My name is George and I’ve been in the IT Profession over 15 years. My experience is mostly Windows desktop support in a laboratory environment. I have supported Windows 2000 / 2003 Server in more of a Jr. System Administrator role.
In October 1998 I started the process to earn my MCSE for Windows NT 4.0. The company I worked for at the time provided me a budget for training materials. I invented the funds to purchase McGraw Hill’s / Inc. Syngress Media series for the MCSE, and a complete set of test prep CDs from Transcender.
I spent the next 12 months reading each book, taking the practice exams, and earning my MCSE in October 1999. To help avoid being branded a “paper MCSE”, I had a small lab setup at work to simulate what I was learning. This experience was invaluable in developing my real world experience. I was able to resolve most assigned “tickets” well before the SLA (Service Level Agreement) was reached.
Soon afterwards in 2001, I received a copy of Suse Linux 9.0 from my Service Delivery Manager. I installed all 5 CDs and started to enjoy Linux. But I kept going back to Windows. The options to play games, and familiarity with Windows XP just appealed to me. Over the next few years, I tried different distros of Linux; from Red Hat Linux to Fedora Core, back to Suse 9.3 (which I purchased in 2005), and then to openSuse 11.0 (which I purchased in 2008)..
Currently I am using Apple OS X 10.7 (Lion), Windows 7, Ubuntu 11.10, Linux Mint 12. Over the years my ideas of a perfect computer and OS has changed. Right now I am using Lion for just about everything (except for games, still using Windows 7 for that.) I am using Ubuntu 11.10 to run my VMs of Windows XP for work. However I am thinking about migrating the VMs to the iMac. I’ve been having so much fun with the iMac. If I could change anything about the iMac is adding support for Blu-Ray movies.
