I’m a Windows Systems Engineer with 10 years experience that started out on the basic/tier 1 help desk. Outside of work I enjoy a variety of nerdy hobbies including PC/console gaming, video game streaming, D&D, Magic the Gathering, Warhammer 40k and mentoring others into tech.
So why this blog?
This is probably my 4th attempt at maintaining a blog. I’ve created blogs using blogspot, tumblr and wordpress before this. Previously, I’ve just stopped or gave up writing them for various reasons (Other projects/interests, lack of time to maintain, etc.). My new goal is now to create a blog that’s a static site so it can be hosted for cheap and carry my posts about random, hard to figure out IT troubles I come across along with my nerdy how-to’s/hobbies.
Any tips for someone just starting out in tech?
Yes, TONS! First and foremost, it’s ok to not know exactly what it is that you want to do in tech. Do you want to be a programer? Work on servers or networks maybe? Handle security incidents or digital forensics even? Take your time and start out by reading or watching videos on YouTube of the different areas, then when you find one you like, start playing around at home and determine if it’s truly something for you. Build a small homelab or virtual machine on your home PC and start playing with different operating systems, programs, etc. There are plenty of websites and videos on the best way to do this and I’ll be sure to link some in later posts.
What’s your battlestation/homelab gear?
I currently have a desktop primarily used for gaming and live streaming on very rare occasion. The desktop I built myself with an i9-9900k processor, 64gb RAM, 3080 ti video card and a bunch of SSD drives for OS, games and even the occasion small VM for whatever I fancy at that moment. I have a large number of peripherals, almost all exclusively Corsair (Keyboard, wireless headphones, etc) along with a Glorious PCMR Model O mouse and some Elgato streaming devices (4k capture card, 4k cam capture, Streamdeck, etc). I also have a Asus G531GT laptop for travel/mobile work. For my home server/lab, I currently have two servers. One is running a Ryzen 5 1600 with 32gb RAM and a bunch of drives in RAID 10 running Windows Server 2016 that is primarily a game/media server. The other is a SuperMicro XEON D X10SDV-6C-TLN4F 101F that I run all my test VM’s on that’s running ESXi 7.1.
Thanks for reading!