Tools and Information for Network and Systems Administrators Topic:Intro   Date: 1997-06-01 Printer Friendly:

This site started in 1997 as I completed my Microsoft Certified Systems Engineer (MCSE) certification. It helped me focus if I wrote articles about things I was learning about. For the most part I've captured whatever was interesting or puzzling to me at the time as I moved through my career in information technology (IT). It also served as a way to broaden and sharpen my skills during times of unemployment. IT can be fairly up and down. I've had several companies I've worked for go out of business.

Mostly my day job has involved Microsoft operating systems, but over the years I've become more and more interested in Open Source software, primarily GNU/Linux. Another huge interest of mine is categorizing and tagging journal entries and publishing these entries in hypertext (HTML). There were two primary historical interests of mine that converged and became my journal and content management system called Mountain Climbing Journal (MCJ).

I've been interested in journal writing for many years, long before I started NetAdminTools. I took a class that taught a strict journal-keeping style where entries were categorized by subject, dream, dialog, journal, and memory. I've kept a variety of journals over the years using this method. I believe that any subject that you want to explore, whether it is the coastline of a country in 1790, your dreams, or the challenge of keeping your head above water at a complex and aging IT shop, all of these things can be assisted by keeping a journal.

Another interest of mine was the struggle of maintaining my web sites. Primarily this is NetAdminTools; however, I have a number of other web sites that I maintain. I started with a bunch of Bash and Perl scripts and ran that way for many years, but I've merged these efforts and the entry and site you are reading is composed and published on MCJ.

MCJ also happens to be able to build a GNU/Linux system, and I'm writing this article using that operating system. The history of this effort was mainly because I wanted more control of the software my journal and content management system ran on. At this point it serves as a stubborn example that pushes the limits of my journal software and provides a pretty decent reference operating system to write articles about.

So here we are. I don't have the time I used to have; however, I do have a lot of undocumented work. I also have a lot to learn, and just as this site started, when I have something I want to learn more about, it is best if I write articles about it. My current interest is in Ruby on Rails (RoR). I like the way the aspects of the application are split up into models, controllers, and views. I have a family, now, and a steady job. So, please be patient as I document what I've done and explore the world of RoR, journals, content management, and good old network and systems administration tools along with it.