Just to give an outsider perspective to anyone reading this. I live in the Seattle Metro, have worked for Microsoft, and now work at a unicorn. I have a list of skill and experience that any ops department would drool over. Amazon is is one of the companies I won’t even apply to unless I’m desperate for a job (and even then I’m not planning to stay).

And I know I’m not the only one.

I have a framework. Hands down the best laptop I’ve ever worked with/on.

It’s not uncommon for the password manager to not be on the same system as where the password is being entered - hence a human needs to type. For example: consumer electronics with their own dinky little screens. Smart TVs/game systems and servers where remote access is not possible (or copy/paste does not work by design).

As an ops person I disagree! Our arbitrary changes are documented in a jira ticket in the ops project. If you can’t view the ops project fill free to open a ticket in ops and we will triage it when we feel like it.

We found an use case with Page duty and it’s ical feed already…

Hey now! Gitlab ci is totally fine so long as your simply running your build.sh file out of it. Anything more and your risking madness.

It’s a little more complex then that.

First we need to draft a project to keep the PMs happy. Then test the change…

Then get it through change management…

Or just have our friends in secops make it a security call and a priority. Not saying I’ve done this before - no sir.

First off, aiming to start in security is a fools errand. Security is one of the many paths that your career might take after you gain some knowledge.

Some more random thoughts before real advice. The two hardest things in IT are getting into help desk, and getting out of it. The reason is two fold: 1) help desk is the great entry point for the greater IT industry, and 2) one person in a help desk role is fairly similar to another when it’s time to move out of help desk.

Now: If you have the time, go to your local community college and take their it/networking/security program. The degree will help - you won’t skip help desk (unless your lucky), but you are better equipped for getting out of it. You will also learn a bunch of stuff, get some projects to stick on a resume, etc.

If you don’t have that time you can go the cert route. Be warned however - certs do not substitute for real experience. Do not fall for the trap of thinking that getting X cert is your ticket to Y job. You will be in for a ride awakening when your sitting across from someone like me that only asks situational, hypotheticall questions with no correct answer ( I care about how you think and approach problems over book smarts).

Ok. Last bit of advice: the 10 things I look for (in order) when interviewing entry level help desk.

1. customer service skills,
2. ability to learn,
3. customer service.
4. some mild interest in tech.
5. customer service.
6. the ability to learn troubleshooting.
7. customer service.
8. the ability to admit you don’t know…
9. customer service.
10. not being an asshole.

I can teach you how to fix a printer, design a network, or spin up infrastructure in the cloud. I can’t teach you how to act around people.

It’s $100. In 2023 that does not even cover groceries for a middle class household of four for a week.

If you want to advocate absolute austerity to someone who has no expenses yet - go for it. Me? The world is shitty enough as is - of something’s going to make you happy, and you have no other expenses, go for it.

Don’t spend your money because it’s a " good deal". In theory your guardian(s) are covering the expenses the rest of as as adults just accept. Therefore take advantage and spend your money on what brings you joy.

Just use npm to install all the dependencies. What’s the worst that can happen.

So for years I was similar on reddit. Then I realized I could use my account as a bookmark organizer for subs I was interested in.

Never posted anything however. Here I have alts with post history. Interacting is still taking some getting used to.

You being up an interesting point. Let’s expand electricity a little bit.

If I flip a switch the lights come on. I don’t need to understand it but someone does. And because electricity can be deadly of handled wrong, everyone in your proximity handles electricity the exact same way (and this is enforced via law). This means only a few people anywhere need to have the deep knowledge of how it works for the rest of us to get light.

Compare this to computing - sure you click the button and get Facebook but that button could be designed any number of ways. Like electricity the generation who tinkered is past (well passing), but unlike electricity firm standards on how to design your Facebook button have not been written in blood.

I for one am terrified of what the next 10 years of the business IT landscape is going to look like as we need to start absorbing kids who grew up on iPads.

As someone who manages a Google workspace instance currently, God I wish I had exchange for my email service.

Telecos make minimal amounts on the hardware - its all in the batshit insane service costs. To give an (out of date ) example, back when ATT was getting rid of contracts I talked with some people who knew the ins and outs. On the contract model, the first 6 months paid for the device subsidy and the network, the last 18 months was pure profit. They where all super excited about the financial gains of no longer needing to do phone subsidies, but still have the customer locked in for 2+ years.

Yep c flat or b sharp. If the octave has a half step between notes (a full step is A to B, B to C, etc), then a sharp/flat is created. The octave dictates if we call it a sharp or flat, but from a mathematical perspective they are the same tone.

Honest advice? Brew it your self.

I started making my own beer because I couldn’t find a good Scotch ale. I now have a pile of recipes for English style of ale (which I’m happy to share for those interested).

Interesting footnote about p and q. You see them turn up on formal logic proofs (for philosophy)

I don’t know what part your unaware of - so let me do the ELI5. They (HashiCorp) created a tool called teraform which is used for defining what servers/other infrastructure you use in places like AWS. Up until recently this was open source under the Mozilla license to something that’s not quite open, but not fully closed source (yet).