Technorati Profile

As I wrote in much more detail on my Confessions of a SysAdmin (CoaSA) blog, LOPSA is partnering with SCaLE on training classes to bring you SCaLE University!

Read more about it at SCaLE's site or the LOPSA Press Release.

Why blog, indeed...

For anyone job hunting, the positions on my team are filled for now. We may be looking for more system administrators later this year, so keep your eyes peeled.

Other updates on my own blog site.

In my efforts to generate an SA skills matrix, I've discovered that we haven't managed to quantify what we do in categories in a clear and consistent manner. Therefore, I'm calling on other SAs to help me build this list. The results of my efforts will be returned to the community, as well, so let's all put a little in and get a lot out!

Below is my unordered preliminary list of general categories. This particular list is Unix focused, but most of the categories apply to all system administration.

security
backups
storage
user administration
solaris
linux
HP-UX
AIX
networking
mail

As I posted on my own blog:

I am looking to build a system of evaluating my new team’s set of skills and experiences. To start, I am looking to create a spreadsheet style matrix to get something prototyped quickly. So far I haven’t found much online as a base to work from.

Of the few readers I have out there, does anyone have some suggestions or have already built a matrix for Unix SAs that I could look at?

Any help?

After nearly six years with AT&T (formerly SBC, who purchased my original employer, Ameritech) as a Unix system administrator and security manager, I start a new job next week with IT Convergence as the Sr. System Administrator/Team Lead for a new Unix system administration team based in Madison, WI.

We have openings on this team for someone in or near Madison or someone strongly interested in living there. Please review the LOPSA job posting for details. Even if you don't feel you meet all the requirements, please submit a resume as we are trying to build a well rounded team with a variety of skills and experiences.

Brian Krebs' Security Fix blog at The Washington Post, posted an article about wireless card security flaws. Though the article seems at first to focus on Apple OS X products, they were only used to demonstrate vulnerabilities found in multiple wireless drivers for a variety of operating systems. Later the article does discuss some Windows XP driver problems that allow hijacking a Windows system through the wifi drivers, too. Please see Krebs' followup about Apple's worries that people will focus on this issue as an OS X problem rather than a general paradigm problem, as well.

So, it's SysAdmin Day today, so I want to thank everyone who manages a Unix, Windows, mainframe, or network based system, whether for desktop or server use.

Don't forget to nominate your favorite SA for SysAdmin of the Year!

Thank your fellow SAs, too!

So, from today's Lopsa Live discussion, I realized that I (and maybe many others) usually consider publishing or posting to http://lopsa.org difficult because it has to be a longer or at least more formal article. I usually think of this site as something requiring some sage advice or carefully editing content before publishing. This isn't actually true. We can use the blogs as a less formal medium to spark more dynamic discussions and build community.

So, this is short, but a start.