Original (November 2011):
2015 Update: See this page to find out what I’ve been up to over the years since this entry was originally posted.
I have received a few e-mails from readers asking me questions about myself and what I do, so I thought I’d write a blog entry about it.
I’m a 27 year old Cisco network engineer living in Australia. I work for a large, multinational company, and have been with them for about seven months now and am thoroughly enjoying myself.
I’m currently studying for the CCNP certification, and once completed, I plan to start studying for the CCIE R&S certification.
In my spare time, when I’m not studying or blogging on here, you can usually find me helping out on internet forums. The one I most frequently visit would be the Whirlpool forums where I post under the name OzNetNerd.
Speaking of which, a Whirlpool thread that I started quite some time ago may come in use for some of you who are studying for Cisco certifications. For those of you who are only interested in the links and not the users’ posts inbetween, I also created a wiki version of the thread.
When I’m not talking Cisco, I’m either playing with custom firmwares, Linux or some other geeky activity. I have put together a brief list of my extra curricular activities below. If you have any questions or need any assistance with anything I have mentioned, please feel free to pop me an e-mail and I’ll do all I can to assist.
- Using WDLX TV-Live custom firmware for the Western Digital TV Live. For more information, please see my Whirlpool thread about it.
- Using custom router firmwares, such as Gargoyle, DD-WRT, Open-WRT, and Tomato for my home wireless network & wireless bridges.
- Using Cacti for network monitoring.
- Using DLNA for media streaming (including transcoding and compression where necessary) to/from my PCs, TVs, phone, Playstation 3 and media player.
- DLNA applications I have used or currently use include: Media Tomb, Twonky, PS3 Media Server, FreeNAS, TVersity, Mini DLNA, Boxee, iMediaShare and XBMC.
- Using FreeNAS to turn an old PC in to a storage solution.
- Using Dokuwiki to keep track of all my notes.
- Using MindMap software to keep track of all my thoughts :)
- Using Visio for network diagrams.
- Using DropBox, SugarSync and Microsoft’s SkyDrive in conjunction with Gladinet for cloud storage and file syncing.
- Using AxCrypt and TrueCrypt for encryption.
- Using Ubuntu on my main Linux PC and Puppy Linux & Xubuntu on my old, slower PCs.
- Using VirtualBox for adding extra hosts to my home lab.
- Using VMWare’s ESXi as a bare metal hypervisor for hosting multiple virtual machines.
- Using GNS3 for Cisco labbing.
- Using BackTrack 5 (not for hacking purposes but for defensive measures. The best way to protect your network is by knowing how the intruders get in).
- Using various Live CDs and Live USB drives for purposes ranging from data recovery to malware removal.
- Providing remote assistance through LogMeIn and TeamViewer.
- Using Hamachi as a quick and dirty VPN solution when required.
- Using OpenVPN for viewing IP TV streams that have been Geo Blocked for users who live outside of the content provider’s country. e.g Hulu.
- Using ATAs, soft phones, IP phones, Voxalot (which has recently discontinued its services), SIP Broker, ENUM, Free World Dialup (FWD), International DIDs, Skype and TrixBox (an Asterisk based IP PBX).
- Using E-Mail to Fax and Fax to E-Mail services.
- I also have three subscriptions to Australian PC magazines - PC User, PC & Tech Authority and APC.
- For a list of tools that I find come in handy, please see my “Tools Every Admin/Engineer Needs” Whirlpool thread.
And finally, when my free time clears up, my next couple of projects will be:
A new website that will assist Cisco newcomers to get through the basics and gradually bring them all the way up to dealing with large, complex networks. The first phase of the site has been completed, however, due to my CCNP studies, I have decided to put the site on the back burner for now.
I also plan to create a new Network Security blog. I have always had an interest in Network Security and after having read Cyber War: The Next Threat to National Security and What to Do About it (as suggested by the bloggers on Network World), my interest has increased greatly.
If anyone has any further questions, please feel free to drop me an e-mail or make a comment on this entry and I’ll happily respond.
Update: Below are a couple of photos of my home lab.
2015 UPDATE
See this page to find out what I’ve been up to over the years since this entry was originally posted.
As always, if you have any questions or have a topic that you would like me to discuss, please feel free to post a comment at the bottom of this blog entry, e-mail at will@oznetnerd.com, or drop me a message on Reddit (OzNetNerd).
Note: The opinions expressed in this blog are my own and not those of my employer.
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