Theodore Zuckerman

certified computer technician

I have lots of hands-on experience with a range of electromechanical devices, including motor vehicles, garden equipment, oil-hot-water home heating systems, plumbing, electricity, and electronics. I have some know-how in regard to tuning pianos aurally, regulating piano actions, and some knowhow in the basics of carpentry and cabinet-making. And of course building and upgrading personal computers, both "desktop" models and "laptop" models. I know how do do basic accounting and bookkeeping from keeping journals of original entry to creating financial statements.

CompTIA A+ Computer Technician
find out what that means

 

Writing
I like to put my thoughts in writing and make them public. I have created a number of web sites where that is what I do. The web site you are now looking at, TheodoreZuckerman.com, is my personal space on the web.

I like language and I like to carefully choose my words so as to convey information and ideas unambiguously. It is not writing for writing's sake that I like, but rather I like to write about what I have done, what I do, and what I plan to do. I like to provide information. I like to tell stories, true stories only. I never ever ever ever make anything up.

Click here to open my résumé in Microsoft Word.

Click here to view the same résumé as a pdf (portable document format).

Instead of making my email address available to spammers, I've set things up so that you can send me an email message here. Just put your message in the "How can we help you" text box. I will receive your message, and you will receive a copy mailed to the email address you provided.


In addition to having CompTIA A+ certification in Information Technology, I have education in Cisco routers and Microsoft Servers. I know a bit about Unix and Linux too. I try to keep up-to-date with technology as it changes. Darn it, technology keeps changing so darn fast!

I like to help people with things, including their computers – make sure their things are working properly, and assist them with any problems they might be having in regard to getting their computers and computer networks to work for them they way they want them to work. I try to attend to people's needs with with tact, empathy, and professionalism. I try to cultivate my listening skills, and attempt to tune in to people's real underlying needs as well as to their stated needs. I take pride in having some skill and patience when dealing with frustrated computer users having frustrating problems. I am always striving to improve my language skills, in regard to both speaking and listening.

My Garden
I was born in 1948 and have been vegan since 1970. I like nature and hiking. Perhaps you might like to see pictures of my vegetable garden? I miss it so much. I miss running my fingers through their leaves.

Interests
I am interested in how the human body works, and in representing normal and abnormal anatomy with drawings, painting, sculpture, and verbal description. This includes representation of surgical procedures on living people and of dissections of human remains.

I am trying to make some time to learn how to dance. I like Latin music.

I am trying to learn some Spanish.

Even if I wasn't vegan, I would I like to know every single thing that is in a prepared food, before I swallow it, so I tend to avoid eating prepared foods, whether it is in a restaurant or a home. I feel it would be impolite to interrogate the preparer about every single ingredient. Not that they always remember all the ingredients anyway. I know I don't. It seems easier just to avoid the situations. I like to know every single thing that is in everything.

Technology
I like technology. When Volkswagen was making cars with air-cooled engines, they didn't last as long as water-cooled engines, before needing a major overhaul, and I learned how to completely rebuild them. I did a substantial number of rebuilds. I replaced the exhaust valves with new ones, and farmed out grinding of the intake valves to a machinist. However I resurfaced the valve seats myself, using a precision carbide cutting tool. I replaced valve guides myself too. I completely disassembled the engines, to the last nut and bolt, and I inspected and measured for wear, every part that received wear, with vernier calipers or micrometers and if necessary I replaced or resurfaced worn parts, before I reassembled the engines. Crankshafts were resurfaced if necessary and crankshaft bearings and connecting rod bearings were routinely replaced.

Many years ago I took classes in television repair. That was when televisions were first starting to become "solid state" and there were still televisions with vaccuum tubes around, often needing repairs. I learned about inductance, capacitance, resistance, reactance, and complex impedence, about voltage, current, power, and energy consumption, and about how to make measurments and do calculations. Over the years I worked as an electronic technician for several companies, including as an prototype wirer and engineering aide for an audio engineer.

I recently decided I was going to take apart a microwave oven and see if I could repair it. Indeed, all it needed was a diode. And I checked it for microwave leakage before putting it back in operatiion. I've disassembled and checked out all the parts of automobile "alternators" and repaired the alternators by replacing inexpensive parts rather than by buying an expensive new or rebuilt alternator.

One of my favorite hobbies is tuning pianos by ear. I did this professionally for awhile. I also did piano action regulating. Tuning a piano requires calculating the fundamental pitch, and overtones, of each note of an equally tempered interval, and a just interval, and then calculating what the beat rates should be between the coincident overtones of the tempered interval, when the piano is correctly tuned to a 12-tone equally tempered scale - sometimes abbreviated as "equal temperament." Not all tuners do the calculations themselves; many tuners rely on charts made by those who have done the math. But I like learning about the mathematics that describes the relationship between things, and I wasn't going to try and tune without knowing the math myself. Early on I did this by hand, in the mid-80's I acquired an Atari 800 XL computer and used BASIC to calculate and print out then beat rates. Now I use a spreadsheet program. You can use the php program on this page to calculate the fundamental pitch of each of the 88 pitches on a piano. That page also contains is a link to the spreadsheet I use to calculate the beat rates of coincident overtones. When calculating fundamental pitch of all the notes, you may wish to start from A49 = 440 hertz, the international standard, or if you wish you may assign A49 another value, and then see how all the other notes change as a result.

Another hobby is learning about the Earthly Origin of commercial materials: learning about what raw materials go into all those commercial products that we use every day; about where those raw materials came from; and about what physical or chemical changes happened, if any, along the sometimes complex and convoluted path from sometimes numerous raw materials to a single commercial product. Go to either shakahara.com, or animalvegetablemineral.info

Writing
I like talking and writing about what I do. With the emphasis on do.

Here are my A+ Study Notes. Many of them have been edited for clarity, others are not much different than how I originally wrote them in the classroom.

Here are my notes on subnetting and ip addressing. It covers the basics of what you absolutely need to know about the subject, to be a network administrator. It doesn't go into much further detail than that. I haven't had time yet, to format the page nicely, but I think I've begun to make the concepts clear, as I read over the first third.

And finally, here are my notes on deployment of windows operating systems, along with applications software - for many computers in a corporate environment. This is what I had been doing as a volunteer recently. My notes refer to remote installation (over a network connection), disk imaging, and unattended installation. Includes information on Windows XP and Vista, and a link to the refurbishing procedure used by Cyber Pals. Haven't updated the information with coverage of Windows 7 and Windows 8 yet.

web site development and php programming by Leafy Green Web Publishing