Portfolio

These are all my customer service skills I have learned from my TEC701 class.

Personal Style

  • My Jungian style is ESFJ
  • Keirsey calls it Guardian (Provider)
  • My two Enneagrams are Helper & Enthusiast
  • 1st soft skill: Communication. Very useful in a help desk environment as I have to communicate with people all the time.
  • 2nd soft skill: Great team player. Will allow me to communicate with my fellow employees and work as a team to get work done.
  • 3rd soft skill: Very friendly. Mandatory for any help desk environment. Can not be aggressive to any customers, no matter how frustrating the job can be.

Stress Management Program

These are a few things I do that help me manage my stress:

  • Healthy Eating: Breakfast - Oatmeal with honey and glass of orange juice. Lunch - Pasta with grilled chicken. Supper - Quinoa with grilled chicken and steamed veggies.
  • Exercise Routine:I go to the gym every Monday, Wednesday and Friday and jog for 45 minutes on the track.
  • Humor in my day:I include humor in my day by being with my friends and joking around.
  • Supportive Person: The one person I go to for support is my girlfriend. She also got me into exercising and eating healthy.
  • Spirituality: I practice spirituality by listening to music.


Teamwork and Collaboration

  • Mission: Our mission is our videos will be very informative and demonstrate that we understand how to be successful IT help-desk employees.
  • Vision: Our vision is to make quality videos that help us reach out to future employers.
  • Behaviours: Matthew - I will speak clearly, smile and dress appropriately in the 10 steps video. Daniel - I will show up on time for group meetings and dress appropriately for the 10 steps video. Jack - I am always on time for group meetings.
  • Goals: Our steps to complete the project are as follows:
  • - Write script by Feb 5th
  • - Begin rehearsing (reading script without camera) between Feb 5th - Feb 8th
  • - Start filming Feb 16th
  • - Upload by Mar 3rd
  • - Deliver by Mar 5th
  • Actual completion date of 10 steps video is Mar 9th

Riding the Microsoft train

Decided to try Windows 8 after using Linux for a few months, and I must say, I really enjoy it! I even decided to remove my Google account and totally switch over to Outlook.com for everything. My next phone I plan on getting is going to be the Nokia Lumia 920 and I also have a free developer account because I am in college. Pretty sweet!!! :D

Back on Linux, Nexus 7 = AWESOME!, Data Plan & CyanogenMod on GNex and Nexus 7!!!

Haven’t updated my blog in awhile, which means more stuff to talk about :) I got my Nexus 7 a few weeks ago and, without a doubt, one of the best purchases I’ve ever made. This is my very first tablet (read: Phablet) and I absolutely love it! I take it with me pretty much everywhere I go. I mainly use it for reading. Also, I installed CyanogenMod’s experimental build on it, and it is awesome :) As for my phone, it’s running the featured build of CM10. Now that CM9 as hit stable releases, there will be a lot of work done on CM10, and I can’t wait :)

As another side update, I’ve made the plunge yet again to switch from Windows to Ubuntu, but this time I have made the decision that I will be staying with Linux. After all, I am running a Linux-based phone :P But seriously, I’ve actually missed using Linux for awhile. I thought it was only fair to go back to using it.

And lastly, I’ve upgraded my phone plan to have 6GB of data!!! Another good thing with the Nexus 7 is I can tether it to my phone and use it anywhere. Pretty sweet :)

Running Jelly Bean on my Galaxy Nexus & Pre-ordered Nexus 7

How sweet it is! Currently running the latest “leaked” version of Android and it is, without a doubt, a great improvement. I absolutely love using Google Now, the anti-Siri voice search. I also pre-ordered the first tablet from Google, the Nexus 7. Can’t wait to get mine!!! A few sites say it could be shipping as soon as this week!!! :DJelly Bean running on Galaxy Nexus and Nexus 7

Huge update! {May to now}

Haven’t made a post on my blog in months!!! Lots has gone on in my life.

- Went back to Windose. Not because I wanted to, but I wanted to be able to get back into gaming and recently bought Diablo III and StarCraft II, as well as playing World of Warcraft (which by the way are all AMAZING!!! :) )

- I’ve also reduced my phone bill from just over $95 to roughly $57 a month. Still get to keep all my features except I only have 100 MB. I figure I can just use my laptop and, in the near future, I’m going to be investing in a tablet for school. Thinking of getting a Samsung Galaxy Tab 2.

- I was in the hospital due to an obstruction in my bowels due to scar tissue from a previous surgery. Let me tell you, it was not fun. I had to have an NG tube which is this long tube that gets inserted into your nose and goes down into your stomach to suck pretty much everything out of it. It’s to relieve pressure and had a %90 chance of resolving the blockage. However, it is not a permanent fix. It could either occur in a week or 50 years, or never happen ever again.

And yeah. That’s my update :). I’ll try and use this a lot more often.

WiFi Solutions for atheros on Ubuntu

First and foremost, the main issue was NetworkManager. I found it kept disconnecting me a lot, so I switched to wicd. No problems after switching and following the below steps. First, install wicd and remove NetworkManager:

sudo apt-get install wicd && sudo apt-get purge network-manager*

After that, reboot the computer, open the Dash by either clicking it or pushing the, dare I say it, Windose key and typing “wicd”. Open it up and connect to your router.

I have an Acer Aspire laptop which I absolutely love. The only downside I’ve seem to have problems with is the WiFi. There have been a lot of people with problems regarding this specific wireless card, which is obviously not good. Wish I knew about it before I made the purchase. It shows a very weak signal, sometimes doesn’t even connect at all. I did a lot of Google searches for the problem and came across this AskUbuntu question: Why is my internet slow with an Atheros wireless card? Thanks to an AskUbuntu user named Dante Ashton, this solution seems to do the trick:

I’ve found out the problem; it’s some sort of problem with my wifi driver (ath9k) which was resolved with a simple command:

sudo echo “options ath9k nohwcrypt=1” > /etc/modprobe.d/ath9k.conf

This doesn’t just work with ath9k cards either; it’s suppose to work with ath5, 6, etc cards as well. No idea why this bug appears with this card only, but least there is a work around for it.

UPDATE: I’ve been getting really slow connection speed so my Dad decided to do some investigating cause I told him I don’t use Windose anymore :P Apparently the cause of the slow connection is due to power management being turned on for my network card. The solution is to enter the command:

sudo iwconfig wlan0 power off


And that should do it. The signal will still go up and down like it’s suppose to, but it shouldn’t disconnect you from the internet, nor will it stop pages from being loaded.

Also, this fix isn’t permanent. After reboot, it will set power management to the on state. In order to make it permanent, you need to add a file to /etc called “local.rc”. In this file, enter the following script:

#!/bin/sh -e

sleep 10
iwconfig wlan0 power off
exit 0

This will turn the power management setting off upon 10 seconds after startup. And that should do it for fixing WiFi :D