(This student worked for the company's Information Technology department servicing computers, It's not typical of the company, but the paper indicates a rather unique internship.)

I really enjoyed my working experience at Home Box Office. I worked for the Information Technology department on the fourteenth floor of the Grace building which is located on 43rd street between 5th and 6th avenues. I worked on most of my projects with Chan Johnson, an outside consultant hired by HBO. Henry Seto and Bill Reynolds are both department heads in the Information Technology department and I reported to both of them for different things.

On my first day, I was introduced to many of the members of the department, including the boss, Anne Marie Hogan. I was also given an AOL e-mail account and a SecurID token. The SecurID token is part of the security system used at HBO. It has a set of numbers on the display that changes every few minutes. You must enter this code every time you use your AOL account. I was also given a light background to getting users on to the HBO server, one of the many tasks I would have to do during the course of my internship.

After the first day, I was sent to work. I spent a lot of time on the second floor of the Grace building at a prepping station. This is where I prepared personal computers for office use. The first thing I had to do was to give the computer an Internet Protocol (IP) address. This would enable the computer to get on to the internet. Then I would have to give the computer a name and join it to the HBO domain (server). Once the computer was on the server, I had to install software. I would add Timbuktu, RegPerf Package, and SMS Client Software, all which are tools for the business. I would also have to install the latest Norton virus definitions. Once all that was done to the computer, it could go to the new user.

After the computers were prepared for the new user, I would wheel them up to the floor and set them up. First, I had to go to the old computer, whether a Mac or an IBM, and set-up a transfer folder inside the user's folder on the network. I would put personal files, downloads, desktop backgrounds, and e-mails in this folder so I could transfer them to the new computer. I also had to note the username on their AOL account. Once the new computer was set-up, I would connect it to the internet through the IP address and go directly to the transfer folder. I would extract all the files from the folder and put them in the appropriate places. I also set up printers for the person to use and updated their AOL account. Then, I had to set-up their Microsoft Outlook, Word, Excel and Power Point programs and make sure that they save their documents to the network and not to the local drive. So after all the transferring, wiring and connecting, the employee had a new Dell GX150, fully operational and a lot faster than their old CPU.

In addition to upgrading computers, I was also assigned many other projects. One of them was to make an inventory of all computers I installed at HBO. I was given a Palm M100, a portable database machine with a built in scanner and a roll of barcodes to put on each CPU. One of the many features the Palm has is called the Hot Sync that allows the user to connect the Palm to a desktop computer and transfer information. All employees of the company were added to the Palm so I set up a database for each of them. After I installed each of the computers, I put a barcode on it, scanned it and added the item to the owner's database in the Palm. After I did this, I had to Sync the information back into the network for record keeping. I was also given the assignment to scan all the computers in HBO's stock room that were going to charity.

After my first month at HBO, I was getting very comfortable with the people I was working with and duties of my job. The month of October brought new projects in addition to installing new computers. One project I worked on was the Information Technology call class operation spreadsheet. At HBO, there is a help desk that employees call when they are having problems with their computers. When a call is placed, the person working at the help desk has a program called 4D Client which is a database for all types of computer problems. The program asks for the user/caller, the technician assigned to the problem, call type, category, request placed, hardware/software problem and the status of the problem. Under each field there are several choices. I was asked to make an Excel spreadsheet that listed all fields and all choices for the program and I completed this within a day.

Whenever you deal with computers, there will always be problems. One big problem arose with the imaging of the new Dell computers. Before I prepare the computer for office use, the computer is imaged. Imaging is the process of writing the hard drive and giving it all the properties and applications needed for HBO. This is done by inserting two separate CDs that contain PowerQuest Drive Image Pro, a program that gives the computer all the information needed to operate correctly. Once this is done, the computer recognizes drivers, printers, and certain programs. The image that was written for the new computers was not recognizing video drivers, sound controllers or the ATA controller. Chan Johnson and I worked on this problem for several days. We had to install the drivers manually until the problem was fixed in the image disc.

Over the course of my internship, I was also given mindless busy work that really took me away from the upgrading of computers. One of these great projects was setting up SecurID packages. As I mentioned before, SecurID is the security system used for AOL at HBO. My job was to take an envelope and insert a support card and holder, a SecurID information sheet and a keychain with a SecurID attached to it. I made about 75 of these packages before my supervisor saved me and gave me something else to do.

The majority of the computers I upgraded in September and October were PC to PC. I basically transferred personal files from an old Dell computer to a new Dell GX150. In November, I started a much more difficult task, upgrading Mac computers to PCs. There are a lot of programs that run on Macs that don't run on PCs and vice versa. One of which is Now-Up-To-Date. It runs on Mac but not on PC. The PC equivalent is Microsoft Outlook. I had to export all the data in Now-Up-To-Date out including the calendar and address book and put it into an Excel spreadsheet. Once this was done, I saved the information in the user's personal folder on the network and opened it on the new computer. I took the information from Excel, imported it into Outlook and made the appropriate changes. Another program with similar problems is Now Contacts. The PC equivalent is FileMaker Pro. The process is similar to the Now-Up-To-Date transfer with the exception of saving the information as a text file.

Some employees of HBO run programs on Macs that have no equivalents on the PC. Those people have to keep their Macs in addition to getting a new PC. I would only transfer certain files over to the new computer and leave many on the old one. After setting up the new computer, I would also have to set up an A/B switch that allows two computers to run with the same monitor. I put the A/B switch next to the monitor, connected it to the monitor and ran data cables to both computers. With a simple turn of the switch, the user could go from using the PC to the Mac.

One of the last projects I was assigned at HBO was servicing support calls from the help desk. I was given an extensive list of calls made by employees that downloaded the "Gone" virus. They downloaded this virus through their e-mail. The message was entitled "Hi" and was sent to all people in their address book. A warning went out to all employees, but of course some people paid no attention. I had to visit over 25 employees that downloaded the virus and had to run the virus scan on their computer. I eliminated most of the viruses because they had not been spread, but a few people's drives were completely corrupted.

My last day at HBO was fun. My friends took me out to lunch and we went to see the tree at Rockefeller Center. After lunch, I bubble rapped computers for donation for a few hours and called it a day. I spoke with Henry Seto, one of my supervisors, and he congratulated me on a fine job I did for the department and asked me to work over Christmas break. I am really excited to get more experience in the field and I am very happy to have worked for such a great company.

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12/01