easy to dehumanise a race/religion/culture if you know nothing about them:

A survey commissioned and published by National Geographic shows that a large majority of young Americans between the age of 18-24 are geographically illiterate.

Less than 15% of the subjects could locate Iraq or Israel on a map. Only 17% could locate Afghanistan, even though the survey was carried out after the war. 11% could not locate the U.S. on a map.

Now, I am not posting this to pick on Americans. In fact, I feel that at least to some extent these results also apply to Australia and other Western countries (e.g. the UK). We like to think of ourselves as ‘enlightened’ societies, yet the ignorance many people appear to exhibit is astounding. There is much in the way of misinformation and FUD being spread around, intentional and otherwise. The solution, I feel, is education. For instance, I bet that the average Australian knows very little about Islam: its beliefs, its history and the cultures surrounding it. It is all to easy to judge people and events by our own values, the principles by which we were raised. People need to understand that what may look like ‘common sense’ to them is in fact a cultural construct, and that other cultures may see things differently. This diversity is what makes the world interesting, and this abundance of different views is what has propelled human development since the very beginning.

Those who like to argue that Islam is a backwards religion or that its people celebrate an anachronistic culture ought to investigate the 1001 Inventions Web site:

A unique UK based educational project that reveals the rich heritage that the Muslim community share with other communities in the UK and Europe.

1001 Inventions is a non-religious and non-political project seeking to allow the positive aspects of progress in science and technology to act as a bridge in understanding the interdependence of communities throughout human history.

Pia has very eloquently indicated the divide between religion and culture, and in doing so I feel she has demonstrated how truly close many world religions are in their core beliefs and values.

I have never placed much faith in the quality of CompTIA certifications. Now that I have both an A+ and Network+, I must reiterate that opinion. The exams aren’t designed to test your knowledge, they are designed to trip you up.

The best way to study for a CompTIA exam is to complete as many practice questions as you can. There’s not much need for any real study or understanding of the issues at hand (although it can help). That is the view I took when studying for the Network+ exam. I began by reading the textbook which had been supplied to me, but I quickly gave up on it and turned to practice questions. After 400 questions, I felt ready to take the exam. Mind you, I did have a lot of prior knowledge and understanding, but I’m certain that most people who take this approach do not. In fact, at least 10% of the questions in my exam were identical to practice questions I had done earlier.

How skilful can you expect a CompTIA certification holder to be if the testing method is so pointless? Will they be able to apply the ‘knowledge’ gained from memorising multiple choice answers to real-life situations? Overall, I don’t believe they can.

Case in point: for several months I have had trouble connecting to a couple of Web sites. I knew they were up, but my Web browser would time out whenever I tried to connect. I have known of the existence of the traceroute tool for many years (and I even used it several times), and its use was covered in Network+. However, I only put one and one together relatively recently. Prior to this, I never considered using the tool to troubleshoot my connection to those sites.

Of course, upon realising this I whacked myself on the forehead for my ineptitude. I’m not normally that slow. It got me thinking, though. If I - who knew about the tool even before studying it for the exam - did not think of using it, what were the chances for the average Network+ certification holder? You know, the people who do the cert just to get a job and not because they have any real aptitude or interest?

I’m glad to be doing something else now. Structured programming is a challenge, which is far more than I can say for the CompTIA certs.

Network+ is now mine! Mwahahahahaha!

*ahem*

The day after I completed the A+ Hardware exam (Friday 1 April), I dove into the Network+ material. I’m now glad that I did the A+ modules out of order. Network+ builds upon the networking portions of both modules, but derives more from the Hardware section. Making the transition from A+ Hardware to Network+ was easy.

By now I was quite accustomed to the CompTIA certification style, so I planned to finish relatively quickly. Computer Power allocated four weeks to complete the certification; I thought I should bump it off in two. I spent the first day diligently reading the first of two books they had given us (containing over 600 pages in all). On the second day (the following Monday; I don’t study much on weekends), a couple of friends gave me some extra material, including exam questions and what amounted to be an entire printout of a book. There must have been close to a thousand pages in all (think of the trees!). I’m not sure how much of it they got through, but I certainly wasn’t going to read it all. It’d drive me bonkers. I extracted a small sliver (by comparison) from the stack, which amounted to about 360 exam questions and some examination cram notes. I decided to cast aside my book (which I had barely dented) and focus on those.

I spent that week going over that material: doing practice questions and taking notes on the stuff that I didn’t know. Then disaster struck - I got sick over the weekend (I think it was influenza). My plans of doing the exam by the middle of the following week had to be thrown out the window. One of the great things about Computer Power is that there are no classes and all learning is self-paced. I was able to take some days off to recooperate, while still accessing all my files (notes, etc.) over the Internet. I ended up doing next-to-nil study, though. I can never concentrate at home.

After taking Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday off, I spent all of Thursday at a Personal Effectiveness workshop which had been scheduled for me prior. Although still somewhat ill, I learnt a lot. I’m glad I went. Friday was the only day that week in which I did any real study.

By that point I had grown bored with the subject matter. I was going over the same ground over and over, and I felt no challenge. Wanting to get the subject over and done with, I booked the exam for the next morning. I’d gladly give up a Saturday if I could start the following week afresh. I was still ill, but by then I was over the worst of it and I didn’t care much anymore. Marks don’t matter in CompTIA exams. They give a printout at the end listing your score, but the actual certificate doesn’t say anything. All I was concerned about was the required 72% mark to pass, and the $400 fee I would incur if I failed.

I sat down in the examination chair the following morning. I felt a little fatigued, bleary-eyed and stuffy (sinuses and nose). The drugs didn’t seem to be working effectively. At times I lost concentration and I may have even dozed off a little. The CompTIA exams I’ve done allocate far too much time for the volume and type of questions posed, and Network+ is no exception. Despite my ailments, I had enough time to carefully complete every question and go over them afterwards. I exited the exam with twenty minutes left.

Less than a minute later I had my mark: 833 out of 900. Phwoar! That’s about 93%! I made some dumb errors which I probably wouldn’t have made had I been fully alert, but I’m very happy with the result nonetheless. Especially considering that I only put in seven days of proper study (recommended time is thirty) and that I was ill for almost the entire time (including during the exam itself).

I am now CompTIA A+ certified! Not that this is much to brag about. It is mostly rote-learning and is heavily Windows-focused. In fact, a major part of it is knowing how to perform tasks like set up a modem or printer in Windows, right down to memorising exactly what you need to click on and how the procedures differ across Windows versions.

There are two components, each with its own exam: Core Hardware and Operating System Technologies. You are supposed to do them in that order, but I decided to do it the other way round (fighting with DOS/Windows problems over many years made me feel more confident with the OS module). They cover a lot of legacy material, like daisy-wheel printers, EISA and MCA buses and Token Ring networks. Having been involved with PCs since the IBM PC XT, I could relate to much of it. Overall I would say that it was quite easy.

I did my A+ Core Hardware exam on Thursday March 31 (10 days ago) and since then I’ve been working towards the CompTIA Network+ certification.

I did say I’d try to be more diligent in writing journal entries last time, but I guess I failed. Well, no matter. It’s not as if my life is a rich tapestry or anything. Suffice to say that I’ve had a few things take up my time over the past week, the most significant being my studies. I’m still getting into the rhythm of things (I still syncopate too much), but I’m managing.

By the end of my first week, I had completed two modules and was 50 hours ahead. I have 25-hour weeks (5 hours per weekday), so that made me 2 weeks ahead. Mind you, it was easy stuff. PC Fundamentals is about learning about basic hardware and MS-DOS commands. PC Advanced is about slightly more advanced MS-DOS commands and Batch files. Nothing I haven’t done before. I’m just glad it wasn’t as brain-dead as Operate a Computer, which is about how to use Windows (yuck!) and basic GUI apps at a single-user level. Fortunately the Network Engineering course doesn’t sink that low (although there are other courses which do).

I was supposed to move onto the CompTIA A+ certification, but it appears that I was moving too quickly and they didn’t have any of the materials in stock. Instead, I ended up skipping ahead a few topics and doing Help Desk Problem Solving Techniques. It wasn’t difficult, but it was a lot of theory to memorise. Given that I was two weeks ahead, I thought I should slow down and learn that module properly. Even then, I finished (just yesterday) with plenty of time to spare.

Now I’m 75 hours ahead. That’s three weeks! I should be graduating well ahead of the date which was forecast at the beginning (12 December).

Finally, I’ve been able to start the A+ course. I was given the choice of doing either the A+ Hardware or A+ Operating System certifications first. I chose the latter, being more familiar with software. Having only begun today, I can’t say much about it.

I’ve always had a passion for computing and information technology. I remember as a kid messing around with a Radio Shack computer (with 4KB RAM!!!) which my dad had bought. After this (around 1985), we purchased an IBM PC XT (with full specs as shown here, but minus the HDD). That machine proved to be an enduring source of education and entertainment. It felt so cool back then to be able to use MS-DOS 2.1 and GW-BASIC!

Over the following years I played around with new versions of DOS (by MS, IBM and even Caldera), Windows and even OS/2 (which was awesome but since it couldn’t detect my CD-ROM I was forced to use Win95). I was a natural, and I quickly became the ‘computer guy’ in my circle of friends and family. I developed a passion for technology, and I would read and experiment as much as I could on the subject.

I only considered converting that into a career in high school, but once that had happened my motivation became strong. I commenced a computer science degree at The University of Sydney, but after a year I decided that I was ill-suited to coding. By the end of the second year (during which I had deliberately avoided CS subjects), I felt that my path lay in the humanities, with information systems and government (which I was doing as a minor) looking awfully tempting. For my third year I had transferred to The University of New South Wales, doing a plain-old Science degree. This, I felt, suited my broad mind (I’m the kind of person who likes to know a little about everything) very well. After some false starts and changes, I graduated with a Bachelor of Science, majoring in History and Philosophy of Science and Technology and minoring in Government, Politics and International Relations.

What a change that was from computer science! It was truly fascinating stuff (I loved it), but unfortunately it meant that I had trouble finding decent employment. In Australia, the humanities have the highest unemployment rate of all the graduate disciplines. I didn’t want to be stuck in a dead-end office role, where most of my skills would go to waste.

For a while I had been toying with the idea of finding employment in the IT industry. Recently I concluded that it would be impossible to do this. I may have the skills (I spend most of my free time at one of my computers), but I have no formal recognition (certifications, etc.) or experience. After a couple of weeks of heavy pondering and several meetings, I decided to bite the bullet and enrol in a training college to get the qualifications I need.

Today I completed my enrolment at the Computer Power Institute of Technology, and within ten months (full time: 11am to 4pm Monday to Friday) I should have a Diploma of Information technology (Network Engineering). That’s right, I’m training to be a network engineer! That’s something I’ve dreamt about for years!

My orientation is in Monday, and I officially begin training on Tuesday. I’m so excited! I’ll going to try to be diligent in reporting my progress in this journal. If you’re reading this (that means YOU!), stay tuned.