The Great 2013 Certification Hunt – a Brief Update

Posted: 21 May 2013 | Author: | Filed under: Tech General | Tags: , , , | 3 Comments

Some of you may remember that I was distracted from my normal routine here by a brief interlude involving some Cisco training back in January of this year.

Well, I managed to pass the course and acquire my CCENT (ICND1) certification. I’ve been on a self-study program for the past couple months with the ultimate goal of passing my ICND2 (CCNA) cert. Unfortunately, the best laid plans and all that…

A glorious spring here in Florida distracted me from my studies during the month of March, so I postponed my examination till the end of May. Sadly, other things have distracted me from my studies since then, so I’m forced to postpone again.

I will endeavor to persevere, as the old Indian said to the outlaw Josey Wales. I just wanted stop in here a minute and write something so that WordPress would not think that I ran off with some sexy native chick to an island in the South Pacific somewhere.

If that does actually happen, I’ll post about it. 😉

Until then…

~Eric

Image credits: Island girl borrowed without permission from Island-Girl-Boutique. Hopefully, they won’t mind too much since I’m giving them credit and free advertising here on my blog that receives 2 bazillion hits a day. 😉

Happy Spring (Northern Hemisphere)!

Posted: 13 March 2013 | Author: | Filed under: Miscellaneous | Tags: , , , , , , | 8 Comments

Yes, it’s been a while since I posted here. I’ve been busy.

I just wanted to stop by for a moment on this beautiful spring day here in Florida, USA to say hello and let all my faithful readers know that I am still breathing. You may remember that I was going to be distracted from writing by my intense study schedule initiated for the purpose of gaining some industry certifications (Cisco, CompTIA, etc.).

Well, the initial study paid off. I’m now Cisco certified (CCENT) with another examination coming in the next few weeks (ICND2/CCNA), so the studies continue. I’m learning all that fun networking stuff about switches, routers, spanning tree protocol, VLANs, etc. FUN! 🙂

Once the Cisco certs are attained, I’ll be brushing up on networking, hardware, and my Linux fundamentals in order to grab the CompTIA Network+, A+, and Linux+ certs. I may, depending on how I feel by then, also pursue a Cisco Security endorsement and a CompTIA Security+.

All this is for my own personal satisfaction, but also to ease me into a new career in networking. I have a hardware and electronics background already, but the jobs are definitely in IT; networking/security, in particular. I’m hoping to break into this sometime very soon.

Wish me luck!

~Eric

Cyber-life Interrupted by Real Life

Posted: 26 December 2012 | Author: | Filed under: Miscellaneous, Tech General | Tags: , , , , | 3 Comments

Hello happy readers, commenters, lurkers, etc.

Beginning very soon, like right away, I’ll be somewhat absent from here. The reason for this is that I’ll be spending most of my waking hours (and some of my sleeping ones) for the next 8 or so weeks studying for my Cisco Certified Network Associate (CCNA) examination.

If all goes well, I well have that coveted industry cert and those spiffy letters after my name sometime in March of 2013; with a good job to follow shortly thereafter, hopefully. 13 is a good number for me; maybe it’ll be a good year, too. We’ll see… 🙂

In the meantime, carry on. Try not to burn the place down while I’m gone.

Later…

~Eric

Who Uses Linux (Revisited)

Posted: 2 August 2011 | Author: | Filed under: Linux | Tags: , , , , , , , , | 5 Comments

Who Uses Linux?

Posted by V. T. Eric Layton on Apr 1, 2010

A lot of folks you never suspected. That’s who.

Yesterday, one of the members at Scot’s Newsletter Forums – Bruno’s All Things Linux, BillD, posted a link to a great list of Linux users. While Linux supposedly only has 1% of the overall market share, some of the folks on that list are movers and shakers in the technology industry. The future should be quite interesting.

Google, Cisco, New York Stock Exchange… even Omaha Steaks! Ummm! That is some yummy dead cow! I can’t chew dead cow currently for this reason, but I can always dream. Besides, their steaks are so tender you can cut them with a spoon. Seriously though, there are some impressive folks on that list.

We’re going to wake up one morning and Linux won’t be just the geek’s favorite operating system. It will be a viable alternate to MS Windows, just as Mac OS and OS X have become over the years. Will that affect how Linux is treated by the pimply-faced crackers and spammers out there currently attacking MS Windows because of its larger user base? I believe that it might. Fortunately, Linux’s innate security will protect it from a lot of the tricks that bedeviled MS Windows.

So, who uses Linux? I do. My brother does. My buddy Mike does. A bunch of folks at the forums I visit do. Many companies and governments around the world do. Why do they use Linux. You’ll just have to ask one of them one day.

Until next time, folks…

~Eric

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This article was originally posted on my Nocturnal Slacker | Lockergnome blog. You can see the original and accompanying comments by clicking HERE.