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Letter From the Editors This is Tech Magazine’s very first edition. We have spent many months revising, editing, and making this magazine. The creation of this mag azine has been a unique experience for all of us, and is the culmination of all of our individual efforts. None of us have had previous experience working on magazines, and this has been not only a fun project, but also a great learning experience. We hope that all of our efforts have paid off, and that everybody is able to enjoy our magazine.
- William Jachimiak, Emilie Baillo, Avery Edwards and Gustavo Brooks
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Meet The Editors Emilie Baillo Emilie is involved in many school clubs, such as Science Olympiad, Women in Comput er Science and Future Busness Leaders of America. She hopes to go to school at UT Austin in the future.
Avery Edwards Avery Edwards was born in Jacksonville, Florida. She loves to swim, and is a swimmer at the Austin Swim Club. When she is older, she would like to be an OBGYN, which is a doctor that works with babies, and consult women throughout their pregnancy.
William Jachimiak William plays soccer and hopes to be a part of the LASA soccer team. Some of his hobbies include biking, hiking, playing video games, and playing board games. He hopes to one day to become an engineer.
Gustavo Brooks Gustavo enjoys reading and playing video games, and he wants to either be a novelist or have a STEM career when he graduates. He was a member of the National Junior Honor Society.
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Table of Contents Letter From the Editors William Jachimiak Dispose of Your Computer Avery Edwards Environmental Imapcts of Technology Avery Edwards History of Programming William Jachimiak Robots of Austin William Jachimiak Computer Functions 101 Emilie Baillo Austin’s Computing Giants Emilie Baillo IT Salaries Gustavo Brooks Information Technology Gustavo Brooks 6 | TECH — Fall Ezine 2018
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The Environmental Impacts of Technology by Avery Edwards Today, our world is quickly gaining momentum towards a huge jump into dangerous global warming: without any intervention, the world is going to collapse.
This photo is of the Austin skyline, which highlights the beauty of the growing city. Photo courtesy of Images from Texas.
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n 1914, the global average temperature was 56.3°F, and over the course of 100 years, the global average temperature has risen 2.4 degrees fahrenheit. This increase may seem small, but technology has predicted that the global average will continue to rise even faster. Our world’s environment is continuing to worsen due to harmful acts of people globally. The increase of food waste in the United States, and the excessive use of non-renewable resources, such as coal and oil, has made this process speed up exponentially, and if nothing is changed, this pattern will continue to worsen, and every negative aspect of global warming will amplify. These threats should concern the public, but many people are in denial. In 2017, a gallup poll from the Union of Concerned Scientists showed that the number of Americans who worry “a great deal” about global warming was only about 45 percent of the population. The number of people that are needed to make an impact in reversing the damage created through the history of global warming is far greater the 45 percent of the population. “Global warming is a fact. And it’s happening, and I think
“Global warming is a fact. And it’s happening, and I think ignoring it is being ignorant,” - Terese Firle
The ironic quote of the day in the Atlassian office. these comically phrases are meant to brighten workers days. ignoring it is being ignorant,” said Terese Firle, a workplace experience manager at Atlassian. Atlassian is a software company whose goal is to help other companies make their products and websites as user-friendly as possible. They also help the environment by being aware of what waste they produce, and using their resources and connections to influence the workforce in a positive manner. Her beliefs are that if influential people and companies do not stand up and address global warming to protect our environment, then nothing will change. She uses the Atlassian platform to show other companies that they are “at the forefront of change,” and she noted that Atlassian’s platform is a great place to influence other companies not only
in Austin, but also around the globe near their other headquarters. Firle believes that Atlassian can be influential in creating a more eco-friendly tech world because “Atlassian takes is at the forefront of change. And it’s open to new ideas… it’s not a company if you don’t have a an earth to put it in so I think that the company is equipped to handling detailed things, but they’re, they’re great at looking big picture as well.” Technology is part of our everyday lives. We use it to cook, clean, and learn. Tech in Austin is an ever-evolving and growing career, and it’s becoming more noticeable everywhere. “If you’re a new hire, you get a new monitor, laptop and all the bells and whistles related to that,” Firle siad.
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Construction in Austin has continued to be a growing industry, yet downtown Austin seems jam packed with tall building with glass window. Photo courtesy of The Buisness Journals.
ean O’Brien, a construction and development manager said, “There’s a lot of technology available [in construction]... you put all the plumbing, mechanical, HPC, air conditioning and electrical into a 3d model.” Technology has been incorporated into our jobs because many companies around the world and in Austin require tech to perform task efficiently and that can help the customer, and technology is a resource that has the power to slow down the effects of global warming. “Global warming is caused by human activities such as burning fossil fuels, and farming,” according to the WFF, a website based in Australia that is trying to reduce the stress that these factors are putting on our earth. Their goal is to inform the public on how they can reduce their carbon footprint, and limiting waste. There are people in our government who believe that global warming won’t affect their generation, so they don’t need to take action, but that part of the population is occupying positions in the government. All of the factors could be reduced by simply being
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mindful of the waste humans are producing. ScienceNordic believes that the climate in 2050 is completely up to us and our actions over the next couple of years. They predict that, with the proper steps taken, our global warming could still not be completely solved. “Even if the goals of the Paris Climate Agreement are met, by 2050 we will globally be looking at heat waves that are dangerous for human health, change in patterns of rainfall and snowfall, more intense storms, and changes in the distribution, and even extinctions of various plants and animals—including human pathogens,” in ScienceNordic wrote, “What will our climate will look like in 2050?” This article brings up the question of who will step up, and make a difference? This question will be floating around communities, and if the ball keeps on getting passed around, then nothing will happen. Sustainability—the key to reduce the stress humans are putting on our earth. Throughout different careers, sustainability is trying to become a norm in these day to day jobs. The problem is that among these hundred of thousands
work on becoming more environmentally friendly. “The two ways that construction can be sustainable are based on where you source your materials and how the building is going to run efficiently once it’s up and running,” said Sean O’Brien, referring to how construction in Austin is trying protect our world. Austin Green Energy Building is the overarching construction company that manages all of the construction in Austin through an “energy grid” which splits up all the energy and resources for the construction site. To construct a building in downtown Austin, “you have to abide by Austin Energy Green Building Standards, and all Austin architects and engineers have to design around those standards,” said O’Brien. Those standards create a more environmentally friendly construction development in Austin, and an “ever growing
of jobs, only so many actually
demand.” Those demands force construction workers and architects to“build [and design] buildings, and they [Austin Energy] have limited resources … have to keep up with increasing the limit. In downtown, everybody [wants to] build what they wanted, and if Austin Energy… would have to keep up with that, but if they demand the design efficiently for the design efficient systems, and then their energy grid grow in a way that they can manage… [Austin Energy] are planning to grow into the city, and then they can control requirements [so that Austin Energy can continue to maintain requirements while still making income, and keep Austin growing].” Austin Energy Green Building uses their power to make our community a better place, attempt to help Austin reduce its waste and create a tactical plan to continue to grow the city.
South of downtown, the Colorado River has a beautiful plants, and a diverse set of plants. Photo courtesy of Biophillic Cities.
Technology plays a huge role in our environment and it can help predict our future since we have that tool, we should use it to our advantage, and use it to slow down global warming and make our Earth healthy again. The traffic on Mopac is terrible, even at 6:45 in the morning. Many workers whose offices are located in downtown use Mopac to travel to their destination.
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How to
Photo courtesy of macworld.com
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Dispose of Your Computer Avery Edwards
Electronic waste is very damaging to our environment, so it is very important to ensure that people take the time to make sure that their computer is disposed of properly to avoid the release of harmful chemicals into our environment. Electronic waste is a huge problem, so these options are not only helpful, but necessary for our safety and maintainance of our environment’s health.
1) Give your electronics to a certified ewaste recycler. The Electronic TakeBack Coalition offers great tips. Staples also has free recycling. 2) Sell it online. 3) Donate your computrer to a charity, including Make-A-Wish Foundation or World Computer Exchange. 4) Trade in your computer to earn points on your next upgrade. 12 | TECH — Fall Ezine 2018
Clean everything!
Be sure to throughly clean the screen, keyboard, mouse, and wipe down the computer with a microfiber cloth.
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Back up all files! Make sure to remove any information that you don’t want the future owner to see. You can do this through Dropbox, or onto an external hard drive.
Sign out any accounts! Be sure to unpair bluetooth devices, and log out of all personal accounts. Label your hard drive! You don’t want to lose it.
Photo courtesy of amazon.com
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You are ready to sell! Take eco-friendly steps to help our environment.
The Danger of Electronic Waste:
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Re-install the operating system. To do this: reboot the system, and boot from the OS (operating system) disc.
Photo courtesy of edu.gcfglobal.org
Electronic Waste, or e-waste, is extremely dangerous for humans and the environment because of the potent amout of lead, cadmium (exposure over long periods of time can lead to liver damge), chromium (interferes with production of insulin), and more. These chemicals can be indested through inhalation, or buildup in soil, food, and water.
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The Robots of Austin William Jachimiak
W
hen hearing the word “robot,” the first thing imagined are likely images of cheesy B-movies where robots take over the world and kill all of humanity. The truth is that we aren’t anywhere near this, but robotics have come a long way from where it once was. In fact, just here in Austin there are robotics at many different levels. From high school to businesses, and everything in between, robotics is going through major changes. At the high school level, and even at the middle school level there are programs such as First Robotics Competition (FRC), First Technology Competition (FTC) and VEX that allow students to try out different areas of robotics, such as programming, electrical engineering, and mechanical engineering. At the University of Texas at Austin, there is an entire department of robotics dedicated to working on projects related to robotics. At major companies like NXP, there are robots being produced for commercial use. 14 | TECH — Fall Ezine 2018
Robotics is a world of its own that many people aren’t even aware of, and there is optimism for its future. There are more and more high school students participating in robotics competitions like FRC, FTC, and VEX. FRC is a robotics challenge where a team is tasked with building a robot that can complete a certain task. Gijs Landwehr, a computer science student at UT, and a mentor for the LASA robotics team said the FRC team receives all of the rules on the first weekend of
The area of technology that you never knew about in Austin January, and then 45 days after that you need to put the competition robot in a bag, and you can only take it out at competitions. “The really fun part of FRC to me, is the level of competition that you play against is so much higher[than FTC],” Landwehr said. FTC and VEX are quite different from FRC, instead focusing on smaller groups with smaller robots and an entire year to work on, and perfect the robot for use in competition. When Vincent Wrencher, a mentor for the
“Automation and robotics are so many different things; flying, rolling, or just some kind machine, it could be a lawn mower, that, is a robot”Iain Galloway
The LASA FRC robot at the 2018 world competition. Image Courtesy of LASA Robotics Anderson Robotics team, believes that everyone should join the robotics team.
intelligence, machine learning, mechanical engineering and electrical engineering.
“Join [robotics],” Wrecher said. “Especially for FIRST [FRC], we take everyone. Everyone can contribute, everyone can be a part of our team,” adding, “No skills are turned down, everyone can contribute in the FRC side.”
A hazardous environment is, “any place you really wouldn’t want to go where you want to reduce the amount that you want to go there. So nuclear facilities, nuclear cleanup sites, oil refineries, or areas where you might drill for oil,” Dr. Mitchell Pryor, a robotics professor at UT said. “We’ve been working with the Department of Energy with this nuclear stuff for a while. We did some work here, right now, using robots for concrete additive manufacturing… We’ve previously
At a collegiate level, colleges around the U.S. and other countries have their own robotics department. One of these colleges is UT at Austin. The robotics department at UT has various professors that work within different areas of robotics, such as artificial
done some work with trying to create some remote surgical cells, which fit on the back of a vehicle, so we could perform surgery closer to the front line.” Pryor has said that in the future business will be driven by entertainment primarily, but as it becomes more and more popular, it will become more accessible for other people to make robots that might be used for other, more useful purposes. Robotics, however, is not just something found in schools and universities. There have been more and more technology companies that are working on creating robots TECH — Fall Ezine 2018 | 15
Drone Prototypes being developed at NXP. Image Courtesy of NXP
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for various purposes. In fact, technology giant Amazon, a company based off of online selling, has recently started working on creating autonomous drones to be used for delivery. According to Iain Galloway, an employee in the drone department of NXP, a semi-conductors company: a department that he created, what we might think of as a robot is quite different than what a robot actually is. “Automation and robotics are so many different things; flying, rolling, or just some kind machine, it could be a lawn mower, that, is a robot,” said Galloway. NXP is a semiconductor company, and he created the drone department because he felt like NXP never got to experiment with all of the new
and exciting technologies out there. “It’s[the HoverGames Drone is] way more complicated, it looks like this drone right here is a little circuit board on top of a frame, and you think, ‘Oh that’s not that hard,’ Galloway said. “But the software that’s running inside is extremely complicated and sophisticated.”
used for delivery, but there might be challenges in overcoming regulations. “However, the big commercial opportunity is in industrial inspection services, Galloway said. “So that means inspecting things that are hard to inspect like the underside of bridges, cell towers and just regular construction sites.”
Galloway later stated that there are many different areas in robotics such as mechanical engineering, aerospace engineering, electrical engineering, and programming, and that he believes that everybody could find something they’re interested in that is related to robotics.
Robotics is a growing area of technology that the majority of people aren’t even aware of. Robotics in Austin is a growing hobby, and there are many interesting oppertunities that arise from robotics. After reading this article you hopefully have not only learned about robotics, but are interested in potentially trying it, and are looking towards what could be in the future of this amazing area of technology.
Galloway believes that there is a bright future for drone advancement in the future. In the future drones could be
Robots created by the UT department for the RoboCup. Image Courtesy of UT Robotics
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The History Of Programming A brief history of the major programming languages throughout the years, and what they are Fortran is a one of the original programmming languages, and today it has a few limited uses.
C++ is an object-oriented, general-purpose language based off of C that still has many uses today.
Fortran: 1957
C++: 1980
C: 1972
Photos courtesy to IBM, Nokia, Larry Wall, Python Foundation, Oracle Corporation, Microsoft, Apple Inc. 18 | TECH — Fall Ezine 2018
C is a general-purpose imperative language that is the base language for many languages that are popular today.
Perl: 1987
Perl is a programming language based off of C that was designed in order to make report processing easier.
Reference
Python is a language that supports multiple programming paradigms. It is still used for websites, A.I, and computing, and is one of the most popuar programmming languages.
Python: 1991
Java: 1995
Java is a general-purpose computer language that is intended to work on all platforms once it has been compiled. It is one of the most popular programming languages.
Paradigm: A way to classify programming languages based on their features Object-oriented: A programming paradigm that enables a system to be represented as “objects� that can be contolled in a module way General-purpose: A language that is appicable among many domains Multi-paradigm: A language that contains multiple features Imperative: a programming paradigm that uses statements that change the programs state C# is a very strict Swift is a multi-paradigm, multi-paragidm programming language that general-purpose language developed by Apple that is comes from C. based off of C.
C#: 2000
Swift: 2014
Visual Basic .NET: 2001
Visual Basic .NET is an object oriented programming language that comes from the much earlier language: BASIC which came from the even earlier language: Fortran. TECH — Fall Ezine 2018 | 19
Image courtesy of Peter Baillo
Austin’s Computing
Emilie Grace Baillo
Giants
Seated in a humble University of Texas facility, nestled in between weaving wires
and towering black panels, are some of the world’s most powerful supercomputers.
When one thinks of the University of Texas in Austin, they think of football, of the catchy phrase “Hook’em Horns!,” and of the orange and white colors of the UT flag; the word “Texas” printed in large, capital letters at the bottom of it all. The first thing that comes to one’s mind is never computers the size of several refrigerators, or the ability to perform nearly 10 quadrillion operations per second and carry thousands of terabytes of storage. But that’s exactly what the Texas Advanced Computing Center, or TACC, has achieved. Located at both the J.J. Pickle Research Campus and main UT Campus in Austin, the “Texas Advanced Computing Center (TACC) designs and operates some of the world’s most powerful computing resources.” With their mission of enabling discoveries “that advance science and society through the application of advanced computing technologies” easily spotted on their website’s front page, the center tackles all types of complex questions that plague the world today. 20 | TECH — Fall Ezine 2018
“Supercomputers are simply the big brothers of laptops,” explained Dr. Dan Stanzione, the Executive Director and Associate Vice President for Research at TACC. “They’re big aggregations of computers that have 10,000 hard drives and tens of thousands of wires.” TACC facilitates a number of these incredible machines, such as Stampede2, the center’s ‘flagship’ supercomputer, which serves thousands of researches through simulations; explorations of relativity; and large scale data analyses across the nation. Dr. Matt Vaughn, the Manager of TACC’s Life Sciences Computing Program, leads efforts to advance biologists’ utilization of and access to advanced computing technologies. “For a long time, most of biology was looking at one variable. You had a small number of experiments, and had keep it all in your head,” he stated. “You could understand what your data, your numbers weren’t telling you because everything was expected. People never thought of doing a thousand experiments at once.”
Pictured above is a way for supercomputer batteries to charge in mineral oil, a method created with the goal of not ruining the computer.
According to Dr. Vaughn, this wave of advanced supercomputers are a new class of instruments for scientists—new, digital, and generated by data files. “If you think Calc[ulus] is weird or hard,” he added, “then try AI and machine learning.” On August 29, 2018, the National Science Foundation (NSF) awarded TACC $60 million to build the nation’s fastest supercomputer at a U.S. university. Named as the Spanish word for frontier, Frontera will make its debut in the summer of 2019, and as reported by Dr. Stanzione in an interview with Aaron Dubrow of TACC, “[it] will be an important tool to solve grand challenges that will improve our nation’s health, well-being, competitiveness and security.” According to Stanzione, Austin, as a city, is one of the many solid reasons as to why Frontera and Stampede2 (the current fastest supercomputer of an university) have been established in Austin. To an Austinite, this announcement doesn’t exactly come as a surprise—with its status as Texas’ capital and population growth rate of about 3 percent, it isn’t hard to see how Austin remains the best candidate for the
placement of a supercomputer. A technology community hotbed, Austin is home to a variety of world-renowned companies such as Apple, Dell, National Instruments, Indeed, IBM, and Facebook, while still being a candidate in Jeff Bezos’ search for the next location of Amazon headquarters HQ2. A number of technological business startups and skyscrapers have been created in Austin—quantities which are increasingly on the rise—and with UT Austin nearby, TACC thrives in this culture-rich city. Austin, however—and America’s technology community in general —still has a long way to go before being able to claim improvement unnecessary. In her TEDx Talk titled POSTCARDS FROM THE BLEEDING EDGE at the Northern Illinois University, Dr. Kelly Gaither addressed one of the major issues of the technology community in Austin and across the nation today. The Director of Visualisation at TACC, Dr. Gaither describes how by year 2020, America will need 1.4 million jobs in the high-tech sector, but that only 400,000 graduated kids have the skillset to work in these positions—leaving 1 million jobs unfilled. TECH — Fall Ezine 2018 | 21
Gaither said, ”Here’s the other half of that, which is not only do we not have a qualified workforce in 2020, but if you look at the demographics of the students that we are graduating, and are projected to graduate, they look nothing like the demographics of our current population, and that’s going to get even more severe in 2020, 2040, and beyond.” The importance of diversity in STEM lies in the increase of innovation and the economy, as stated by Dr. Gaither. “If you want to be innovative, you have to include perspective and creativity and thought from all walks of life. There’s significant research and organizational dynamics that really proves that more diverse teams make more creative teams; more creative teams create more innovative teams; [and with] more innovative teams, you can draw a straight line to economic competitiveness,” Gaither said. Continuing on, Dr. Gaither observed, “Very often throughout my career, I’ve been the only woman in the room and I think all of us can identify with the fact that it is isolating, and it’s hard to be the only one of your kind.” 22 | TECH — Fall Ezine 2018
This issue of a lack of diversity in science, technology, engineering, and math stems from a long history of systemic challenges in America, as Ms. Rosalia Gomez, the Education & Outreach Manager at TACC, puts it. Offering a solution to this long-suffering issue, “To start tackling some of the challenges that we face in this country, we would have to invest more in education,” Gomez said, We would have to have very serious conversations about this issue of equity and how it affects all students regardless of social economic background.” On this same topic, “One powerful persuader of encouraging more diversity in STEM is to be able to see people that look like you. It becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy,” Gaither added. Personal Stories from STEM As someone who’s always had a special interest in STEM, I could only understand the words of Dr. Gaither on a personal level. Growing up in New York City, I had always been surrounded by curiosity and information; things I still hope to carry with me through my life.
To the left is a photo of the Visualization Lab at TACC, created for the exploration of human perception and large-scale visual analysis. The grouping of computers display visuals created by supercomputer Stallion. Image courtesy of TACC.
Pictured to the right is coolant, used to control the temperature of the rooms in which the supercomputers are in.
Trips to the American Museum of Natural History and the New York Hall of Science introduced me to the world of science, and the importance of asking “how,” or “what if.” Living in such a fast-paced and forward city fascinated me endlessly, but my youth made me blind to the lack of diversity in the topics I loved so much. Though my parents had never forgotten to always remind me of that fact that “America is the land of opportunity,” I had never considered pursuing a career in engineering or participating in the creation something larger than myself until I moved to Austin, and growing up was no longer a playground monster that I could simply run away from. It was not the struggle of growing up that confused me, however, but the idea that what I loved to do didn’t have to conflict with what society expected me to do, or rather, what not to do. Somewhere, in a distant part of my childhood brain, I began to believe that technology, engineering, and the STEM
community of America was only fit for old white males—there was no space for a young Pacific Islander girl like me. Long, humid summer days spent watching white men (with their consistently female secretaries) race to buy stocks in Wall Street-set movies, the slight awe of people surprised to hear that my sister’s university major is electrical and computer engineering, and the way my mother told me my uncles, engineers, discouraged her from entering chemical engineering and advised teaching instead were all instrumental moments in the internalization of this belief in me. Coming across TACC’s website was monumental for me in realizing that I too could be an engineer. The knowledge that an organization as big and involved in the world as TACC could be so welcoming and supportive of minorities gives me hope for a brighter future, and the belief that soon enough, kids all around the world can have the STEM education they need.
“One powerful persuader of encouraging more diversity in STEM is to be able to see people that look like you. It becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.” - Kelly Gaither TECH — Fall Ezine 2018 | 23
Computer Functions 101
Emilie Grace Baillo
So what is a computer? Unlike what comes first to most people’s minds, a computer isn’t just an electronic device. Computers are machines designed to manipulate information -- which means that things like a smart toilet or abacus are also computers. All computers have to perform four different, basic tasks:
INPUT Input is the act of entering or feeding data into computers. Computers take information through what one exposes them to or tells them to do, such as through the touchscreen in your phone.
PROCESSING
courtesy to Flaticon
Computers are designed to do things with its input, so through processing, they manipulate the given information, which is done through an algorithm, or a series of commands.
y = 13.4
x
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y T 2 o r F? = x
Computers - they’re something that we use everyday. But what’s so special about them? What makes computers so important in our life?
OUTPUT With this processed information, computers can then display their information, with the form it displays it dependent on what the computer is even designed to do. Computers can output information through images, videos, text, or movement.
STORAGE After being introduced to all this information, the computer needs a place to put it, which is where storage comes in. Storage preserves information -- be it newly inputted or processed - until it’s needed for further use.
courtesy to Flaticon
courtesy to Flaticon TECH — Fall Ezine 2018 | 25
Information Technology : Not Just Sitting Behind A Desk The “computer nerds” get their day in the limelight Gustavo Brooks
A
common misconny can become more effiception about staff cient by learning from past working in the field mistakes. They keep track of “information of all their employees, technology” is that they locations, etc. for referare robot-like workaholics; ence; it also includes helpsupposedly, they can easily ing fellow employees and be found hunched over at clients alike do their work their desk, always typing by fixing their hardware furiously, and on occasion, and software, so that prethey stop to take a gracecious minutes do not go to waste. ful sip of the coffee beside For example, the inforthem. Their job title is probably something along mation technology staff the lines of “software engireceive data from their neer” or “programmer an- business, and store it in the company’s archives so that alyst” or “database adminthey can easily be accessiistrator” and the computer code on their screen is so ble to other coworkers. hard to read and decipher This practice saves time that coworkers are amazed and effort by, instead that they can even do their of having to show job. Because of this, none the same file of them are surprised that to everyone they receive some of the and their highest pay in the office. mothHowever, this perception er, is nothing more than a vast, distorted oversimplification. Information technology is about accessing, storing, and manipulatHardware developers design ing data so computer circuit boards like these to that the combe less fragile, so that information pa-
storing it in an information system (an easily-accessible space for compiling, processing, and storing data) that other employees can view without a hassle. In fact, famous businesses have been founded around this method, such as Amazon, eBay , and Google. Staff also rely on information technology staff to fix faulty technology in the office.
technology workers don’t need to fix them as often. Image courtesy of Shutterstock
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Jacqueline Warner, information technology manager at Pfluger Architects, said that her daily schedule consists of “[dealing with] fires (computer issues, like crashing)... hopping back and forth between [strategizing and prioritizing big projects coming up, and fixing coworkers’ computers.” The reason they are called “fires,” according to Warner, is because they arose so unexpectedly; everybody working in information technology needs to drop what they were doing beforehand immediately, because “every second (that the computer is not) working, [that is] money that the company is not making.” The information technology staff are important to the business because they work hard to maintain the company’s technology and make sure it is all functioning properly. They also help clients outside of the company for a fee. Gregg Sales, owner of
Bluebolt Technology Management, gets clients mainly through recommendations. They come to him with their issues because their friends recommended his services. He typically prefers communicating with these (around fifty) clients over the phone, as he believes “it [is] easier to explain things and get [the] point across [while] on the phone with someone.” On the other hand, Allan Brooks, an information technology worker at FedEx, said that he has almost no interaction with clients. Instead, the company has implemented the “offshore model”, also called “outsourcing”, in which “customers order… software development from… different [countries, communicating] with the team members via Skype, phone, video calls, etc.” The offshore model has been lauded by Irina Kravchenko, a corporate blogger for Diceus Custom Software Development, because it is cheaper and offers 24/7 support from the developers. Warner only has one client, but she commu-
nicates through “vendors” through phone and email, as their line of work does not typically allow for “face-to-face” conversations. She gets these vendors through “[checking] references… [to] choose who to hire.” According to Brooks, the key to getting into a job in information technology is “technical interviews, and… good keywords on your résumé.” Speaking of jobs, both Sales and Warner began their information technology careers in architecture, sales was even in the trade for over fifteen years! After he left college, he did architectural work in tandem with software and hardware maintenance, and his “interest [in the latter] just kept growing over time.” Eventually, he was working full-time in information technology, and with some encouragement by his friends, especially by a one Milton Hyme, who later started a successful architecture firm, he accepted the offer to be an owner in Bluebolt Technology Management. Warner was introduced to information technology through her family:
“[E]very second (that the computer is not) working, [that is] money that the company is not making.” -Jacqueline Warner TECH — Fall Ezine 2018 | 27
Information technology implements code like this to create websites and other archives. both her brother and sister worked in the field, and career-wise, she looks up to them as role models. Her brother owns a “quality assurance, quality control” company with clients such as Old Navy and Google, and he examines their code to see if it needs further protection against bugs. Her sister is the “quality assurance, quality control” director for Wells Fargo; after graduating with a degree in business, she went back and 28 | TECH — Fall Ezine 2018
Image courtesy of Pexels got an associate’s degree in computer science, proving that “[starting] out with [information technology is unnecessary: gravitating] towards it later on [is always an option].” Sales prefers that information technology companies be balanced in terms of the credentials of the workforce. The company should hire both people who got a college degree in information technology, and those who have what he calls “direct industry
experience.” If he needed expertise in a specific subject, he could just “hire someone else with that knowledge so that hopefully [the] company [could] be more encompassing and address [the] problems that [he could not] solve [alone].” This ties into Warner’s “due diligence” hiring method described above. In short, information technology is more than the code, more than the cubicle, more than the occasional phone call, it
Image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons
In the Matrix series, the eponymous virtual world is entirely constructed with code. Likewise, computer code in reality can also be used as storage space for many different mediums.
Image courtesy of Columbia University
Universities, such as Columbia, provide information technology services for the campus. In particular, CUIT (Columbia University Information Technology) oversees Wifi and email services. Image courtesy of the SBA
Information technology staff produce spreadsheets like these to better visualize information.
is about assisting the company’s growth and prosperity through fixing employees’ and clients’ malfunctioning technology, and recording crucial data on the company’s progress, which allows the business to become more efficient and constructive as a whole.
TECH — Fall Ezine 2018 | 29
IT Salaries! By Gustavo Brooks Image coutesy of Shutterstock
H
ow much do information technology (IT) workers get paid, and what does your job title say about your annual salary? Let’s check the numbers and see how different jobs compare in terms of wages, the credentials you’ll need to get in, and projected job growth.
Job Title:
2012 Salary:
2013 Salary:
2014 Salary:
Database Administrator
$74,911
$82,040
$81,371
Computer Support Specialist
$48,416
$48,285
$50,876
Image courtesy of Depositphotos IT Jobs
30 | TECH — Fall Ezine 2018
Job Title: Computer Systems Analyst Network Systems Administrator Web Developer/Webmaster
2012 Salary:
2013 Salary:
2014 Salary:
$73,696
$86,288
$79,911
$64,953
$72,945
$77,193
$62,051
$66,351
$66,103
Image Courtesy of Pexels CS Jobs
Sources: Rasmussen College PayScale Economic Research Institution (ERI)
Image Courtesy of Pexels
TECH — Fall Ezine 2018 | 31
The New MyPhone XX
It’s a Block of Plastic, Literally 32 | TECH — Fall Ezine 2018
SpaceBook
S
We Won’t Steal Your Data, We Promise TECH — Fall Ezine 2018 | 33
TECH
ISSUE I
Images courtesy of MIT