Show your SysAdmin some love

What is the last Friday of every July? It’s System Administrator Appreciation Day! It’s the day set aside to say thanks to your system administrator for answering questions, supporting their users or just keeping the email server going so you can forward those witty jokes to your buddies.

Oh sure, you could just say, “Hey, thanks for keeping that Internet connection going.” but you know you could do better than that. Get him or her something they really need. Caffeine is always a good choice. What else would fuel their drive to read everyone’s email provide great support? It can be in the form of coffee, candy or even water.

ThinkGeek has a few good gift choices on their Gifts for Sysadmins page. More gift ideas can be found here.

If you can read this, thank your sysadmin – SysAdminDay website

27.Jul.07 Holidays Comments (0)

Mastery of one or knowledge of many?

There are many knowledgeable computer/network techs can easily be described by the old phrase “Jack of all trades, master of none”. Of course, there are those that are masters of a “trade” (specialist). It brings to mind the question, “Which is better: General knowledge or Specific Mastery?”

When it comes to finding a job, general knowledge is more often than not the winner. The reason being is that there are usually more jobs in a given market that only require general skills (e.g. phone support, PC tech) versus jobs that require special certifications like CCNA and MCA. These types of jobs also tend to expose the person to even more technology so that their general knowledge keeps building with new hardware and software releases.

The down side of sticking with general knowledge only is that these positions are almost always on the lower end of the pay scale. It usually requires moving into a specific support role, almost becoming a specialist, to jump up the pay ladder.

A specialist could be described as a “Jack of some trades, master of one (or two)”. These are the people that have earned high level certifications, like the two mentioned previously, or have worked in a specific field for many years. The general knowledge they have may not cover nearly as much as someone that stays in a general skills position. This is because the jobs this person has tends to focus their daily task toward their specialty. The person tries to keep on top of their specialty, i.e. obtaining or updating their certification, instead of learning more about everything else on the network.

Specializing has it’s own draw backs. The main one being the lack of employment opportunities. These positions can be more difficult to land than the general knowledge positions because they tend to require more experience. The upshot, though, is that these types of jobs push the needle up the pay scale.

So what is someone wanting to work with technology to do? I say they should take their time (not too much, though). I haven’t met many people that stayed in a general tech field. They have all worked in a tech support type position and found their niche. I have met quite a few people that wished they would have waited a little while and chosen a different certification. They saw the big dollars promised with the certification but found out that passing a few test, a piece of paper and no experience didn’t get them close to the job they hoped for until years later (if ever).

Keep in mind that specializing isn’t all you need, either. A strong general background will make you a more valued potential employee because you can help in other area’s of the business (i.e. PC repair), not just one part of the network (i.e. routers), if needed. Several employers also assist with, or completely cover, the cost of advanced training for employees. That’s a double bonus because you save the cost of the training and will have a better chance at higher pay.

Real knowledge is to know the extent of one’s ignorance. – Confucius

25.Jul.07 General, Technology Comments (4)

Vacation good, back to work….

I’m back home after a short, three-day vacation to Gatlinburg. It was nice to get away for a little while. When I say “get away”, I’m not just talking about going away to a different place. The hotel where I stayed was one of the only ones without any high speed Internet access! It wasn’t some run down, shabby, POS hotel. It is one of the nicer hotels in the area. Even the run down, shabby, POS hotels around it advertised free WiFi service.

Yeah, I should have looked a little closer at the hotel website before I made the reservation. It would have been nice to look up some of the local attractions (i.e. shows) online instead of driving to them to see if they were worth going to. Oh well, I’ll know next time to double check for the important stuff.

Work is going to be kicked into overdrive for the next three weeks. New computers and printers are being installed, new locations are being set up and the data warehouse I worked on for a year is almost wrecked. The last one is the big problem for me. The errors were not caused by any scripts I wrote to use. Instead, it all stems from the main source of data (another database). GIGO.

Three weeks worth of reworking the SQL code, and cleaning the tables, should prevent future issues. Hopefully. I backed up the live database so that I could work on it on my laptop running SQL Server Express. It’s not as fast as the live server but it gets the job done.

Even nectar is poison if taken to excess. – Hindu Proverb

22.Jul.07 General Comments (0)

Please keep your cart off me

I stopped in at a local Target store to pick up a few items. It wasn’t busy so I figured it would be a quick in and out without any problems. It actually start out that way until I got to the check out line.

For some reason, this lady behind me kept pushing her cart into the back of my legs. I finally got tired of it after the third time and asked her to please stop hitting me with her cart. Even though I said it nicely, she looked as if I had punched her in the stomach. “Well,” she said, “excuse me. (emphasis on that) I was only trying to grab that magazine.” The magazine she wanted was next to me. She was trying to reach over her cart to grab it instead of stepping around the cart. If she would just wait a couple of minutes, the line would move and she would be next to it.

I handed her the magazine because she was obviously dying to know how many month’s pregnant Nichole Richie was (no, I don’t know). Even that didn’t help matters because, after much page ruffling, she bumped me again. I turned around and the lady said, “Sorry about that, I’m just trying to put the magazine back.” Unbelievable.

13.Jul.07 General Comments (0)

The repair is how much?!?

I took my car, a 1998 Ford Taurus, in to the dealership on Thursday to find out what was wrong with it. The car had started making a really loud rattling/whining noise whenever I would accelerate. It also felt like it was miss firing if I was going between 20 and 30 MPH.

The service center rep from the dealership called me Friday morning. They said it needed a replacement camshaft sensor and synchronizer. The cost of the repair would be $440 plus tax. The rep also said I needed to replace the spark plugs and wires. The cost for the plugs and wires was an additional $250! I knew that was too high because I can replace the plugs and wires myself for less than $100. I told them I’d call them back and let them know if I wanted the repair done.

I went to the local Auto Zone to check the price of the parts (sensor and synchronizer). If I purchased both of the parts myself, it would be about $80. The problem is that I am leery of doing that kind of work on my car. If the synchronizer and sensor aren’t installed properly, the car would either not run or run really poorly. Plugs and wires I can handle because I’ve done that before. Messing with the camshaft operation? Not so much.

A sales rep at Auto Zone told me about a local car repair shop that had recently opened. He said the shop had Ford Certified mechanics on staff so I should check there. I called the shop and told them what the dealership had quoted as being wrong with my car. They said the miss firing was probably caused by the faulty synchronizer so they didn’t think I needed new plugs. Their cost to replace the sensor and synchronizer was less than $200 (parts, labor and tax included). Even after paying the $65 diagnostic charge at the dealership, I still save over $200 versus what the dealership quoted me.

The car is supposed to be ready tomorrow. I might go ahead and replace the plugs next weekend. Advanced Auto Parts or Auto Zone is always having a sale on plugs and wires so I’ll just have to see who has the better deal.

The world is governed more by appearance than realities so that it is fully as necessary to seem to know something as to know it. – Daniel Webster

10.Jun.07 General Comments (2)