Quick Take: Continued Learning

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Being in my current situation I am jobless. In fact I’ve been jobless for the longest I’ve ever been and the lack of interest in my job site profiles is really starting to bother me to the point that it’s just racing thoughts all around my brain about all sorts of different focal points.

One of these focal points is continued learning. You see, a large reason I left to go to a VAR was to be forced to stay on the forefront of new topics and technologies of interest in the I.T. field. Now that I am in a situation where I’ll be strong handed into any job I have to try and convince myself to not rationalize this fear I have.

That fear is getting stuck in an enterprise role where nothing moves fast and you get stuck in legacy technologies without the ability to move forward. However, I know this isn’t true as I have quite a few friends in enterprise roles that can school me on many new technologies. The truth is I can keep up in my free time with tools such as books, lab environments, video courses, etc. Which would then put me in a position to advise and help drive the enterprise role towards modern technology and idea’s and still progress myself as well.

That’s it, that’s my quick take.

Permanent link to this article: https://www.packetpilot.com/quick-take-continued-learning/

Quick Take: Whiteboard on Webex

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This is a quick take blog post on my preferred white boarding method on Webex (Or other meeting platforms). It’s quite simple but has a nice benefit.

With the Work From Home (WFH) increase and the use of sharing your screen more and more white boarding ideas/sample diagrams was always difficult for me with a mouse. This quick post outlines on an Apple computer a quick way to whiteboard with a shared screen.

Disclaimer: I don’t own a windows computer so can’t confirm the functionality on that platform.

Requirements:
1) Apple Computer
2) Apple iPad
3) Apple Pencil (version that works with your iPad model)
4) Microsoft OneNote
5) Meeting Software

Benefits:
1) Hand draw diagrams and notes just as on a whiteboard
2) With the use of Onenote diagram/drawing/notes are saved for future reference
3) Onenote page can be shared across platforms and exported for e-mail/sharing purposes
4) Printable

Steps:
1)Connect iPad to Apple Computer via USB
2)Launch QuickTime Player
3)Select New Movie Recording File>New Movie Recording

4)From the drop down arrow next to the record button select your iPad (based on name). In my case PacketPilotiPad

5)Launch OneNote on your iPad
6)You can now share your screen/application dependent upon your meeting software capabilities to share out your iPad screen.
7) Use the multiple Pen colors and your Apple Pencil to whiteboard as if you were in person
8) Enjoy the benefits of your whiteboard session being saved to OneNote and easily shareable and saved across platforms

Permanent link to this article: https://www.packetpilot.com/quick-take-whiteboard-on-webex/

What Happened? I’m Back!

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TL:DR…..I needed some self care and checked myself into a hospital

Okay, A lot of people noticed I disappeared for a hot minute or two and you know what?……I’m not ashamed to tell you why.

I know that some of you were quite worried about me and to that point I have to say I love you all to death and appreciated that I mean something to you all that you would be concerned. It truly means a lot.

Life had gotten the better of me and I checked myself into a 2 day self care overnight at my local hospital. They court order petitioned me to a 7 day care at a Mental Health Hospital an hour away where they took my cell phone from me so I couldn’t respond to anyone.

I apologize for not responding to anyone who messaged me or reached out via any social media means but I just didn’t have the means to reach back.

This was triggered from general life issues and then on top of that I lost my job due to some bad apples at work. It kind of pushed me over the edge and I needed to get myself straight.

Outside of the adventure stories I could tell from my experience in the hospital I can say I met a couple of good chaps, learned a lot, and got my head straight.

I had some good “sessions” that made me think a bit and put 2 and 2 together to get back on a good page. Now I just need to work on finding new employment.

Aurora was well taken care of, the first two days at the first hospital my hockey team member took care of her, the 7 day stint at the hospital an hour away my sister (bless her heart) drove 10 hours round trip to pick Aurora up and take her home to watch her and let her play with her puppy Loki. Pops brought Aurora back to me on Friday.

Permanent link to this article: https://www.packetpilot.com/what-happened-im-back/

Burnout or just a Reset? – It’s Okay it Happens

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Recently I found myself struggling with something. I couldn’t really put my finger on what exactly it was but my motivation seems to have vanished throwing me into a terrible feeling of purgatory.

You may have noticed if you follow me on social media as I just haven’t been terribly active in the last little while. I needed to figure out what was wrong.

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Permanent link to this article: https://www.packetpilot.com/burnout-or-just-a-reset-its-okay-it-happens/

Cisco Live 2019 – On Site – Last Minute Checklist

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It’s crunch time! Many of you may have already left for a few extra days before the event, others aren’t leaving until this weekend. Either way, there are a few things you want to be sure you have on hand and ready for Cisco Live in San Diego!

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Permanent link to this article: https://www.packetpilot.com/cisco-live-2019-on-site-last-minute-checklist/

Cisco SD-WAN ISR 4k Getting Started – Part 2 – Bootstrap Process

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The Bootstrap Process

In the Part 1 of this series we covered the first step to converting and ISR from IOS-XE onto the Cisco SD-WAN platform. We will continue from there with my story of frustrations and the discovered caveats and need to knows. Starting first with bootstrapping the ISR.

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Permanent link to this article: https://www.packetpilot.com/cisco-sd-wan-isr-4k-getting-started-part-2-bootstrap-process/

Cisco SD-WAN ISR 4k Getting Started – Part 1 – Upgrading Code

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Upgrading from IOS-XE to SD-WAN Code

Recently I was building out a lab to iron out a migration onto the Cisco SD-WAN (Viptela) solution. As part of that process existing ISR 4k routers were going to be used at the edge devices. This process, while fairly straight forward, came with a few “gotchas” and “snags” that I had to work through. In this post I will cover the upgrade of the ISR onto SD-WAN code. In the next post I will cover the bootstrap process as well as a couple of caveats related to vManage and the ISR4k routers.

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Permanent link to this article: https://www.packetpilot.com/cisco-sd-wan-isr-4k-getting-started-part-1-upgrading-code/

Cisco Live US 2019 – Explorer Guide

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I’ve been lucky enough to attend Cisco Live twice with both instances being on the full conference pass. This year, due to out of pocket expenses and the overall higher cost of San Diego I am attending on the lower cost Explorer Pass. In years past I purely interacted with Cisco Live remotely. This guide is intended to combine the best of both to assist in making the most of the Explorer pass. With that in mind, lets get some housekeeping out of the way.

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Permanent link to this article: https://www.packetpilot.com/cisco-live-us-2019-explorer-guide/

Remote Troubleshooting Crossed Fiber Using Port Channels

Reading Time: 5 minutesLast year I was involved in assisting a datacenter core and access-layer refresh. In this case the IDF’s were reusing existing fiber patches and the run to the datacenter stayed in place. however, within the datacenter core equipment was placed across the room required new cross connects to be ran to the new core cabinet. When the cutovers began to take place the IDF’s were spread out over a large campus. Meaning troubleshooting by walking back and forth to check cabling was extremely time consuming and inefficient. Since all the IDF’s were connected via port channels I was able to figure out which runs were crossed and go fix them all at once using only the ether channel show output. I’ll walk you through the process now.

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Permanent link to this article: https://www.packetpilot.com/remote-troubleshooting-crossed-fiber-using-port-channels/

Cisco Champions – An amazing place to be

Reading Time: 5 minutesThe time for applications to the Cisco Champion 2019 program are fast approaching. As I learned this it caused me to reflect on the privilege I have had for the last two years of being part of it.  I’d rather tell you about my experience and why you might want to join in on the fun. In those two years, I have seen it from two different views. My first year was 100% remote as I was unable to make it to Cisco Live. Last year I got to experience all of the greatness of some of the in-person events.
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Permanent link to this article: https://www.packetpilot.com/cisco-champions-an-amazing-place-to-be/

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