First off, I’m just a normal guy. Despite what a minority of people who know me think, I’m not the dude you may meet occasionally that understands absolutely everything about every aspect of information technology in excruciating detail, and I don’t pretend to be.  What I am, however, is never satisfied with how much I know. Right now I feel about like your average public swimming pool.  Fairly deep in parts, shallow in others, sufficient surface area but nothing too special. My goal, if it’s even possible, is to become an ocean, or at least a sizable lake, which is pretty much why I decided to experiment with this blog.

The idea here is that I can spew forth bits and pieces that I’m already familiar with for a refresher, for the benefit of those who may need a primer, and also to also get any feedback I can from the masses to fill in the gaps.  I can also write about things that I’m relatively new to, in order to cement them and deepen my understanding. The third goal I currently have is to make this a journal of sorts, to chronicle the things I do regarding my professional career in hopes that my experiences may help others.  They may read about something I’ve done, maybe a class I took or a convention I went to, and say, “hey, that sucks, I guess DON’T want to do that after all”, but at least I’ve been useful .

I may also write about various problems I come across.  I find myself running into walls where web searches are no longer helpful, where problems are unique and obscure.  More often than not, if I have an issue that I don’t understand and DO find someone else online with the same problem, that thread either has no responses or ends abruptly with no solution.  I’ve never been one to start such threads, I don’t have the patience to wait for someone else to help me, and I find it vastly more helpful to dig in and understand how the thing I’m having an issue with works rather than focusing on the tip of the iceberg.  So my hope here is that I may actually write some things that are relatively unique and that the next guy will have more than I did when they do a search for their issues.

One last thing, I tend to explain things from a conceptual approach, which is how I personally learn and troubleshoot.  Too often I find short How To articles that simply list a bunch of commands or steps without explaining how the whole thing works. My approach is to take a broader angle, explain the concepts, and then if the thing doesn’t work quite right you might have a better idea of which component is failing, be able to substitute your preferred alternatives, or find more up-to-date information about setting up various services.  I’ve used my fair share of ‘install this’, ‘edit that’ instructional documents, and while they’re definitely helpful, they narrow your options and can also expire fairly quickly.

At any rate, if you’re reading this please know that I’m glad you’re here, and I hope that together we can keep the site constructive and productive for us all.

Marcus Sorensen (a.k.a. admin)