One thing that is often a bit scary is traveling for business for the first time.  I don’t mean driving to a customer in town but rather flying to someplace outside of your comfort zone with people you don’t know and meeting people who you surely don’t know.  Hopefully this post will provide some help and advice on how to keep it all together and what to expect on your journey the first time around.

1.  Planning for your trip is very important.  Spending the time ensuring your reservations are all ready or working with your office designated travel person to work it all out is the first important thing you should do at least two weeks out.  If something goes wrong or comes up it could take two weeks to straighten it all out.  Of course there will always be last minute travels but getting into a routine when traveling can help you when time is not on your side.

2.  Packing, if you leave in the morning make sure everything is packed the night before, nothing hurts more than trying to get stuff ready in the morning when you are still waking up.  Just stay up an hour later and you will be ready to roll out of bed and into the airport.  Make sure you bring a copy of every reservation and confirmation printed out with you.  If something goes wrong anywhere along the line you have the documentation you might need to prove your point.

3.  Be a Frequent Flyer, this doesn’t mean you need to fly all of the time but make sure you get enrolled in the most used airline at your company or the one you fly with most, then make sure you enroll with the rental car company and the hotel.  Most hotels and rental car companies can transfer points/nights to your airline to help you build up miles faster.  From my experience getting elite or whatever status with an airline has far more benefits than status with hotels or rental car companies.  It helps you earn free trips later, free upgrades, etc.

4.  Be Comfortable.  If you are lucky enough to fly out the night before you start working wear comfortable clothes.  This is great for longer flights and when going through airport security and you have to practically undress.

5.  Know the Rules.  Be a good citizen, when you get to the airport know the rules of the road.  If you are doing an overnight make sure your overnight bag has everything packed according to TSA specs, if staying longer, why not check? (More on that later)  Remember a few simple rules:

• Jackets, Coats, etc. all go through the scanner, put them in a bucket on their own.
• Take your shoes off, put them in a bucket or send them through on their own, its ok!
• Your big bags and backpacks don’t need a bucket it takes way too long!
• Your laptop has to go through on its own take it out and put it in its own bucket.
• I usually put my wallet, cell phone, watch, coins, etc. in my backpack before I send it through the scanner.  That way its secure in my bag and its easy to deal with later.

6.  Be Polite.  Delays happen all the time in air travel, many because of weather but regardless you are most likely to sit in the airport on the way out or back home.  Being angry and upset does not help the situation.  The gate agents are already frustrated because of the overload and having another angry passenger doesn’t help.  In fact if you are in need of help its easier to get that help if you are polite and understanding.  Tell the agent to take their time even if you don’t have time they will end up working faster if they feel relaxed.  Your politeness should extend until you return home, be nice to the flight attendants and always thank the cabin crew when you disembark, its just the right thing to do.  After all they did get you home safely.

7.  Get Sleep!  When you travel, especially when meeting with customers being fresh and ready to go is important.  Even though anyone under 25 may still remember the days of partying all night long you simply won’t last doing it here.  Make sure you get enough sleep, get up early enough for at least a light breakfast and then head off to work.

8.  Rental Cars.  This is usually a big problem for anyone under 25.  Every car company will charge you a fee for driving under that age.  It has to do with the fact that most people in that age group are much more prone to having an accident.  When you get to the car counter act professional and the staff will think you are.  It all goes back to number six above.  Make sure you have a credit card to use for the car, make sure you keep your proof of insurance for your regular car with you as most extend to rental cars for a few days.  If you are in a big city like New York or Los Angeles always ask for the GPS option, it will save you in certain situations.  Also ask for EZPass or the electronic toll plate system in the area if they have them, it saves a lot of time and traffic in some situations.  Find a gas place close to the return location or within a certain distance because you will be expected to return a full tank.  Overall treat the car just like your own, that would be a heck of a bill to walk away with if you damaged the car.

9.  Phone Home.  Make sure you call home when you get back to the hotel at night.  By doing so you tell your girlfriend/wife/parents that you are still alive and safe at the hotel.  Plus since you may be all by yourself in the room some human interaction is always a good thing.

10.  After your home.  When you get home the first thing you should do is handle the paperwork your little excursion has generated.  File your expenses as soon as all of the bills are available.  Some companies will not reimburse after a certain time period.  Also make sure if the company paid for the car, hotel or airfare you get them the receipts.  You don’t want to be on the bad side of the people who helped setup and plan your trip as they may not be so willing to help next time.

Note on checked bags:

Historically checking your bag has not been a good thing as bags are lost, damaged, etc.  However as some may know checked bags are now charged an additional fee which has some inclined to take giant bags through security.  The lines to check bags are relatively short and since there are less bags being checked theoretically your odds of loosing your bag are actually higher.  However, from my experience two things happen.  First checking your bag is not a big deal unless you are connecting somewhere for another flight, especially if that connection is missed or delayed, so plan for that.  However if you are flying directly or have a connection with a big layover checking a bag seems to work pretty well and gives you one less thing to have to worry about.  Plus with the airline status you will be earning some bag fees are waived at certain levels.  In addition the line has become huge in the jet way where everyone who decided to bring their bag in the cabin is waiting because there is physically not enough room in the overhead bins for all of the giant roller bags, so instead they are gate checked where there is absolutely no identification placed on the bag other than what you put on it.  At least with a checked bag the durable airline tags are applied with lots of identifiable information.

So there it is my top ten things to keep in mind while traveling.  Please send in any comments or disagreements.  Just remember this post is focused for those new to the work force who will be lucky enough to travel at an early age.

See you at Terminal 1 in RDU!

-Brent

I have decided to change the direction of this blog so that I might update it more often.  With everything that is going on now a days I want to make sure I start to record two types of things:

1. Technology Stuff across the board
2. Business Stuff

I am really kind of excited about doing the second part because I honestly have to say I got lucky when I started working in a “real job” because it was a start-up company with lots of learning opportunities.  I have continued to work in companies with lots of learning and life experiences available for the taking.  I hope I can share some of them as well as put out some of my opinions about how to be successful as someone who is new to the business world or for those who have been around for a while but want a fresh look at things, hopefully I can do that.

Of course I will push myself to keep this thing updated with all of the current technology stuff and problems I run across on a daily basis as a point for putting more content out on the interwebs for everyone’s benefit.

I also plan to refresh some of the other content pages on this thing and improving the theme a bit to match me a little better, but one baby step at a time!

That’s it for now but I plan to write the first update this weekend, so lets see where it takes us.

-Brent

I received this list from a family member and is perfect for use in any company or organization:

Randy Muller, Global Knowledge Instructor

There are many skills that IT Pros should know about in doing their day-to-day jobs. That is one of great benefits of being in the IT industry - learning new platforms and products as they are released. The following list has many of the most common ones that most IT Pros should have. While there are ten skills listed, they are not in an ordered ranking. Depending upon the size of the IT infrastructure and environment, some of these might not be applicable.

1. Troubleshooting

Is this a skill, an art, or both? If you ask any seasoned IT professionals, they will tell you that troubleshooting skills are important, very important - and not something that can be readily taught. The difficult part is that troubleshooting is a specific skill set that many corporations simply do not have the time or money to invest. Troubleshooting skills could make or break your career. Not having the required troubleshooting skills could become a RGE (resuming generating event), or it could become a career enhancer when you are able to fix a mission-critical server. All of this being said, one would think that there would be more emphasis on teaching and sharing troubleshooting skills; unfortunately, this is not the case. This is one skill that must be learned only after mastering a particular platform or program.

2. PowerShell and Scripting

No, you don't have to be a programmer to be a successful network engineer (or vice-versa for that matter), but you do have to know PowerShell. More platforms from Microsoft (Exchange 2007 and Exchange 2010 have some features that can ONLY be implemented with PowerShell) are managed through PowerShell - including the recently released SharePoint 2010. Being able to script many day-to-day tasks will make more time available for proactive tasks.

3. Networking and Interoperability

Interoperability is the key to networking. We live in a highly connected world, a world of disparate platforms. Networking is understanding how to make these platforms communicate. As an IT Pro (and this includes programmers to a certain extent), you must understand the communications protocols, OSI Model layers, and connectivity required for systems to communicate. This also includes understanding connecting and securing wireless networks. This is one skill that is common to almost all IT Pros, whether they are programmers, security personnel, auditors or the help desk personnel.

4. Virtualization

It doesn't matter which Virtualization technology you use (Microsoft's Hyper-V, VMware, or even Sun's VirtualBox), it is the use that is important. Virtualization is being adopted by companies of all sizes as a means to reduce costs through consolidation of servers and lower cooling requirements. Application Virtualization has become very popular with businesses. Having the skill set to deploy applications that connect securely through a browser is critical for companies that have numerous offices.

Virtualization can aid in near real-time response to network conditions by providing for more disaster recovery capabilities. Another interesting area of virtualization is through the use of desktop virtualization. This involved configuring and maintaining the virtual environment whereby users can connect to their own virtual desktop remotely or through the web. Another use for virtualization is for improved instruction for IT education and elsewhere, since there is no longer a need to have large numbers of computers for classrooms.

5. Wireless

As part of our highly connected world, we expect to able to connect wirelessly from almost anywhere at any time. Those IT Pros who can install, configure, and maintain secure wireless networks have a skill that is in high demand. The key word here is secure wireless network. IT Pros with this skill set are in high demand as we expect to be able to securely connect to wireless networks in almost all locations at any time. Implementing a secure wireless environment also means being able to plan and troubleshoot interferences as well. Anyone managing wireless environments must be able to handle the calls that come in from remote users who are having problems with their wireless equipment, and different operating systems capabilities and limitations.

6. Disaster Recovery

This is as much a methodology as a skill set. IT Pros must be able plan, test, and implement a disaster recovery (DR) plan. This is critical for the survivability of a data center or network. One of the hardest tasks is being able to test disaster recovery plans. There is hardly enough time available to perform the critical tasks that need to get done while adding a yearly or semi-yearly test of the DR plan. An integral part of the disaster recovery process is implementing fault-tolerant systems and providing for redundancy in your network.

7. Security

All IT Pros must have a good understanding of both physical and electronic security. One of the most difficult tasks with IT security is educating users. Company information can be gleaned through social engineering that most companies would rather not have divulged. Training users (and IT staff) to be cognizant of and prevent social engineering is extremely difficult. IT Pros must always be aware of security issues and understand the vulnerabilities within their networks (from operating systems, servers to the lowly cable closet). This does not mean that every IT Pro must be able to perform a penetration test against his or her own network, but they must understand and prevent attacks against their network.

8. Database Administration

Corporations retain more information than ever before and are quite dependent on their databases. Regulatory compliance has had a huge impact on database management and data retention. Corporations are required to retain information for a number of years and, in some cases, emails as well. Storage space and solutions have become much cheaper, so there is more emphasis on data retention. Having the ability to create and extract information from one of these databases is critical. Many IT Projects use a SQL backend, Archiving information from Microsoft's Office Communication Server requires a SQL backend. If you are going to deploy Microsoft Office SharePoint Server (MOSS), this will require a SQL backend. IT Pros these days do not need to be DBAs, but they must be able to administer and maintain these servers. There are several database systems commonly used: SQL, Oracle, and MySQL.

9. Desktop Imaging

Imaging of desktop systems is a critical skill as companies are shifting to standardized desktops and deployments. Part of this is done to deploy a consistent and secure platform as well as to provide ease of management. There are many imaging programs available, as well as Microsoft's Windows Deployment Services and imaging utilities.

10. Helpdesk (People Skills)

One of the most critical skills that IT Pros need to learn is how to interact with non-technical people. The Help Desk is the first interaction most users have with the IT department, and it should be a positive experience. IT Pros are very good at their jobs, but sometimes lack the ability to relate to their non-tech colleagues. Users just want their computers fixed or their data recovered; they are not concerned with the processes behind our actions. IT Pros should have some experience working at the Help Desk.

These are some of the most important skills that an IT Pro should know. If you don't know some of these areas, now is the time to learn them. One thing to keep in mind is that you are your own best career manager! You are the only one who can decide where you want to head your career.

So in previous companies we used calendar services like Google and many others.  Each of which had ways to add holidays into the the calendar, typically these included all of the major US Federal holidays and maybe some others.  I have pretty much just been using Outlook 2007 now alongside an Exchange Server.  I found the need to have my holidays again without having to enter every single one in and so forth.  So after a quick Google search I came across an Microsoft Office article that explains exactly how to add holidays into Outlook.  That link is below… however what is really astonishing and the reason I even wrote up this little post is the fact that Microsoft, being a big proponent of globalizations and localization techniques has loaded not just the US Federal Holidays, but holidays for almost all of the countries in the world.  You have the option of loading more than one holiday list onto your calendar which may not seem like a big deal but for anyone who has managed globalized teams before understands the frustration of forgetting someone else’s holiday schedule.  So when you walk through the link below it will allow you to insert multiple holidays for different countries.

Take a look: http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/outlook/HP052429441033.aspx

-Brent

So many times the mention of a Google datacenter is met with secrecy.  If you search the web you may find some possible locations of the data centers, however finding them is not easy, and knowing anything about them is an even deeper secret.  However maybe with the whole new notion of transparency Google is jumping on board.  Google has released a video tour of one of their datacenters.  What makes this more interesting than others is that servers are inside of racks, however racks are contained in movable shipping containers.  Take a look:

-Brent

For those who do not know, Pabst Productions, Inc. uses a virtual PBX service to handle all of the phone calls that come in to our offices.  We have been using GotVmail for a few years now and are very happy with their service.  Recently they announced a change to their branding and imaging to become “grasshopper”.  As part of that change they put together a little video that I believe is a profound statement about what entrepreneurs really are.  Take a look!

NOTE: Make sure you have speakers or a headset so you can hear the music that was written just for this video.

-Brent