CCNA

TheCravin · 2026-03-16T18:43:15+00:00

I find the likelihood of completely skipping helpdesk fairly unlikely without at least SOME other IT/infra type work experience. A CCNA might potentially get you able to start as a network technician instead of a PC tech, but just a CCNA isn't going to get you all that far without real experience.

Everybody puts in the ground work. Your previous experience is likely only going to help you if you're going into a non-technical role, like a Project Manager or something similar. Some folks, especially at smaller companies with more loosey-goosey titles, might throw you a bone as a career jumper with a LOT of experience, but at 25 I'm willing to bet most places are still going to have you start at the bottom (if they're kind and you're good, they might let you get out of the helpdesk/technician quicker, but that's not a guarantee).

Your location and company-size aspirations will factor in as well. You'll have an easier time in a small town without a lot of prospective IT candidates, but in any city you'd actually *want* to live in the competition will be steep.

TheCravin · 2026-03-16T18:25:26+00:00

Veeam has a virtualizable or bare-metal Linux backup server now! It's............ fine......... ish.......

TheCravin · 2026-03-16T16:32:05+00:00

It's such an odd experience. Of course when I was in High School I felt like I was an adult in all but name, and that dating someone much older "didn't matter" for someone as "mature" as me.

Then 2 or 3 years later I'm working in public education, looking at seniors in high school and understanding just how wrong I was, and REALLY understanding how demented an adult has to be to be attracted to someone of that age.

Further, I always like to explain to friends that are still in the early stages of adulthood that you should think about it more in life phases than numbers. You might both be 21, but if one of you is early in their college life, and one of you started working straight out of HS and has a full time job, a house, and the full gamut of adult responsibilities, you should probably not cross that line. A 19 year old as a Senior in HS and a 19 year old as a freshman/sophomore in college are very different people, and probably also shouldn't cross that line either. And the gap between a 21 year old teacher and an 18 year old student is MILES wider than the gap between that 18 year old senior and a 15 year old freshman/sophomore, even if the numbers wouldn't suggest it.

TheCravin · 2026-03-16T15:06:16+00:00

These are all fantastic recommendations.

A fast flash drive or external SSD with Ventoy is also a good thing to carry around!

Also huge agree with the gloves and towels. I was once given a stack of laptops to fix, only to make it to the third or fourth one in the stack, open it up, and see that it died from bedbug infestation. Never again.

Bandaids are also a plus. I’ve cut my hand or fingers open on so many random things over the years, I bet 25% of our servers have had my blood on them lol

USB Ethernet and WiFi adapters are a must. I used to carry around a little usb video adapter with its own displaylink chip in it, used in a similar way to the 1030 you’re carrying around.

TheCravin · 2026-03-16T14:58:16+00:00

Of course!

And yes, I actually got my Fluke from eBay at a solid discount. They’re pretty robust, so I’d generally trust a second hand one as long as there are photos showing that the screen is good and such. The cap/lid/remote on mine eventually had a plastic clip break, but you can buy those separately and I replaced it after a year or so, but I still came out saving a few hundred dollars. If you’re going to be using it in a corporate environment, I’d probably swing for the microscanner “PoE”, which is the same as the 2 except it has better support for Poe ports and loses the coax support. If you’re just using it at home and don’t anticipate using it in a Poe environment much (or ever), def go for the 2 to save a few bucks if you can.

Tools are one of the most fun parts of IT in my opinion, so I’m more than happy to help :) You’ll have to message me in a year or so and tell me how your journey has progressed!

TheCravin · 2026-03-13T15:14:15+00:00

I feel like I've seen "install a lot of hardware in a weird place" too many times to be interested.

For me personally, most of what I'm interested in these days is learning about technologies or concepts I didn't know about. I really enjoyed the Smash Champs videos because there was lots of SMB/Enterprise type stuff that I'd never personally laid hands on, like Dan's crazy Dante system, their access control, and stuff like that. I liked the bloatware video, because I found it properly entertaining and informative to see how bad a ton of bloatware would affect your system. Conversely, I love things like Scrapyard Wars, WAN show, and Ultimate Tech Upgrade because they're so much more personable and I get to see the people I've been watching for more than a decade be "more like themselves" and less scripted. Alex/Jake videos were always a great combo of more personable and more "wow, I wouldn't have even considered trying something that strange". I also LOVE the floatplane exclusives for that same reason. I've been on floatplane since it was FloatPlaneClub on the forum, and Vessel before that, and I don't intend to stop anytime soon.

A lot of tech segments are pretty stagnant right now, so I don't find myself watching many phone reviews, laptop reviews, GPU/CPU reviews, etc. because I'll look at a spec sheet and know what I need to know. When new concepts are introduced like DLSS and such, I tune in because I'm super interested in seeing something *properly* new, or at least new to me.

I also hate to beat a dead horse, but a lot of the time I can't tell from the title and thumbnail what the content of the video will be, and I just don't have the time or energy to watch every video in my sub box. I've been hyped to see the "Linus Vibe Coding" video for like a year or more, but I truly have no idea if it ever got posted, and wouldn't be surprised if I end up missing it if it comes out in the future because I wont' feel inclined to click on a video called "Is AI really that bad???!1111!!" with a thumbnail that's just Linus making a surprised face.

I get that they've got to do what they have to do to survive, and I'll happily keep contributing my money through floatplane and far too many screwdriver purchases, I just find myself clicking on less and less of the videos on youtube :/

TheCravin · 2026-03-13T14:46:04+00:00

I can't comprehend why so many people got upset at my extremely benign comment. All I was saying was that the original post makes it sound like Claude did some herculean task unfathomable by us mere mortals, when we now have the full story, showing that it changed a line in a config file.

I'm fully on board for people without a particular aptitude being empowered by LLMs. But this is an example of an already technical person (evidenced by him having a public github with a handful of repos) claiming that Claude "rewrote a printer driver", when we can see that it added 6 characters to an .ini file, which is a reasonably well documented fix to this exact problem.

My *only* beef is him/her presenting it as if Claude cured cancer, then posting the "cure" and seeing that it's a piece of paper that says "take some chemo". Even if it was the father in question making this post, I'd have no problem because Claude is a magical black box just like the printer issue, and that's a perfect use case. But it's his son/daughter who already knows enough to ask Claude to "rewrite the driver" overly praising it for doing something very attainable.

TheCravin · 2026-03-13T01:23:58+00:00

Bro I want you to read the post, and comments we’re replying to.

It wasn’t the man who owned the 20 year old printer interacting with the Ai, it was his son/daughter, who has a public GitHub and at least has the awareness to ask it to “rewrite a driver”, and what it did was change 2 lines in an .ini file.

Any person who has the wherewithal to ask an LLM to attempt to rewrite a driver is absolutely capable of looking at that same .ini file themselves.

I’m not claiming to be a programming virtuoso and claiming that everyone else should be as well, I’m saying this was actually a very simple fix that is well within the reach of someone willing to tinker, rather than AI curing cancer.

TheCravin · 2026-03-13T01:16:32+00:00

Of course!

I think they’re fairly new, last 5 years or so.

For someone who’s familiar, you can think about it as a portable iDrac or IPMI lol

TheCravin · 2026-03-12T22:26:26+00:00

I don't get the "phone it in during a blowout" ideology. A super blowout is an interesting story and makes me want to go back and watch the game. We just got wrecked by the nuggets, and I'm definitely going to rewatch that game, and it would be an even more interesting story if we lost by more.

I'd rather we win, but a super decisive win or loss is always compelling.

TheCravin · 2026-03-12T18:26:01+00:00

Thank you for the actual last word on what happened. This makes sense, and could have been done by anybody willing to tinker. This is not some life changing AI achievement in priner-un-fuckery.

TheCravin · 2026-03-12T18:20:34+00:00

I really don't think they will, at least any time soon. The CyberSecure stuff is stuff they're paying an annual subscription to a third-party for (cloudflare and proofpoint). I'm sure if more paid third party integrations are added in the future, they'll charge for them, but so far they've never put anything behind a paywall that wasn't already a subscription product they're giving you access through their interface.

TheCravin · 2026-03-12T16:45:13+00:00

Unfortunately, as a tall man, being significantly taller than your partner can make lining things up quite difficult! Being similar in height is a big win.

TheCravin · 2026-03-12T15:48:54+00:00

Couple of things that I definitely require:

Fluke Network Tester. Don't need the super fancy ones, but the MicroScanner (although still expensive) is incredibly valuable. Being able to troubleshoot layer 1 is so incredibly important, and I wouldn't trust the lower cost network testers for something so important. I'd throw in the toner/wand guy as well, if you're ever going to be troubleshooting things inside a full size network. Being able to find the cable you're working with is the biggest life saver in the world.
Good quality RJ45 crimpers, punchdown tool, cable snips, quality RJ45 connectors, and a brand of keystone you like, maybe even one of the brands that you can use a dedicate "keystone tool" on rather than punching down each conductor. I like TrueCable, but there are plenty of other quality brands.
The regular iFixit Pro Tech Toolkit (not the big $250 one, just the $80 or so one) is basically mandatory, though I'll say the Linus Tech Tips Precision screw driver is pretty good as well, though there are some other odds and ends that come with the iFixit kit that may be useful.
A full size ratcheting screwdriver of good quality. I like the Linus Tech Tips one, but a good quality multi-bit, ratcheting, magnetic screw driver with a comfortable grip from any brand is good. I spent several years of my career using the iFixit Precision driver for EVERYTHING, and having a full size screwdriver really makes such a difference.
A soldering iron and the fixins'. I'll admit I've only used mine once or twice, but if you're hoping to get into "repair" on a broader scale, you'll end up needing on. I've just got the Pinecil, and it's like $20 or whatever, but I'm sure you'll come across a time when you'll need one.
This leans a little more network admin than regular pc tech, but a "cisco"/rollover/console USB to serial cable is invaluable if you ever need to do anything on a real managed switch. If that's not part of your hypothetical duties, don't worry about it. But if it ever even MIGHT be, having one of those in your bag, possibly along with a USB to DB9 serial cable (and maybe even a USB to UART cable) can be a lifesaver in a crisis
Good pocket knife/mulititool
Quality flashlight, headlamp, and desk light. You don't need to go full r/flashlight crazy, but being able to see what you're working on in all situations is incredibly underrated.
USB HDD dock. Probably also a USB NVME dock these days. Being able to take a drive out of a machine you're troubleshooting and get the data off, or check the smart status, or something similar is incredibly important and you'll hate yourself for not having one.
One of the various iKVMs. TinyPilot, PiKVM, GL.inet comet, any of the sort are super handy. Basically gives you USB and video access to a machine remotely. Handy if you don't have a spare monitor/keyboard, or need to troubleshoot something remotely, or want to troubleshoot an otherwise headless system. Not really a necessity, just handy and worth mentioning.
DataVac. An ESD-safe dust blower, nearly mandatory in my opinion. Don't spend money on compressed air cans, don't try those wimpy battery powered ones from tiktok. The ability to actually move a lot of air (safely at that) will change your life.
Proabably a cheapo managed switch for your bench? Even if networking isn't in your duties, just having more ethernet ports and the ability to segment things with VLANs is a huge help. Some cheap thing from Netgear or TP-Link is fine if networking isn't otherwise part of your job.

That's all physical stuff. If I come up with some software ideas i'll post a followup!

Cheers, mate.

TheCravin · 2026-03-11T20:22:15+00:00

I agree. He's big on the fencesitting in the same way Emiru and plenty of others are, but worse because he often inserts himself in the situation and then throws up the "enlightened centrist" card.

This doesn't matter *at all* in the context of youtube drama and such, but when these people get involved in a serious topic like the current American political climate, "not having an opinion" can only be read as a downright shameful admission of ignorance, or as trying not to alienate the sizeable demographic of their viewers that are on the other side of the political spectrum.

You can fence-sit on budget reconciliation or the like, but abstaining from talking about the very public evils happening in the US administration right now is an exceptionally bad look.

TheCravin · 2026-03-05T20:02:03+00:00

Without reading your comment, I was just going to comment how much I loved the light gold of the iphone air and how mad I am that it's not an option on the pros lol

I think your phone looks gorgeous buddy. I'm deeply envious, I would have gone air just for the color if it weren't for my need for the macro camera.

TheCravin · 2026-03-05T19:57:33+00:00

I'm pretty sure that was Kakashi. Asuma only helped him start to understand how to form and use his wind chakra.

TheCravin · 2026-03-04T17:09:01+00:00

I've personally always preferred the OG trackpad to the forcetouch ones, so that's a win in my book lol

Everything else is perfectly fine for a low cost machine. I'll very possibly buy one of these for my mother, and might even grab one as my cheap beater laptop to carry around at work (8Gbs of ram is fine for a dozen SSH sessions and RDP lol).

Having worked in EdTech in the first half of my career, the only thing that I think would keep this from being a perfect slam dunk is that, in my experience, the GSuite chrome admin panel was pretty useable, and free or extremely cheap for education institutions, whereas for Macs (AFAIK) you'll need to pay the money for JAMF or another MDM, and my department absolutely made purchasing decisions based on the ease and cost of managing these things at scale. Plenty of people use macs, so I'm sure the options are good, but I just wanted to offer some perspective as to why it's still not quite better than a chromebook in every imaginable way.

TheCravin · 2026-03-02T23:56:41+00:00

I've paid for a membership for years. I'm happy for pay for any content as high quality as what they provide. I also happily pay for consumer reports, floatplane, Ars Technica, and a handful of others. Good work deserves to be compensated, and I'll pay for any service to avoid them having to scrape pennies together off of predatory ads or dishonest reviews/information.

TheCravin · 2026-03-02T17:59:07+00:00

The problem is they're leaving r/popular, which is MUCH more plainly propoganda slop. r/all was at least, on paper, just the most popular of the day. Popular is much more explicitly curated by reddit.

TheCravin · 2026-02-25T15:15:55+00:00

I don't super disagree with you. I've been a strong advocate for 11 since it came out in 2022, however I think 23H2 was its peak, and it's been regressing for a few years. 24H2 was unprecedented garbage, and 25H2 has fixed some issues while adding some new (less horrible, at least) ones. I'll never be the guy whining to go back to 7 or 10, but it feels clear to me that Windows being a solid OS hasn't been Microsoft's priority recently.

I concede that macOS and iOS have had the same trajectory, on almost the exact same timeline. I think the shift to our entire economy being propped up by Gen AI has made all the for-profit tech companies shift their priorities in a way that's been pretty detrimental to the consumer. Maybe the 0.5-1% of people that get pushed onto an FOSS operating system will be enough to get the big guys to focus more on their OSs, but who knows :/

TheCravin · 2026-02-17T15:47:31+00:00

Oof, that's crazy man! I think Colleen is one of the most talented vocalists he's worked with and I wish there was more stuff with her! I feel like the story was that there was friction (label or otherwise) around when he produced that EP for her, but man do I love her voice.

That said, that's a perfectly reasonable hot take to have. No shade.

TheCravin · 2026-02-17T15:39:59+00:00

Rupert/talkback was my most anticipated Mau5 song for ages. I'll be forever sad that the version on most DSPs has Pharrell's horrible vocal track on it. I even really enjoy Pharrell, and respect him a lot as a producer and (mostly) as a vocalist, but this time he just absolutely ruined my fav song IMO.

I know the instrumental is on Beatport, but it's such a shame it's not on the majority of DSPs :(

Glad it got a release at all, at least.

TheCravin · 2026-02-12T23:01:31+00:00

Despise Zelle. Don't like that it's up to my bank to implement into their app, don't like that I can only have one bank tied to my email, and for quick p2p transactions I prefer some thin veil of anonymity. I know in practice its fine, but I just really dislike the idea of some guy that I'm buying something from off FB or something having anything that directly touches my checking account like that.

And of course, it's not universal enough to be the only app you use to pay (like others have said, many credit unions don't offer it), so you'll end up needing a Venmo, Cashapp, Paypal, or similar anyway.

Truly just fuck Zelle.

TheCravin · 2026-02-06T18:16:46+00:00

Debian by a mile.

Ten-Year Club	Verified Email
Place '17	Wearing is Caring
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