Best posts made by RamblingBiped

FYI, in case you haven't seen it here is a decent rundown on installation of XO and a basic overview of it's featureset: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VkqQg1C_ZT8

@scottalanmiller said:

@wirestyle22 said:

My server room is cooled by a typical consumer grade window unit that management refuses to change. It broke Friday without me knowing. I came in today (Monday) and my server room was 85 degrees and climbing. They don't listen to me and then still hold me responsible for the end results.

I once interviewed at a place that had their AC unit fail in their little, glass-encased data centre of the office on a Friday night. There were a LOT of servers in there. They had no monitoring or automation. The room was tiny and all glass so that everyone could see it.

It had gotten hot enough that the wires started to melt and burn. Every single device in it was destroyed.

I bet that smelled magnificent!

@scottalanmiller said:

As a start, when it comes to "I want to advance my career" and especially when you don't have super solid direction, which is not uncommon because how do you know what you want to do until you have done it all, the top thing (and this goes for people with really solid direction too) you want to build a home lab, an epic one.

A home lab you can get access to the tech, the techniques, the trends, the products and all the stuff that your job does not. Certs are a decent way to push yourself to do boring things or things you never thought of, helping to avoid gaps. I like certs not for the paper that they provide but for the education they push you to do.

Build a lab that makes your company jealous. Make sure that in any discussion you could roll your eye and laugh with disdain at the joke of IT that your company uses. Don't actually do it, but have those thoughts deep down inside. Make your servers better, your email better, your security better, your file serving better... everything, make it more current, better implemented, running faster and doing more than you get to do at work. If they ever question what you are doing, mention that they take their business less seriously that you do your home network - set the bar higher than they do. Don't let your job define your quality bar.

Ha! You must have been typing this out as I was starting to make my own reply evangelizing the usefulness of home labs...

@thwr said in Programming Printers:

@RamblingBiped said in Programming Printers:

I've been programming since the late 80's. I can remember setting the time on my parent's VHS so they could record a TV show.

I can't believe I've been leaving that off my resume all these years!

Do you remember ShowView (VCR Plus+, G-Code, VideoPlus+)?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Video_recorder_scheduling_code

Hmm... on second thought maybe it was the early 90's?

@Ambarishrh I use a combination of https://www.monitor.us and local nagios servers. I just implemented a NagiosPI server this weekend on a Raspberry PI2 that I got as a Christmas gift. Super fast to get up and running with Raspberry PI. The image has nconf for managing nagios configurations and NagVIS for building out logical graphical representation of systems you are monitoring.

@MattSpeller said:

Favourite ticket title of the week:

"I have misplaced or lost the Telus Hotsport (Wifi Devise)."

I don't know why, but my brain read that in Borat's voice...

If the age 13-15 is set in stone I can shave...

Perl!

If you're coming from the perspective of most people that hang around this place I would say take a look at C. Learning C will not only help you gain a deeper understanding of all things *nix, but it will also give you an easier transition to other languages because of the similarities in structure and syntax.

If you're a beginning beginner, I'd look at Python. (maybe Ruby)

Nice article, I enjoyed the comic.

If you're just looking to monitor whether a site is online you could spin up a very small linux VM, install sendmail, and use BASH to throw together a really simple script that cycles through a list of hosts on a regular interval and fires off an email notifying you when a host is down.

@MattSpeller said:

4" un-treated fence posts, 1" Marine fine grade good one side plywood.

How fancy you get after that is up to you.

No cement blocks to ensure structural integrity? (or is that considered part of fancying it up?)

Actually, on a more serious note, I've got a friend that is thinking about leaving the insurance industry to pursue IT. Is this something that might be open to people pursuing IT as a career alternative? If so I might point him in this direction to see if he is interested. He's already started following along with Scott's book on Linux Administration to try and get the basics down, so he has some familiarity with the ML community (I think).

If you're developing web applications it is great for keeping consistency across the board on dev environments; it's great mitigation for dependency hell.

Here ya go: http://imgur.com/a/3AJgT

@scottalanmiller said in Looking for Highshool IT Intern:

@RamblingBiped said in Looking for Highshool IT Intern:

Actually, on a more serious note, I've got a friend that is thinking about leaving the insurance industry to pursue IT. Is this something that might be open to people pursuing IT as a career alternative? If so I might point him in this direction to see if he is interested. He's already started following along with Scott's book on Linux Administration to try and get the basics down, so he has some familiarity with the ML community (I think).

That's an option, is he really interested in actual interning, though? I mean NTG really can be a rapid path for building a career, but few adults, especially those with established careers, really want to take the time to do that. What aspects of IT is he looking into? Have him post on this thread.

I believe he's initially looking to generalize, more with a focus on Unix/Linux based systems, and possibly eventually move into doing some coding/programming.

His primary goal is to build knowledge and experience to eventually transition out of the Insurance industry and into an IT position with better opportunity for growth. I think he's already hit the ceiling at his current position, and aside from transitioning into Management (which I don't think he is interested in) really can't go any further.

I'll mention this thread to him the next time we speak and have him chime in if he's interested.

@FATeknollogee I've not personally purchased/read this one, but I've seen it referenced a lot:

http://www.amazon.com/Linux-System-Administration-Handbook-Edition/dp/0131480057

Also, man is your friend...

Re-educating myself on creating an unattended sysprep for Windows 7.

Professor Messer's Network+ instructional video series is what I used to review before testing. He follows the CompTIA objectives very closely.

Some of the TechWise TV Networking 101 videos might be beneficial: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL2D6D953CAEEA70A6

I started my venture in to Linux Administration when I moved into a new position a little over 2 years ago. The thing that helped me get a handle on things in the beginning was participating in the Linux Group in the Spiceworks community and using a lot of Google-foo. A lot of the questions you are going to need answered have already been asked/answered a few thousand times over somewhere within that group...

Youtube is also helpful. TheUrbanPenguin channel maintained by Andrew Mallett is exceedingly informative.

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCFFLP0dKesrKWccYscdAr9A

The resources listed on the right side of the screen from the BASH sub-reddit are also very helpful:

https://www.reddit.com/r/bash/

@RojoLoco said:

I just got the audio book of Hitchhiker's Guide.... read by Stephen Fry. Trying to make time to sit and read an analog book is next to impossible, so I'll read while in the car.

Audiobooks are a must for long road trips...

said in So it's time to start polishing up the ol resume.:

Google Doc

-I would look at significantly shortening your Hobbies/Interests section. These areas are great prompts to facilitate conversation in interviews to help decide early on whether you're going to be a great cultural fit. I would be wary of adding too much information here.

-Your Server and Operating System bullets are an unnecessary redundancy, I would kill the Server bullet.

-Possibly consolidate Software Defined Storage into your Storage bullet.

-Drop the training explanation at the bottom of the document. Realistically, I think of a resume as a loose description of your qualifications that should prompt discussion in an interview.

If you want to elaborate on specific aspects of your experience relative to a specific position you are applying for, that should be done with a cover letter. I try to keep my resume brief and to the point. Any further information that they need can be flushed out in the interview(s)/technical interview(s) that will follow the initial application process.