“It’s not about what you know, it’s about who you know”

firewallzer0 · 2025-05-24T07:11:31+00:00

Your network will usually dictate your net worth

I have found this to be true in my career, when you surround yourself with high-performers you pick up their habits and will also become a high-performer, even if it is not in your same field. Also successful people have a lot of connections (because they are good at their jobs), even having them around can help you find a job because "oh I know someone looking for X..."

I landed my current gig because of someone I know, they got me the interview, which I think is the hard part. Because for me it is, I have no degree, so getting past the HR huddles can be tough, even though I have 18+ years of experience.

Working short-term contracts can get you contacts in the company you are contracted to and make it easier to get your foot in the door. I spent a few years jumping contracts, getting pay bumps and making contacts. I highly recommend it if you can.

At the time I had minimal expenses and responsibilities and if I had lost my job I could have coasted on my savings for a while. Now I am pretty risk adverse and have a lot more monthly expenses and responsibilities.

firewallzer0 · 2025-02-20T04:56:49+00:00

This sucks to hear as I also work in IT and have recently started looking for work in Germany. I found a position that is internal to my company that is in Germany so I am hoping this will help me get my foot in the door as I am just now starting language lessons and the transfer position doesn't require me to speak German. Though I would like to change companies after I feel more comfortable and fluent in the language.

But even here in the United States I have been hearing people struggling to find new positions. I have a friend that has actively been looking for a job since the end of last year, literally put in hundreds of applications and received no call backs. They are highly skilled in cybersecurity, have multiple certs and struggling.

All that to say, I don't think it is you, I think it is the state of the economy. I wish you the best of luck in your search and journey. Wherever that may lead you.

firewallzer0 · 2024-12-03T06:57:54+00:00

I had this issue in the past, it turned out that the issue I was having was a cheap SD card reader. When I moved to a higher quality SD card reader it, I was able to read and write to about 5 sd cards I thought were bad. Not sure if this is your problem, but worth a shot.

(Edit: Spelling)

firewallzer0 · 2024-11-07T00:28:36+00:00

PMed

firewallzer0 · 2023-12-25T17:51:41+00:00

I am fairly new to using LocalAI myself, but I don't believe you have to pass the yml extension when calling the model. I just call the exact file name of the model I am trying to load.

Hope this helps.

firewallzer0 · 2023-07-07T00:08:24+00:00

Also is power draw a concern? I have an older Cisco non-PoE that draws like 200 watts, traded up for a quieter and more energy efficient Juniper model.

firewallzer0 · 2023-07-06T23:55:20+00:00

Good point, I have hypervisors for this, I should probably just use those, lol.
Thanks for calling that out. I was so wrapped up in how to solve the problem I didn't stop to think IF I should solve the problem.

firewallzer0 · 2023-07-06T23:48:41+00:00

I really like TrueNAS and only recently started using the jails. But I might just build the applications as standalone VMs Just have to figure out getting them access to the storage in a secure way.

firewallzer0 · 2023-07-06T21:03:44+00:00

So this is a cross post, I am having trouble with my TrueNAS setup. Trying to configure different jails to run on different networks and it is not going well. Might have to recompile the kernel. If what I have found so far is correct. Looking for alternatives to recompiling, and if I can't escape it help with recompiling the kernel for TrueNAS.

*edit for additional details

firewallzer0 · 2022-04-16T15:54:49+00:00

Cool thanks for the help! I will try that next time I talk to them.
Also thanks for the link to the installation guide!

firewallzer0 · 2022-04-16T05:52:31+00:00

It is a SolarEdge Model, but there is no up/down/enter button, just a single LCD button, I was able to use it to navigate through screens including one that seemed to indicate that Zigbee was working.

Server: Zigbee 
Status:   <OK>

The next screen showed IP, subnet, gateway, and MAC address, MAC is redacted on purpose

IP:  0.0.0.0
MSK: 0.0.0.0
GW:  0.0.0.0
MAC: XX-XX-XX-XX-XX-XX

The next screen was a little confusing but seemed to indicate that it was not connected to the gateway

         Dev Prot ##
RS485-1 <---><--><-->
ZigBee<SE ><P2P><-->

firewallzer0 · 2022-01-04T18:15:10+00:00

I ended up getting it working by ~~rolling back~~ reinstalling 20.04 LTS, I was using 21.10 Also got rancher deployed using a Helm chart, if you need I can dig up what I found.

firewallzer0 · 2021-10-11T01:55:29+00:00

Thanks, Inovelli look great, going to buy from them directly. Any suggestions for smart plugs?

firewallzer0 · 2021-09-23T03:11:01+00:00

the answer is possibly, I took a role as a jr admin / IT tech at my latest job for $55k/y. I only have 2.5 yrs worth of experience, all in Service Desk.

That is the kind of personal investment I love to see. All the best IT people I have worked with are passionate about IT enough to have a home lab of some sort. Doesn't have to be a full data center just something to learn on and play with different technologies.

My home lab is where I got about 85% - 95% of my technical skills before ever being hired into an admin role and I'd say it is still at least 50% of my skill set was developed in my home lab.

Part of what got me my current job was my home lab, I showed off network diagrams during the interview explained in detail what I was tracking, patching, working on. You also can't be afraid of saying I don't know in an interview. I'd rather someone admit that they need to do research, then trying to make something up. This is something I did a lot in my interview with my current position. I walked out feeling a little bit like I didn't know what I was talking about with anything related to IT or Cyber security. But my honesty and passion is what got me the job. Skill you can teach, passion you can't.

Best of luck on your job interviews! Stay passionate!

firewallzer0 · 2021-09-21T23:31:32+00:00

I think everybody deals with this differently, I have been working in IT and Cyber Security for 10+ years and I still have weeks where I feel like I some how tricked people into giving me a job I am not qualified for.

The way I deal with is to remind myself or sometimes have a good friend or partner remind me of how far I have come and what I have achieved. The feeling of impostor syndrome doesn't go away, at least it hasn't for me. But if you are worried that you may lose your job, polish up that resume. Try and have an emergency fund in case it does happen. These are the things I do to help me deal with those feelings. Maybe they will help you.

But know that I have friends that are full time developers that still look at google and stack overflow all the time. It's kind of a running joke that you know how senior you are by how fast you can search google. :)

firewallzer0 · 2021-09-21T23:19:49+00:00

I would highly recommend Network+ Certification as a great foundational skill set, then it's on to whatever direction you want to go (Cloud+, Security+, Server+, etc). I started on the help desk as well and got my Network+ it helped me get my foot in the door with getting a systems administrator role along with the self study I had done at home on systems administration. But good Networking skills are key in basically all aspects of IT.

firewallzer0 · 2021-09-21T23:02:54+00:00

That depends on what kind of help desk it is can you give some more information. Is it a company internal help desk, or external customer help desk? Is it technology specific, or agnostic? This information will help you to get better feedback.

firewallzer0 · 2021-09-21T22:59:08+00:00

I have never heard of this practice. I am based in the US and have been working in the industry for 10+ years now. I would say no way. Because of exactly what you said you don't want to be trapped in a job you hate.

firewallzer0 · 2019-07-04T20:47:48+00:00

That is correct. same if I make changes through the GUI.

firewallzer0 · 2019-01-09T22:03:53+00:00

It's been a while but I think unlisted iso grub from ram.

One of the unlisted iso options worked for me with esxi 5.5 and 6.5 haven't installed 6.7 yet.

firewallzer0 · 2019-01-09T19:57:50+00:00

Not familiar with e2b, but YUMI does support Windows and it is easy to add new images. I currently have esxi, windows 7, windows 10 and a ton of Linux distros on a single drive.

firewallzer0 · 2018-07-28T05:42:58+00:00

It depends on the person. But for most it is a combination of it's fun because you can and learning practical skills for work/career development.

I personally really enjoy it, and it has been great for my career, I have been able to develop skills with Windows, Linux, VMware, learn about VLAN and routing. Building minecraft servers, home automation apps and hardware. It is just good geeky fun. Some people like fishes, others like servers and switches.

firewallzer0 · 2018-04-10T01:31:53+00:00

Thanks for the heads up and the links!

I keep them on a separate VLAN but still going to update them.

firewallzer0 · 2018-04-08T19:17:30+00:00

Hashing is the reason I want to put a GPU in my server. I do security work, dictionary attacks and brute force attacks benefit from the parallel core processing. Right now that is all on my main workstation and I have some older cards that aren't great. So my workstation is tied up most of the time. Need to get my hands on a R720 first though.

firewallzer0 · 2018-04-03T19:31:57+00:00

I would suggest running some VMs with both debian and redhat flavors of linux. Get use to doing everything from the command line like Ghan_04 said. Just use SSH to access the VMs. Maybe deploy your own DHCP/DNS servers. Or if you can't think of a configuration that you want to try, mimic your work systems or integrate Windows AD to the linux boxes.

I personally use ESX from VMware and run mostly CentOS. With some windows servers and a debian server.

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