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Greetings from New Jersey...
Well, I'm out in New Jersey this week talking with the DoD about network management systems, interoperability, and best practices for building NOCs. I'd planned to take my iPhone out and get some cool pics of me standing in front of a tank or something but it's been dark when we finish every day. It's interesting to hear…
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COVID-19 Pushes Schools to Their Limit, and the Cloud Shows Its Worth
For educators, students, and parents, the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on learning has been profound. Thousands of schools across the U.S. closed their doors this spring and made the shift to distance learning. It’s a model many weren’t prepared for. And with schools in full swing and the pandemic continuing, educators,…
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Our Cloud Bill Is WHAT?! - Battle of the Clouds Series
Submitted for your approval; a story of cloud horrors. One of performance issues impacting production. Where monthly cloud billing began spiraling out of control. The following story is true. The names have been changed to protect the innocent. During my consulting career, I’ve encountered companies at many different…
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No Experience Left Behind
While Leon beat me to it, I was inspired by this Twitter post by @Gabsmashh to write a more involved post about what I learned from past work experience that has helped me in IT. When I first became a Head Geek, I wrote about my journey from retail to now. I think every experience is valuable, even if it’s short-lived and…
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The Single Thing You'll Never Be Able To Outsource
It’s a common story. Your team has many times more work than you have man hours to accomplish. Complexity is increasing, demands, are rising, acceptable delivery times are dropping, and your team isn’t getting money for more people. What are you supposed to do? Traditionally the management answer to this question is…
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Gamify Work: How to Apply Gaming Skills to Your Day Job (Part 1)
Do you like to play video games like I do? Recently, I discussed using skills taken from gaming to level up your career. Once I started thinking about the skills you pick up in video games that are transferable nontechnical skills, I couldn’t stop thinking about them. By now, you may have noticed I like to talk about how…
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Geekly World News - September 2022
Although it’s still quite hot in Texas, summer is coming to a close. Kids are back in school, and—in case you missed it—SWUG is back in person for the first time in a long time in the U.S. We had a great time in London a few months ago, and this time, we’re hanging out on our home turf in Austin. I’m excited to see and…
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Skills for IT Operations Management
The technology industry is changing at a rapid pace, but let me put that into perspective. It took radio 38 years to reach 50 million users, it took Television 13yrs, the Internet 4 years, Facebook 1,096 days, and Google+ only 88 days. So what's this rapid change in how business is done mean for us in the IT industry? It…
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What you don't know won't hurt you. What I wish I knew when I started in IT (Part One)
There is something to be said about ignorance being bliss, and then there are times when it is good to know a little bit more about what you are getting into. My IT journey started over 20 years ago. All I knew going in was that I liked IT based upon my studies and that the university I attended had 100 % placement in IT…
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Machine Learning and Destroying the Library of Alexandria
Hey THWACKers! Welcome back for week 2 in machine learning (ML). In my last post, Does Data Have Ethics? Data Ethic Issues and Machine Learning, you may have noticed I mentioned "evil" four times, but also mentioned "good" four times. Well, you're in luck. After all that talk about evil and ethics, I want to share with you…