IT Careers

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  Summing Up Hiring Practices
  • scottalanmiller  

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  @wrx7m said in Summing Up Hiring Practices: @EddieJennings said in Summing Up Hiring Practices: @scottalanmiller said in Summing Up Hiring Practices: Simply put: hiring the best means living with the requirements of the best. Filters don't apply to companies hiring the best. I’m hoping my next gig can be remote or have remote component. I’m not holding my breath though. Same here. I need to finish my resume first though (sounding like a broken record). Have you started looking? ha Same!
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  Windows Administrative Tools - CompTIA A+ 220-1002 Prof Messer
  windows youtube comptia prof messer certification video training it career a+ it training windows system administration • • steve  

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  @mary said in Windows Administrative Tools - CompTIA A+ 220-1002 Prof Messer: Is there a list anywhere of the Windows command prompts, or do you usually look at the help to look at options? I realize the more seasoned IT person would have a lot of these committed to memory, but just starting out this is a bit overwhelming. There seem to be a lot of them to keep track of. Kind of. There are some built in tools to the shell itself, and some standard Windows tools that you can call. but keep in mind that you can add an unlimited number of additional ones, because all you are doing is calling installed applications. So while there are lists of the ones built in, most people have loads and loads of ones that are not.
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  An Overview of Windows 10 - CompTIA A+ 220-1002 Prof Messer
  windows windows 10 comptia prof messer certification video training it career a+ it training • • steve  

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  @Dashrender said in An Overview of Windows 10 - CompTIA A+ 220-1002 Prof Messer: @mary said in An Overview of Windows 10 - CompTIA A+ 220-1002 Prof Messer: First thing I did was get back to the old school desktop. Not sure what you mean? As for changing the start menu - I used to do that to.. but as a consultant, going around all over the place, that just become a waste of time. I learned to use the new defaults that MS provides. it's one thing to setup the machine you use on a daily basis for max efficiency, but the rest, just use them as the default. Especially in IT, we aren't end users. End users customize because they have one system and its purpose is to make them efficient. IT has to constantly work on a variety of systems and we need to be able to use them as they are. One of the best lessons I got from my first IT "teacher" (at uni) was as a system admin to never customize anything because when you need to get work done, those customizations won't be there.
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  Installing and Upgrading Windows - CompTIA A+ 220-1002 Prof Messer
  windows youtube comptia prof messer video training it career a+ it training • • steve  

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  @scottalanmiller said in Installing and Upgrading Windows - CompTIA A+ 220-1002 Prof Messer: ot crippled from having been upgraded rather than being a fresh install. So at least they appear to have fixed something in their I would agree with Jared and Scott when it comes from a Windows 10 to Windows 10 newer version upgrade... not so much when coming from Windows 7, 8, 8.1. Personally I'd still wipe and reload after an upgrade from any of those OSes... who know what old crap was still around from those installs. But like JB and Scott - Win 10 to Win 10 - generally OK once you get it there.
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  Network Command Line Tools - CompTIA A+ 220-1002 Prof Messer
  youtube networking comptia prof messer certification video training it career a+ it training cli • • steve  

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  @mary said in Network Command Line Tools - CompTIA A+ 220-1002 Prof Messer: Is it ok to have any packet loss when pinging another computer? It's not a crime or anything There is always "some" packet loss, but in a healthy network it is super low, like one out of one hundred thousands packets. If you are doing a ping and seeing packets missed regularly, something is wrong. On a wired network, this implies bad equipment, cabling, or EM interference. On wireless it means your signal isn't clean. Obviously wifi is going to lose packets way more than a cabled connection, and copper way more than optical. But it should still be essentially zero on a healthy network.
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  Microsoft Command Line Tools - CompTIA A+ 220-1002 Prof Messer
  windows youtube comptia prof messer video training it career a+ it training command line cli • • steve  

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  @mary said in Microsoft Command Line Tools - CompTIA A+ 220-1002 Prof Messer: Can you remote in to restart a PC if it is frozen or are you stuck looking at what the user is? Depends on the tools at your disposal and where "you" are. You can remote in using tools like RDP, but if the user is frozen, likely that won't help. You can remote in using PsExec, PowerShell Remoting or SSH and those will often work if the OS isn't completely frozen. You can use tools like ScreenConnect or MeshCentral, they will allow for remote command execution through local agents. And DevOps tools like SaltStack will issue remote commands similarly. But it all depends on your level of remote access, what has been set up ahead of time, and how frozen things are.
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  Installing Operating Systems - CompTIA A+ 220-1002 Prof Messer
  youtube comptia prof messer certification video training it career a+ it training • • steve  

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  Partitioning does a few things. It makes a single device (like a hard drive) appear like more than one. You can use this to be able to access multiple file systems, for one thing. On Windows this isn't as big as really there is just FAT32, NTFS, and ReFS. But on Linux there are dozens of reasonable ones and we use partitioning for that all of the time. Another is risk domains. You might have something that likes to fill up a disk quickly and you won't to isolate it from other parts of the system. that way if it fills up it doesn't kill the OS or the database. Popular for log directories. You might want to forcibly keep users from using too much space for personal files, so you limit it via a partition size. Uncommon, but possible. You often take backups at the partition level. So it is very common to put critical data on an individual partition so that an image based tool like Veeam can backup what is critical differently than stuff that is less critical. Snapshots are normally at the partition level as well, so multiple partitions means you get snapshot flexibility and performance benefits.
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  Windows in the Enterprise - CompTIA A+ 220-1002 Prof Messer
  windows youtube comptia prof messer certification video training it career a+ it training • • steve  

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  @mary said in Windows in the Enterprise - CompTIA A+ 220-1002 Prof Messer: I found the most annoying thing about being able to log into any computer you like is the fact that windows took its sweet time loading up your desktop if you never logged in to that PC before. Where I worked it just gave you a blank desktop and didn't bring what you had from another desktop with it so I would have to get all my shortcuts and set them up myself. Something tells me it isn't supposed to work that way. That's how Windows is "supposed to work" actually. They design it that way to get fast metrics on other parts of the process. It doesn't have to be that way, even with Windows. This is caused mostly by having users handled by Active Directory and having non-local profiles. This can be handy, but it has to set up a new user on the machine at the time that they log in for the first time and it needs to figure out what to do and often bring settings or files from somewhere remotely. There are plenty of ways to speed it up, but since it only happens under those conditions, most places ignore it.
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  An Overview of Windows 7 - CompTIA A+ 220-1002 Prof Messer
  windows youtube comptia prof messer certification video training it career a+ windows 7 it training • • steve  

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  @mary said in An Overview of Windows 7 - CompTIA A+ 220-1002 Prof Messer: I watched it. I used that OS, seems outdated material. Windows 7 is the desktop version of Server 2008 R2 which came out in 2010. So just about a full decade old now!
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  Troubleshooting Common Hardware Problems - CompTIA A+ 220-1001 Prof Messer
  youtube comptia prof messer video training it career a+ it training hardware • • steve  

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  @mary said in Troubleshooting Common Hardware Problems - CompTIA A+ 220-1001 Prof Messer: I helped my aunt after geek squad had her PC. They didn't set the ram in fully. I didn't think about the codes. I would think that hardware issues aren't that common. Is that the case in anyone's experience? Not so common, no. Assembling computers is pretty basic and straightforward and nearly all issues happen at the time of assembly. ONce they are working, you pretty much get to move on. When they fail, you typically just replace them. Taking them apart, changing parts, etc. is relatively rare. So hardware issues tend to be rare and simple. There is a reason that we spend almost no time studying them - in a business setting you basically eliminate them as they are too expensive to waste time on.
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  Cloud Services - CompTIA A+ 220-1001 Prof Messer
  youtube cloud computing comptia prof messer certification video training it career a+ it training cloud • • steve  

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  But cloud itself is just an architecture. So you can do cloud for free. And things like Linux on cloud require no licensing.
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  Cloud Models - CompTIA A+ 220-1001 Prof Messer
  virtualization youtube cloud computing comptia prof messer certification video training it career a+ cloud • • steve  

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  @mary said in Cloud Models - CompTIA A+ 220-1001 Prof Messer: @scottalanmiller so cloud is a buzzword? Cloud is "the" buzzword. But thats separate. Cloud is a very real thing. Just not a thing requiring special hardware.
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  Cellular Network Technologies - CompTIA A+ 220-1001 Prof Messer
  youtube networking comptia prof messer video training a+ • • steve  

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  @mary A+ doesnt go into that detail.
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  Wireless Network Technologies - CompTIA A+ 220-1001 Prof Messer
  youtube networking comptia video training it career a+ it training wifi wireless 802.11 • • steve  

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  @mary said in Wireless Network Technologies - CompTIA A+ 220-1001 Prof Messer: Is it important to know what channel you are operating on? If you are troubleshooting. But thats generally it.
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  Installing a SOHO Network - CompTIA A+ 220-1001 Prof Messer
  youtube networking comptia prof messer video training a+ • • steve  

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  @Dashrender said in Installing a SOHO Network - CompTIA A+ 220-1001 Prof Messer: @scottalanmiller said in Installing a SOHO Network - CompTIA A+ 220-1001 Prof Messer: @Dashrender said in Installing a SOHO Network - CompTIA A+ 220-1001 Prof Messer: @scottalanmiller said in Installing a SOHO Network - CompTIA A+ 220-1001 Prof Messer: Think about a thermostat that you can connect to online. The thermostat IoT device is in your home. The IoT vendor has a server. You work with the thermostat through the hosted server somewhere. If that server was compromised, bad guys could run up your AC bill. To bad most cameras don't work that way - instead they use uPNP to open ports and just spew your video feeds to the world. https://www.insecam.org/ "Most" of anything is crap. No good camera does that. What a bizarre system. Agreed - but it's very likely type of equipment they'll run into out in the wild. I've never seen that with a client in the wild. I'm sure it happens, but it's not something we really run into. Common with home users, for sure. As business class routers don't allow that, it limits it in the field a lot. And it's not like we don't see cameras, worked with a security company just today! Also, lots of customers on cheaper or less "business" equipment often have double NAT which while awful, stops UPnP.
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  802.11 Wireless Standards - CompTIA A+ 220-1001
  youtube networking comptia certification video training it career a+ wifi wireless it education 802.11 • • steve  

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  @Dashrender said in 802.11 Wireless Standards - CompTIA A+ 220-1001: @scottalanmiller said in 802.11 Wireless Standards - CompTIA A+ 220-1001: @mary said in 802.11 Wireless Standards - CompTIA A+ 220-1001: Is there anything out there that needs up to 6.8 gigs per second? That's actually not all that fast. Fast for a phone, but not for a network link. We have systems implementing 10Gig, 40Gig and even 100Gig regularly (okay, 100Gig is rare still). So 6.8Gig isn't that much. I have a VERY entry level client using 20Gig right now. Internal or external for 20Gig? what are they moving? Internal, external is 10Gb. No idea.
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  Configuring a SOHO Firewall - CompTIA A+ 220-1001 Prof Messer
  youtube networking comptia prof messer video training a+ firewall router • • steve  

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  @scottalanmiller said in Configuring a SOHO Firewall - CompTIA A+ 220-1001 Prof Messer: @mary said in Configuring a SOHO Firewall - CompTIA A+ 220-1001 Prof Messer: Also when port forwarding, can you forward to multiple addresses on your network? No, imagine what would happen if you did that. Bits of your traffic would randomly arrive at multiple locations. Neither would know the history of the connection. Think of it in human terms, not technical, imagine people doing the thing. This is like always the first thing people jump to when they learn about port forwarding.
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  Network Devices - CompTIA A+ 220-1001 Prof Messer
  youtube networking comptia prof messer video training a+ • • steve  

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  Beyond that, larger companies will often have firewalls placed throughout their internal networks. Small companies often only have one network of their own. Larger ones often have many either because size dictates that they must, or because they want to segment their traffic for security reasons (like applying one security policy to the finance department and another to the event planning department.) To keep those networks able to communicate, but limiting how they communicate, they use firewalls.
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  Common Network Ports - CompTIA A+ 220-1001 Prof Messer
  youtube networking comptia prof messer video training a+ it careers • • steve  

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  @scottalanmiller said in Common Network Ports - CompTIA A+ 220-1001 Prof Messer: y default for two reasons - first that is just the standard and second, because "all" networks are NATed, that alone blocks caveats to be aware of: many home routers have uPNP enabled. So it's possible that your machine could/will configure your router and open/forward these ports to itself as needed. This is specifically something the xbox does. This is why most firewall admins disable uPNP, or decent or better firewalls have uPNP disabled by default.
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  Windows HomeGroups, WorkGroups, and Domains - CompTIA A+ 220-1002 Prof Messer
  windows youtube active directory comptia prof messer certification video training it career a+ it training windows system administration • • steve  

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  Installing Windows Applications - CompTIA A+ 220-1002 Prof Messer
  windows youtube comptia prof messer certification video training it career a+ it training • • steve  

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  Windows Control Panel - CompTIA A+ 220-1002 Prof Messer
  windows youtube comptia prof messer certification video training it career a+ it training • • steve  

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  Windows System Utilities - CompTIA A+ 220-1002 Prof Messer
  windows youtube comptia prof messer certification video training it career a+ it training • • steve  

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  Introduction to IP - CompTIA A+ 220-1001 Prof Messer
  youtube networking comptia prof messer video training it career a+ • • steve  

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  @mary said in Introduction to IP - CompTIA A+ 220-1001 Prof Messer: Is there a way to tell if UDP or TCP is being used? In any given case, yes. You can tell because it is what you turn on, you can see it in the network traffic. It's different protocols so everything about it is different.
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  Windows Disk Management - CompTIA A+ 220-1002 Prof Messer
  windows storage comptia prof messer certification video training it career a+ it training • • steve  

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  Windows Task Manager - CompTIA A+ 220-1002 Prof Messer
  windows youtube comptia prof messer certification video training it career a+ it training task manager • • steve  

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  CompTIA A+ v10 220-1001 & 220-1002 by Prof. Messer
  youtube comptia prof messer certification video training a+ it training it education bench • • steve  

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  One of the clear problems with the CompTIA A+ has always been that it clearly caters to promoting Microsoft products and not being vendor neutral as it has always claimed to be. With the latest release, literally half of the exam is Windows only. There is no section for macOS, any Linux, iOS, Android, Chromebooks, nothing, nada. It's become a Windows exam, which means that they don't just skip the underlying principles that they claim the exam is about, and skip the neutrality for the industry that they claim it is about, but they also leave people going into entry level positions totally unprepared for the real world where running into non-Windows OSes is common. If you were learning from nothing but the A+, you might not even be aware that non-Windows exists. Let alone non-PC hardware, which appears to also be completely skipped.
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  System Configuration - CompTIA A+ 220-1002 Prof Messer
  youtube comptia prof messer certification video training it career a+ it training • • steve  

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  Windows Firewall with Advanced Security - CompTIA A+ 220-1002 Prof Messer
  security windows youtube networking comptia prof messer certification video training it career a+ firewall it training windows system administration • • steve  

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  Writing a good CV
  • hobbit666  

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  And you all are not my intended audience. Many of the comments appear to be coming from a peer level of evaluation. Most likely I won't be able to talk to peers until in person or maybe during a phone interview. The problem is that a CV has to pass between 2 and 3 layers before it would hit a person who would care about the things you're mentioning, depending on the position applied for. (This resume was aimed at management/project management, so that affects how it is written and who the intended audience is.) The first stage in many companies requires you to make through an applicant tracking system that is generally keyword based. This requires many buzzwords. The second level is often HR. They are also very keyword based. The next level is usually a hiring manager/team. If you're not hiring into a an IT team under an IT leader it needs to be oriented towards the decision maker. If they are not in IT they don't care what tools I used. They want to see that I improved the systems at a previous employer in a way they can quantify and wrap their heads around. By the time I get to the people who would want those questions answered it is frequently face-to-face where they can ask those questions and I can give them clear, thorough answers that I can't in a resume format. The question was asked above, how do you judge the success of a resume. It is difficult. However, after doing the rewrite that included the section I excerpted I immediately had 4 follow-up contacts with 2 leading to interviews. Significantly higher than before. Perhaps my original resume was so much garbage and the second is mediocre. I don't know, but I have been more successful in my search utilising the newer one. If any of you are interested in getting the two to look at for your own benefit feel free to pm me.