Skip to main content

New Year Revival... (Day 1)

Hello World,

This year, I have decided after a long journey of going back and reviving this website, and using it as a knowledge drop of all things that I have learned over the years. I will be going ahead and attempting to blog at least once per day, in an attempt to get anything and all of knowledge out on paper.

Well, today is Jan 1st. Happy New Year to everyone, family, friends, acquaintances and random internet people, as you matter too.

First thing I will explain, is my background history:

I went to College. You know those silly colleges that told you, 'Hey, take our course, we can get you a job in your field?' Well, as everyone expected, it did actually happen. I didn't start working immediately in my field, and had to work hard to get where I am today, such as working from one call center to another, to working a technical role in a call center, to then getting enough customer experience that I can start working in a technical specific job, then once I had that, well the rest is as simple as keep learning. Which is why I'm doing this today... The only way that I will keep learning is continuing to look back.

I got certified. This means everything. For all those technicians working out there, in the mom and pop shops and doesn't have their certifications I STRONGLY suggest you to go and get them, they pad the resume like no ones business. Now I know what everyone is going to say, well, you can brain dump them, and sometime it doesn't show the skill of the employee properly. Yes, that is true, however if you do your time, and research you can easily find out if the candidate is a good fit, knows his/her shit, and go from there. With that said, I am proud of my achievements over the years. I am CompTIA A+, Network+, MCSA:2003, MCITP:Vista, (Yes, there's a certificate for that...) Novell CNA  (Netware 6.5!), NCSS, NCTS (Nortel FTW!) and finally my newest two, CCNA and CCNA Voice. These have made me very well rounded through the years. Some of them I forget, some of them I use on a daily basis.

I made contacts. This is important. In the business world, as hard as it is to believe, sometimes it comes down to who you know in addition to your knowledge. Without the ability of finding and talking to the right people, it can change the course of any situation and maybe not land you the job or path you are looking for. That's exactly why things like LinkedIn was created.

Now the last important thing, that also matters. I had a life, to this day, even though I work a lot of hours, both in the office and at home, I still make time for the little things, such as my wife, my outside of work friends, and other projects that I try and keep up on. Sometimes things get too much, I'm not going to lie. I've recently had to cancel some non-work projects, and I burned some bridges by doing so, but it was too much. The point I'm trying to make here, is enjoy what you do, do it often, and as long as it isn't hurting anyone, what does it matter.

I'll see everyone tomorrow, where I hope to have something more technical to share, rather than a bit of life lesson/reflection.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

How to setup a Host-Check for Fortigate SSL VPN

This document outlines how to setup a host-check for a Fortigate SSL VPN (Web only): config vpn ssl web portal edit "portalname" set web-mode enable set host-check custom set host-check-policy "Microsoft-Windows-Firewall" set os-check-enable set ip-pools "PoolName" set split-tunneling disable set page-layout double-column set theme orange config os-check-list "windows-7" set action check-up-to-date set latest-patch-level 1 end  config vpn ssl web host-check-software edit "Microsoft-Windows-Firewall" config check-item-list edit 1 set target "HKLM\\SYSTEM\\CurrentControlSet\\Services\\SharedAccess\\Parameters\\FirewallPolicy\\StandardProfile:EnableFirewall==1" set type registry next edit 2 set target "HKLM\\SYSTEM\\CurrentControlSet\\Services\\SharedAccess\\Parameters\\FirewallPolicy\\PublicProfile:EnableFirewall==1" set type registry next edit 3 set target "HKLM\\SYSTEM\\CurrentControlSet\\S...

Implementing 802.1X - Windows 2012R2 + Cisco 4500 Switches

Implementing 802.1X Using Windows Server 2012R2 & Cisco 4500 Series Switches Overview: This document is to outline how the configuration between Windows Server 2012 R2’s NPS Services and Cisco 4500 Series switches has been implemented. High Level Diagram:   Requirements: Windows Server 2012 R2 with NPS Server installed Windows Server 2012 R2 with CA Services Windows AD Environment Cisco 4500 Series Switches Windows 7-10 Clients to connect NPS Configuration: 1. This assumes the above requirement that the NPS Service has already been installed on Windows Server 2012 R2 2. Disable all existing Policies under Connection Request Policies and Network Policies as you will be making your own, except one that states “Catch All” with the below parameters: 3. You will then need to add in a new Radius Client to have Policies built around. Friendly Name will be used going forward for the Policies for referencing the document. 4. Once completed...

OVA/OVF Templates and Older Versions of VMware ESXI

Recently ran into this issue which I feel is something that I should document, as it provides some additional details onto how to configure or modify an existing .ova or .ovf file which is the standard deployment template for ESXI/VMware. Here was the issue: - ESXI 5.5 - OVA required hardware type 8. Gave an error of  " Unsupported hardware version - vmx-8" when testing. Based on everything I was reading, it isn't supported. So using the ovftool which can be found on VMware's Website ( here ) you can basically extract out the ova/ovf file into a directory, and then use it to modify the VMX file and then put it all back together. Steps: 1. Download the application and install it. 2. Go to the directory where the ovftool is stored via cmd line (Typically C:\Programs Files\Vmware\ect..) 3. Issue the following command: ovftool 4. Then modify the .vmx file so that it contains now the hardware ID of 7 (or whatever you need set for your release). 5. Then issu...