SNEAK PREVIEW, ARGH HE GOT ME

Switched On

Ryan was once your average computer nerd
with no set mission in life. Now he's an
accomplished computer nerd with fame and
fortune a mere mouse-click away.
To download his story, commence reading

I'm a trainee at the moment as a Computer Network Technician and doing maintenance. I'm also helping run a Cyber Cafe at the same time as the office for the Switch server. I'm doing various courses and fixing computers when we get them in and also handling people's problems with Internet connections at home, if they have problems or difficulties connecting to us. Plus there's playing games with anyone who comes in and decides to have a couple of rounds of games. We've got all sorts, real-time strategy, action games - shoot 'em up, really violent ones anyway!
We get all sorts of people coming in here. The tourists come in off the buses, do what they have to do and then leave. After school and on the weekends, we get the local kids and even adults coming in to play games for a couple of hours.
The tourists come in and they pay per ten minutes which is basically about $6.00 an hour, which they say is pretty cheap compared to a lot of other places around Australia. For the tourists it's the email and the internet. For locals with their net connection at home we offer computer maintenance, technical support - the whole works. And we handle sales as well.
There are quite a few games to choose from. They all use really high-res graphics, better than anywhere else that I know, top of the range games graphics, all very fast. Games nowadays are fast, so you've got to move fast!
The games I like best are 'Quake 3', which is a pretty popular one at the moment, uses high graphics - very violent though. There are some we don't let young kids play, like 'King Pin', which is a street game, a lot of swearing and carrying on in it.
Then you've got your more basic bird's-eye view of commanding bases and tanks and forming armies and trying to wipe out your enemy's base. We've got team based games where you're positioned and each team has a base at either end of the arena or area and you've got to try and penetrate the enemy's base plus the defence and get their flag and take it back to yours to get points without dying. We've also got racing car games.
We're in a good location here because tourists see us as soon as they get off the bus. It's fairly steady during the day but later on during the night when the buses come in, they flood through.
We've been open for a good six weeks now. There are two full time workers and one casual. We're open from about 10:00 in the morning till midnight.
I'll be doing this for a few years because it involves an IT course, which means running off to Alice, Darwin and Canberra. I'm doing a Microsoft Certification exam soon in Canberra.
After all that, when I've got it all and I get sick of this place, I'll be heading off to Uni. I'll be doing the same thing there, becoming a Computer Technician Network Engineer.
Computers are increasing in numbers and use as they get better they can do more things, so they take over other things. If you've got a good understanding of computers then you won't have a problem finding somewhere where you can use that. If kids want to get into computers, get a bit of on-site training, there are always people looking out for those with a knack for computers, at any level, like programming, graphics, technical work, networking, the whole lot.
So there's plenty to choose from.

Switched On Ryan was once your average computer nerd with no set mission in life. Now he's an accomplished computer nerd with fame and fortune a mere mouse-click away. To download his story, commence reading I'm a trainee at the moment as a Computer Network Technician and doing maintenance. I'm also helping run a Cyber Cafe at the same time as the office for the Switch server. I'm doing various courses and fixing computers when we get them in and also handling people's problems with Internet connections at home, if they have problems or difficulties connecting to us. Plus there's playing games with anyone who comes in and decides to have a couple of rounds of games. We've got all sorts, real-time strategy, action games - shoot 'em up, really violent ones anyway! We get all sorts of people coming in here. The tourists come in off the buses, do what they have to do and then leave. After school and on the weekends, we get the local kids and even adults coming in to play games for a couple of hours. The tourists come in and they pay per ten minutes which is basically about $6.00 an hour, which they say is pretty cheap compared to a lot of other places around Australia. For the tourists it's the email and the internet. For locals with their net connection at home we offer computer maintenance, technical support - the whole works. And we handle sales as well. There are quite a few games to choose from. They all use really high-res graphics, better than anywhere else that I know, top of the range games graphics, all very fast. Games nowadays are fast, so you've got to move fast! The games I like best are 'Quake 3', which is a pretty popular one at the moment, uses high graphics - very violent though. There are some we don't let young kids play, like 'King Pin', which is a street game, a lot of swearing and carrying on in it. Then you've got your more basic bird's-eye view of commanding bases and tanks and forming armies and trying to wipe out your enemy's base. We've got team based games where you're positioned and each team has a base at either end of the arena or area and you've got to try and penetrate the enemy's base plus the defence and get their flag and take it back to yours to get points without dying. We've also got racing car games. We're in a good location here because tourists see us as soon as they get off the bus. It's fairly steady during the day but later on during the night when the buses come in, they flood through. We've been open for a good six weeks now. There are two full time workers and one casual. We're open from about 10:00 in the morning till midnight. I'll be doing this for a few years because it involves an IT course, which means running off to Alice, Darwin and Canberra. I'm doing a Microsoft Certification exam soon in Canberra. After all that, when I've got it all and I get sick of this place, I'll be heading off to Uni. I'll be doing the same thing there, becoming a Computer Technician Network Engineer. Computers are increasing in numbers and use as they get better they can do more things, so they take over other things. If you've got a good understanding of computers then you won't have a problem finding somewhere where you can use that. If kids want to get into computers, get a bit of on-site training, there are always people looking out for those with a knack for computers, at any level, like programming, graphics, technical work, networking, the whole lot. So there's plenty to choose from.