I.T professionals: need advice lang...

[vilaern]

Hey I.T professionals!

just like to know your opinion with my inquiry......i'm not a graduate of IT course but i'm currently working in an IT company. I just like to ask your advice if i'm going to pursue a course or short courses in IT, where do i begin? i have been fascinated with IT products since i started to work in my office. we have been using UNIX and Citrix for our revenue accounting. Considering a kindergarden student in IT like me, What is UNIX and Citrix? i mean, If i'm going to continue to pursue these products, where do i begin? where can i study these products, what school? is it easy to study IT courses with little knowledge of it?

sometimes, i wish i should have studied an IT course during college if i only knew i can excel in this kind of field. but it's okey, i'll just study somehow and be proficient with such knowledge in IT. My company doesnt give me any training about this. Just had 2 months training about thier revenue accounting product to get employed. luckily, i passed and been using citrix and unix for our work.

mods, if i'm not in the correct forum, you can move it into the designated forum...

thanks again! just having some thoughts about this...just like to know some opinions....hehe

[rayana]

depends on you career path...ano ba gusto mong gawin? or ano ba gusto mo maging trabaho???

[nmtin]

I've seen some courses for Linux Administration and this is close to what you want to achieve. I think Citrix is another Linux Flavor, with built in servers. Check out tipidpc.com, that's were I saw the classes being advertised.

If you want to learn. Create a linux partition on your desktop pc (i suggest mandriva, fedora or ubuntu), then get everything to work (all the devices). when all is well delete your windows partition and you'll be forced to learn linux. From shell scripting to installation.

Being a recent grad, I see a lot of web development using j2ee and asp.net. But being an exceptional admin for linux is hard to find. If ever you become an expert with linux administration, I am sure jobs will easily come your way.

[ILuvDetailing]

If you want a crash course there's always the internet, the great thing about UNIX/Linux is that its open source and you'll find lots of resources out there. Search google and do some reading it will be worth your time.

[vilaern]

thanks for your opinions guys. it helps a lot. question lang, what if i want to start from the beginning, where should i concentrate?

[nmtin]

I started out programming ... then rbanching to scripting, algorithms, database, basic networking and now im wowrking im learning administration. But this is because I was in school. I had the luxury of time to learn all these. It might be diffent in your case

[1D4LV]

depends on you career path...ano ba gusto mong gawin? or ano ba gusto mo maging trabaho???

same advice too bro.
goodluck.

[ian_rex]

i'm not sure where to begin. but fortunately, lahat sila tama. i, like the threadstarter, was having qualms on career path. lucky for me, because i'm a graduate of IT course. recently, i'm about got the job i wanted- database administrator. but i started as a lowly office clerk in a company.

consider this: pursue what you think you will excel. you'll go places.

[delprado]

Since nasa IT ka na rin ngayon at meron ka na rin namang degree, I would recommend you to get a masteral degree (ie. MS in Computer Science) that is related to IT.

[jim]

Baka makatulong lang sa iyo ito. I started as I programmer and hell there were lots of programming languages at nalito ako kung ano gagamitin ko. At last I decided to concentrate more in SQL. Then I had the chance to Administer Servers dahil requirement sa project (di ako nahirapan dito dahil Computer Engineer ako). Napa-isip ako noon kung ano ba yung path na tatahakin ko. So naghanap ako ng IT Profile na merong programming at administration. I ended up being a Database administrator hehehehe..... Try to define your profile para malaman mo kung ano talaga gusto mo.

From what you said you are already using Unix. Unix Administration at Programming (scripts) mataas ang demand at sahod nyan sa ibang bansa. Maraming Unix Resources sa Web and they are free. If you want certification, ask your company to send you to training. Search the web marami kang makikitang trainings at kung saan mo pwedeng kunin ito.

Sa Citrix mukhang ito ang servers ng Sharepoint ninyo (???) Anyway konti lang ang alam kong gumagamit ng Citrix pero dahil konti wala kang gaanong ka-kumpitensya sa job market meaning may advantage ka na di ba?

So much for that, just write down your profile and match that profile to existing IT profiles para di ka na mahirapan. Good luck!!!

[artpogi]

thanks for your opinions guys. it helps a lot. question lang, what if i want to start from the beginning, where should i concentrate?

If you're really interested in Unix, I suggest you start by reading a book on Unix basics. Although there are a lot of Unix variants, their foundation or basics are pretty much the same.

Once you have a complete grasp of how Unix works and starts to understand the structure of a Unix system, you can now move on to more advance areas of Unix like networking or writing scripts or system administration for Unix systems or whatever you want.

Unix is a very powerful and stable OS, I am a Unix convert for about 7 years now and I'm still fascinated by it.

HTH

[the_wildthing]

If you want to switch careers, working towards a bachelor's degree or MS IT is your best bet. A strong foundation is necessary in order to not get lost in ever-changing technology. So you will get the basics from there.

As a hobby or "learn just for fun", the Internet is always available.

[BoyFerrari]

Ang mahirap lang sa trabaho ng Systems Administrator, parati kang ON-CALL. Saka hindi mo gaano ma-express ang creativity mo by administering servers dahil puro legwork na trabaho ito. Typical na trabaho mo:

"Mr. Sysad, nakalimutan ko password ko, paki-reset naman."

"Mr. Sysad, hindi ko ma-access yung directory, permission denied daw."

"Mr. Sysad, hindi ako maka-connect sa network."

"Mr. Sysad, may virus yung PC ko. Help!"

"Mr. Sysad, nag-crash yung server, pumunta ka sa opis ngayon na!" (it's 3 AM)


After a few months, nakaka-bored saka nakaka-tiring.

Unlike if you are a programmer. You can even do your work at home and unleash your creative style. Maganda rin ang Systems Analyst kasi you can design software according to your customer's needs. Or maybe Project Manager.

Sysad lang ang ayokong trabaho sa IT saka yung mga network engineer na gumagapang sa kisame to layout networking cables.

[hotwheels]

Try to email my son at mark.domingo*gmail.com. He maybe able to help you, he is very much familiar to Linux.

[mrpink]

inutusan ako ng boss ko dati na edit yung isang unix file .. so nag-vi ako at nag-edit .. nung natapos ako bigla ako ginawang unix admin .. kahit wala akong alam sa administration .. if you're interested .. just buy yung pinaka-basic unix book .. yung nabibili sa national bookstore na black book .. less than P200 .. walang siyang kwenta if you're advanced na .. but kung for appreciation lang, i found it quite usefull ..

[artpogi]

Ang mahirap lang sa trabaho ng Systems Administrator, parati kang ON-CALL. Saka hindi mo gaano ma-express ang creativity mo by administering servers dahil puro legwork na trabaho ito. Typical na trabaho mo:

"Mr. Sysad, nakalimutan ko password ko, paki-reset naman."

"Mr. Sysad, hindi ko ma-access yung directory, permission denied daw."

"Mr. Sysad, hindi ako maka-connect sa network."

"Mr. Sysad, may virus yung PC ko. Help!"

"Mr. Sysad, nag-crash yung server, pumunta ka sa opis ngayon na!" (it's 3 AM)


After a few months, nakaka-bored saka nakaka-tiring.

Unlike if you are a programmer. You can even do your work at home and unleash your creative style. Maganda rin ang Systems Analyst kasi you can design software according to your customer's needs. Or maybe Project Manager.

Sysad lang ang ayokong trabaho sa IT saka yung mga network engineer na gumagapang sa kisame to layout networking cables.

I can relate to this, but ang pinaka-ayaw ko sa lahat is the dreaded user ID10T error

[Hibiki]

hi, Citrix is a name of a company that became popular with Terminal Services, Remote Access controls, etc. The most popular product that they have to date is Citrix Metaframe XP. IMO, you don't need to specialize in their products. Not many companies use them. And, if one does use them, normally they wouldn't hire someone to use Citrix.

UNIX was the most popular choice a decade ago. Then came linux. Linux is a product of UNIX experts. It has a lot of flavors (Linux flavors). The commercial flavors are Red Hat, SUSE, Turbo, Asianux, S390, Miracle/RedFlag. Independent flavors are also numerous. CentOS, Fedora, Debian, etc. etc.

If you already started in UNIX (most likely Linux), you can continue with this. In my opinion, Formal University/College education on IT is ok but not required. Short quality courses will do. You can check Meralco Foundation for local training which is cheap. I heard that the quality of training is really at par with International centers. They are in partnership with IBM and CIsco i believe. I wouldn't recommend commercial training centers becuase they are really expensive. Try googling Meralco Foundation.

Once you got formal training, the next logical step is Certification. Why? If you don't have a certification, you will have a hard time competing for jobs. The first thing that big companies check is the type and number of Certs that you have. There are two options: 1. Vendor Independent Cert---meaning your linux skills is general linux systems and network administration. You can check http://www.lpi.org for example. You can pursue LPIC-1, LPIC-2, and LPIC-3 (once it becomes available). 2. Vendor Specific Cert--- meaning you will specialize in one flavor. For example, if you choose Red Hat. You can eye RHCE, RHCT, RHCA/Enterprise Architect. Check the Redhat website for information on certs.

IMO, vendor independent cert is the right choice. The exams are cheaper $100 each for LPI -- 2 exams per cert. To know more about IT Certifications, google it. :-)

[vilaern]

hi guys!!! just read all your comments and advises, thanks a lot guys! all your inputs are really informative and very helpful....i'm having a great thought for continuing Linux coz at least, i have little background of it and it's a bit fun for now....