My church has had all their computers set up by one guy, he works as a sys admin for a local credit card payment company they have several people in his position I sure.
any way, I don;t know anything compared to this guy but compared to the rest of the people in my church I'm by far the most knowledgeable when it comes to computers and net works. Turns out the guy who set up their systems is far to busy to do keep their systems running ect. so thinking it would be good experience I volunteered to help out in my free time.
in hind sight I may of just stepped off the edge of a cliff...
I think it will be a wonderful learning experience, and without the pressure of a career where the outcome of failure has severe repercussions. Who knows, maybe after you learn the ropes and get a little experience under your belt with it, you can use what you learned for actual cash-money.
Oh I know that I will learn a lot. that happens every time I jump of a cliff. I kinda have to learn to fly pretty darn fast in order to not go *splat* but that doesn't mean the experience is enjoyable.
but the vast knowledge gap between me and the people using the computers and me and the guy who set them up makes me skeptical as to the state of their systems. the stuff they want me to do is pretty simple. set up new computers, install quick books and transfer their financial information form their dinosaur of a pentium 4 over to their new computer. maintenance their other computers; install updates, defrag their computers, get their users accounts and passwords uniform across their systems. get it so them can access their server and set up new email accounts ect.
all simple stuff. but at the same time a lot can go wrong, I'm worried I might of just dug my self a hole without making sure the sides didn't cave in.
I think you'll be fine in the end. Sure, it will probably be a bit frustrating at times, but that usually only happens with old PCs.
That's just it. all their computers are old enough that they still have the "Pentium inside" sticker and not the ones with the new design either.