IT Certifications and Careers (Official Discussion Thread)

[Chris.B]

Just received and signed my offer for a Systems Engineer position

This is going to be interesting seeing as though I haven't done any real SysEng work since school(building and deploying Unix/Linux systems for class) and I have a mostly NetEng background(CCNA, 2/3 complete CCNP). I think I'm going to enjoy this side of the IT house more though. The guys said they will be training me on the more difficult concepts seeing as the position required 0-2 years experience. It looks weird for a NetEng guy to jump to SysEng, but I'm only 2 years into my career post college and I had to get up off that night shift.

@Chris.B Thanks for that linuxcbt.com link in your post. Looks as though I'll be making that my homepage for a few months.

you already know.....Just make sure your cabling skills is better than mine.

Don't get comfortable there...once you get the knowledge and have them by the balls look another position with better money and use that as ransom to ask for a raise

 

[Melt_Man]

I don't have any IT / web development / programming background. I just came up with a website idea and I want to speak to someone about some of the more complex functionality of said website. I have a good amount of coin I'll be able to pay for the consulting/work but since its coming out of my pocket I was wondering if I could save some money by not going to a web development company.

I want to hire a college kid because I live in Boston. My question is what college majors should I look at? Engineering, IT, computer science? etc.

I think it is going to require the creation of a database where user submissions are tagged by geographical location and matched by keywords and geographical proximity.

 

[Data-Hawk]

I don't have any IT / web development / programming background. I just came up with a website idea and I want to speak to someone about some of the more complex functionality of said website. I have a good amount of coin I'll be able to pay for the consulting/work but since its coming out of my pocket I was wondering if I could save some money by not going to a web development company.

I want to hire a college kid because I live in Boston. My question is what college majors should I look at? Engineering, IT, computer science? etc.

I think it is going to require the creation of a database where user submissions are tagged by geographical location and matched by keywords and geographical proximity.

For a website, your best bet is to look for people who major in Art/Creative ( I can't think of the exact major right now and too lazy to look it up ). Only reason I say this is because a lot of programmers aren't good at visual design stuff and for most websites people either like it or hate it within the first 5 - 10 seconds of looking at it. But you definitely want to look pass engineering majors though, they only take a couple of programming classes at best.


If you want to take a stab at it yourself, lookup HTML5( great for location tracking ) and JavaScript.

 

[Melt_Man]

For a website, your best bet is to look for people who major in Art/Creative ( I can't think of the exact major right now and too lazy to look it up ). Only reason I say this is because a lot of programmers aren't good at visual design stuff and for most websites people either like it or hate it within the first 5 - 10 seconds of looking at it. But you definitely want to look pass engineering majors though, they only take a couple of programming classes at best.


If you want to take a stab at it yourself, lookup HTML5( great for location tracking ) and JavaScript.

It's like you read my mind. I am gonna reach out to some graphic designers / creative types for the actual website design but first I want to talk to someone who is good with HTML5 / CSS in order to figure out where I stand with functionality. The functionality is gonna be the backbone of the website and if it turns out to be easily / fairly doable I will move forward reaching out to the creative types to create a visually appealing website.

I did purchase a HTML and CSS book recently. I'm fairly comfortable around code as I used to dabble in it (considering I was a business major). For me it comes down to a time issue. I probably could learn the stuff it would just take much longer than paying someone to do it for me.

To be more clear on the functionality I desire here would be a very general example:

User X submits the following message which is tagged with a zip code and search radius supplied by user X:

01234 < 50 miles
Looking to buy Volkswagen Jetta with low miles.

User X would then be shown matching results in a 50 mile radius. Results are matched by keyword.

User Y
01237
Selling VW Jetta 60k miles.

User X could then contact the seller by sending them an email that would come from our website. Basically all users remain anonymous unless/until they decide to provide a user with their contact info.

 

[FreshFromATL]

It's like you read my mind. I am gonna reach out to some graphic designers / creative types for the actual website design but first I want to talk to someone who is good with HTML5 / CSS in order to figure out where I stand with functionality. The functionality is gonna be the backbone of the website and if it turns out to be easily / fairly doable I will move forward reaching out to the creative types to create a visually appealing website.

I did purchase a HTML and CSS book recently. I'm fairly comfortable around code as I used to dabble in it (considering I was a business major). For me it comes down to a time issue. I probably could learn the stuff it would just take much longer than paying someone to do it for me.

To be more clear on the functionality I desire here would be a very general example:

User X submits the following message which is tagged with a zip code and search radius supplied by user X:

01234 < 50 miles
Looking to buy Volkswagen Jetta with low miles.

User X would then be shown matching results in a 50 mile radius. Results are matched by keyword.

User Y
01237
Selling VW Jetta 60k miles.

User X could then contact the seller by sending them an email that would come from our website. Basically all users remain anonymous unless/until they decide to provide a user with their contact info.

This doesn't sound like anything too complicated to implement, pretty straightforward actually. Like Data-Hawk said, find a front-end kid with design skills that can rock-out on HTML, CSS, JavaScript, etc., and then find you a kid that can work on the backend and hook-up the database. Make sure you ask them to let you see some work they've done already (either leisurely or professionally), and if you like it, rock out.

 

[kevm3]

It's like you read my mind. I am gonna reach out to some graphic designers / creative types for the actual website design but first I want to talk to someone who is good with HTML5 / CSS in order to figure out where I stand with functionality. The functionality is gonna be the backbone of the website and if it turns out to be easily / fairly doable I will move forward reaching out to the creative types to create a visually appealing website.

I did purchase a HTML and CSS book recently. I'm fairly comfortable around code as I used to dabble in it (considering I was a business major). For me it comes down to a time issue. I probably could learn the stuff it would just take much longer than paying someone to do it for me.

To be more clear on the functionality I desire here would be a very general example:

User X submits the following message which is tagged with a zip code and search radius supplied by user X:

01234 < 50 miles
Looking to buy Volkswagen Jetta with low miles.

User X would then be shown matching results in a 50 mile radius. Results are matched by keyword.

User Y
01237
Selling VW Jetta 60k miles.

User X could then contact the seller by sending them an email that would come from our website. Basically all users remain anonymous unless/until they decide to provide a user with their contact info.

Focus on finding a back-end guy (PHP, Ruby on Rails, Node.JS) and build your functionality. After you're sure you are getting the functionality you desire, THEN go get a front-end guy. It doesn't make too much sense to me to have a beautiful website that doesn't have the functionality you want. Out of the back-end technologies, finding a PHP developer probably would be the cheapest since they are most common.

 

[Melt_Man]

This doesn't sound like anything too complicated to implement, pretty straightforward actually. Like Data-Hawk said, find a front-end kid with design skills that can rock-out on HTML, CSS, JavaScript, etc., and then find you a kid that can work on the backend and hook-up the database. Make sure you ask them to let you see some work they've done already (either leisurely or professionally), and if you like it, rock out.

Focus on finding a back-end guy (PHP, Ruby on Rails, Node.JS) and build your functionality. After you're sure you are getting the functionality you desire, THEN go get a front-end guy. It doesn't make too much sense to me to have a beautiful website that doesn't have the functionality you want. Out of the back-end technologies, finding a PHP developer probably would be the cheapest since they are most common.

Thank you so much for the advice it's incredibly valuable. I'm gonna start looking into the stuff you guys mentioned. Do you think I'll be able to find a college kid or recent graduate who can handle the back end stuff?

 

[kevm3]

For the back end, I'd go for a more experienced person. You want your site to be secure and someone new many not have the knowledge and skills to make your site as secure as you'd like. Front end, you can go with less experience.

Check this link out for an overview
http://blog.teamtreehouse.com/i-dont-speak-your-language-frontend-vs-backend

 

[chkmeout]

anyone got tips, what to look for, or best way to go about taking the CCNA exam?

 

[TLR Is Mental Poison]

Any of yall know VirtualBox? I have a Win7 guest on a Linux host with a bridged network adapter... I can see my home network, but only the Windows computers on it. I need to see the Linux machines as those have the drives I need to work off of. Any ideas?

 

[LiquidMasterSwords]

Hey guys, after all the run around bullshytting I've been doing it's time for me to get going in my field.

I'm currently been doing Help Desk (my first IT job post college) at a law firm downtown DC for about 8 months now. I'm pretty sure I want to take my direction in security next. So I'm going to start reading and taking practice exams to get my Sec+. This would be my first cert btw.

I'm just looking for advice from you guys. Any software you can recommend I download? Sites I should visit? I should probably get VMWare shouldn't I? What I should look out for or job opportunities?

Edit: For those in Security, What would you say are the benefits and drawbacks of being in this field. What are some things that you wish you would have known when you first got into the field? Do you like the field? Is it a worthy investment?

 

[se1f_made]

Any of yall know VirtualBox? I have a Win7 guest on a Linux host with a bridged network adapter... I can see my home network, but only the Windows computers on it. I need to see the Linux machines as those have the drives I need to work off of. Any ideas?

Never used VirtualBox but my first guess would be to make sure the file/drive sharing is enabled on the host VM

 

[Chris.B]

Any of yall know VirtualBox? I have a Win7 guest on a Linux host with a bridged network adapter... I can see my home network, but only the Windows computers on it. I need to see the Linux machines as those have the drives I need to work off of. Any ideas?

you can enable FTP on the Linux host and copy your files over.
Also make sure you have basic IP connectivity.

You can also look into smb/samba connection

 

[JT-Money]

Hey guys, after all the run around bullshytting I've been doing it's time for me to get going in my field.

I'm currently been doing Help Desk (my first IT job post college) at a law firm downtown DC for about 8 months now. I'm pretty sure I want to take my direction in security next. So I'm going to start reading and taking practice exams to get my Sec+. This would be my first cert btw.

I'm just looking for advice from you guys. Any software you can recommend I download? Sites I should visit? I should probably get VMWare shouldn't I? What I should look out for or job opportunities?

Edit: For those in Security, What would you say are the benefits and drawbacks of being in this field. What are some things that you wish you would have known when you first got into the field? Do you like the field? Is it a worthy investment?

The drawbacks are that you're expected to know everything and I mean everything about IT security. You'll be forced to constantly police everyone in the company including people in the IT Department who should know better about following security protocols. And knowing its impossible to keep up with every new malware variant, phishing email or security vulnerability for thousands of different technology products. I can't think of any benefits but then again I've only been doing IT Security for a few years.

I recommend downloading and installing Kali or Backtrack Linux distro's for starters.

And below are a few websites I use.
virustotal.com
pentestgeek.com
precisesecurity.com
pentest-noob.com
http://nmap.online-domain-tools.com/

 

[JT-Money]

Any of yall know VirtualBox? I have a Win7 guest on a Linux host with a bridged network adapter... I can see my home network, but only the Windows computers on it. I need to see the Linux machines as those have the drives I need to work off of. Any ideas?

https://blogs.oracle.com/fatbloke/entry/networking_in_virtualbox1#Bridged