Maybe it depends on the company you are, but with my company the price is roughly comparable.
Yes, we had some boxes with the cache problem too, but once identified Sun was in, swapped the CPU and we were fine.
Same goes for a new box I got in who crashed during the burn in period (you heard of that, haven't you?) in which first the motherboard was defective and then the CPU, again sun was in, the technician came with all the equipment he needed and we were up and running again within four hours.
Of course we DO have a support contract and for all of our Sun gear it runs at around 100K/ year, BUT Cisco support is just as expensive (and so is Compaq, HP etc. etc.).
It also uses the 15" display but I never had the hinches break or anything like that, but who knows, maybe they decided to make them thinner on the 7500.
Yet, it wasn't without problems.
On the first Dell I got the Keyboard stopped working after two days. They wanted me to ship my unit back to get it repaired. After making clear that I am pissed, that this is a one week old computer I got a replacement within 24 hours (nice). I transplanted my HDD and thought I was off for good now, only to realize 3 days later that the HDD died on me. Luckily I hadn't returned the old one yet put the original HDD in and everything worked fine.
6 Months later the DVD ROM went. It couldn't read the DVDs anymore but CDs were fine. I had moved to Europe at that time and when I called Dell they told me I am out of luck because Dell Europe has nothing to do with Dell US, my warranty didn't cover it (great), so I lived with a defective DVD ROM.
6 months later I moved to Canada, and 2 months after that the Drive stopped working alltogether. Again I was calling Dell and I heard the same story: Dell Canada has nothing to do with Dell US. Again I raised hell, escalated it and they finally agreed to send me a replacement (I have to say the Dell Canada people were very nice and helpful).
A week later I had a new DVD ROM, only problem: Instead of sending me a "swap" unit together with the Floppy drive attached to it, they only sent me the DVD ROM drive. Fine, no problem, unscrew everything, reassemble it, done. When I called them back and asked them why they did this they told me that this was the wrong part, usually they send out complete units for customer maintenance, but apparantly a technician was supposed to do the swap for me. Oh well, no harm done.
A month after that the Display went, or better the lower third of it. Same thing again, calling Dell explaining why an AMERICAN Notebook needs service in Canada, no problem this time. They have a technican call me.
A week later (some scheduling conflicts on my end) the guy drove up to work and replaced the display in the office.
So: Even though I had some bad experience with Dell and it's international Support, in the end I could get what I needed.
Would I buy another one? Yes, because Dell isn't worse or better than anyone else.
There is one thing that EVERYBODY should be aware of:
IF a terrorist wants to succeed and he doesn't give a damn if he walks away afterwards or NOT he WILL succeed. You can have a dozen cops at every corner it won't make a difference.
I think that is the one thing that really doesn't get into peoples heads: If you have nothing to loose NOTHING will stop you from at least trying.
>>It's almost too much to belive. Agents of my government may now view all records related to me without warrent. Those records will now contain anything any "system admin" decides to collect about me. If enough computer records can be collected to convince a judge that my house should be searched, I might not ever be informed.
Being a SysAdmin myself I find this a bit disturbing.... There is a "code of conduct" at least that was how I was "brought up" and that means: "Hands of the users files unless necessary or a written order by Managment is coming down" and I live by this so far, I know though that quite some "young" guys (and gals) like the "god" powers and start snooping around.
If something like that becomes law I can already see what some of the people are going to do....
>>If the Sept. 11 attacks had happened to a direct democracy, the majority would probably have voted to go bomb every village in Afghanistan or Palestine they can find, require mandatory searches of Arabs and/or Muslims upon entering a public place, ban flight simulators with accurate depictions of cities, regulate the sale of box cutters, etc.
I agree that's a possiblity, but it might have also turned out differently. The reason the bombs are flying now is because the people in power think that this is how they can secure they're vote. They're not giving the whole story, they don't really show WHAT they are doing and nobody is daring to question Bush & Co. right now.
Yes, MAYBE it would be worse, but maybe it would have also caused ALL of the people to think a bit harder because they know that their vote MAKES a difference.
Guenter Grass, a german author, made a statement I fully support: "I can be sympathetic with the victims, but that doesn't mean I have to feel sorry for the country." You could also put this a step further: Are the people in those buildings really "innocent" in the way we like to think? If we are in a democracy (or even in a republic) aren't WE the people who ELECT the officials who MAKE our foreign and internal policies responsible for?
I think a lot of people should start to think for themseleves, but that is as likely as that Nader is going to win the next election.
whoever would think now that they stop it because of what happened in NYC or the slight possibility that someone actually might have used to plan this has nothing to do with it.
Sorry for the sarcasm, let's see how long it'll take until safweb decideds to shut down as well.
Re:Not to start a flame war;)
on
VIM 6.0 is Out
·
· Score: 1
I prefer pico as well over emacs or vi, why do I have to make my life worse than it is.
That doesn't mean I don't know how to use VI, I just prefer pico (and emacs is IMO too bloated).
It really depends on what you want. Also on your ears. A lot of people don't necessarily hear the difference, much more so if you're in a noisy enviroment. Let's say you live in a Dorm it really doesn't make any sense at all to buy an expensive equipment.
Go to a high end store were you can listen to speakers (let's say a 1000 for a pair should get you some nice ones) take your favourite CDs and ask if you can listen to them on some DECENT amps / speakers.
I recently went out to buy a new amp and some small speakers and I wasn't too impressed with the speakers, they lacked something in all ranges by my opinion, then he put on a decent amp, once it was warm the speakers sounded wonderful....
If you don't have the money right now for speakers and an amp buy some decent speakers first, but in the long run, you really want a decent amp as well (let's say 2K for a nice stereo?).
>>I seriously have no clue what brands are known as "good quality sound".
Speakers are definetly a part of it, but believe me that a good amp is just as important.
Basically: Everything that comes from companies like Sony, that offers a lot of "ASP" usually sounds like crap. I say this because it does NOT sound like the CD was intended to be, also the "mainstream" equipment has the tendency (like BOSE) to emphasise the bass to give it "volume". Unfortunatly that makes it sound rather "dull".
If you want to know what's "good" I suggest you go to one of the High End Stores and start listening to some of their equipment. Good is what sounds good to you, not what someone writes in a magazine (or I here).
For the note, I have an Acurus ACT-3 pre-amp with the A200 Amplifier. Speakers are Isophone (a german speaker company). And ever since then I know what sounds good (okay, it sounds crappier than the $150.000,00 Burmester system I had a chance of listening too, but hey, it only costs a 10th of it).
True64 might go away, but I doubt it with HP Unix.
Looking at the market from a SysAdmin position HP Unix is still very strong in the Banking Sector, heck, our companies PPV Broadcast system runs on HP Unix.
No, that is a nice daydream, they might invest / develop Linux further but they won't let go of HP Unix (at least not just yet) they have to big of a market share and I doubt that they want to leave the market completly to Sun.
e-mail could run you life, but as much as I like e-mail to stay in contact with friends I can also live without it (or IM) I have ICQ at work but not at home, I reply to people who are important on my own account ASAP, others can wait for a while.
Same at work, I sort everything in folders and people I don't deem necessary I don't reply to right away. E-mail for me is a "second line" contact tool, if it's important, CALL, if not, send an e-mail.
I use e-mail for close to ten years now but quite frankly I still rather talk with people face to face if posssible.
... well in my company as well, they are all Compaq and they refused to even look at the HP line of Servers when they had the chance... Guess I have to ask them tomorrow how they feel about the HP thing now (guess they won't even know when I ask them tomorrow).
for me personal a Palm never made sense, I have appointments, contacts etc. I need to keep my hands on but in the end it simply didn't offer anything else.
The big thing I was looking for to have access to e-mail (or if possible a shell) anytime I need it. My compromise was to get a Blackberry, it has two things I really like about it:
1. a Keyboard.
2. Wireless.
Now if someone could combine a Blackberry and an iPaq I would be happy, the idea that a PDA shouldn't have a keyboard but rather be used with a pen in my opinion is a bad decision anyways.
By my understanding SHAW is building it's own network, Rogers IS using @home technology to run theirs.
Yes, they have their own fibre and such but I think for a lot of services they rely on @home to help out.
As such: Shaw will probably survive but if they pull the plug on @home Rogers is bound to have some problems.... Unless they decide NOW to build their own infrastructure together with Shaw (which in the past they refused).
>>Also, it will be functionally better than pay-per-view movies (which don't give you the ability to pause, rewind, etc.), except that you have to use your computer to view it.
I don't know, but ExpressVu (a Satellite provider) is introducing a PVR this fall with HDD and all. Yes, they might have disabled the recording feature for PPV in the Box right now, but I wonder how long it'll take someone to actually hack the box to record.
BTW, the system they use is the same as the Echostar one in the US, so if anybody there gets into it, everybody can work with it;)
I deployed this week SuSE 7.2 on several machines all running ReiserFS happily (and that's a good thing as one of the new guys decided that to "move" a box he just "unplugs" it while it was still humming away.
Nevertheless: SuSE is pretty nice sind 6.4 and since 7.0 the ReiserFS is standard and works just like a charm.
>>Well, I'm not a "leading professional" of the type the article refers to (being a sysadmin is RARELY life-threatening), but I can assure you that playing FPS games enhances your ability to concentrate and solve problems quickly.
I take it you don't have the same users I do.... Man can they be dangerous if they don't get immideatly what they want....
Re:Graphics great, humaness lacking -- Spoiler
on
Review: Final Fantasy
·
· Score: 1
>>big phantom things can go through poisonous pipes that no living thing could survive through, and yet bullets hurt them.>And why the heck are the phantoms eating souls? Is there a reason? >Finally.... what happened to nuclear technology? Why didn't the try that? It is 2056, so I'd assume they've got some pretty sweet fission bombs.
Again, that was covered in the movie in the beginning, they tried normal weapons but they failed, again out of the same reason: The wrong kind of energy.
Plus: Don't forget, they don't want to kill the planet off they're living on;)
Michael
Yes, the backlighting is actually getting lower. I have a 3 year old dell and a couple of weeks ago the logic in the Display got bust and I lost 1/3 of my screen.
Dell came in and replaced the display (still warranty) and the one thing I realized right away was that the new display was brighter than the old one.
>>You'll lay him off and laugh when we (programmers in general) get it right. There's no reason for backups to be a problem, and there's no excuse for crashes at all.
The day YOU programmer get it right I guess I win in the lottery as well.
Programmers are some of the most ignorant tech people I know, hardly anybody EVER looks past their little piece of code.
I see it every day on our development box, Space Wars with programs.
Let's face it: If programmers take over, it'll be a couple of weeks and then they hire a consultant. Was that way at a company I worked (before I came) and now it is the same way. Sure, I change my title from SysAdmin to Consultant, put a hefty markup on it (you won't believe how desperate companies can get when they're systems are down) and enjoy it.
But I am sure you're already working on the Software that will eliminiate the use of your SysAdmin tomorrow.
Michael
P.S.
Correct me if I am wrong: Your Network Admin blocked you from using Napster at work and now you're pissed?
Have you ever DONE sysadministration? No? What a surprise.
If a SysAdmin does a good job you DON'T see him, if he's an idiot you'll see him all the time.
There is a bit more to the job than just jerking off because everything is fine, there is a reason why everything is fine: Because they do it.
Programmers are the heros, the ones who get the credit for a "job well done" usually nobody gives SHIT about the server the stuff is running on because nobody sees us doing our job.
But guess who's in in the middle of the night upgrade a HDD or doing other stuff so that YOU can work during the day? Or who get's yelled at when your preciouse piece of code develops memory leaks etc. because you didn't test it? Right, NOT you guys, but the SysAdmin gets shaftet for that.
SysAdmin is a very ungrateful job, if we do it right, nobody sees us, if something goes wrong, we're to blame, and once the problem is fixed hardly ANYBODY even says: "Thanks".
So if you pay the guy only 50K be happy, he deserves much more I am sure about that.
[end of rant]
I have the feeling you don't quite haven an idea on WHAT exactly rides on the Network at most modern companies, much less what all those "boxes with blinking lights" are really doing.
I see it right now... You'll turn into a manager and make the real IT guy's job a living hell.
Slashdot Mirror
Maybe it depends on the company you are, but with my company the price is roughly comparable.
Yes, we had some boxes with the cache problem too, but once identified Sun was in, swapped the CPU and we were fine.
Same goes for a new box I got in who crashed during the burn in period (you heard of that, haven't you?) in which first the motherboard was defective and then the CPU, again sun was in, the technician came with all the equipment he needed and we were up and running again within four hours.
Of course we DO have a support contract and for all of our Sun gear it runs at around 100K/ year, BUT Cisco support is just as expensive (and so is Compaq, HP etc. etc.).
You get what you pay for: ALWAYS.
I have a Dell 7000 at home and I like it.
It also uses the 15" display but I never had the hinches break or anything like that, but who knows, maybe they decided to make them thinner on the 7500.
Yet, it wasn't without problems.
On the first Dell I got the Keyboard stopped working after two days. They wanted me to ship my unit back to get it repaired. After making clear that I am pissed, that this is a one week old computer I got a replacement within 24 hours (nice). I transplanted my HDD and thought I was off for good now, only to realize 3 days later that the HDD died on me. Luckily I hadn't returned the old one yet put the original HDD in and everything worked fine.
6 Months later the DVD ROM went. It couldn't read the DVDs anymore but CDs were fine. I had moved to Europe at that time and when I called Dell they told me I am out of luck because Dell Europe has nothing to do with Dell US, my warranty didn't cover it (great), so I lived with a defective DVD ROM.
6 months later I moved to Canada, and 2 months after that the Drive stopped working alltogether. Again I was calling Dell and I heard the same story: Dell Canada has nothing to do with Dell US. Again I raised hell, escalated it and they finally agreed to send me a replacement (I have to say the Dell Canada people were very nice and helpful).
A week later I had a new DVD ROM, only problem: Instead of sending me a "swap" unit together with the Floppy drive attached to it, they only sent me the DVD ROM drive. Fine, no problem, unscrew everything, reassemble it, done. When I called them back and asked them why they did this they told me that this was the wrong part, usually they send out complete units for customer maintenance, but apparantly a technician was supposed to do the swap for me. Oh well, no harm done.
A month after that the Display went, or better the lower third of it. Same thing again, calling Dell explaining why an AMERICAN Notebook needs service in Canada, no problem this time. They have a technican call me.
A week later (some scheduling conflicts on my end) the guy drove up to work and replaced the display in the office.
So: Even though I had some bad experience with Dell and it's international Support, in the end I could get what I needed.
Would I buy another one? Yes, because Dell isn't worse or better than anyone else.
Michael
By your spelling it's clear that the Tax Dollars are at work again.
But to answer to your point (even though I am sure it's a flamebait:
Yes, it's all for something the US wants.
But if it is any consolidation for you: So do other countries. NO country does something because they just want to do "good".
Michael
There is one thing that EVERYBODY should be aware of:
IF a terrorist wants to succeed and he doesn't give a damn if he walks away afterwards or NOT he WILL succeed. You can have a dozen cops at every corner it won't make a difference.
I think that is the one thing that really doesn't get into peoples heads: If you have nothing to loose NOTHING will stop you from at least trying.
Michael
>>It's almost too much to belive. Agents of my government may now view all records related to me without warrent. Those records will now contain anything any "system admin" decides to collect about me. If enough computer records can be collected to convince a judge that my house should be searched, I might not ever be informed.
Being a SysAdmin myself I find this a bit disturbing.... There is a "code of conduct" at least that was how I was "brought up" and that means: "Hands of the users files unless necessary or a written order by Managment is coming down" and I live by this so far, I know though that quite some "young" guys (and gals) like the "god" powers and start snooping around.
If something like that becomes law I can already see what some of the people are going to do....
Michael
>>If the Sept. 11 attacks had happened to a direct democracy, the majority would probably have voted to go bomb every village in Afghanistan or Palestine they can find, require mandatory searches of Arabs and/or Muslims upon entering a public place, ban flight simulators with accurate depictions of cities, regulate the sale of box cutters, etc.
I agree that's a possiblity, but it might have also turned out differently. The reason the bombs are flying now is because the people in power think that this is how they can secure they're vote. They're not giving the whole story, they don't really show WHAT they are doing and nobody is daring to question Bush & Co. right now.
Yes, MAYBE it would be worse, but maybe it would have also caused ALL of the people to think a bit harder because they know that their vote MAKES a difference.
Guenter Grass, a german author, made a statement I fully support: "I can be sympathetic with the victims, but that doesn't mean I have to feel sorry for the country." You could also put this a step further: Are the people in those buildings really "innocent" in the way we like to think? If we are in a democracy (or even in a republic) aren't WE the people who ELECT the officials who MAKE our foreign and internal policies responsible for?
I think a lot of people should start to think for themseleves, but that is as likely as that Nader is going to win the next election.
Michael
...
whoever would think now that they stop it because of what happened in NYC or the slight possibility that someone actually might have used to plan this has nothing to do with it.
Sorry for the sarcasm, let's see how long it'll take until safweb decideds to shut down as well.
I prefer pico as well over emacs or vi, why do I have to make my life worse than it is.
That doesn't mean I don't know how to use VI, I just prefer pico (and emacs is IMO too bloated).
Michael
It really depends on what you want. Also on your ears. A lot of people don't necessarily hear the difference, much more so if you're in a noisy enviroment. Let's say you live in a Dorm it really doesn't make any sense at all to buy an expensive equipment.
Go to a high end store were you can listen to speakers (let's say a 1000 for a pair should get you some nice ones) take your favourite CDs and ask if you can listen to them on some DECENT amps / speakers.
I recently went out to buy a new amp and some small speakers and I wasn't too impressed with the speakers, they lacked something in all ranges by my opinion, then he put on a decent amp, once it was warm the speakers sounded wonderful....
If you don't have the money right now for speakers and an amp buy some decent speakers first, but in the long run, you really want a decent amp as well (let's say 2K for a nice stereo?).
Michael
>>I seriously have no clue what brands are known as "good quality sound".
Speakers are definetly a part of it, but believe me that a good amp is just as important.
Basically: Everything that comes from companies like Sony, that offers a lot of "ASP" usually sounds like crap. I say this because it does NOT sound like the CD was intended to be, also the "mainstream" equipment has the tendency (like BOSE) to emphasise the bass to give it "volume". Unfortunatly that makes it sound rather "dull".
If you want to know what's "good" I suggest you go to one of the High End Stores and start listening to some of their equipment. Good is what sounds good to you, not what someone writes in a magazine (or I here).
For the note, I have an Acurus ACT-3 pre-amp with the A200 Amplifier. Speakers are Isophone (a german speaker company). And ever since then I know what sounds good (okay, it sounds crappier than the $150.000,00 Burmester system I had a chance of listening too, but hey, it only costs a 10th of it).
Michael
Well,
I have to say in my opinion Bose DOES sound like Crap. They put a lot on emphasis on the bass but that's about that. It's not a very balanced sound.
Michael
True64 might go away, but I doubt it with HP Unix.
Looking at the market from a SysAdmin position HP Unix is still very strong in the Banking Sector, heck, our companies PPV Broadcast system runs on HP Unix.
No, that is a nice daydream, they might invest / develop Linux further but they won't let go of HP Unix (at least not just yet) they have to big of a market share and I doubt that they want to leave the market completly to Sun.
Michael
Yes,
e-mail could run you life, but as much as I like e-mail to stay in contact with friends I can also live without it (or IM) I have ICQ at work but not at home, I reply to people who are important on my own account ASAP, others can wait for a while.
Same at work, I sort everything in folders and people I don't deem necessary I don't reply to right away. E-mail for me is a "second line" contact tool, if it's important, CALL, if not, send an e-mail.
I use e-mail for close to ten years now but quite frankly I still rather talk with people face to face if posssible.
Michael
... well in my company as well, they are all Compaq and they refused to even look at the HP line of Servers when they had the chance... Guess I have to ask them tomorrow how they feel about the HP thing now (guess they won't even know when I ask them tomorrow).
I agree,
for me personal a Palm never made sense, I have appointments, contacts etc. I need to keep my hands on but in the end it simply didn't offer anything else.
The big thing I was looking for to have access to e-mail (or if possible a shell) anytime I need it. My compromise was to get a Blackberry, it has two things I really like about it:
1. a Keyboard.
2. Wireless.
Now if someone could combine a Blackberry and an iPaq I would be happy, the idea that a PDA shouldn't have a keyboard but rather be used with a pen in my opinion is a bad decision anyways.
Michael
I think you're missing the point here, it was a very good satire on the state of Hollywood.
Exactly what you complain about in the movie is what happens constantly in every single Hollywood movie.
What Smith did with this movie was to take the Hollywood instant movie mixture and "forgot" to add some water.
The end result is one of the best Hollywood farces I've ever seen, and I haven't laughed this much in a movie in quite a while.
Maybe not his best movie, but definetly one of the more funnier ones (that is, if you can laugh about the stupidity that Hollywood is).
Michael
By my understanding SHAW is building it's own network, Rogers IS using @home technology to run theirs.
Yes, they have their own fibre and such but I think for a lot of services they rely on @home to help out.
As such: Shaw will probably survive but if they pull the plug on @home Rogers is bound to have some problems.... Unless they decide NOW to build their own infrastructure together with Shaw (which in the past they refused).
Michael
>>Also, it will be functionally better than pay-per-view movies (which don't give you the ability to pause, rewind, etc.), except that you have to use your computer to view it.
;)
I don't know, but ExpressVu (a Satellite provider) is introducing a PVR this fall with HDD and all. Yes, they might have disabled the recording feature for PPV in the Box right now, but I wonder how long it'll take someone to actually hack the box to record.
BTW, the system they use is the same as the Echostar one in the US, so if anybody there gets into it, everybody can work with it
Michael
SuSE does that just fine.
I deployed this week SuSE 7.2 on several machines all running ReiserFS happily (and that's a good thing as one of the new guys decided that to "move" a box he just "unplugs" it while it was still humming away.
Nevertheless: SuSE is pretty nice sind 6.4 and since 7.0 the ReiserFS is standard and works just like a charm.
Michael
>>Well, I'm not a "leading professional" of the type the article refers to (being a sysadmin is RARELY life-threatening), but I can assure you that playing FPS games enhances your ability to concentrate and solve problems quickly.
I take it you don't have the same users I do.... Man can they be dangerous if they don't get immideatly what they want....
>>big phantom things can go through poisonous pipes that no living thing could survive through, and yet bullets hurt them.>And why the heck are the phantoms eating souls? Is there a reason? >Finally.... what happened to nuclear technology? Why didn't the try that? It is 2056, so I'd assume they've got some pretty sweet fission bombs. Again, that was covered in the movie in the beginning, they tried normal weapons but they failed, again out of the same reason: The wrong kind of energy. Plus: Don't forget, they don't want to kill the planet off they're living on ;)
Michael
Yes, the backlighting is actually getting lower. I have a 3 year old dell and a couple of weeks ago the logic in the Display got bust and I lost 1/3 of my screen.
:)
Dell came in and replaced the display (still warranty) and the one thing I realized right away was that the new display was brighter than the old one.
Otherwise: no dead pixles here
>>You'll lay him off and laugh when we (programmers in general) get it right. There's no reason for backups to be a problem, and there's no excuse for crashes at all.
The day YOU programmer get it right I guess I win in the lottery as well.
Programmers are some of the most ignorant tech people I know, hardly anybody EVER looks past their little piece of code.
I see it every day on our development box, Space Wars with programs.
Let's face it: If programmers take over, it'll be a couple of weeks and then they hire a consultant. Was that way at a company I worked (before I came) and now it is the same way. Sure, I change my title from SysAdmin to Consultant, put a hefty markup on it (you won't believe how desperate companies can get when they're systems are down) and enjoy it.
But I am sure you're already working on the Software that will eliminiate the use of your SysAdmin tomorrow.
Michael
P.S.
Correct me if I am wrong: Your Network Admin blocked you from using Napster at work and now you're pissed?
Aehm, now I have a problem with your statement.
Have you ever DONE sysadministration? No? What a surprise.
If a SysAdmin does a good job you DON'T see him, if he's an idiot you'll see him all the time.
There is a bit more to the job than just jerking off because everything is fine, there is a reason why everything is fine: Because they do it.
Programmers are the heros, the ones who get the credit for a "job well done" usually nobody gives SHIT about the server the stuff is running on because nobody sees us doing our job.
But guess who's in in the middle of the night upgrade a HDD or doing other stuff so that YOU can work during the day? Or who get's yelled at when your preciouse piece of code develops memory leaks etc. because you didn't test it? Right, NOT you guys, but the SysAdmin gets shaftet for that.
SysAdmin is a very ungrateful job, if we do it right, nobody sees us, if something goes wrong, we're to blame, and once the problem is fixed hardly ANYBODY even says: "Thanks".
So if you pay the guy only 50K be happy, he deserves much more I am sure about that.
[end of rant]
Oehm... And how old are you again????
I have the feeling you don't quite haven an idea on WHAT exactly rides on the Network at most modern companies, much less what all those "boxes with blinking lights" are really doing.
I see it right now... You'll turn into a manager and make the real IT guy's job a living hell.