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Re Laptop make sure you have one that has a serial port and all the custom cables to plug into the switches / routers etc. (possibly having a second laptop for

Re Laptop make sure you have one that has a serial port and all the custom cables to plug into the switches / routers etc. (possibly having a second laptop for redundancy) And seconding the physical logbook.

what_is_orcas 5y ago
Why the physical logbook?
- denton-scratch 5y ago
  The reason I used a physical logbook is that if you use software, you have to have the software and the logfile on-hand all the time. You can keep them both on a stick, of course; but you still need the right OS/FS drivers etc. Also, your screen and keyboard may be connected to a machine that's crashed, or being repaired. And it's easier to scribble a line in a physical logbook than to crank-up some editor, open the logfile, append an entry, save the file etc. If you're going to log absolutely everything, then adding an entry needs to be as easy as signing your name. You could rely on your laptop; but laptops break and crash. a physical notebook is crashproof, drop-proof, and can even survive being dropped in a puddle. And short of pencils and erasers, it's intrinsically an append-only medium (except that you can still annotate old entries). Maybe an electronic logbook works for you; I found that my logs were more comprehensive and generally easier to use if I kept them on paper. I got through about two notebooks a year; I used a stack of old ones to elevate my monitor (phone directories are hard to come by these days).
  - denton-scratch 5y ago
    A physical logbook isn't just for sysadmins, by the way; I kept another one for development work, so that at the morning SCRUM I knew what I had been doing the previous day. That started when I got dinged once, for not being able to tell the SCRUM what I had done yesterday. The benefit is the same; it doesn't compete with your work for access to the screen and keyboard, and you can have it open all day. Also, opening a big notebook before describing your activities confers an aura of reliability on you; there's a reason why policemen whip out notebooks when testifying in court.
  - what_is_orcas 5y ago
    Hey thanks for the explanation. That makes a ton of sense.

what_is_orcas 5y ago

Why the physical logbook?

denton-scratch 5y ago
The reason I used a physical logbook is that if you use software, you have to have the software and the logfile on-hand all the time. You can keep them both on a stick, of course; but you still need the right OS/FS drivers etc. Also, your screen and keyboard may be connected to a machine that's crashed, or being repaired. And it's easier to scribble a line in a physical logbook than to crank-up some editor, open the logfile, append an entry, save the file etc. If you're going to log absolutely everything, then adding an entry needs to be as easy as signing your name. You could rely on your laptop; but laptops break and crash. a physical notebook is crashproof, drop-proof, and can even survive being dropped in a puddle. And short of pencils and erasers, it's intrinsically an append-only medium (except that you can still annotate old entries). Maybe an electronic logbook works for you; I found that my logs were more comprehensive and generally easier to use if I kept them on paper. I got through about two notebooks a year; I used a stack of old ones to elevate my monitor (phone directories are hard to come by these days).
- denton-scratch 5y ago
  A physical logbook isn't just for sysadmins, by the way; I kept another one for development work, so that at the morning SCRUM I knew what I had been doing the previous day. That started when I got dinged once, for not being able to tell the SCRUM what I had done yesterday. The benefit is the same; it doesn't compete with your work for access to the screen and keyboard, and you can have it open all day. Also, opening a big notebook before describing your activities confers an aura of reliability on you; there's a reason why policemen whip out notebooks when testifying in court.
- what_is_orcas 5y ago
  Hey thanks for the explanation. That makes a ton of sense.