Kurtis Taylor's Blog

5 Things Information Technology Workers Hate About There Jobs

Kurtis Taylor — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 19:14:59 +0000

Let’s face it! Most people can always find good reasons as to why they hate there jobs but does it mean that you should quit your current jobs and find another one. I think not. Leaving one position in information technology to work at another may not solve the problem.

So let’s address 5 of some of the most common things why information technology workers hate about there jobs in order from bad to worst.

Lack of Technology

The lack of technology is probably the least hated in information technology but it is probably one of the annoying things to have deal with on a daily basis. Most businesses have good reasons no to spend additional money on something that appears to be working and is helping the be profitable but most businesses do care to spend money in areas of business that does not directly affect their bottom line and does not necessary generate income traditionally in expensive back-office technologies. So dealing with 7 year old equipment and software and out-right refusal to upgrade is one of those things that can really gets under the IT worker’s skin.

Micro managing

This one can be a deal breaker and result in high employee turnovers for the information technology department but I don’t think this is the thing that IT workers hate most about jobs. Managers that does this type of thing must understand that they are actually doing more harm than good. Allowing the IT guy/gal to take ownership and be responsible for a project, task or managing of equipment, deadlines shows what kind of employee they hired. It allows them to strengthen their short and long term goals, accomplish tasks, and ensure that their employee reviews will be of high consideration for chance at promotion, pay raises, etc.

Working Late Hours

I don’t think anyone including information technology workers like working late hours or staying after hours working on projects that can’t be worked on during business production hours and this maybe why is 3rd thing information technology works hate about there jobs. This maybe an unavoidable sacrifice while in the IT industry. The fact that working alone makes it worst as well and probably makes it not so bad when we are Co-working as a team. It just sucks having to take personal time or time away from friends and family to deal with after hours issues even it pays well. Overall, I think most IT professionals understand that some of the work that we do requires us to work after non-business production hours.

Lack of Professional Knowledge Among the Team

There is nothing worst than working next to an idiot. I am not talking about a person that is unsure about how to do something and take the time to research, ask questions, or even ask for help but rather the individual who knows a whole lot about nothing. Dealing with this on a daily basis is probably second to the worst thing IT people hate about there jobs. In this scenario there happens to be two types of people, one that is under-experience and one that is over-experience and it is that unnecessary conflict between the two that causes a poor work environment among the information technology department. Maybe it’s because the under-experienced feels the need to make a name of themselves in a new position surrounded by new teammates who are not sure of technical skills and feel pressured to take risk to make themselves stand out in management eyes. Maybe it’s because the over-experienced feels that they have keep there eye on anyone within the team who will outsmart them and like to stay in the view of management in order to justify there current job position and there value to the department. Either way it sucks because this type of unprofessional behavior undermines the needs the of the department and beings down the department’s moral. Management often plays on neutral ground when issues like these are brought to them and often the problem is not resolved until one either quits or get terminated from the company.

Lack of Pay

Finally, the 5th worst thing that information technology workers hate about there jobs is the lack of pay. Everyone knows that most corporations do not compensate well on almost any job position especially information technology. And of all of the people who thinks that IT people are paid very well need to do their research. If you consider the amount of time and effort to become an expert in certain information technology field it be the equivalent of going to school for eights years to become a physician and additional time in actual practice. Time and money spent for self study certifications, home-made labs and test environments, college degrees, and internships are extreme and almost always goes un-notice by Human Resources and upper-management in most corporations. It is not uncommon for a Job Recruiter to post a job description that will include $100,000 worth of job history experience, education, and current certifications but will offer a salary of $48,000. In the meantime the average Joe working in information technology must continue spend money and time trying to stay competitive in the job market, increasing their skill-set by returning to schools or self study programs to renew certifications and still maintain there personal finances for themselves and there families as well as maintain the sanity throughout of all of this.

Summary

If you currently work in IT and agree with what I said and you are trying to figure out ways around these hateful things then here are some ideas. Some ideas may include leaving the company or switching departments for a change of management style if the company’s culture is not the problem. Also, if you have the personal and technical skill-set it maybe time for you to become your own boss and start your own business in your specialize field. That way you not have to put up with anyone’s mess except for your own.

If you are currently thinking about entering in the information technology field then take some of these statements to heart to see if your really want to do this kind of work for the long term and not because you like working on computers. The field can be rewarding only if you are willing to give up some if not most of your personal time, learn little about alot in field of IT you choose, continue to climb the corporate latter, demand merit increases and promotions when you think you deserve them.

Blog Site Problems You Maybe Experiencing from PC Bistro.com and Kurtis Taylor.com

Kurtis Taylor — Tue, 15 Sep 2009 17:47:38 +0000

While visiting this site you may experience some problems with links and missing posts. I am sorry for the inconvenience that you have caused you while I am working to restore that site original functionality. What is happening is PC Bistro.com is being merged with Kurtistaylor.com. All the posts that were on PCBistro.com will be 301 redirected to there new locations.

This is all being done to reduce the two website maintenance schedules and redundant information being display between the two blog sites while maximizing the internet presence of the KurtisTaylor.com site.

Also, I am parterning with some people to bring you a more informational and valuable blog site called ComputerAdviceBlog.com. This will allow me to bring some of the same type of information displayed on PC Bistro.com but with more richer content and cleaner blog site.

We together hope to bring the internet a new and different type of blog content that make our readers more happier and knowledgeable about computer information technology so check back soon.

Thank You.

My Movies2 unRaid Server Build and Online Movie Collection Website

Kurtis Taylor — Fri, 24 Jul 2009 02:15:56 +0000

I just completed My Movies2 9.5 terabyte unRaid file server build.

I have all 909 movies ripped, cataloged, and organized to be streamed across my gigabit network and wireless G access points on all my HTPCs, televisions, X-Box, and computers in my house.

There is a great program called My Movies2 that I am using to make this happen. It will download all the dvd cover art, synopsis about each movie, and cast and characters for the movies by barcode information or title name. I like that way it uses SQL 2005 to centralize the database install to a dedicated server and install clients on each computer to use directly with Windows Media Center 2005, Vista, Windows 7 or X-box Media Center. It also will create a small website that will allow to show off your My Movies2 online movie collection to everyone on the web.

unRaid is a small Slackware Linux based operating system that will allow you to turn any PC based computer into a USB driven network attached storage server for storing and streaming your personal media files across the network and protect your data from hard drive failure and power failure. What is also nice about it is even though it is a server which is meant to be powered on 24 hours a day, it is environment freely by introducing power managment functions such powering down of hard drives when not in use, and etc.

I will put up a video soon to show you unRaid running in my house and my latest purchases for my home data center buiild. Let me know what you think!

Steps Illinois Cook County Takes to Decriminalize Drugs

Kurtis Taylor — Wed, 22 Jul 2009 18:58:47 +0000

An all out Cook County Board vote has been put in play to decriminalize marijuana possession of 10grams and under to a misdemeanor charge and $200 fine.

Also, under certain circumstances you will not even have to go to court and just receive a written ticket and sent on your way. Under the current ordinance you could be subjected to criminal misdemeanor or felony convictions depending on scaled weight, including car impound, jail time, fines, and lot of other personal and financial miseries.

Although, I would have like to seen an all out decriminalize of drugs, I think this a small step in the right direction to minimize the use federal, state, and local tax dollars to fight an endless battle of drugs, especially in the case of marijuana. Today’s drugs law simply does not fit the crime.

The Chicago Suntimes wrote about it so check it out!

Only 33% I am not all that bad.

Kurtis Taylor — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 19:08:03 +0000

Created by The Oatmeal

Our latest Home Data Center unRaid Server Build

Kurtis Taylor — Sun, 05 Jul 2009 04:39:19 +0000

We found a must have product for building a file server to store and protect the data in your home. It is called unRaid by Lime Technology and it is based off the Slackware Linux kernel. It is pretty good way to store all of your media content including pictures, movies, and videos at home or small office. It is also a great program because it is scalable to 21 hard drives and redundant because of it use non stripe parity technology in case of hard drive failure. It is equivalent to a RAID 4 configuration but a little different because it does not stripe data across disks like a RAID5 configuration you can install all different size disk unlike other RAID configurations. Also, each disk is directly accessible if the array fails with a drivers you can remove the disk and install it on a Windows computer to read the data from the disk. If one disk fails it can be recovered from parity drives. If two disk fail at the same time you will only lose data on the second drive. It cannot be done with a traditional RAID 5 solution because data is stripe across all disk and disk the parity is broken you will lose data on all disks.

Anyways, what we decided to do was to build a new file server from scratch. Our goals were to shy away from the traditional and expensive hardware RAID configurations and build something that was an alternative to using the Windows Home Server. Also, we wanted to rid ourselves from the use of a backup server, tape drive, and other NAS products because of the type redundancy unRaid provided we feel comfortable about not purchasing an expensive backup solution to re-duplicate add the data we have.

Some of the things need to be address before the build were:

Hardware
Software
License purchases
Configuration settings

Hardware

We choose to use some older parts with some new equipment but the most important parts are new.

New Parts list

Intel Celeron e1400 2.0GB Dual-Core Processor $49.00
Gigabyte GA-EP45-UP3P Motherboard $145.00
2 – 2GB DDR2 1066 Ram $79.00
4 – 1.5TB Seagate Sata II 7200rpm Hard Drives $129.00 each total $516.00
2GB Lexar Firefly USB Thumb Drive $11.99
2 – 120mm Fans $7.99
2 – 80mm Fans $2.99

The processor, motherboard, and thumb drive are all recommended purchase from Lime Technology to insure that there were limited incompatibility problems.

Old Parts List

Ultra 650Watt ATX Power Supply $69.99
4U Norco 450 Rackmount Server Cases $99.99
3 – 500GB Seagate Sata II 7200rpm Hard Drives $99.99 each
1 – 120GB Western Digital Sata I 7200rpm Hard Drives $Free
ATI Radeon x600 Video Card $19.99
1U APC Smart-UPS 1000 Rackmount UPS $Free
5 Port Trendnet 10/100/1000 Switch $29.99
3 -15ft Category 6 Cables $9.99 each

Much of this stuff is from our existing test network and the parts from scrapped computers and the prices represent what the parts cost at the original time of purchase. We also did not include a DVD Drive because it is not needed because the unRaid operating system will is installed and run from the USB thumb drive.

Software

We downloaded the unregistered version and test it out on our hardware and it worked okay. We thought it operated a little slow for the new hardware we have in it but it worked good enough for us to purchase the Pro License key for it.

License Purchase

The decision was made to buy 2 Pro licenses for the unRaid but we got a great deal on it because we found a friend of ours how wanted to build an unRaid server to so we split the bill on the licenses and only paid 75 dollars for it since we only needed one license to support up to 21 drives in which 19 drives are for data, 1 parity drive, and 1 cache drive. If you want to build an unRaid server find someone who want to split the bill with you and get it for cheap! The license is registered to the serial number and GUID of the thumb drive; therefore, you must make sure that have a thumb drive that has a GUID on them.

Configuration Settings

The configuration settings was fairly simple. We were able to find out a lot of the information in Lime Technology’s forum and Wiki pages so we added some features for unRaid called unMenu, Clean Power shutdown, APC UPS management.

We followed the instructions and build the server and we got the shares configured and test some of the speeds and here are some results.

With 120GB SATA 1 drive installed as a cache drive. We was getting network writes speeds of 23MBs.
Took 1.5TB SATA 2 parity offline the array and added as a cache drive and remove the 120GB drive.
Copied files directly to cache share and received transfer rates between 76MBs and 102Mbs on the network writes speeds.
Copied files to the array and received transfer rates between 18Mbs and 20Mbs on the network writes speeds.
Some reason we notice there is no files in the cache drive that was copied to the array. I think the files copied directly to the array and by passed the cached drive. Even though the share has cache enabled. Maybe the moving of the drives without a reboot cause the problem.
Before we rebooted the server we changed the cache back to the 120GB Sata 1 drive and did a speed test copying files directly to the cache share.
Copied files directly to cache share and received transfer rates between 38Mbs and 76Mbs on the network writes speeds.
Rebooted the server.
With 120GB SATA 1 drive still installed as the cache drive I copied files into the array and received transfer rates between 19Mbs and 22Mbs.
We did verify the that files are to the cache drive and not directly into the array.
We believe anytime you take the array offline and moving drives around you should reboot immediately afterward.
We changed cache drive from 120GB Sata drive to 1.5TB and rebooted server and received transfer rates of 20Mbs to 24Mbs.

So we came to the conclusion that the speed are faster when copying files directly to the disk shares than they are when copying files to the array user shares. We really did not test read speeds because we are going to be streaming data and there is not a lot of reads needed for that on a gigabit network.

We copied over 800 movies and 33000 music files, 300GB worth of application software and 2Gb worth of pictures into unRaid and all videos, music and pictures are being streamed them to all our HTPCs in the house and it works great.

Let us know if you are building an unRaid server. We like to know what other people are doing with it.

Egyptians kills pigs over swine flu fears

Kurtis Taylor — Wed, 29 Apr 2009 17:37:13 +0000

You probably think that the lack of intel that the swine flu as nothing to do with pigs would make the Egyptians kill off all of there pigs but I say that they are a heavy Muslim population anyway that does not care for swine meat anyway. I feel very sorry for the farmer who has to get kill off his inventory and the pigs who live there. That is why I could not be Muslim. I LOVE MY PORK Anyway there an article about it. Check it out.

Swine Flu Hit Chicago

Kurtis Taylor — Wed, 29 Apr 2009 12:41:27 +0000

Chicago first official case of the Swine Flue hit the Chicago Nortside area at Kilmer Elementary School. The school was closed until further notice. Fox news just reported it this morning. Apparently the child was report very sick in lunchroom and was sent home. NWI just reported as well.

My Home Data Center Updated

Kurtis Taylor — Wed, 29 Apr 2009 05:20:17 +0000

I posted a quick video on YouTube of my home data center updated, reduced in size, some noise, and heat. Check it out. Let me know what you think.

I am on Twitter Now.

Kurtis Taylor — Mon, 27 Apr 2009 23:42:24 +0000

I am so behind on this social networking thing but I am getting there so check me out sometime.

http://www.twitter.com/kurtistaylor

Kurtis Taylor's Blog

5 Things Information Technology Workers Hate About There Jobs

Other Related Postings

Blog Site Problems You Maybe Experiencing from PC Bistro.com and Kurtis Taylor.com

Other Related Postings

My Movies2 unRaid Server Build and Online Movie Collection Website

Other Related Postings

Steps Illinois Cook County Takes to Decriminalize Drugs

Other Related Postings

Only 33% I am not all that bad.

Other Related Postings

Our latest Home Data Center unRaid Server Build

Other Related Postings

Egyptians kills pigs over swine flu fears

Other Related Postings

Swine Flu Hit Chicago

Other Related Postings

My Home Data Center Updated

Other Related Postings

I am on Twitter Now.

Other Related Postings