Lifergeek.com

Hey everyone,

My name is Pete.  My interests are varied and specific all at the same time.  They range from Computers, Networking, Cars, Sci-Fi movies, Sci-Fi TV Shows, Music, Videography, Photography, and well anything else that needs MORE POWER.

In a few words I would best describe myself as “A jack of all trades, and a master of some.” I have done jobs from video rental retail, steamfitter (commercial fire sprinklers) apprentice, senior repair tech, warehouse logistics manager, to an IT systems integration engineer.

I have been into electronics and computers since the commodore 64 was the hot thing.  I have been taking PC’s apart and putting them together for about 18 years now.  Over the years I have worked in the IT field for tech repair shops, data centers, and currently for an IT systems integration company.  With a company like the one I work for I was able to start out in the cabling department.  I learned the industry cable color codes (or here) and how to properly terminate everything from a 1 pair cross connect to a 300pair feed run.  After that department I went into the PBX /VOIP phone department.  There I was able to learn the inner workings of a few major phone systems. This included Inter-Tel, Mitel, NEC, and of course Cisco.  My next and current step in the company is the IT department. My core role in the IT Team has evolved from a general tech, into a more well rounded tech with having a few specializations.  These specializations are a VMware practice manager, disaster recovery specialist, storage specialist (NetApp as a core vendor), backup and recovery specialist (Symantec focused), and finally IT systems integration engineer.

Well enough about the tech stuff. I will do my best to get my 2c about new tech and stuff that is coming out when I can, but about 7 weeks ago I have the first addition to my family. This makes writing tech articles a bit lower on “the list”.  I am sure that anyone with kids, or younger cousins, or siblings can understand.   This first article was solely typed out on my work blackberry (except the insert of the HTML links) on the train to and from the city when I wasn’t passed out sleeping.

I hope to be writing an article on virtualization, including server and workstation environments.  Any comments, questions, or suggestions for topics please you can e-mail me here pete at lifergeek dot com.

Best Regards,

Pete

From as long as I can remember, there has always been a drive in my life and it typically has been tech related. As a kid, my Uncle Donald took me into a room in his house and showed me his brand new TRS-80. He sat me down with a book on BASIC and off I went. Every time after, I asked to play with the computer when we visited almost weekly.

I moved on to my own computer, a C-64 as some would remember was popular at the time and I had begged my parents for months for one. Christmas that year was filled with joy for me, but was the beginning of the conternation of my parents as I would dissappear for hours on end.

Computers were not my only love. I was always interested in gadget, be it a blinky light or a cool device with lots of functions. My first pocket knife was something I played with alot, always finding a use for it. Today it’s a Leatherman but the idea is the same. It’s always to have the right tool for the job, but sometimes you just have to make it work, enter a knife/pliers/cork screw/screwdriver/saw like device, and you have the makings of a working project. MacGyver was in my list of favoriate shows growing up.

Wires never daunted me. Give me a spool of wire, a few siwtches, a battery and a few lights and I would sit for hours. So when it came to performing surgery on my new floppy disk drive to add a fan or cut a jumper, I was on it.

Computers have changed alot since then, and I went from playing with Basic on a C-64 to building Unix servers with barely a thought. I’ve worked in the tech sector for over 14 years now and it has been the one illicit love of my life as any girlfriend, ex-wife or current wife can attest to. Herein enters this blog. I wanted to create a place where I could comment and show off all the goodness I manage to find and do.

Now I’m a little more three dimentional than just a tech guy. I’m a geek at heart, but I also enjoy many other things (although many are ‘geek’ related). I run the consoles track at a convention Ubercon.com. I try to may my way to at least 3 conventions a year. I’m a amature digital photography buff along with a dash of video. Collecting comics was a long love only to be replaced by the digial alternative offered by Marvel. And in the past few years I’ve been budding a love for food and BBQ.

So, take a moment and tag me on twitter at @TDP4 to let me know you found me. Otherwise, sit back, read a little or just add me to your RSS reader and I’ll do my best to show you come cool things. Well, at least I think they are.