New to It looking for help!!
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@scottalanmiller My It work background is very minimal. I did take a year long class in middle school as i said, it was also almost 6 years ago to date, outside of that mostly what ive done is work with computers that had virus' or needed reprogrammed which i just watched mostly. Now im not doing any real IT work, im trying to learn however so that one day i could get back into the career that emerged while i was taking the classes.
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@coliver said in New to It looking for help!!:
@WrCombs said in New to It looking for help!!:
@DustinB3403 Ive heard sys. admin before, but what job duties does that include? I took a programming class in middle school HTMI, wasnt very fond of writing programs. I also took IT essentials, which was based on Cisco networking learning about pretty much the very bare essentials for IT; all hardware, some software, trouble shooting. With that course i was required to take a mock up of the exam, which i passed with flying colors, which is where i found my interest in IT
Systems Administrators manage backend systems and servers. They manage the platform and application layer generally, in some places they also manage the infrastructure but that is in smaller shops I think. Rarely (never) does a Sys Admin touch a desktop or a network switch.
A "true" System Admin never touches anything but operating systems. They don't manage platforms (hardware or virtualization) nor do they manage applications. It's a grey area, but sometimes they will manage system inclusive application platforms like Apache, NGinx, MariaDB, etc. and in some even that is not something that they manage and those are handed off to Application Administrators. Technically if nothing but desktop OSes were being managed, you could say that that is a System Admin as well, but almost no one including huge shops have that position, desktop people almost always support apps and end users as well.
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@scottalanmiller to continue with the above; im mostly interested in server admin, network admin, anything that has to do with working with networks my least favorite would be webdesign
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@WrCombs As much as everyone here wants you to research, don't try to look up job descriptions to get a sense of what a network admin or server admin's responsibilities are (or any title really). You will learn quickly that virtually no company does that well.
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Job descriptions are like nether regions, everyone has one, and they're all pretty much fowled up...
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@DustinB3403 thats for anything though, i was doing heating and cooling installs for a while. and the job description was polar opposite of what i was actually doing...
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@scottalanmiller Any particular books that you would recommend offhand?
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@WrCombs said in New to It looking for help!!:
@DustinB3403 thats for anything though, i was doing heating and cooling installs for a while. and the job description was polar opposite of what i was actually doing...
Sure there are a lot of jobs where you end up doing all sorts of things, like plumbing when you're IT 1. Or some other random crap. Good businesses though won't ask you to do something to "fill a gap" if it's a business need, then the business (good ones) will hire someone to perform that job function.
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@DustinB3403 yeah, i agree.
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@tiagom said in New to It looking for help!!:
@scottalanmiller Any particular books that you would recommend offhand?
Not really, although for general IT, that's a lot of what we work on with http://smbitjournal.com/ and it is effectively a book-like format.
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@wirestyle22 said in New to It looking for help!!:
@WrCombs As much as everyone here wants you to research, don't try to look up job descriptions to get a sense of what a network admin or server admin's responsibilities are (or any title really). You will learn quickly that virtually no company does that well.
In fact, it will lead you far, far away from reality. You'll begin to think that SMBs actually hire system admins (they do not) and that networking engineering is the most common job in IT (it's very rare) and that security is a real career option (it is not, jobs exist but only one for everyone one thousand kids going to college for it) or that degrees will get you a job (they'll just take you out of the job market for four years while your peers gain experience.)
The average job posting is fake (literally, not even a real job at the end of it) and written by someone that doesn't know what the job would entail even if it were real and just makes crap up.
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@WrCombs said in New to It looking for help!!:
@scottalanmiller to continue with the above; im mostly interested in server admin, network admin, anything that has to do with working with networks my least favorite would be webdesign
Web Design is a design discipline, not actually part of IT
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@scottalanmiller said in New to It looking for help!!:
@WrCombs said in New to It looking for help!!:
@scottalanmiller to continue with the above; im mostly interested in server admin, network admin, anything that has to do with working with networks my least favorite would be webdesign
Web Design is a design discipline, not actually part of IT
However @WrCombs , managing the servers for a web hosting company would be--as an example.
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@scottalanmiller Excellent, thank you.
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@wirestyle22 ahh my mistake
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@WrCombs as @scottalanmiller reminds me constantly, being 100% accurate with your terminology is extremely important. You will see us all correct each other a lot and it's meant to be helpful
I'm one of the worst when it comes to articulating what I actually want/need. I'm trying though. -
@wirestyle22 best way to learn, surround yourself with those more intelligent
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@wirestyle22 said in New to It looking for help!!:
@scottalanmiller said in New to It looking for help!!:
@WrCombs said in New to It looking for help!!:
@scottalanmiller to continue with the above; im mostly interested in server admin, network admin, anything that has to do with working with networks my least favorite would be webdesign
Web Design is a design discipline, not actually part of IT
However @WrCombs , managing the servers for a web hosting company would be--as an example.
Correct, IT runs the servers, installs the OS, installs the web server, installs the contend management system, gets the web site copied over in most cases, runs the database, handles outages, checks performance, etc. But they don't pick the colours and make the logo.
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@scottalanmiller said in New to It looking for help!!:
@wirestyle22 said in New to It looking for help!!:
@scottalanmiller said in New to It looking for help!!:
@WrCombs said in New to It looking for help!!:
@scottalanmiller to continue with the above; im mostly interested in server admin, network admin, anything that has to do with working with networks my least favorite would be webdesign
Web Design is a design discipline, not actually part of IT
However @WrCombs , managing the servers for a web hosting company would be--as an example.
Correct, IT runs the servers, installs the OS, installs the web server, installs the contend management system, gets the web site copied over in most cases, runs the database, handles outages, checks performance, etc. But they don't pick the colours and make the logo.
Those last two, to me, are much more difficult then the other items.
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@WrCombs Remember that you aren't unintelligent because you lack experience. Everyone has their strengths and weaknesses. The best you can do is magnify your strengths and reduce your weaknesses as much as you can. You can't compare yourself to people like @scottalanmiller and @JaredBusch. They have been doing this for a long time and have a completely different skill set than you or I. You're only ever competing against yourself. If you know something today that you didn't yesterday, you are a success.
One man's humble opinion.
