Hi,
It's been 4 years since I earned my BS degree in Information technology. I came
from a place where many people can hardly sustain the expenses of their
children even though their already sending them to low-tuition fee public state
universities. Back in my college days, I was one of those many people taking up
computer courses who unfortunately couldn't afford to buy our own computer. In
public schools such as where I went, on the average, a group of 5 students gets
to share one computer during laboratory sessions. The result of which, many
students like me, could not get any more confused on what our professors are
teaching us. During those days, after every grueling quiz on programming, I
always go home telling myself, it could have been a lot different if I had my
own computer at home to practice with. Better a laptop I could carry at school.
Heck, I could not even afford to pay for our visual basic programming book in
just one installment. I
shouldn't have had to copy my seatmate's work just to pass every 10-item
computer programming quiz I took at the end of every class. It wasn't until the
mid of the first semester of my last year in college that I saw some hope when
my mother took a loan to buy me a desktop. (I remember it was an athlon
1.2ghz). I opted for that brand because it was way cheaper than the Intel
counterpart. After finishing college, I had a really hard time finding a job.
My skills were simply not enough. Indicating that I programmed a payroll system
as my thesis in my resume did not get much attention. I have a classmate who
was very smart because he's got his own computer. He was ahead of everyone else
when it comes to computer lessons. The result of course, he landed a job
immediately after graduating. Mentioning that he was a webmaster on some linux
forum/usergroup was more than enough for people to hire him as a sysadmin (not
bad for a fresh graduate). At that point, I
told myself, if I want to land a job, I have to do self studies. I have to
learn what that guy already knows and even exceed him. I started playing with
my computer a bit more. I installed Linux, formatted my pc many times. I had
to be smarter than him so I've chosen a more difficult to learn distro
(slackware) than what he was using (debian). I could not be contented so I
searched the Internet for an alternative. Then I found freebsd. At some point I
found my self engaging in operating system war, linux vs freebsd, gpl vs bsd,
etc.
I was happy and proud. I even got happier when I landed on my first job as a
system administrator. I can still remember during the interview, they asked me
how do I install freebsd. I told them, there are many ways, but the way I did
it by minimal install because I only have a dial-up connection at home. If it
wasn't for freebsd I wouldn't be where I'm at right now. It's been quite some
time now since I typed into a freebsd csh shell. For my second job, it was for
a Linux sysadmin position. Then I got a job abroad as a penetration tester. To
be honest I never used freebsd again after leaving my first job. Now i'm
working as a security consultant/pentester/auditior, earning about 10 times
more than what I was earning in my first job. At home I got a shiny macbook pro
which I never thought I would be able to afford not even after working for
several years in our country.
This morning I finally finished reading The C Programming Language (K&R) and I
would say I was able to absorb 90% of the language's essentials. Or just about
enough so I would know where to refer back in case I'm having trouble solving a
particular problem.
A few months back I told myself. I don't want to be just a penetration tester
for the rest of my career. Someday, I want to become a chief technology
officer. I know some folks who are CTOs that have given talks to various
conferences, and they all have one thing in common. They have been hardcore
technical at some point in their careers. I know my simple perl scripting
skills would not get me where I want to be, that's why I opted to dig deeper
and take my skillz to a higher level.
Forgive me for I'm no longer using freebsd. I know a lot of folks who used to
be freebsd sysadmins, as they progress in their career, just like me, they no
longer have to use this wonderful operating system. I hope one day I would be
able to give back to the community. The one reason why I'm using Linux right
now is because some tools I need to use for my work has not been ported to
freebsd yet. Maybe one day, once I get the hang of this programming language I
just learned, I would be able to contribute back to freebsd by porting
applications. That's the only way I can repay the community. I remember the
question I posted to freebsd-questions when I was still a newb, I asked "Who am
I mailing to", asking them if they are paid to do so because they were very
helpful. Every question I ask there was always someone willing to answer.
I know there are so many people who already posted something with the same
subject line. This time it's my turn to say...
Thank You FreeBSD!!
-mark
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