As an interesting way to get to know the JDL Technologies team better, we thought that sharing about everyone's first piece of technology and how it spurred a career in technology.

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My introduction to computers was the same as so many others, games!

I wanted better games than what I had on my Atari, so my father purchased me a pretty expensive Packard Bell, I think it was a 386 of some kind. I ended up with dozens and dozens of games on 5 1/4" disks, and dialed into bulletin board systems, and got very little sleep! The PC went into my bedroom, and ever since I have been the "computer nerd" of the family!

With no formal education in computers at the time, just some experience on my home PC, at each job I had I ended up the "computer guy" even though I wasn't hired for something else. I eventually landed my first "computer job" as a Field Technician, got my first certification (the A+!), and a few jobs later here I am, almost 10 years with JDL Technologies!

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My first run in with technology was back in the 6^th Grade, my teacher turned me on to computers with the game Jeopardy.  During the open house event he mentioned to my mom that he saw a lot of interest in me with computers and that they should consider getting me a PC.  With his help, my parents ran to Radio Shack and purchased me a Tandy 2000 8mhz with 256k RAM expandable to 768k (oooooooooooohhhh…….. aaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhh).  I spenty a lot of time dabbling with the new PC, quickly picking up on copy commands, etc… but my PC became obsolete pretty quick, no one wrote software for the 80186 which carried Microsoft’s True MS-DOS. So, I put the PC down and picked up a bat and glove and pursued baseball as a hobby and career.  After some college and Minor League ball, corporate America gobbled me up and after a short stint in sales I found myself back in technology.  I initially started volunteering my time to the IT department after hours for an Ocean Freight carrier I worked for and decided to join one of the techs in a MCSE NT4 cert class, which taught me nothing but how to pass the exam. However, with the cert, some OJT and a little luck I landed a nice job with EDS for the Norwegian Cruise Line account and quickly worked my way through the ranks soaking up all the knowledge and experience that got in my way, acquiring certs from Microsoft to Cisco to SonicWall.  Later, I began designing Active Directory environments, project managing  and the deeper I got into to technology the more I enjoyed it.  Moving into the Management side of things I still always found a way to stay up to date on my technical skills and made sure I was not missing a beat.  Today I can proudly say “Thank You Technology.” It’s been a fun, educational and rewarding ride, one I plan to stay on for many, many years.

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During my 26 year technology career, I have seen and touched just about every major technology and technology advancement. My first technology was selling the old mobile/radio telephone technology when only really, really rich people had car phones and we were all held hostage by the Bell Operating Companies.

Today, we are virtual and living and working in the cloud! WOW!!

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My first technology…

I used to hate this question because at one time, I was a young man in IT.  I somehow felt inadequate when someone would start a discussion like this and invariably there would be someone in the group that would bring up how they remembered working with punch cards.  They would have story upon story about how they would spend hours loading them into the systems or cleaning up all the “chads”.  Then someone else would chime in to one up them because you can’t have that conversation without someone remembering how they tripped while walking over to the loader and spilled their cards everywhere and had to spend hours putting them back in the proper order.   It made me feel somehow less of a man that I missed that era and that my beginnings were more modern while at the same time more humble. 

Now, I am a bit older though still in IT.  While I am certainly not the oldest out there and those punch card guys still exist, I find myself more and more in the position of being able to one up those around me because I got my start in the 80’s when Commodore made the first real entries into home computing with their Commodore Vic 20.  I was one of those lucky few with a progressive parent that understood that computers were going to be something some day and who wanted in on the ground floor.  I fondly remember my first forays into programing in basic and saving my rudimentary programs to a 5 ¼ inch floppy disk.  I also remember those first games which were like crack to a young teen!  I followed the progression from the Vic 20 to the 64 to the (at the time) pen ultimate Commodore 128.  I was one of the only students in my class who could write his papers at home without a typewriter.  I also learned that the early spellcheckers were very bad and should NEVER have allowed me to use the “add to dictionary” function! 

After high school, my computer days remained somewhat stagnant.  I used that 64 throughout college and then took a hiatus from the computer revolution until I went back to college again in the mid 90’s when I was introduced to the x386 architecture and THE INTERNET!  My then fiancé and I spent hours on multiple BBS’ living alternate cyber lives in a world of text and mental imagery.  Even then, I didn’t realize that computers would be where my future lay. 

I graduated from college with a degree in Theatre Management (insert snickering here) and took a job as the Box Office Manager for an opera company in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.  There my first job was to convert them from a hard copy paper based system to a computerized Unix based professional ticketing system.  That was when my life came to a professional fork.  I found that Unix just made sense to me.  I would write scripts for everything in attempts to make my life easier.  Everything from number crunching to torturing co-workers, the computer became my tool of choice.  With that self-realization I went back to school and earned a Masters in Information Systems and took a job as a Unix Systems Administrator.  That was 15 years ago.  Since then I have gone from systems administration to programming to consulting.  I have worked with Windows, AIX, HP-UX, Solaris, Linux, MVS and OS 400. I have been a lackey and a leader, but the consistent theme has been the computer.  Now, I find myself the VP & GM for an engineering based IT consulting company and I couldn’t be happier.

So, next time you find yourself in a crowd of geeks and think that your first experience is not as significant as theirs, hang in there.  In the not too distant future a group just like the ones I find myself in will be talking about how when they first got started they had to do all their work on a “Smart Phone” (snickers from those around them).

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My technology interest started late in life. I was 19 years old at the time when I saw an ad in the local paper for A+ certification classes. A friend and I decided to take the week long (boot camp) class. The class really did not teach me much, but for some reason the questions it created led me on my journey to learn whatever I could about different types of technology. The first thing I did after the week long class was to purchase my first computer. It was slow AMD Duron 533mhz Compaq computer running Windows Millennium. I did not know it at the time but this was the perfect operating system to practice on because it always crashed. My journey has given me many insights into various organizations' technology. I have had the pleasure on working with technology in banking, health care, hospitality, nonprofit, insurance, legal, and real estate sectors.

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My 1^st technology was the Apple IIc computer.

I used it primarily for games. My favorite was Where in the World is Carmen San Diego? Later, I progressed to word processing through high school and various college degrees. Now, I’m working at a technology services company in communications where I dabble in html, manage the website, and blog on the side as a hobby.

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The Inside IT Scoop has previously discussed technology topics and trends with posts and Q & As from industry experts here at JDL. However, it's time to get to the heart of the issue.

How can we help you reduce your burden, allow more focus on your business, and most importantly make you look good?

Like many others in the IT profession, we can guess that you face budget cuts, staff reduction and very limited resources. In fact, many IT Directors admit that supporting their IT departments and business necessary applications does not allow for time away from work with the now common 24/7 work week, an uninterrupted date night, or an unplugged vacation.

We hear time and time again that there isn't enough time to:

• Fight the daily IT fires needing to be on-site
• Keep patches up to date
• Maintain inventory of IT hardware, software & systems
• Monitor anti-virus and other security alerts

Do you face these challenges? Are there others that we failed to include?

Please comment and join in the IT discussion.

This conversation may be the first step in creating a customized IT solution for you, your IT team, and business.

Check out JDL's Managed Services explained.

Stay in touch by following JDL Technologies on Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and LinkedIn.

Enabling Education through Technology

Whether an individual school or an entire school district's IT department requires assistance in keeping up with the newest innovations in educational technologies, increasing the reliability and security of its network and applications, or managing the mobility explosion, JDL Technologies' team has a successful track record of enabling education through technology.

JDL Technologies' Track Record in Education:

• Designed and integrated wired networks for one of the largest school districts in the country

• Implemented a wireless deployment with over 9,000 access points across 250 locations

• Manages a NOC with nearly 300 remote locations measuring and monitoring wired, wireless and application usage

• Over 15 years of success with managed services, virtualization, and network infrastructure in education. (See educational case studies below.)

With over 200 campuses and more than a 100,000 computers, laptops and network devices in JDL's integrated community, it is clear that technology is not only a crucial element in enabling businesses, but also in the teching and learning process. Through the management, monitoring and maintenance of some of the largest school districts across the country, JDL Technologies leads the pack in creating and managing customized IT solutions for school districts.

  Read JDL Technologies' Educational Case Study

  Read JDL's success story about The King's Academy

Eating, breathing, and living technology may be a large component of the JDL Technologies team. However, as you can see from our team page, each member does get away from technology now and again to enjoy cooking, playing guitar, boating, diving, jewelry making and spending time with loved ones.

Additionally, as part of JDL's commitment to the community, the team participates in various organizations throughout the South Florida region. As a finale of 2011, JDL Technologies would like to highlight two impressive non-IT stories:

JDL Technologies Participated in LifeNet4Families' Corporate Day of Caring throughout 2011

JDL Technologies Joined Forces with the Broward Education Foundation to provide the Gold Opportunity Scholarship

JDL Technologies wishes its community: clients, partners, and team members a wonderful New Year's celebration and a happy, healthy, and prosperous 2012!

Follow JDL's news, services, events, and team through 2012 on:

Facebook

Twitter

Google+

Linkedin

YouTube

Get Inside the IT Scoop with an interview with one of JDL Technologies' engineers. Here's a Q&A with Shane Kleinert, Solutions Architect specializing in Virtualization....

1)  Many people are mystified by the word Virtualization, how do you describe what you do?

I’m a Solutions Architect, specializing in Virtualization solutions.  In short, I increase IT efficiency, enabling the business to be more agile.  This is all made possible with the magical power of Virtualization.  Now, this doesn’t mean we have a Harry Potter wand, which we wave and magically your solution appears. Although, it would be cool! The truth be told, a lot goes into designing a virtualization solution. For those of you reading this and haven’t had a chance to discover this magical power, I’ll give you a fairly quick definition –

Virtualization =  abstracting the software from the physical hardware.

In a longer version, think about it like this:

Physical servers and/or desktops, which don’t have any sort of virtualization, are tightly intertwined with the software operating system. We call this being installed on bare metal hardware.  You will notice this if you’ve ever tried to clone one physical machine to a completely different set of hardware. You will end up with one of those famous BLUE screens! That’s due to the hardware platforms being different. A thin layer called a hypervisor sits between these two layers enabling abstraction by providing a common hardware platform across multiple sets of hardware. This allows for portability, which moves your workload across different virtualization platforms. Essentially, we are taking the entire workload and putting it in a bubble. This concept applies for both Server and Desktops.

Virtualization has its different forms: Application, Desktop, Server, and Storage. At JDL, we focus on all of those forms, and work with a few different partners enabling us to have an agnostic approach when determining a solution set. As a Solutions Architect, my goal is to understand all of the business requirements and design best solution for the business.  

2)  What common mistakes do you find with business owners’ concepts of Virtualization?

A lot of business owners think that virtualization is a silver bullet. Stick the workload in a VM and you’re good to go! It’s a lot more than that.

Careful planning is required when architecting a virtualization solution. Whether desktops or servers, capacity planning and environment assessments need to be done to determine the workload performance metrics over time, which will enable realistic planning. This way, engineers can make data driven decisions when architecting a solution.

3)  How does Virtualization make an impact from day one in a business?

If designed correctly, all forms of Virtualization will increase productivity by enabling a fluid working environment. Both IT and the business benefit from the increased productivity and flexibility. IT sees increased productivity by leveraging its dynamic infrastructure and end users; while, the business has increased productivity by enabling a work from anywhere workforce. With the right technology implemented your workforce can access their business critical applications from any location ensuring they have the same user experience both at work and remotely from any device! JDL has a core focus on enabling the virtual workforce.

4) Living IT on a daily basis as a profession and interest, what are the top 3 trending topics in Virtualization?

I would have to say the top three trending topics in the area of Virtualization are:

Desktop Virtualization more than just VDI

Cloud

Discussions around Post PC

Additionally, here are a few websites to get the latest industry news:

www.brianmadden.com   

www.dabcc.com

www.virtualization.info

Twitter is a great resource as well.

5) If you could have a super hero power what would it be..?

I would want the power to teleport!  Beam me up Scotty!  

Get the Inside IT Scoop with JDL Technologies' Network Services Engineer, Jose Gonzalez:

1) Many people are mystified by networking, how do you describe what you do?
Wireless in itself is mystifying, you expect to work, but can't see it.  When it doesn't work right, you can't see why.  JDL can see why with our in depth training and equipment all of our engineers have to view the radio frequency (RF) spectrum.  We design, and plan the optimum wireless deployment for the business to integrate with other wired technologies.  In addition we evaluate vendor products, security testing, and so on.  
  
2) What common mistakes do you find with business owners’ concepts of networking?

IT administrators incorrectly assume that they can string together Enterprise Wireless solutions by purchasing off the store shelf equipment.

3) How does Network Services make an impact from day one in a business?

Reliable, dependent mobility throughout your organization.
 
4) Living IT on a daily basis as a profession and interest, what sites do you follow to keep up to date or up to the last tweet?

https://twitter.com/#!/Cisco_Mobility
https://www.facebook.com/CiscoWireless
https://www.cisco.com/en/US/products/hw/wireless/index.html

5)  What was your first piece of technology?

First piece of technology. - Color Computer 3, no storage - I wrote my programs in TRS Color Basic, sometimes keeping the system on for days so I didn't lose my work.  I eventually got a tape storage device, which was exactly that, a typical 80's cassette tape to store programs on!  It was very exciting!

The Inside IT Scoop: Featuring a Q & A with Jonathan Parsons, one of JDL's Managed Services experts...

1)   Many people are mystified by Managed Services, how do you describe what you do?

Managed Services essentially allows staff in an organization to focus on what they were hired to do and stop worrying about tech support issues. Far too often personnel are assigned tasks that involve maintaining systems that are large, complex, critical to business operations, and should be run by industry certified staff. By leveraging the expertise and experience of a managed services firm, businesses allow themselves to refocus on what they do to make money, rather than how will they get it done.

 2)  What common mistakes do you find with business owners’ concepts of Managed Services?

The most common problem involved with Managed Services is that the company often tries to replace their technical staff. While there are instances where this might be applicable, business owners and stakeholders still need to recognize that they still need on-site, day-to-day support for common IT tasks. They still need an IT presence to handle backup tape rotations, moving equipment to new offices, and helping to identify and troubleshoot problems at their sites. What is gained by the use of managed services is a team of experts focused on keeping the inner workings of a business running, much like the pit crew for a race car and its driver.

3) How does Managed Services make an impact from day one in a business?

From day one, greater visibility and stability is brought to an organization that uses managed services. They have immediate access to asset information for audits, patching schedules to keep their operating system software up-to-date, resources to efficiently deploy software packages and policies across the entire organization. They have tools with which to regain control of their technology sprawl and put it back to work for them.

4) Living IT on a daily basis as a profession and interest, what are the top 3 trending topics in your area of expertise? 

The proliferation of mobile devices, such as smart phones and tablets, are becoming more critical to the business and more prevalent. For businesses that issue these devices to their employees, they need to be tracked for inventory purposes and standardized to meet business policies. Our manage services can cover those gaps in coverage that most services are just now beginning to realize exist.

Businesses, even governments, are starting to take a closer look at how their technology departments work. Budgets are being restricted, designs reexamined, and positions scrutinized. With managed services, business have to ability to tighten security, audit and automate tasks, bring their operations into compliance, and do it all with resources they already have.

5) On another note, do you have a favorite quote or quotes?

 Learning and innovation go hand in hand. The arrogance of success is to think that what you did yesterday will be sufficient for tomorrow. – William Pollard

The people I distrust most are those who want to improve our lives but have only one course of action. - Frank Herbert