IT Certifications and Careers (Official Discussion Thread)

[kevm3]

CSS is extremely interesting and powerful when it comes to styling web pages. For example, these two are using the same base html.
http://www.csszengarden.com/213/
http://www.csszengarden.com/218/

I have a full plate this year. My path of learning is: HTML/CSS > Javascript and related technologies > PHP and SQL. I'll be furthering my excel skills as well.

 

[Data-Hawk]

Brehs, how do y'all learn technology best these days?

I rarely ever pick up a book anymore (unless it's for a super-quick reference and even then I'll likely just search online for what I need). Recently, when learning a new technology, I've been finding tutorials on YouTube or other learning sites like Lynda.com or Pluralsight.com and just go from there. And when watching the video training, I usually speed the videos up to about 1.5 so I can get through that shyt quicker (gotta maximize my time).

I found doing this has increased my learning capability greatly...Am i the only that do this?

same here.. As this point i just dive in and google/read up on specific parts I need. This is probably the best method and really resembles traditinal school.. learn/ do homework etc. The early parts of my learning i would try to read an entire book and then try to do a project. In doing so i realize i didnt really understand what i was reading and really just memorizing stuff.


just picked up a iOS 7 development book. I'll probably read the first 4 chapters and then start on a project. and then skim thru the book for what i need...

 

[semtex]

CSS is extremely interesting and powerful when it comes to styling web pages. For example, these two are using the same base html.
http://www.csszengarden.com/213/
http://www.csszengarden.com/218/

I have a full plate this year. My path of learning is: HTML/CSS > Javascript and related technologies > PHP and SQL. I'll be furthering my excel skills as well.

perfect progression choice

 

[semtex]

Depends on where you are in your career...

If you are just starting out, helpdesk, desktop support, then you can learn a lot by watching videos...as you get more specialized and knowledgeable however, you get to the point that you only learn by doing...

If you are really serious about IT, and I mean you look at it as a career not a job, you should have your own lab for whatever discipline you are in...I work in Virtualization and I spent about 5500 on a lab to study for my VCP and VCAP...and a lot of people would say "that is stupid why are you spending your hard earned money on a lab, your company should be paying you for training..."...but...that 5500 I spent in what...2010...took my salary from low 50's to a bit over a 100k...no way my salary jumps that high without my lab... The in depth knowledge I gained on the subject matter is knowledge you can only gain by actually configuring and troubleshooting it

Haha @FreshFromATL is a SEASONED Java developer. not a noob

 

[FreshFromATL]

CSS is extremely interesting and powerful when it comes to styling web pages. For example, these two are using the same base html.
http://www.csszengarden.com/213/
http://www.csszengarden.com/218/

I have a full plate this year. My path of learning is: HTML/CSS > Javascript and related technologies > PHP and SQL. I'll be furthering my excel skills as well.

You can eat a well with some good SQL and Excel skills (formulas, functions, VLookups, Pivot Tables, Pivot Charts) but that would take you away from the web development space and into the data analyst realm.

 

[kevm3]

You can eat a well with some good SQL and Excel skills (formulas, functions, VLookups, Pivot Tables, Pivot Charts) but that would take you away from the web development space and into the data analyst realm.

Thanks for the feedback. The excel thing is pretty much more of a personal project and a sort of 'fall-back' skill in case the web development doesn't really pan out how I want to. Excel is one piece of software that is common at nearly any business that you will be at, so I figure mastering it would be a great general purpose skill to have and knowing Excel and even some VBA can save a tremendous amount of time. I'm pretty much to the point with it that I can focus primarily on the advanced functionality, although I do find that as I read through these books, I'm picking up on little tips that can save massive amounts of time. I actually enjoy dealing with data highly, which is probably why I'm so fond of excel and why I enjoyed the bit of SQL I played around with. If web development doesn't go great for me, then being thoroughly versed in Excel and SQL will allow me opportunities to add value elsewhere to an organization. When I've pretty much get the aforementioned languages down, I'll really sharpen up on my VBA as well.

 

[kevm3]

perfect progression choice

What's so amazing is how easily those three technologies are pretty much standard for web development and how easy they are to get running. All you have to do to integrate them into your documents is throw the appropriate tag, whether it be the script or the ?php tag and you're ready to go.

 

[FreshFromATL]

To all the cats searching for jobs...make sure you check out diversityinc.com and post your resume/search job openings on there. A lot of companies post certain jobs on DiversityInc and no where else. We just advertised two jobs on there and outside of our website, that's the only place the jobs will be advertised.

 

[flipn50]

Call center job at a hosting company is kicking my ass right now. People screaming over me because their Wordpress website malfunction.

 

[JT-Money]

Don't agree about virtualization (or most core infrastructure lanes for that matter) having long term growth potential. As IT becomes commoditized, and more people move the cloud, the on premise delivery of IaaS and PaaS are going to be less and less... unless you are working for Microsoft Azure, RackSpace, or AWS you're really not going to need to do Virtualization. It's going to be completely commoditized.

Of course I am talking a long time out - could be 5-10 years who knows, but do you want to be in your mid 30's or 40's needing to retool your skillset? All of these disciplines will be on the decline as more business move to the cloud.

Edit: Cybersecurity has legs too.

I think private clouds will be much bigger than most of the experts are predicting.

Cybersecurity will never grow into a huge market unless mandated by the Federal government. Companies just won't spend the money required to really secure their systems. They'll always do the bare minimum and just pray they don't get hacked. The Federal Government spends Billions on cyber security yet they still suck at it.

 

[King Sun]

truth.com...i always say you got to use help desk as a way to learn outside your job and pick up skills..but damn near everyone starts out at help desk in this IT thing

trust me I see it now. Im at a entry level help desk gig and there's multiple cats that's been here for 5-27 yrs that stayed in this same position.

 

[Yakno1]

video training can provide if Brehs needed just need where to u/l 2

 

[JayStarwind]

As some of you may notice, this will be my first post and my last.....I'm committing that!
just kidding


Glad I stumbled unto this thread, majoring in Computer Programming and Analysis at a community college but I'm honestly lost. I need some guidance brehs. Took both an Intro to C++ and Intro to CS last semester (no experience). I barely learned anything in the CS class as the professor wasn't shyt. Aced it but probably can't tell you anything. C++ class was cool although I was confused 75% of the time and the professor expected beginners to know their stuff . Anyways, I failed that class and it kind of made me want to change my major but I really want to get this down.

I somewhat know the basics of C++ but that's all, and I'm leaning more towards Web Development/Engineering. Any suggestions for a beginner?

 

[patscorpio]

You can eat a well with some good SQL and Excel skills (formulas, functions, VLookups, Pivot Tables, Pivot Charts) but that would take you away from the web development space and into the data analyst realm.

thats the realm i reside in

 

[kevm3]

As some of you may notice, this will be my first post and my last.....I'm committing that!
just kidding


Glad I stumbled unto this thread, majoring in Computer Programming and Analysis at a community college but I'm honestly lost. I need some guidance brehs. Took both an Intro to C++ and Intro to CS last semester (no experience). I barely learned anything in the CS class as the professor wasn't shyt. Aced it but probably can't tell you anything. C++ class was cool although I was confused 75% of the time and the professor expected beginners to know their stuff . Anyways, I failed that class and it kind of made me want to change my major but I really want to get this down.

I somewhat know the basics of C++ but that's all, and I'm leaning more towards Web Development/Engineering. Any suggestions for a beginner?

If you're going into web development, it's critical that you know HTML/CSS since that's what all of the other languages will be interacting with. HTML is used to structure your documents and CSS (Cascading Style Sheets) will be used to provide the style. Check out csszengarden.com to see what is possible. However, without languages like Javascript, PHP, Ruby on Rails, Python (Django), etc., web pages would simply be static pages that display information.

After you learn HTML/CSS, you can choose to specialize in the 'front-end' or the 'back-end'... or if you're really ambitious, you can learn to do both, which is what I'm attempting to do. Front-end development entails you thoroughly knowing HTML/CSS and Javascript and your focus will be primarily on developing how the web page looks and interacts with users client-side. You will do things like design the overall look of the page, work on user interfaces, etc.

The "Back-end" development is where the server and webpages interact in order to create dynamic pages that can draw information from databases. This allows you to do things like build shopping-carts, message boards, blogs that allow you to input data via your own interface as opposed to directly editing html files, etc. The most common language for back-end development is PHP, although languages like Python with the DJANGO framework and Ruby on Rails are picking up steam. Javascript can actually now be used to develop on the back-end with node.js. With back-end languages, you will typically want to interact with a database, which is why you'll have to learn SQL along with it

Javascript is the official language that interacts 'client-side' with your user, meaning it interacts with the browser and the code is executed on the client's machine. Essentially, this allows for dynamic behavior that wouldn't be possible without it. Javascript allows you to do a ton in your browser, such as the fade-in, fade-out, fancy menus, etc. Javascript is now so powerful, I've even seen people make Quake with it in the browser and other games.
Command and Conquer
http://www.adityaravishankar.com/projects/games/command-and-conquer/

Your first stop should be to know html and css though. Go to codecademy.com and go through the html/css track and then get this book:

work your way through it and then you'll want to take your css knowledge further, which you can with this book:


After you've got CSS and HTML down, then you can worry about the language to choose after that.