When beginning this class, I had a pretty decent understanding of computers and how to trouble-shoot. I was not extremely confident in my abilities, though. This class has most definitely taught me the art form of patience as well as how to be confident in trouble shooting. A lot of issues tend to be due to updates or glitches in code. If you have an idea what to look for, it is less difficult to find a solution. Now, I am confident in my ability to narrow down if not completely identify certain issues.
VirtualBox is a tool that has helped my growth in computer confidence. It has been a wonderful little world to experiment and start understanding how a computer system works. Initially, I didn’t really use it because I was nervous about what might happen if I did something wrong. The first issue I had to solve, however, gave me more confidence. My shared folder wasn’t really sharing with the VirtualBox and when it did, I had trouble accessing it through the terminal. And even then, it wouldn’t show the contents of the folder. While I never figured out the actual issue (at least knowingly), I continued to toy with the code in the terminal. I deleted the folder and re-shared it. I tried different avenues of code and searched google to figure out what I should do. Eventually I realized I was using the correct code, but I was not imputing the correct username to gain access to the folder. Even though I couldn’t completely figure it out by myself, I was able to realize that with a little more time I probably would have gotten it. And so in the future, I will take more time to figure out the issue, rather than allowing myself to be frazzled and give up.
A big reason I have more confidence as well is learning how to use a terminal. The terminal has given me a new perspective to understanding how a computer is put together and how all the data is filed. Now that I am confident in using a terminal and confident in using resources to find the right code; I am confident that I can troubleshoot pretty much any issue I have. It also has given me more passion for finding a career related to computer sciences. I love research and now that I have a more confident understanding of the inter-workings of computer software, I am excited to find a way to do both (which I know is completely possible thanks to the data-mining project I am working on).