|
|
SYSTEM ADMINISTRATOR OF THE WEEK: Week of May 8, 2006
| location: |
| Ames, Iowa |
| site: |
| Iowa State University, College of Engineering IT |
| servers: |
| 25 |
| workstations: |
| 175 |
| sysadmins on staff: |
| 3 UNIX/Linux, lots of Windows and Web admins |
| site overview: |
| Extremely diverse computing environment
for students, faculty, and researchers. I work mainly in UNIX and Linux but we're pretty much OS agnostic.
|
| job title: |
| Sr. UNIX System Administrator |
| time at this job: |
| 11 years |
| | |
| years as a sysadmin: |
| 18 |
| first computer: |
| that I owned? a Mac II |
| first OS: |
| Vax/VMS |
| favorite OS: |
| FreeBSD |
| first computer with root/administrator access: |
| A computer made by ISI
running BSD 4.2. "what does this init program do? I'll kill it" |
| first programming language: |
| UCSD Pascal |
| favorite programming language: |
| Python |
| most often used programming language: |
| lately it's PHP or bash |
| first sysadmin job, computer and os: |
| Sys admin at Northrop in LA on Sun
equipment. |
| ideal sysadmin job: |
| One where you spend most of your time helping users do the
cool stuff. |
| favorite sysadmin tool: |
| Cfengine |
| most interesting sysadmin tool: |
| The many uses for SSH |
| sysadmin tool I couldn't work without: |
| Gaim. Our Jabber chat room is often the fastest way to get things done. |
| education: |
| B.S. in Applied Mechanics, UCSD; M.S. in Computer
Engineering, ISU |
| when I was growing up, I wanted to be: |
| a solar engineer |
| If I wasn't a sysadmin, I'd be: |
| a poet |
| when friends and family ask me to
“fix” the computer or
“fix the internet”, I say: |
| Must be a virus. I'll have to install Linux. |
| when I first meet someone,
and they ask what I do, I say: |
| I manage a whole bunch of computers
|
| system administration is ...: |
| A modern day version of the village toolsmith |
| advice to a junior admin: |
| Jump in with both feet. You know more than
you think. |
| advice to a senior admin: |
| Listen to the newbies. You'd be surprised
what you can learn from the most junior person on the staff. |
| | |
| favorite food/cuisine: |
| Baja style fish tacos |
| pizza topping: |
| veggie no onions |
| work music: |
| lots of Dylan, surf music |
| crisis music: |
| Flamenco |
| ___ gets me through the work day: |
| Great co-workers and work atmosphere! |
| hobby/other job: |
| kids, and RAGBRAI |
| | |
| my office is: |
great!
 |
| co-workers say my desk is: |
| less cluttered than usual |
| learned the most from: |
| being a parent. |
| wish list: |
| Gigabit network between home and office |
| daily web sites: |
| slashdot, WSJ, HowtoForge:
http://www.howtoforge.com/
|
| Is the Sarbannes-Oxley Act (“SOX”)
good for system administration? |
| I don't need to worry about that here, am I lucky? |
| editor: |
| vi, sometimes nedit |
| mail user agent: |
| T-bird, occasionally pine |
| web browser: |
| FF |
| gui or cli: |
| cli but I'll take a gui if it does the job. |
| computers at home: |
| working? 4 |
| (primary) home computer and OS: |
| Powerbook G4 and MacOSX. |
| oldest hardware in your garage or basement: |
| PowerBook 140. |
| anything else? |
| I think LOPSA is doing a great job for such a young organization. It
seems more relevant to what I do than any other group that I've seen.
Keep it up!
|
|
delicious
digg
technorati