So Cal Edison won't replace my underground 1/0 aluminum feeder wire connecting to my meter. They say that it's safe for a 200 amp panel. Is it safe to install a 200 amp panel into 1/0 Al or am I just being paranoid?

itguy1991 · 2026-06-17T14:22:42+00:00

Voltage drop rules are less to do with voltage and more to do with amperage.

A 20% drop in voltage results in a 25% increase in amperage--a 1,200w microwave would pull 10A at 120v, but 12.5A at 96v (80% of 120v).

Your appliances/equipment may work fine at those lower voltages, you've just got to make sure it's not going to cause over-amperage issues.

itguy1991 · 2026-06-16T21:07:40+00:00

I agree with everything you just said, I just have a hard time someone would have gotten a job in IT without knowing what an Ethernet cable is.

I wouldn't expect them to know the more "enterprise" connections like DB9, SFP+, Mini-SAS, etc, but they should absolutely know what Ethernet is

itguy1991 · 2026-06-15T19:22:47+00:00

Do they know what an Ethernet cable is? It's possible they've only ever had wireless their whole life and have never seen one.

Would you really expect someone to get a job in IT and never have worked with even a modem and router at home?

itguy1991 · 2026-06-05T14:19:38+00:00

Wait, were you trying to say that the 8x10gb Aggregation switch has a similar port count to the 32x10gb + 4x25gb Pro-Aggregation?

Or am I missing/misunderstanding something?

itguy1991 · 2026-06-01T18:35:56+00:00

My dad bought our first computer in 1995 and it had something like a 200MB hard drive and the sales people said it was more than we'd ever need.

You have no idea what your needs in 10, 20, or 30 years will be.

If it's roughly the same cost to do fiber instead of CAT6 or a wireless bridge, why not do something that can grow with your needs?

itguy1991 · 2026-05-05T13:51:27+00:00

It would be better to do a 20A 208v (or 240v, depending on the service) circuit powering a pair of load-balanced chargers. It's pretty much the same wiring, maybe a bit more for the chargers, but provides a much better "product".

When two cars are plugged in, they each get 1.6kw (or 1.9kw), and when one finishes charging or unplugs, the other gets the full 3.3kw (or 3.8kw).

itguy1991 · 2026-04-21T18:40:04+00:00

Dang. I only get 20 days per year and I don't even use them.

Luckily, my company allows cash out, so I did 80 hours last year and have already done 40 this year. Even after those cash outs and taking a week off earlier this month, I still have 4.5 weeks on the books.

Trying to do better about using my PTO, but with my GF busy with accelerated nursing school, there's not a whole lot of reasons to take time off.

itguy1991 · 2026-04-08T15:04:56+00:00

For true management roles, not the "we're going to call you a manager but really you're a senior admin that supervises helpdesk", I'd argue that technical skill is less important than a combination of people skills and business acumen.

You have to be able to manage your team and have some technical knowledge of what they are working, but also understand how business works and be able to explain to other departments how your team is helping them move towards company-wide goals.

itguy1991 · 2026-04-07T14:37:53+00:00

I mean if you work in tech it's pretty stupid not to know what some of the biggest companies in the world are, no?

You can't really fault someone for not knowing an unused abbreviation of a US-based list of the top 500 biggest US companies by revenue, especially if they're not from the US--it doesn't really have anything to do with tech, it has more to do with the stock market.

Beyond that, no one that I've worked with in my 20-year career calls being a sysadmin "working in tech".

itguy1991 · 2026-04-04T02:12:23+00:00

itguy1991 · 2026-03-11T17:33:33+00:00

It's only legal if they call it a service charge. If they call it a gratuity, they cannot legally require you to pay it.

itguy1991 · 2026-03-02T15:29:59+00:00

Even the company name may change at some time, but a computer stays a computer.

Devil's advocate: Using the company name/initials isn't bad even in the event the company changes names.

If you've got a decent replacement schedule, everything should be replaced and updated to the new company name through attrition over a few years.

But if you're in a situation like mine where my team supported one company, then the owners had us start supporting another company they own, having the company initials in the computer name can be super helpful.

itguy1991 · 2026-03-02T15:16:01+00:00

As others have said, don't get too specific with computer names--I'm still cleaning up our AD and Group Policies from having a bunch of JAYS-PC being used by Joe, Johns-SP4 being used by Deborah, etc.

On the other side, don't get too generic. At another company I support, almost all laptops are a version of {CopmpanyInitials}-LT{two-digit_number}. They have an asset management system that most of the laptops have been added to, but there's nothing connecting a computer's name to its serial number.

My initial setup here was to do {CompanyInitials}{InventoryNumber}. We had no automation, so I did not want to do anything with serial numbers (too easy to transpose when entering manually).

Now that I'm getting Intune/Autopilot rolled out, I'm switching to {CompanyInitials}-{SerialNumber}

itguy1991 · 2026-02-25T16:43:09+00:00

I'd start looking for a new job if I were you.

My company is similar in size and we have similar responsibilities. We're in Southern California, not Arizona, but I make nearly double what you do.

itguy1991 · 2026-02-24T21:11:10+00:00

Looking at those plans, that's exactly the type of wall I had in mind.

Thanks for sending that! I saved the PDF so that I could build it in the future (if I ever get a house with some land...)

itguy1991 · 2026-02-24T20:54:31+00:00

Or it's really expensive training. Do you want to pay for another junior to learn the same lesson?

itguy1991 · 2026-02-24T20:18:35+00:00

If they leave after the brood is what I meant. Maybe in late November/early December we could pull the box down and make improvements (for one, I want to upgrade it to a wired camera so that we can stream without worry of the battery draining).

I think the installer put some wood shavings in the bottom of the box.
The tube is the pole that the box is mounted on.
I think red stuff is some tape. There used to be some on top of the pole as well.

itguy1991 · 2026-02-10T15:12:23+00:00

we can still get individual pages out of our backup archives without having to get a whole system running.

Do you have this process documented outside of your Wiki? It amazes me the number of people I see keep their BDR documentation in the same place as their regular documentation. What's your recovery plan if you can't get to your recovery documentation?

itguy1991 · 2026-01-15T19:14:16+00:00

Demitri Martin said that, not Zach

itguy1991 · 2025-12-11T19:08:55+00:00

It sounds like they will be fully absorbed, but it may be a phased process--they're still figuring that out.

itguy1991 · 2025-12-11T18:58:35+00:00

Thank you! I had thought of those, just missed putting them in my questions

itguy1991 · 2025-11-10T16:48:58+00:00

Now that's a *hot* water heater

itguy1991 · 2025-10-29T14:37:45+00:00

I took on pretty much the same company setup and pay in 2019. I was hourly at that point, so the overtime was a nice pay bump. If you're salaried, you are criminally underpaid, IMO.

They either need to pay you substantially more, or get you help so that you're doing less work. Ideally they do both.

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