Do IT: Introduction to the Information Technology Industry

Information Technology, IT, is one of the most dynamic, varied and interesting career choices available today. IT is about much more than simply “working with computers”. IT is a career in “change management.” Everything about the IT industry involves constant change making every day hold the potential for something new and exciting. The industry is young – constantly evolving and reinventing itself.

IT offers a variety of career options ranging from the “hands on” paths including deskside support and server technician, customer service related tasks such as operations and help desk, technical support roles like network and systems administration, engineering positions like network and system engineering, software developing roles from web applications to system programming, creative roles like web design, etc. IT is generally highly technical while being infused with opportunities for social interactions and a high degree of creativity and critical thinking.

Because of the incredible variety that exists in the IT field it creates possibilities for working in a wide range of tasks that allow for career growth and advancement while avoiding boredom and stagnation. IT is an ideal career path for people who want to constantly strive to better themselves and are highly self motivated. IT is an extremely large field unto itself and is involved with all other industries which creates unique, blended, industry specific IT career paths in addition to pure IT disciplines widening the field even further. Popular specific blended IT career paths include hospital and medical care, IT management, financial and banking, security, government, sales and marketing, engineering and CAD, etc.

Information Technology is exciting and diverse. It is a growing field offering new jobs year after year. Currently there is a global need for qualified IT professionals and in the United States there is a significant shortage of candidates. IT offers opportunities through technical and management paths and many long term career goals. IT provides variety and endless challenge. IT, through its nature state of constant change, makes for continuing excitement.

More articles on the IT industry coming soon.

April 1, 2007: Trodain Castle

Dominica was up long before me this morning for a change. I slept in as I continue to attempt to catch up on missing sleep. It is cold in Newark again today. Not real cold. Not snow cold. But not warm like it has been.

This morning I took the opportunity to actually sit down and play a few hours of Dragon Quest VIII that I was unable to do yesterday. I put in maybe three hours. That was really nice to get to finally play that again. I was able to play enough that I was able to advance the story through the next “section” if you can call them that. I am now done with the first time through Trodain Castle which is considered one of the “dungeons”. I am still loving the game even now that I am about thirty-four hours into it. Dominica spent most of the time that I played watching from the futon. The game is so much like a movie that it can be quite addicting to watch as well. Although I tend to be really thorough when exploring the open spaces and it makes watching me play a lot more boring than when many other people play. The story tends to drag a bit as I make sure that I am not missing anything. But I like the slower gameplay. It is more relaxing and you get more game for your money. It also gives me a chance to enjoy the scenery and the score.

This afternoon Dominica, Oreo and I drove out west to go to Macy’s and to get dinner at Desert Moon Cafe. They have the best burritos of any chain that I know. The double stuffed tofu burrito con queso is hawesome. After that we hit Cold Stone Creamery next door for dessert.

This evening ended up being a little busy. I got paged out and had to work for about an hour supporting users in Tokyo. I almost never get a chance to support Asia. Most of my time is spent working with Europe so that was a nice change. Makes my job sound more exciting at least.

My new SSL-Explorer product that I got set up and working earlier this week died on me tonight. I have no idea what is wrong with that. I put some time in trying to fix that but eventually gave up. A new version of the software came out this weekend and I am just going to attempt to install that tomorrow when I have some actual time to work on it. The 3SP website that hosts SSL-Explorer had technical difficulties tonight so I couldn’t do the upgrade right away or else I would have tried that.

Both Dominica and I had homework due this evening so we both spent several hours working on getting that ready for submission. I am working really hard to keep up with the class and not turn in anything late. As long as I keep up it isn’t too much work at all. But it is hard to stick with it every day. Dominica is enjoying her Systems Analysis and Design class. I think that it is really giving her a better feel for more hard-core IT industry stuff.

I ended up working on SSL-Explorer and doing video compression and uploading until almost two in the morning. Friday is Good Friday and a bank holiday so I only have a four day week this week! Yay.

SGL Vlog: Newark’s 2007 St. Patrick Day Parade

Download the SGL Vlog of the 2007 Newark, NJ Saint Patrick’s Day Parade in Xvid (Recommended)
Download the SGL Vlog of the 2007 Newark, NJ Saint Patrick’s Day Parade in WMV
Download the SGL Vlog of the 2007 Newark, NJ Saint Patrick’s Day Parade in iPod MP4
Stream the SGL Vlog of the 2007 Newark, NJ Saint Patrick’s Day Parade in WMV

I got a chance to shoot this video right down on the corner of Broad Street and Raymond Boulevard at Military Park. I heard the sound of bagpipes coming through the window and so I grabbed the Canon Elura 60 and ran down as fast as I could. I managed to record the bulk of the parade. The sound isn’t so good. It is very difficult to record in high wind with a camcorder.

The parade took place on the Sunday after St. Patrick’s Day and the route headed southward on Broad Street.  Because the streets were roped off I was able to stand in the Broad – Raymond intersection to film the parade.  It was a short parade and I didn’t manage to get it all due to poor camera skills but what I did manage to get appears to have turned out relatively well.

March 31, 2007: First Day Off in a Long Time

I slept for almost twelve hours last night! That was awesome. So far this week I had managed to lose two and a half nights of sleep (only got one hour on Monday, only three hours on Tuesday, full night on Wednesday and didn’t go to bed at all on Thursday so -7 + – 5 + -8 = -20 hours) so I really needed to do some catching up badly. I felt much better when I work up around nine thirty this morning.

After I got up and showered Dominica and I walked over to Food for Life for our usual Saturday morning breakfast. As always we were struggling to get there before they were done serving breakfast. It is always hard to get moving on Saturday morning.

Dominica spent the day working on her homework for her Systems Analysis and Design class. My goal for the day was to play Dragon Quest VIII. But with all of the phone calls and other stuff that I needed to do today my “full day” of DQ8 was only about forty-five minutes of actual game time. Not exactly what we called a full day of video gaming when I was a kid. That isn’t even enough time to get into the game or anything. This was the first chance that I have had to even turn on the PS2 in over a month, I believe. It is amazing how time slips away from you like that.

At five we had to start getting ready to go out this evening. We left Newark a little after six and took Oreo in the BMW down to Princeton for a house warming party. We had no problem finding the place. It is handy that we used to live down in North Brunswick because that six months there gave us a really good feel for the entire area and now between Dominica working north of Newark and me working out in Warren and living in Newark we have gotten a pretty good idea of all of Northern Jersey. There isn’t that much of the state that we don’t know at this point north of Route 1. South of Route 1 we only know the Jersey Shore area but we have been all the way down to Atlantic City and Wildwood.

We had a really good time at the party and hung out until a little before midnight. We couldn’t stay up late partying, though, because Dominica has a lot of homework that she has to work on tomorrow and she needs her sleep. Oreo had a good time just hanging out in the car. He was very happy that he got the chance to ride along instead of being stuck at home all of that time.

March 30, 2007: Exhausted

I was on the road leaving Newark by a quarter after five last night and found myself immediately in rush hour traffic. I lost an hour right off the bat as I fought my way through pointlessly slow New York City rush hour. I was in stop and go traffic all the way into Pennsylvania. That put a huge damper onto my trip. It really set me back a lot. It took me over an hour just to get to the point that I would have been had I left from the office instead of from home!

It ended up taking me a full six hours or a little more to get from Newark to Pittsburgh. It would have taken much less had I just beaten rush hour. Lesson learned on that one. What a sinking feeling that gave me knowing that I had pretty much lost my window for having any level of convenience whatsoever.

It wasn’t long before midnight when I arrived in Oakland. The work ended up taking about two hours due to one of the computers had some major issues even just starting up. I think that we might have lost an entire hour just waiting for the one computer to fully start up! That was another huge waste of time. Had that computer been working normally at all the entire “fix” time would have been way under an hour. Maybe under forty-five minutes.

It was a quarter till two in the morning when I got onto the road in Pittsburgh to return to New Jersey. The first part of the drive wasn’t bad at all. I wasn’t really all that tired until around four in the morning. Then it caught up with me and I was really, really tired. It was a major struggle to get myself back to New Jersey.

To make matters worse when I got around Allentown, PA I was, once again, stuck in rush hour traffic. I managed to hit rush hour both coming and going. Rush hour on Rt. 78 ended up costing me another hour (about three and a half total hours lost during the trip!) So I ended up driving straight to the office instead of going home. Attempting to get an hour of sleep this morning seems to be pointless so being at work is more useful. So that is where I headed.

I arrived at the office in Warren at a quarter until six in the morning. I had a duffel bag with me prepped with a change of clothes just in case I needed them this morning. It is a good thing that I brought them – the clothes than I had been wearing smell like the autoclave dock! I discovered that my badge has been deactivated at the office because today is my one year anniversary.

It is really hard to believe that I have been on a single contract for an entire year! That is just crazy. This has to be the longest contract that I have ever worked. I have hardly ever worked anywhere for a whole year!

I am super wrinkly guy today. I got stuck wearing my emergency backup clothes that I had in the car with me last night. I hadn’t been planning on actually wearing them and it is a little embarrassing. I need to have a travel bag that is packed and ready to go at all times for emergencies like this.

Everything is soar today after being in the car for twelve hours and seven hundred and twenty miles. I can’t wait to go home and crash into bed. I am going to sleep for a really long time.

The house was supposed to close today but we haven’t heard anything yet so it isn’t looking very good. Not a good sign. We haven’t heard anything at all even after calling our attorney to get a status update. It would appear that they have not been able to get a response from the buyer. 🙁 I just wish that this would be over and done with. I definitely don’t want it to drag out for any amount of time. The house is all cleaned out and taken care of. No reason to hold onto it at all anymore. And now we need to deal with another month of mortgage and homeowner’s fees that we had hoped to have finished with in March.

Time actually flew by this morning at work. It was well after ten before I even knew. Almost four hours into my day already! That is my favourite thing about coming in so early – the morning just whizzes right by and I don’t even notice. When I come in later the day seems to crawl along.

Dominica and I had hoped to be able to go to Ithaca this weekend to see the Ithaca High School production of Beauty and the Beast but with last night’s emergency and with us not going to Rochester this weekend we aren’t able to go. Tomorrow Dominica and I have a housewarming with the guys from the office. Other than that I plan to sleep a lot this weekend. I have a lot of catching up to do and I do not want to drive up to Ithaca – that would be six more hours of driving or more. I can’t even think about that now. Ugh.

There is more news on the Pet Food front: Federal Officials are claiming to have found fertilizer in the wheat gluten in Menu Foods’ dog and cat food. This is in opposition to New York’s finding that the product was rat poison. What are the chances that there are different contaminates in different regions? The FDA has reported over 8,000 complaints so far about the pet food.

Even as tired as I was today I managed to get online and to keep up with my class at RIT. It isn’t too much work as long as I don’t let myself fall behind. I just have to make sure to do a little every day and it works out pretty well.

Dad went over to Geneseo today to oversee the carpet cleaning process. This is the final step in getting the house ready. Now if someone will just buy it we will be all set. 🙁

The morning flew by but the afternoon started to drag on pretty dramatically. I got my third wind but it didn’t help much. I nursed a Rock*Star Energy drink all day (after having had a Venti Starbucks coffee and a Rock*Star while driving) to try to keep the caffeine at an even keel.

During my drive last night I managed to listen to several more hours of the book “Brave New World” which is not exactly riveting stuff but it is an important book and I am enjoying getting a chance to read it. BNW is a socio-political commentary on the potential horrors of a Utopian society of the future through the eyes of 1932 United Kingdom. The title is taken from The Tempest in a speech by Miranda which is quoted by one of the key characters in the book:

“O wonder!
How many goodly creatures are there here!
How beautious mankind is!
O brave new world
That has such people in’t!”
After they finished steam cleaning the carpets in Geneseo dad took some pictures that I posted up on Flickr so that we will be able to remember a little more what the house looked like. It is really hard to believe that our house isn’t going to be our house anymore. It was such a great house. We loved that house. And now it is so clean!
Having been so tired I forgot to eat today. I forgot about breakfast (technically I had a cheese danish as half past two this morning when I stopped at StarBucks for some coffee) and missed lunch. I might end up being too tired to eat dinner. We will see. Maybe I will get a burst of vitality when I get home just because I am home. Sometimes that happens. But most likely I will just fall asleep and be out for the night.
 
By a little after three I was just about dead in my cubicle.  That is when it really hit me.  I was SO tired.  It was all that I could do just to keep my eyes open at work.
 
I escaped the office around half past four and wasn’t feeling too bad when I left.  I will have to work from home for a little while this evening before I can get any rest, though.  🙁