Former Army Medic turned Linux Sysadmin...Been working with computers all my life but professionally the last 10 years or so...Last 6 years have been with a large North American Linux Distributor located in North Carolina...Was in IT for the almost all of that 6 years..Just recently switched over to the Engineering Operations side of the house...

Another Army Medic here... Have been in IT for close to 20 years.

Howdy all,

I'm a 20+ year geek with a background in everything from programming, embedded hardware development, network engineering, security, and sysadmin (Windows, *nix, OS/2). Currently working heavily in IA/InfoSec as well as network admin. Also have some background in electronics, electrical theory, and other misc. crap.

I don't have any certificates to speak of or any degrees....but I do have a decent ammount of knowledge when it comes to computer repair and general electronics.  
I have been working on computers as a hoby for as long as I can remember.
I also have a vast knowledge of smartphones too.
Iphone 3g, Iphone 4, Iphone 4S, Samsung Galaxy S2 and S3  (FYI: I prefer the Androids)

I started out on Windows 3.1.  Went to Windows 98, XP, Linux, vista, and windows 7.  I have avoided Apple/Mac my entire life besides the Iphone.

I'm in this forum to help out were I can and if it's needed.  Who knows, I might have a question here and there too.


The company that I work for often skips our IT guy and come to me for help.

Hey guys and gals,

Checking in.  Telecom and limtied web devlopment experience, as well as Db experience.  Jack of all trades, master of none kinda thing.  Associate's in CS with an emphasis on networking.  Currently in school to change fields to Accounting.

Experienced with most Windows OSs back to 98 and NT4.  Also working knowledge of Sun Solaris and Linux OSs.  Not certs to speak of.  VERY limited Cisco exposure, but I feel comfortable to say I could pick it up with some help and practice.  Look forward to learning from some pros!

IT consultant for small business'. Support windows, mac, linux(mostly redhat enterprise), sco, aix power systems, etc. Most of my work is with windows server and with active directory, exchange, sql, etc.

Security Consult/Penetration Tester for pretty large consulting company.

Was a network engineer for a ISP in the past and a senior systems engineer.

infrastructure engineering/architecture and infosec engineering.

SW dev with 30+ years in, Windows, Linux, Unix, OSX, many dev. languages, DB, web sites, security, used to work for Compaq Computer for many years so I also know hardware as well.  Built many home brew systems.

I've been playing with confusers since I can remember.  I enlisted in the USMC as a phone tech, but got thrown in the data platoon when they found out what I was.  I have one more semester in my computer science program.

20+ years Unix experience, 18+ as a system admin (AIX, Solaris, Linux, HP-SUX, SCO, etc), 15+ years high availability solutions (ServiceGuard, Veritas Cluster Server, HACMP, etc), 10+ years SAN (Cisco, Brocade, IBM ESS, Sun 6320, NetApp, etc).
 

I've been in cybersecurity for the past seven years, the first three primarily as a pentester and the past four working for the man.

Sr. Consultant at VMware.  Virtualization junkie.  Crapload of certs, but the most recent VCAP5-DCA, VCAP5-DCD and VCP-Cloud.  Glad to be in good company with other nerds in here!

Cynical (In)security professional. 15 years of experience and security certification alphabet soup(currently CISSP, CISM, GSEC and CEH).

-b0fh

Messaging Engineer. I have been working with Microsoft Exchange for almost nine years now. I have only worked at one company since graduating college and have been at that company for a total of twelve years starting as an intern. I started out taking apart computers back in 1992 and have been messing with them ever since. It is fun to take something apart to try to figure out how it works and to put it back together. It almost feels like therapy for me to be involved in something complex. I have run my own servers at home for many years learning Linux, HTML, SQL, etc. I mainly work with Microsoft products right now managing a worldwide Active Directory / Exchange infrastructure.

Howdy folks,

I'm a Wintel/Domino (Lotus Notes) admin.  Started out in electronics and gradually moved into IT.  In my current role I'm also providing OS X support and guidance on smartphone/tablet direction.

Network Security Engineer here. A few years of professional Linux experience also.

Former desktop journeyman back in the '90's.  Go back to WANGDOS 2.x, OS/2 1.3, & NT 3.50.  Used to use edlin & IBM 123 for Mainframe.  Running a very simple website:

www.FeinsteinProject.org

and handcoding the HTML in notepad.

Front-end developer, specializing not only in beautiful user interface and user experience, but also beautiful code.

So far I've hand coded UI/UX for:
Ciroc, Smirnoff, Ketel One, Rosenblum Cellars, Sterling Vineyards, Salesforce.com, Cisco, Motorola, Thomson Reuters, CDW (award winning UI/UX), ESPN, and plenty of others.

Inquire for specific details on any project. :)

Work as a Systems Engineer for F5 Networks

Before that I was in Applications at World Wide Technology: Microsoft Exchange, Sharepoint, Active Directory, IBI Webfocus, Tableau, Linux/Unix/WS2008, Novell Identity and Access Management, Oracle Weblogic, Oracle Data Integrator, Oracle 10G Reporting, LDAP, RFUI, Kronos

Current Lab: Sun X4600 M2 with 4x146GB 15K SAS, 128GB Ram, 4 Quad Core Processors VMWare Esxi 5.5 | AMD FX 8 Core, 64GB DDR3, Norco 4224 Case, Freenas OS, Areca 1880i 4GB Raid Card, 4x250GB SSD in Raid 5, 4x146GB 15K SAS Raid 5, 8x2TB WD Green Raid 5, 5x1TB WD Black Raid 5 | Lenovo W530 250GB SSD, 2TB WD Green, Core i7 , Windows 7 | Custom Build Intel Quad Core 16GB Ram, Corsair Liquid Cooling, HP P410 Raid Card, Multiple Drives, VMWare Esxi 5.5 Running Virtual F5 with all associated modules

Current Lab Applications: F5 Virtual Edition, Novell Filr, Globalscape FTP, Postfix Mail Server, Exchange 2013, Sharepoint 2010, Active Directory, Ubuntu w/ DNS, Ubuntu w/ NTP, Splunk Server, LDAP, Nagios, Apache Web Server, VMware View, Citrix Xen App and Xen Desktop, Infoblox IPAM, W7 Clients, SCCM 2012, OTRS, SQL Server 2012, Ubuntu Client

Current Interests: Security, Route/Switch, VMWare, Freenas, Liquid cooling, Raspberry Pi's/Roku

Certifications: F5 Big-IP Administrator

Formal Education: Bachelors in Management, Masters in Computer Science

Working Certifications: Cisco CCNA

I am in the process of getting a BS in IT with a focus on Java programming. I currently hold: CompTIA A+, CompTIA Security+, MTA Win7, MTA Server, CIA JavaScript Specialist, and CIA Web Design certs. I've worked with every version of Windows since 3.1. Some knowledge of OSX. Absolutely worthless with UNIX/Linux. Currently studying for the CompTIA Network+ cert.

I work as an Application Engineer for a software company in the HIE space.

Network guy, been doing it for about 15 years.  I have worked for a couple of Tier 1 level providers, now supporting a very large LAN.  I have touched every single piece of gear at one point from desktop to server and everything in between.



Used to do more of the desktop/server/applications development stuff, hated it.  



Also got handed a bunch of physical security stuff at work, I consider it my work hobby.



Currently CISSP, CCNP, have my CCIE written.   I also do a little project management stuff and will probably pick up my PMP.



Just today I passed my CIW Web Foundations Associate.  Really proud of that one.  

Former web dev turned Army Infantryman turned front-end web developer (again).

I've got an associates in e-commerce/webdev, back to school using my GI Bill to get a bachelor of science in website development. Currently working full time as a front-end dev for a web marketing/development company in North Canton, Ohio. I specialize in HTML5, CSS3, SASS, jQuery, and JS, commonly working with PHP, Smarty, VB.NET and Razor. I have a little Windows & Linux server admin under my belt, as well as light net admin work as well.

i like money

I also like money, and am good at using technology to make lots of it for my customers.  They in turn give me some.

VCDX-NV, VCIX-NV, and a Splunk Certified Architect.

Former auto technician changing careers to something more stable (going into InfoSec) Currently working on my Security+, CCENT, and CEH.

Update-Now Security+ Certified as of 1/21/2016
Thank you guys for the advice!

I don't know how I've missed this forum... but hello. :)

I'm a Python developer, very fond of open source. Here's my StackOverflow CV, which is what I usually use to represent me.

Software Engineer and ERP Systems Architect, mostly unix/oracle based. 15 years consulting for Fortune 100 companies, now FTE working from home.

Hello.  Worn lots of hats.  Support back in the day, server hardware support on hp stuff, Netapp 7 and cluster mode owner.  Brocade and Cisco San switch owner.  Pure storage deployment.  Dabble in Palo Alto, juniper ex and qfx line.  VMware since early electric cloud.

Love me some riverbed.  Fingers in all the damn pies.  Lots of other new tools.

I have a job where people will throw grenades at me for the rest of my life.   Get to figure out fun and not so fun stuff.

Like chaos, well some chaos.

Hey folks!  Network guy here for the past 16 years.  Mostly Cisco with varying degrees of fluency in Checkpoint, F5, Riverbed, etc.  Usually reinvent myself every 3 years to keep from going stagnant.  Currently focusing on Enterprise wireless, VPN and NAC (ISE).

Network Security Analyst here drowning in network alerts!

A little late to the party I see.  Lack of IT jobs in my region led me to start working tech support for a cable company.  Now I work for a phone company provisioning OLTs and ONTs.  

Had a short stint managing a tech support department for a small software company that developed point of sale software in between the cable company and phone company.  Was trying to back up more IT related work but then the phone company gave me a significant raise.  Back to telecom I went.

Howdy,

Limited IT/Net knowledge, CCNA, A+, Net+, Sec+

Primarily a radio junkie, Motorola P25 trunk systems, MOTOTRBO, various Ground-to-Air and SAT terminals. 6 years USAF Satcom, got out and do the same thing as a contractor, if anyone has any radio questions just hit me up

Who am I? I am the son of postban, made an account back in '13 I've never used until today.

I'm active here

Multi monitor gaming enthusiast, spreader of gunliness, working towards degree in cyber defense. Not much else to say.

Systems Administrator for about 5 years, but hoping to get into software development soon. Learning Python, Ruby & more JS. Also thinking of going for my Security +, just not sure if there is a cert that weighs more.

Do I have street creds for having used Hollerith when they were still "new"?



Not that I am that old, only that we used them to simulate programming when the Apple IIc first came out.

My Y2K story, had to help a customer get off of their mainframe (S390) or at least get a work around that the auditors for the insurance company would sign off of.

They were going down the "deicimal->hex" route and needed an interface that "normal humans" could read.
So we use X3270 (the CLI version was c-3270) and "screen scraped" the 3270s, dumped it into an ASCII file, parsed it with perl, then wrote it to MySQL and made a ass-simple web page so folks could read back "2000" ... security was built into the MySQL database and Apache HTTPd service (no SSL, no time for it). The marketing director was so tickled that he didn't have to use a 3270 app any more on his Mac (powerbook 5300ce) that he bought us happy hour (beers/wings) after the contract was completed. 3 months of hell in shitty-chicago in one of the worst Double Tree hotels in town.

Damn app was so fast, MF dirtballs complained we were working their lines to  faster than they could buffer within IMS. The fucking Wiki page for 3270 leaves out TONS of details, but, thats how we got paid.
Stinky linky...


I swore I would never work for another consulting company again...

We used a sniffer extensively at my last job.  I was NOC technician and we'd have to open up packet captures in Wireshark regularly to troubleshoot VOIP calls.

@Patrick319

Try Gentoo if that's what you want.  

But a faster processor will benefit *nix better than more RAM, generally speaking.  Windwoes needs more RAM because it sucks at garbage collection.

20 + years in the building automation industry. Computer savvy to a point but no expert. CompTIA Security + certified so I can deal with the IT Geeks. Worked in one of the premiere data centers in the West for around 2 years and learned a lot there as well as getting my certification. More of an electrical mechanical electronic expert than true computer/IT expert.

I love bumping old intro threads. Been a reader for many years, only now signed up. Used to be a unix sysadmin (IRIX/AIX/Solaris/Linux) and a long time Mac user (but have warmed up some to Windows 7/10.) Now a hobby sysadmin and full time Paramedic. I've had a lot of fun recently acquiring some old Apple hardware that I couldn't afford back in its day and tinkering with things like Mac OS 8 and 9. Your typical midlife crisis stroll down memory lane, basically. :-)

Anyway, howdy!

I've been in IT for 23 years, nearly my entire adult life. I've been doing this so long that not only do I know what HIMEM is, but I've actually had to change it to fix computers!

I've been in Enterprise Storage since 1998, first as a Backup and Recovery Deployment Specialist for ADSM and Legato (you may know them as Tivoli Storage Manager/Spectrum Recover and EMC NetWorker), then as a SAN Solutions Architect and now as a Storage Disaster Recovery Specialist. I've architected, deployed and/or administered enterprise storage solutions, disaster recovery solutions and backup and recovery solutions on literally every open systems platform (Solaris, AIX, Windows, HP-UX, Linux, Irix, NetWare, others I've probably forgotten) for organizations ranging from Joe's Internet and Hamburgers to General Motors.

Now I am collecting Cloud certifications so I can switch specialties.

Just got into cyber security. Following the guidance of a member here (can't remember who) I got my net+ and security+ and then started applying.
Got lucky and a friend of mine put in a kind word with his boss, and I now have an awesome job in cyber security.

been at it for 9 months and am happier than a clam  

I do basement printer repair.  

I used to write code in the very early days.  I worked with crypto, card readers, DRPE, mag tape, Lenkurt modems, etc in the bygone era.  I sometimes work with things related to HIS/RIS, HL-7, DICOM sort of things.

Thanks you magnificent bastards for mentioning proton mail (different thread).  I set up an account and found they have free vpn.

My slow work wireless and firewall seems to handle it well and the speeds are better, browsing smoother.

I just wonder if the workplace overlords will block the VPN at some point?  

I use a Cisco VPN and remote desktop for off site work things............

I just changed my arfcom logon/email things to gmail due to microsoft blocking arfcom emails.  I may change again to proton after I settle into that.

Mechanical Engineer turned Coder (Software Engineer).

Technology Stack:

Python
HTML/CSS/Javascript
MongoDB & Mongoose
React.js
Node.js

AWS
C++

I post here from time to time, I should introduce myself properly.

I think my career has been semi unique.  When I started at my company it was me and my boss in my department.  We had nothing in terms of tools.  No Active Directory, no remote assistance tools, no site to site or client to site VPNs.  Nothing but a desk phone and a prayer

The company grew at a rather extreme rate since I started so we have far better budget now for management tools.  Because it started as a small business and grew to a medium business, I have had the privilege of building our entire infrastructure the way I thought it should've been built.  That had upsides and downsides, but mostly upsides.  It also forced me to build a very broad base of knowledge.  I have done almost everything that can be done in this field.

I started out as a dev, and helped the boss build a custom piece of software that our front line staff uses.  This also involved a lot of DBA work.  After that I went to installing a new on premise PBX in all our offices; this was to comply with new regulations after the 2008 economic meltdown that requires us to record 100% of call phone calls with our customers.  So I did telephony for a while.  Later when we upgrade our PBXs we went to a virtual deployment, so I learned VMWare and, later, Hyper-V.

After that we got ourselves a real email server, again, for compliance reasons. We needed something that could journal all email communications to a compliance archive.  Since we went with Exchange, we also got our first domain controller (AD is a requirement for Exchange).  So I did email server admin for a while.

After that we started developing a need for secure remote access, so I became a network engineer for a while.  We did all new routers/firewalls in every office location, deployed our own internal CA to support the encryption requirements for site to site and client to site VPN.  Once we got good VPN infrastructure, that one domain controller became several DCs, at least one in each branch office, with every single desktop, server, and laptop as domain members.  So I got really good at Active Directory and Group Policy.

We did a short stint with a well known CRM product that was an expensive disaster.  That was not my idea.  The vendor that developed it for us handed us a broken product.  I made it work sort of, which lead everyone to think I am some kind of miracle worker .  It was a great day when we shoved the stake through that thing's heart.

Next we made a big move to cloud hosting for many services.  The on premise mail server remains as a component of managing our mailboxes, but it doesn't handle mail anymore.  We went with Microsoft 365, so I became a cloud services admin.  We then leveraged the built in two factor authentication tool that comes with Azure AD.

Got to get into some Mobile Device Management after that.

At the same time we got the budget together for some better remote management tools beyond AD group policy and powershell remoting.  So I became an expert in that and keeping it secure.

Then I went back to telephony, development, and databases for a while.  We ditched the on premise PBX once we had internet in all our locations that would support VOIP.  We moved to a hosted VOIP provider, and I wrote a program that accesses the provider's datacenter to download and archive our call recordings in database.

Recently I'm playing more heavily in certain elements of cyber security, especially SIEM and telemetry.  A lot of that big brother stuff .  We have third party vendors do our network pen testing.

That's a big TLDR, but the short of it is I have done almost everything you can do in this field, and I had to learn almost all of it by self teaching and self motivation.  I learned software development while getting my 4 year degree.  The rest was learned in the school of hard knocks

Besides my degree I don't have a bunch of certifications on my resume.  I have 15+ years of doing whatever I had to do fix the problem or provide the tool needed.  If management encounters any kind of problem that needs solving by application of tech, I *will* solve that problem, one way or another.  In my 15+ years I have never failed to defeat a problem set in front of me.  I always win, eventually

TLDR tech stack

Software Development - Borland Delphi, Visual Studio, C#, C++, Java
Scripting - Powershell, BASH
Cloud Services - Azure, AWS, Microsoft 365
Security - MFA, SIEM, Public Key Infrastructure, MDM
Server Admin - Exchange, SharePoint, Dynamics CRM, Ubuntu Server, Windows Server
Network Engineering - Ubiquiti, Cisco, Barracuda, pfSense, IPSEC, OpenVPN, SSH, VLANs, RADIUS
Synology NAS
Phone Systems - Mitel, Shoretel
VOIP - RingCentral, Twilio
Virtualization - VMWare, Hyper-V
Active Directory