Welcome to my blog. I will discuss various challenges I have come across in my career as a Linux Administrator.

When I was young, just 5 years old, my father sat me down to type in a computer program in old BASIC on a Commodore 64 . We created a children’s game called “Guess My Number”. I really enjoyed this experience and I knew then that I wanted a career in computers.

I took as many computer related classes (mostly programming) as I could throughout middle school and high school. A friend introduced me into computer hardware so i started building custom systems for myself. I also learned to write programs and scripts in many languages including the following:

• BASIC
• Visual Basic
• Pascal
• C
• Bash
• Pearl
• Python
• PHP

Linux was created by Linus Torvalds and released around 1992. In high school, my friends introduced me to Linux. I installed it on my computer. At the time, the Linux installer did not help with partitioning your hard drive (make room for another OS ). Unfortunately, I didn’t realize this either and I was unable to use my computer. I had to wipe out everything and reinstall Windows 3.1.

In college, I was introduced to systems administration with Novell Netware . At that point I decided to change career paths to become a systems administrator. Instead of writing programs, I manage servers and workstations. Then I started taking Unix classes. We were using SCO Unix . These classes gave me the knowledge to manage Unix and Linux systems.

While taking these classes, I decided to give Linux another try. This time I had the knowledge and experience to run both Windows and Linux on the same computer. I kept this setup for a couple of years. Then I decided to drop windows altogether. From then on, I only used Linux on my systems.

Since then I have worked as a Linux administrator for more than 22 years. I have built, managed, and maintained websites for companies, universities, customers, and celebrities. I have setup LAMP systems for family members to share photos. I have even setup a remote access/ VPN solution.

I have created many tools to assist with various duties including the following:

• web-based equipment inventory system
• web-based storage status and alert page
• web-based DB replication and MHA status page

Additionally, I have created many scripts to automate tasks. I have experience with several monitoring systems and created custom monitoring plugins.

In conclusion, I have many years of experience to draw upon and write about.