IT BS thread

Thick skin and lots of patience.

 

This


And a working mute button on your phone.

 

Sounds like the ladies to me lol.

 

In all seriousness, if you're looking for fast first rate help from the net, try Experts-Exchange.com. Pay the 12 bucks or whatever a month, get quick, real answers to your IT questions, no matter how complex.

 

I love experts-exchange. Worth every penny to have a yearly personal sub if you can't figure out a way to convince work to pay for it.

I've had to sub out of pocket 3 times and I'll do it again the next time I can't make them buy it.

 

I used to use experts-exchange a lot when I worked on desktops. Now I primarily rely on kb articles at whatever vendor's website. It's easier to get permission to do changes when the vendor has a kb detailing the issues and steps to resolution... As opposed to random people on the interwebs posting on forums, not that you can't get great advice there.

 

Agreed, it's not always spot on but the "experts" are vetted and monitored, hence the fee you pay. That site has saved my bacon way more than any other forum site, the point being.

 

The key to a lot of IT is not remembering everything, because you can't, but knowing where to find the answer. Experts exchange is a very good place for those answers. Also, practice your google-fu. Knowing what and how to search is a life saver.

 

Spot on. Been making a good living for 15 years doing exactly that.

 

Yup. Closing on 20 years here.

It's not about how many esoteric error message numbers you can memorize, it's how well you can evaluate the situation at hand, find the information needed to fix the problem, and get your users back to work.

 

Not to sound like a broken record, but EXACTLY. That's all there is to it, 100%. Sometimes you may need to hire an outside specialist (initial setup of MS Exchange is a good example), but 98% of being the IT department for a 50-80 user business is just dealing with whatever needs to be done, as well as anticipating problems and solving them before they happen. ALL those answers can be obtained on the fly, as long as you know how to ask the questions in Google, Experts Exchange (those are my main two) or elsewhere. Degrees and Certs are great, no question about it, but in the real world of a small business, the only thing that's important is that you are sharp and a go-getter (meaning you will find and fix the problem like a hound dog on steroids). It's much more about being able to solve problems than it is about what you "know".

 

There's a vast difference between small-business IT and large-business IT.

 

Right, that's why I said 50-80 users, which, for IT, is a small business.

 

I wish I only had 80 users. The last count heard from the AD guys was 220k users.

 

Wow! We have 6k users all over the world where I am and that is a lot to me. The company pays really well though which is nice though the rent increases in Denver over the last two years have pretty much wiped away any pay increase. Oh well.

 

First world problems

I'm looking forward to the lower cost of living here in OKC. Prolly buying next year

 

I'm getting out of IT in the next couple years and will be getting out of Denver after I'm done with school for the new career.

 

Lucky! I wish I could get out of IT. What are you changing to?

 

How's everyone's experience with Windows 10?

The upgrade process from 7 on my home desktop went surprisingly well. Still would like to do a clean install on a SSD. Testing a few applications at work and everything seems to be agreeing with it so far.

 

Nursing. I figure between my anatomy and my IT background I'll create a cyborg army. Hahaha. More seriously though I see what the end-game in IT is like and I could do it and make a lot of money but I want a more human job.

That and diversifying my skills in case one industry ever tanks is probably a good idea in this economy.