In March of 2002, I began an internship at Olin Chlor-Alkali Products in Niagara Falls, New York.  This job has given me experiences far beyond what I could learn in any classroom.

In the classes that I have taken so far I have gained a basic knowledge of computers as well as three programming languages.  The internship has given me the opportunity to put this knowledge to use, and to gain much more.  Part of the job consists of manning the Help Desk.  I have to handle any problems that employees might have.  The types of questions and problems range from simple ones like “How do I set my homepage in Internet Explorer?” and “Every time I type a ‘1’ in any Office program it automatically turns to a ‘3’,” to more difficult ones like “When I turn on the computer it doesn’t do anything.”  Like the questions, the answers also range from easy to hard.  The first problem was fixed by simply showing the user how to get to the Internet Options screen; the second was simply a matter of deleting an entry in the AutoCorrect Options.  The third problem required the hard drive to be reformatted, as a virus embedded in a Real Media file had completely erased it.

Another aspect of the job is to maintain the servers.  Everyday there are backup tapes that need to be changed, so in the event that an employee deletes something it can be recovered up to a year later.  My boss and I recently upgraded one of the servers to a newer operating system and made to be a DHCP server, it was then necessary to remove the IP addresses from all workstations on the plant.  Some programs that are used on every workstation with customized settings, like Microsoft Office, are installed on a server with the custom settings in such a way that it can then be installed on the workstations by accessing the server, with the custom settings already in place.  This saves an immense amount of time.

I also have to handle the adding and deleting of user accounts to and from the servers when a new employee is hired or when one leaves.  This includes adding or removing their account on the domain controller, creating or deleting their e-mail box on the exchange server and adding or deleting a personal folder on the file server that only they can access.  In the event of an employees leaving it is also necessary to remove their information from the backup program, as it will crash when it tries to backup their files and they are not there.

However the activities are not all software related.  Occasionally hardware will stop working and need to be replaced.  Since I began working at Olin I have replaced floppy drives, hard drives, CD-ROMs, even a few motherboards.  One employee brought in his computer from home because he purchased a new processor and did not know how to install it.

In response to the current situation in America, and the business that Olin is in, I recently set up a web cam.  It was also my job to configure a server to record the images taken by the web cam, and to make the images available in real-time to security through the intranet

Recently DuPont announced that they were closing the Terathane manufacturing plant that is located next to Olin, and that they were demolishing all the buildings.  This created a problem.  Olin was using some of the buildings that DuPont was going to tear down.  One of the buildings had several offices and computers in it that would have to be moved.  A suitable building was found, but it was not one that had any network connections in it.  The computers were moved there and network cable was laid inside the building, it was then my job to put the plastic ends on the cable, and attach them behind the faceplates on the wall, so there would be somewhere to plug the computers.  I also assisted with setting up the routers that would connect the other ends of these cables to the network.

The corporate intranet is maintained at division headquarters, but each plant has their own section of the intranet which is maintained locally.  In doing this I have to post announcements regarding upcoming events or newly hired employees, update various graphs and charts pertaining to plant safety and productivity.  One of the servers runs a document management system, which can be accessed from the intranet.  One of my duties is to update a webpage that lists files so the users can simply click on a link to access a given file.

I am currently working on a program that will allow me to use my knowledge of Visual Basic and Microsoft Office, and my experience with the internet.  The program, which is written in Visual Basic, searches through an Access database, and then displays the results of the search in an Excel spreadsheet.  Employees will run this program off the intranet.

In conclusion, my internship at Olin has been one of the most important events in my life and should help me greatly in my future.

Mike Castelletti, 2004
submitted March, 2003

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