Computer Networking, IT Infrastructure and Your IT Career

From PCs to Computer Networking

I remember him trying to teach me the concept of databases, networks and how computers worked. I was already pretty savvy about how a PC worked. In fact, I would fix Dr. Snyder’s computer now and again. He had a really, really temperamental old CD tower drive. It was a huge thing – about the size of the monolith in 2001: A Space Odyssey. I remember diagnosing its problems and discovering that it had a loose connection on the back that was too expensive to fix. So, what did I do? I put a sticky note on the top of the thing that said, “Never touch this drive.” It was a fix that worked for years.

But I was worthless when it came to understanding networking and its foundations. In fact, I was pretty dismissive about the whole internet thing. After all, what’s the point of having computers communicate with each other? Isn’t that what phones are for?

When I asked him why this internet thing was a big deal, I remember how Henry decided to get all “Foundations of the Internet” on me. He trotted out a bunch of old books from the 15th, 16th and 17th centuries to get started.

I still remember the sound of the cracking of the bindings, and the smell of the old leather covers. He used these antiquarian books to show how one computer communicates with another. I remember him saying, “You know, back in the day, these books were cutting-edge technology. Now look where we are!”

Learning Computer Networking Basics

He realized I didn’t quite understand how computers talked to each other. So, he and some of his co-workers explained how they have to translate their unique MAC addresses with logical IP addresses.

He did so by explaining how the British Library has a physical address as well as a well-known name. He said that as humans, we can resolve these two things together, and computers, he said, have to do the same thing. He was very clever at analogies. I remember thinking about his analogies as I viewed files uploading across the internet at the incredibly fast pace of 36.4 Kbps. Ah, how infrastructure and networking has progressed these days!

Throughout all these mini-lessons and mini-bootcamps, Dr. Snyder and his co-workers inspired me. First, he taught me protocols such as Gopher, and Kermit, and eventually Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol (TCP/IP), and this “new thing called the web.” He also inspired me to want to teach this stuff.

Whenever I find time, I try to do the same thing to help other folks learn about technology. The problem is, my analogies are never as good as his. Thankfully I was able to take my foundational knowledge of networking and push it to the next level.

Networking as a Foundation for Cybersecurity

A few years after I worked for Dr. Snyder, I decided to pursue networking and the internet as a career. I took the CompTIA A+ exam and the then-relatively new CompTIA Network+ exam.

I remember when I passed them – it felt so good. As I studied about networking, I thought how I now fully understood how Henry’s databases really worked and how that little office in the basement of Rivera Library at UC Riverside was able to communicate with the British Library and other sites worldwide.