These pages grew out of a workshop that I have been
giving for faculty and staff at City College of San Francisco for four
years. I've been impressed with the amount of anxiety that people feel
about buying a computer, so these pages attempt to provide background
information, resources, and reassurance about the process.
My Background
I'm Vic Fascio,
the trainer in the Technology Learning
Center at City College of San Francisco.
I started being interested in computers in the early 1980s, to help me
compile statistics for a social service job. My educational background,
like that of many people in the early days of computers, before there were
dedicated Computer Science degrees, was in English. (Lore has it that
English was the #1 background for computer programmers. The difference
between a comma and a semi-colon may pass by most people, but not
programmers or close readers of poetry.)
I took many computer courses, workshops,
seminars, got a few credentials, and taught computer stuff part time at
CCSF for a while. Then I took a job managing a very busy student computer
lab at the school and learned Novell networking, a lot about computer
hardware maintenance, and a little about management.
I also had to purchase computers. Time after
time, I had to research prices. components and vendors for rooms full of
computers. I put together orders for many Mac models, PCs ranging from 286
chips to the newest Pentiums, and for the special requirements of network
servers. In the course of roughly eight years I learned a lot. I'm trying
to pass along some of what I learned by making this web site. Hope you
benefit and enjoy!
