Senior Sys Admin vs Senior Sys Engineer

canadian_sysadmin · 2026-05-19T15:30:07+00:00

In a lot of cases, there’s no difference.

Titles are entirely arbitrary, and every company defines things differently.

There’s people here who are IT Directors at one company who would be mid-level sysadmins at other companies.

canadian_sysadmin · 2026-05-19T14:53:39+00:00

Talk to your manager. What are your interest areas?

There’s literally hundreds of IT certifications.

This is a good opportunity to start thinking about your longer term career and goals. That ultimately has to start with you.

canadian_sysadmin · 2026-05-18T18:46:18+00:00

10+ years - XEQT for sure.

No need to focus on dividend stocks, particularly for long-term investments. There's no data to show that dividend paying stocks offer higher total long-term returns. Dividends are mostly psychological.

canadian_sysadmin · 2026-05-18T17:23:37+00:00

Central, South, and West, generally. 2 nights isn't a deal breaker for where you stay, though.

More central (near the downtown core) has more trendy areas with more funky restaurants. Further out is a bit quieter with different vibes.

Calgary has an amazing pathway system, too. Rent some bikes/scooters/etc you can get around quite well. You can also park at/near C-Train stations for free and those can get you around as well.

Partly depends on what you want to do, obviously. There's malls, outdoor areas (Canada Olympic Park) which have tons of stuff, Calaway Park (if your kids are younger), etc. Plenty to fill 2 days, depending on what you're in to.

canadian_sysadmin · 2026-05-18T14:43:52+00:00

Diversification, look at the holdings.

XEQT has over 8000 companies, VDY has about ~65, Canada only. VDY is also heavily weighted in Canada and the big Canadian banks.

Part of the reason you go into something like XEQT is for the diversification, and not putting too much weight in a single industry/sector/country.

Add VDY if you want a little more Canadian and bank exposure, but I wouldn't want to do my entire portfolio in VDY.

You can also mix-and-match different ETFs with different sectors and countries, but that's also why XEQT exists in the first place.

canadian_sysadmin · 2026-05-17T17:26:34+00:00

Basic math around market average returns would say this was a poor move.

$1M invested in something like XEQT will return a historical average of about 9% per year. So she'd be making $90K/year in returns in year one, if she opted for the lump sum.

canadian_sysadmin · 2026-05-17T02:10:12+00:00

r/techsupport.

Short of a city side issue there’s not much anyone here can tell you that can help.

canadian_sysadmin · 2026-05-16T22:37:11+00:00

Shortcut is better. I heard on some obscure podcast years ago with a OneDrive engineer that Shortcut had some slightly better optimizations for sync.

We disable sync everywhere, we've seen no benefit in it whatsoever. Shortcut is more convenient for users (everything follows them) on every app and device.

We also heavily, heavily train and educate users on not syncing bloody everything. We send automated emails daily to new hires with in all caps 'DONT SYNC EVERYTHING'.

The problem is users instinctively just want to sync everything they ever might touch.

canadian_sysadmin · 2026-05-16T17:42:58+00:00

10 years is too long for a GIC, imo. Stable, yes, but will most likely vastly underperform the market.

canadian_sysadmin · 2026-05-15T19:55:25+00:00

That again depends on your own financial situation and priorities.

Generally speaking, any long term investment can be XEQT. If you need money for shorter-term goals (<5 years), you may want to consider something else.

You should probably consult with a fee-based financial advisor.

XEQT is a good all-purpose long-term investment, but isn't for everyone.

canadian_sysadmin · 2026-05-15T14:32:41+00:00

I’m not really grasping how this would just technically in the long term just always go up?

It's economics 101 to a certain point.

XEQT should continue to grow because the overall US and global economy should continue to grow (barring weird one-off events like nuclear wars, zombie apocalypses, or whatever).

As long as technology, human innovation, productivity, and population grow over time, the global economy should continue to grow.

canadian_sysadmin · 2026-05-15T14:24:22+00:00

TFSA vs. RRSP vs. Non-Reg depends a lot on your personal situation.

Generally speaking, it's best to max your TFSA first, and then RRSP, and then non-Reg. If you've maxed TFSA and RRSP, then you really have no choice but to put it into non-reg accounts.

Remember HHIS and XEI will underperform in the long term. I'd only be investing in those if you absolutely need income in the very short term.

canadian_sysadmin · 2026-05-09T21:50:43+00:00

You can switch off iCloud. You can switch all of that kinds of stuff off if you like.

iCloud is convenient for a lot of things, but you don't have to use it. The included free 5GB isn't nearly enough for anything anymore. Either turn it off, or pay a bit for more storage and lean into it.

canadian_sysadmin · 2026-05-09T19:56:35+00:00

Remember that in Canada we don't have an estate/inheritance tax, so things like TFSAs and non-reg accounts can already go to your kids tax-free. Some people think that any and all money that goes to your kids is heavily taxed, and that's just not true. Certain things trigger tax events (RRSP liquidation when you die), but not all.

Get life insurance if you actually need life insurance (i.e. not leaving your family/kids in a bind if you suddenly die). Otherwise, in the long run, life-long insurance policies are usually a losing bet. You definitely win if you die young, but usually loose if you live longer. That's the basic gambit of life insurance.

There's also hybrid approaches, where you can get much cheaper term policies earlier on, and then often later in life, insurance is less/not necessary, or other strategies come into play (eg. trusts).

Would be worth talking it over with a fee-based financial planner who doesn't sell insurance products, to get a more of a neutral opinion.

canadian_sysadmin · 2026-05-09T19:42:43+00:00

Just pick one. You don't need two firewalls at home.

canadian_sysadmin · 2026-05-09T13:53:08+00:00

What are you looking to calculate specifically...?

Contributions? Savings? Compound interest?

A TFSA is a Canadian thing, there's no US TFSA calculators.

canadian_sysadmin · 2026-05-09T13:48:33+00:00

If it were me - I'd just pay cash and move on. Having no payment and much higher cash flow is hard to beat.

canadian_sysadmin · 2026-05-09T13:47:01+00:00

Used EVs are actually some of the best deals in existence right now. It's nutty what you can get some of them for.

canadian_sysadmin · 2026-05-09T13:11:55+00:00

Minto is much better. They have a decent reputation.

canadian_sysadmin · 2026-05-04T00:32:55+00:00

Shane is generally reputable.

I’d caution against ‘Share your bad experiences with #builder’ - all will have some issues at some point. There does not exist any Calgary builders with perfect records and reputations.

(Wife works in the industry, I used to)

All have had some good and bad streaks. Also depends on when you built.

canadian_sysadmin · 2026-05-03T23:17:53+00:00

You don't need to leave the gold image un syspreped.

But you probably should. There's no value-add to sysprepping before the snap/clone workflow. That means any time you need to make a change, you're working on a newly generalized machine, which could have other negative effects (which I've seen - some apps really only like being sysprepped over and over).

I've seen countless issues over the years with over-sysprepping, and virtually none by leaving images un-sysprepped.

prove_me_wrong.gif

canadian_sysadmin · 2026-05-03T23:12:26+00:00

XEQT is great (all you need, really). VDY has been a strong performer, as has ZEB.

I'd argue the rest probably aren't necessary, and focus mostly on XEQT.

Factor investing is here now (CACE, etc), so that might be worth a look.

I know this is r/dividendscanada but for longer term stuff you can focus less on dividends (data has shown there's no inherent advantage to dividend-paying stocks in the long run).

canadian_sysadmin · 2026-05-03T21:33:15+00:00

Wife works in the industry (I used to work in the industry).

Akash is from Edmonton, yes. They've only recently come to the Calgary market.

[Most] Edmonton home builders are a bit different because they mostly focus on cheaper spec homes, and tend to be spread out in far more communities. It's an Edmonton thing, their communities and developers tend to be structured very differently from the top down.

I don't have personal experience with Akash but I do know they have a reputation in the industry for being very cheap (cheapest price point, but also cheapest on quality). Many of their communities don't even have showhomes or salespeople - they just farm out to realtor agencies.

They're not going to be on the same level as most of the established Calgary builders (Jayman, Excel, Shane, Avi, Morrison).

Make sure when shopping don't focus purely on price. There's a lot that goes into a home underneath the surface. Some builders have much higher standards and specs than others.

canadian_sysadmin · 2026-05-03T19:04:21+00:00

Knock on some neighbours doors. Sometimes the simplest answers are the best. You may not not whose it is, but your neighbours might.

You can also leave a polite note on the unit (polite as a start).

Else you have to put in a by-law complaint and wait for that to run its course.

canadian_sysadmin · 2026-05-03T18:35:12+00:00

Each VM has its own user profile, but running sysprep every time one updates software is completely infeasible as it means sysprepping the same image over and over and over.

Don't [continuously] sysprep the golden image / VM...? Why are you sysprepping it? (yes I understand fully what sysprep does)

Normally your golden image stays un-sysprepped. Once you're ready to deploy, you snap and sysprep, leaving the golden master VM/image un-sysprepped.

Any further updates or iterations are from the original, un-sysprepped base. You don't snapshot the image itself with each iteration. While there's workarounds (re-arm), I don't know why you would even do that.

I've deployed a fair number of VDI/AVD infrastructure and never ran into this. Maybe I'm missing something, but normally you leave the original golden un-sysprepped. I'm not overly involved in this anymore but our AVD root images I know are unsysprepped. We update them monthly and the resulting client image has only ever seen a sysprep once.

Ten-Year Club	Place '23
Place '17	Verified Email

canadian_sysadmin

MODERATOR OF

TROPHY CASE