Baby Steps-A Start Towards Geekness
I’ve done nothing wrong yet today. I’ve offended no-one. Completed all I’ve started. No one is angry at me. Nothing has happened to discourage me - but soon I’ll have to wake up and go to work: Serenity, courage, and wisdom rule.
Wandering
My journey back started with a lot of wandering. I call this R&D [Research and Development]. This just means I don’t know where I’m going. I had learned from my previous programing and business experience an 80–20 rule applied — 80% of the time would be spent on preparing, organizing, learning, and planning, 20% on the actual doing. This is somewhat flexible as the modern resources are so plentiful compared to 40 years ago. I naturally started with searching various topics on Google. From these sites I received newsletters and notices to follow up on. It has become clear that I suffer from dangers due to excessive ‘geekiness’.
Overwhelmed
Dangers In R&D
1. Rabbit Holes: My interests were wild and varied. Searches on Google lead me all sorts of places. I found articles on AI that looked interesting and I would explore. I found articles on data and structure I read and filed. Critiques on different programing languages. I would explore psychology, math. and physics. I looked at graphics, game engines, GIS, etc. etc. — all which either led me elsewhere or feed my curiosity and desire to get involved again. I asked questions in Discord and joined a group learning Cloud computing. I explored learning sites, and reading comments by various authors. I subscribed to some sites, notably Medium, Discord, GitHub, etc. In addition, I have a family, a wife, friends to fit in. I even have to eat and sleep every now and then.
2. Richness of Info: The sheer abundance and variety of information that was readily available only produced more rabbit holes. People are either just getting started or were way beyond where I was. Courses and learning sessions were there to be had. Exploring GitHub, Discord, Quorum, Reddit, Medium, MUD, Pinterest, Stack Overflow, IBM cloud, AWS, and Google clouds overwhelmed me. I even enrolled in StackSkills for a lifetime access and Great Courses for a video course in Python (as well as “Great Trials of History” and “Modern Understanding of Personality”).
I knew of Bill Gates when he worked out of his mothers garage on DOS. Geekiness was easy back then. Now people from all over the world are at my finger tips. Wiki was my go to but there is no end.
3. Trying new Things: I’ve downloaded and installed, Pycharm, Anaconda3, Visual Studio and Visual Code, GitHub and Git. I’ve discovered I can’t use them to any degree of effectiveness because I don’t know what I’m doing. Windows has gone through numerous iterations and Unix has become Linux. I suffer from a great deal of frustration. At this writing I have over 3000 articles, books, and essays and about 300 UTube Videos. Years ago I had bought and used Microsoft TechNet Programming and Development Suite and have used their suite of programming tools for Visual C++, Visual Basic, DB3, and Office Development suite — ( version 1.0 which still sits on my shelf). So I also explored MS learning systems and resources. I have developed websites so I was acquainted with JavaScript, CSS, and HTML. I had developed databases for the largest Hydro distributer in North America and a Video rental system. I know I can do this but I was overwhelmed. I felt helpless. Much like a child in a candy store who can’t make up his mind which candy he wants. I no longer ran a company. I was alone.
4: How to Start: I rediscovered that old adage, “The more you know, the more you find out you don’t know, and the more you forget.” I might add, “The dumber you think you are.” Which brings me to current day. I’ve had to reapply the ‘kiss’ principle to my approach [Keep It Simple Stupid]. Also the ‘easy does it’ and the ‘first things first’ principles. [They are principles for a reason.] I’ll start at my beginning….a command prompt window. The first machines started with this black window waiting for instructions.
The Journey Has to have a Direction
The approach I’ve chosen to use is to build up to do something worthwhile. My rules are simple. The approach must be free or really cheap. Advice must be readily available. My current system is old but powerful enough to start things on. [At this time the prospect of getting an improved computer and improved internet connection is nil.]
And Purpose
I chose this approach toward Geekiness. This will be in the form of written articles for Medium. It will allow me to explore and organize my thoughts as I journey. It is not the trip but the traveling that will be rewarding. The writing will provide the discipline to focus. The expression of ideas will make sure I understand. No more wandering….we’ll maybe a little bit.
Revisiting DOS and work with Batch Files. In a sense, this is starting from where your at. The aim is to develop tools to manage my network, my writing, and my workplace. This in turn will provide material for my writing and keep me organized. I intend to remain functional while learning. I have to constantly remind myself I am no longer running a company. No longer lead, guide, and direct others, but am attempting to regain control of and grow myself. Thus the journey begins — again.
My previous article covered Notepad — so I could write this. This article will start a series combining DOS, WINDOWs, COMMAND.COM, maybe WScript, and CScript. All either on your machine already or freely available. For me, command.com allows me to redevelop a sense of being in touch with the ‘heart’ of the machine.
We will start by setting up the machine to use the command prompt and explore some of the many commands that are available to you. This is a powerful tool that is readily available to you at any time. In addition it provides the means to write what are called Batch Files, sequence of commands that can be run by a click or typing in the Batch File name.
Open A Command Window
There are several ways you can open the command window. We’ll create a shortcut and place it on the Task Bar at the bottom of the screen. You could simply type cmd in the [Type here to search] at the bottom left of the screen, choose the Run as administrator:
I suggest you choose the Open File Location, Rt. Click, drag and drop the Command Prompt shortcut to you desktop and choose Copy here. Close the Programs>Windows System window. Then Rt. Clk on the shortcut icon you created, choose Properties [last entry on the list]. Then click the Advanced Option:
Close the Programs>Windows System window. Then Rt. Clk on the shortcut icon you created, choose Properties [last entry on the list]. Then click the Advanced Option:
You can the click the Run as Administrator box, click Okay Button, click Apply button. This will give you a shortcut on the Screen to opening the Command Prompt as administrator any time you want. I choose to Rt. Clk. once again on the shortcut and choose the Pin to Task Bar option.
This pins a shortcut icon on the task bar [bottom of the screen on my system]. I can then delete the shortcut from my desktop by Rt. Clk. and Choose delete. Whenever I want to run the Command Prompt I just click on the icon, then click on Yes. This tends to remind me that I can cause problems as the command prompt in administrator mode is capable of changing system settings. Now single click on the icon on the task bar and your ready to start learning how to tell your computer to do something. With these commands we will be able to combine them into scripts called batch files.
What Next
Commands:
From this screen you can communicate directly with your computer. There aren’t that many commands and they are quick to learn. It becomes a little more complicated when we add switches and parameters. Lets start with something simple. In the command window note the following:
The prompt itself tells you where you are. Think of it as the ‘focus’ of the prompt. In this case you are on C: drive, Directory Windows, Subdirectory system32. It also gives you information about the system you are running on.
Now Type HELP /?_ [Press enter].
This will give you help for any command. You just type Help [command]. Fist command to try is Change Directory, CD for short. So type HELP CD_ [Press enter]. You may see Press any key to continue at the bottom is your window size is to small to display all the text. Do so and you will see the rest of the Help message. This command allows you to move the focus around your hard drive. Your system probably started in c:\Windows\system32> as shown in the command prompt. “C:\” means the root of C drive, “ Windows\” directory, “system32” subdirectory. Items are stored on a drive in your computer signified by a Letter in this case C. Then in directories, then given names. At one time you could know them all but no longer. Don’t try. Don’t confuse storage with memory either. Your system will read files from your drive into memory to manipulate them. What files you say.
Type DIR_ [Press enter]. A big list of files, directories, is displayed. After pressing ‘any key’ a few times you will see a summary. In my “system32" directory there are 4404 files, and 127 directories. And this is just the directory your focused on. Currently on my main drive there are 1,307,526 million files. You will learn that your computer associates file extensions [filename.ext] with certain programs . Over time you will become familiar with may of them. You don’t have to memorize them. For now though remember that the “.bat” extension means its a batch file and runs either in a command prompt window or calls cmd.exe to run when clicked on.
Welcome to geekdom. [to be continued…Command and Conquer]
In the next article [Command and Conquer] we will start to explore the Command Prompt , create a batch file, and prepare a HTML reference sheet.
Till then, Thanks for reading and following me. d’OldGeek.
