Foo - Geek/IT question

Since I graduated with the CS degree, and have time on my hands until I find some employment (hopefully using it), I am trying to figure out something:

Should I bother getting OS X certified as opposed to spending my time getting MCP/MCSE/MCA certifications? I have other UNIX certifications (AIX, and Solaris), but I wondering if its worth going for OS X or OS XS.

I am mainly wanting to focus on less of a jack of all trades, but spending time with an OS and some apps (Oracle, SQL Server, Exchange), as a way to better myself in this arena.

Thanks for any responses... just trying to figure out where to aim my free time.

Sounds like you are looking to get in to IT. Why would you do IT work with a CS degree. You should be going for higher aspirations like a software engineer or something. I wouldn't bother with any of those certifications.

^^^hahahahahah

One word... Offshoring

Sounds like you are looking to get in to IT. Why would you do IT work with a CS degree. You should be going for higher aspirations like a software engineer or something. I wouldn't bother with any of those certifications.

Its not that I'm looking to get in. I have been in the field for a while. I have had over 10 years of experience in the field, mainly on the UNIX side of the house. However, I have a large, multi-year gap in my resume while I went to school, and some medical reasons (which are not an issue now.) Things do change, and even the die-hard UNIX admins must be fluent with Windows. In a lot of organizations, AD and OpenLDAP have replaced NIS, and Samba/CIFS have replaced NFS as protocols of choice.

^^^hahahahahah

One word... Offshoring

Even worse in the IT field.

if you like IT, you should shoot for system/network administrator, it's the one IT job that pays a lot and can't be offshored because big companies will always keep a handful of admins on site all the time.

^^^hahahahahah

One word... Offshoring

Here is another: Satyam (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Satyam_Computer_Services)

The CS/IT divide is always fun. I'm in an IST (future IT guy) program, willingly, but it's almost all coding. Nothing wrong with that, but it's odd.

Even worse in the IT field.

You can't offshore people who actually have to be here. Not all IT work is helpdesk stuff. You still need people to do installation, maintenance, and so on.

Engineering, on the other hand... phew...

You can't offshore people who actually have to be here. Not all IT work is helpdesk stuff. You still need people to do installation, maintenance, and so on.

Engineering, on the other hand... phew...

that would be the system admin

Don't forget netadmin!

that would be the system admin

+1. That would be me, too.

*gets up and glances down the hall at server room door*

But back to the topic of the thread, I got a Sun cert once upon a time... when I worked at Sun. Everything else has been OJT. I have been spending lots of time with Oracle lately, because my boss is the DBA and that's what we run here.

Also: Mac OS X certification? Please. Do people get OS X certs? It's probably cheaper to buy a Mac Mini and play with it for a few weeks.

mac repair technician is roughly a $12~15/hr job.

If anything, Cisco and Oracle are pretty good things to learn. Oracle if you want to stay in computers, Cisco if you want to dabble in the network.

The advice is very good. I've mainly been a jack of all trades, doing pretty much what companies or organizations need. The work has mainly been an admin capacity, so I'd be more focused on making sure that Oracle DB containers are backed up and the performance graphs are happy as opposed to writing stored procedures and triggers in SQL+. Same with Transact SQL and MS SQL server (or Sybase.)

It was tempting to see about an OS X cert, but it looks like my time is best spent getting the MS stuff... not because I don't know the basics, but because it justifies my existance in a company to upper line managers whom don't see day to day skill and rely on pieces of paper to gauge ability.

As for outsourcing, core IT services are as hard to outsource out of the country as electricial, HVAC, and plumbing work. You have to have an admin physically onsite (employee or contractor), even if the core IT staff answers its support tickets in Hindi.

learn basic economics first. Supply and demand. SQL, Exchange, Network Admin are basically commodity skills. It is tough to differentiate yourself amongst the pack.

You need to pick a niche that has a low supply of resources and a high demand for those resources. Niche products, cutting edge technology, etc.

Some examples:

Cloud computing or grid computing
ERP application administration (JD Edwards)
Documentum implementation or other Records management
Sarbox compliance and auditing tools
Homeland security applications (Denied party list management)

Don't run with the pack or you will get paid like the pack.

Since I graduated with the CS degree, and have time on my hands until I find some employment (hopefully using it), I am trying to figure out something:

Should I bother getting OS X certified as opposed to spending my time getting MCP/MCSE/MCA certifications? I have other UNIX certifications (AIX, and Solaris), but I wondering if its worth going for OS X or OS XS.

I am mainly wanting to focus on less of a jack of all trades, but spending time with an OS and some apps (Oracle, SQL Server, Exchange), as a way to better myself in this arena.

Thanks for any responses... just trying to figure out where to aim my free time.

You know, that might not be a bad idea. If I had to guess, I'm sure that there are less OS X certified professionals out there compared to the MCSE cats.

As an aside, if you're interested in networking, I think having a Cisco certification is pretty important.

if you like IT, you should shoot for system/network administrator, it's the one IT job that pays a lot and can't be offshored because big companies will always keep a handful of admins on site all the time.

Sysadmins get paid??? Where?!

Sysadmins get paid??? Where?!

I've never really met a sysadmin that did anything more than occasionally backup the database (swap tapes, press button) or reclone a computer. they let a 3rd party technician do all hardware/bios fixing jobs.:crash:

I thought that sysadmins make very little relative to what they are supposed to be doing....

do you know how to operate a 64bit PCI-X RAID card through it's BIOS?
particularly setting up RAID arrays?
cause I was the 3rd party guy who had to do that...

To be honest, I've never set up a RAID before because I've never had the need.
Once the need arises, I'm sure I can learn soon enough.

System administrators shouldn't need to worry about hardware issues and basic operating system work (unless he or she is understaffed or is *the* IT guy). Sysadmins should make sure that he/she has a understanding of the systems good enough to be able to keep it running smoothly at all times. The amount of responsibility which is required to do that, I would think, mostly depends on staffing. If there is a large support staff, then I would think that the system administrator will only need to make sure that the systems are running smoothly on the top-level (which can go from no work at all to a huge and overbearing problem very, very quickly). Conversely, the system administrator might also have to be the technician and solve issues at a hardware-level as well.

I run an email server at home, and I have had to do practically nothing since it went live as far as administering it. I did have to re-install the OS because of a hardware change, but it's extremely stable and, so far as I can see, secure enough to not be a worry. Re-installing the OS and re-configuring the mail server, however, took several days and late nights because of incompatibilities and other crap that kept surfacing. (I tried to change the login schema, but my LDA didn't like it and wouldn't route to the correct mailboxes.)

the main database PC had a failed RAID card, and it had to be swapped, but the original setup wasn't transferable because the model/make was different.

I'm pretty sure the sysadmin had to restore all the data after I setup the card.

Why would the sysadmin have to restore data already stored on the hard drives due to a failed RAID controller? If the system uses Unix or Linux, then at most I would think that re-configuration of the controller and mount points would be necessary...

Unless data was corrupted during transfer...

new card that the OS was on = win2k server doesn't know wtf is going on = reinstall.

Win2K server? Is this an old computer?

I don't remember the exact configuration, but SATA drives, SATA PCI-X RAID card and dual xenon or something.

That can definitely handle Windows Server 2003, though migrating to that platform will probably be a huge project, depending on the size of the network.

For the record, my Dell XPS T450 (450 MHz PII, 256MB RAM, 40GB ATA100 HD) handles Windows Server 2003 nicely. I don't NEED that for a home file sharing server, but why not?

I think you are more qualified then what I've met, honestly.

Thanks! :) I think I'm a little outdated, to be honest. I'm not that well-read on the latest hardware, and I just found out recently that there are better virus scaners out there than AVG.

Sounds like you are looking to get in to IT. Why would you do IT work with a CS degree. You should be going for higher aspirations like a software engineer or something. I wouldn't bother with any of those certifications.

Experience is worth a lot, and sometimes you have to start really low in the heap to get any. :(

That and "whatever pays the bills" IMHO.

Designing and implementing SAN's for VAR's pays nice. Before I left my last job I made 140k+ as a SAN engineer.

Designing and implementing SAN's for VAR's pays nice. Before I left my last job I made 140k+ as a SAN engineer.
Usually requires a bit of experience before they'd even look at your name on the resume.

At least I'm hoping the OP isn't considering IT support half way into his career or something.

Since you already have experience on the UNIX side, go for a cert as a Redhat Certified Engineer. The test is hard, and you have to know Redhat linux inside and out, but it is very useful. I'm going into IT myself. After looking out future occupational growth, outsources, payscale, and working in Engineering for the last two year, I decided that engineer thing was just not what I wanted to do. I've had fun playing IT guy for a system test lab of about 150 workstations and a few servers, all on an enterprise network. It's definitely rewarding, depending on what type of person you are and what you like to do.

It's also common for CS majors to go into IT as well as MIS, CIS, and engineering majors. It will help you out, seeing as you might find yourself writing little applets to make life easier. Also, you'll have the understanding to easily pick up SQL and the like.

If you REALLY wanted to do something cool, you would pick up an IT job in the context of a highly-specialized application. For example, you could be a networking guy, or you could be a networking guy in the Process Control industry, which would require you learn not just networking, but how it is used in the context of a Distributed Process Control platform.

We developed a MAC and Media redundant Ethernet platform (http://hpsweb.honeywell.com/Cultures/en-US/Products/Systems/ExperionPKS/FaultTolerantEthernet/default.htm) for use in our Process Control systems (http://hpsweb.honeywell.com/Cultures/en-US/Products/Systems/ExperionPKS/default.htm). It's pretty cool how it works, but requires a lot of know-how to use it properly and to be able to diagnose issues.

Another place where IT becomes very specialized is in Aerospace. You can only imagine how many networks and computing platforms there are in a modern FMS (http://www.honeywell.com/sites/aero/Flight_Controls_Guidance.htm).

If you want to differentiate yourself and not become a commodity, then look into specialization.

OP: You wanna be sysadmin or dba? DBA usually gets fewer late night calls and are better paid.

I've never really met a sysadmin that did anything more than occasionally backup the database (swap tapes, press button) or reclone a computer. they let a 3rd party technician do all hardware/bios fixing jobs.:crash:

Not here, I do all of the hardware repairs if I can help it.

The RHCE is something I definitely am considering. Out of boredom, I took the practice exam for the first cert, and nailed a perfect score... mainly because I've been using RedHat (now both Fedore and RHEL) since RPM was made into an actual app, and not just a perl script.

Thankfully this isn't a midway career move. I've been doing IT stuff for a long time , however during the years I was in college, I mainly ran around doing all types of random support jobs, be it DBA stuff, UNIX admin, network stuff, defining corporate security policy and getting mail to be archived/retained due to Sarbanes Oxley and other nasty corporate regs, etc.

Right now, I am looking to find something to specialize in. Ehidle has hit the nail on the head when he says to get a unique skillset as opposed to a commodity jack of trades knowledge. However, my worry is trying to find a speciality that isn't obsolete in 2-3 years. I've known people who have specialized so throughly in some variant of UNIX and its applications that they are having to retrain themselves, almost from ground zero, as the industry shifted to Windows as the platform of choice. This is the question I'm trying to figure out -- where to spend time specializing. Exchange is tempting because I've done E-mail routing and manual sendmail files since the early 90s. A DBA position is tempting, but I have a lot more experience on the system level than writing stored procedures and triggers.

My real expertise sounds sort of "blah"... its dealing with disasters and preventing them. A lot of SMBs assume that just because they have a SAN or that all their database volumes are on a RAID array that they are completely immune to some disaster. This bubble usually gets popped when a drive controller card glitch trashes the data on the RAID array, a malicious system cracker does an rm -rf /, or a new DBA learns that DROP TABLE cannot be undone with the ROLLBACK command.

^^^

I think Hidle was referring to specialization in a field, not in a piece of software or operating system. I think that's actually a great idea, though another thing to consider is learning something really specialized (like Assembly); I've heard that people with specialized talents like that are better paid and have more job security.

The RHCE is something I definitely am considering. Out of boredom, I took the practice exam for the first cert, and nailed a perfect score... mainly because I've been using RedHat (now both Fedore and RHEL) since RPM was made into an actual app, and not just a perl script.

Thankfully this isn't a midway career move. I've been doing IT stuff for a long time , however during the years I was in college, I mainly ran around doing all types of random support jobs, be it DBA stuff, UNIX admin, network stuff, defining corporate security policy and getting mail to be archived/retained due to Sarbanes Oxley and other nasty corporate regs, etc.

Right now, I am looking to find something to specialize in. Ehidle has hit the nail on the head when he says to get a unique skillset as opposed to a commodity jack of trades knowledge. However, my worry is trying to find a speciality that isn't obsolete in 2-3 years. I've known people who have specialized so throughly in some variant of UNIX and its applications that they are having to retrain themselves, almost from ground zero, as the industry shifted to Windows as the platform of choice. This is the question I'm trying to figure out -- where to spend time specializing. Exchange is tempting because I've done E-mail routing and manual sendmail files since the early 90s. A DBA position is tempting, but I have a lot more experience on the system level than writing stored procedures and triggers.

My real expertise sounds sort of "blah"... its dealing with disasters and preventing them. A lot of SMBs assume that just because they have a SAN or that all their database volumes are on a RAID array that they are completely immune to some disaster. This bubble usually gets popped when a drive controller card glitch trashes the data on the RAID array, a malicious system cracker does an rm -rf /, or a new DBA learns that DROP TABLE cannot be undone with the ROLLBACK command.
There is a sea of MCSE, including the paper MCSE. There are only so many RHCEs.

^^^

I think Hidle was referring to specialization in a field, not in a piece of software or operating system. I think that's actually a great idea, though another thing to consider is learning something really specialized (like Assembly); I've heard that people with specialized talents like that are better paid and have more job security.

Assembly isn't too often used anymore. Now if you're wanting to operate the guidance computer on the Apollo, then assembly would come in handy.

Assembly isn't too often used anymore. Now if you're wanting to operate the guidance computer on the Apollo, then assembly would come in handy.

I once did a computer support call at a colleague's home (http://www.ieee.org/portal/pages/about/awards/bios/2007_Bios/2007CPMT-Grabbe.html) who actually had an Apollo flight computer on display.

He worked on that one, but collected many others (http://www.infoage.org/grabbe.htm).

Assembly isn't too often used anymore. Now if you're wanting to operate the guidance computer on the Apollo, then assembly would come in handy.

Welcome to *my* world!

Since I graduated with the CS degree, and have time on my hands until I find some employment (hopefully using it), I am trying to figure out something:

Should I bother getting OS X certified as opposed to spending my time getting MCP/MCSE/MCA certifications? I have other UNIX certifications (AIX, and Solaris), but I wondering if its worth going for OS X or OS XS.

I am mainly wanting to focus on less of a jack of all trades, but spending time with an OS and some apps (Oracle, SQL Server, Exchange), as a way to better myself in this arena.

Thanks for any responses... just trying to figure out where to aim my free time.

Unix, forget apple, large corporations that pay well rarely use apple products.

Assembly isn't too often used anymore. Now if you're wanting to operate the guidance computer on the Apollo, then assembly would come in handy.

You could program the micro-controllers on microwave ovens and other mundane appliances...

You could program the micro-controllers on microwave ovens and other mundane appliances...

Usually there is an IDE that allows you to write code in C for microcontrollers.. Keil uVision is one of the popular ones.