By Mike Nemeth
<mjnemeth@hotmail.com>
In my last article I said there were many other "tools" that I'll save for another time, like hats and finished with the question "How many (hats) do you wear?. Well here are some more I left out including some new ones ! Before I start , I would like to say many of "my" SA tools were thought of by co-workers over the years and I thank them!
Hats; most(?) SAs wear many different hats besides their normal one, mail admin, web master, cm, security, network admin ; sometimes the list seams endless. And of course the SA is always putting out fires. I had a boss who one day call a meeting about a serious problem. He pulled out a kid's fireman (is that fire person now?) hat and put it on. What a great tension breaker it was! Now you can find real or play hats for the different jobs you do. For CM I like a police hat, using a miltary hat for security. Now you can switch that. I've not found a good hat for web master yet. Does any one have any ideas? You'll probably not be able to find a hat for mail admin/postmaster , so you'll have to make it from another hat. Now let us not forget the primary duty of SA. User sometime view SAs as Unix guru's (a turban!) or wizard. It's easy to make your own wizard's pointy hat ; the turban a little trickier. You can find both in various stores.
Speaking of wizards, there is another great tool I've used. How many times has a user express amazement that a problem was fix so soon and asked you how you did it. I grin, pull out my magic wand and say it's Magic! It's fun to go the user workstation, pull out your wand , invoke a few magical names (K&R maybe?) touch the workstation and declare "be fixed" ( I'm a Eddings fan). Now I've heard of SAs with full costumes. It's easy enough to make you own wand ; even old drums stick will do with a few decorations.
Wands, hum. That remind me of a more practical tool. Ok, the power just failed and you DO have a flash light, right? But when did you last check the batteries? Rip, pop, shake. Ah, my trusty light stick to save the day. You know, the weird cold light thing you see a lot of at Halloween and might know of if you a camper. You can get small and large ones. Tape them to your terminal or server or where ever they may be needed. Sometimes they are useful for pushing in to tight places too.
New tools! Since I last wrote I've found two new tools! Bangerz, You slam them down and they make a sound. Mine, Cheeks, is a silly looking orange ball shapes creature that laughs, chuckles and howls. They are about $1.00 where I've seen them (KB toys) and come in many different character, make different sounds. Ever say to a user take a number? Well make up one of those "Now Serving" things with numbers attached. Put the "Now Serving" number as 1 and all the attached numbers the infinity symbol. Does it sometime seem if you are never done?!
Well that's it for now. If any one has some good tools to share I'll include them in my next article. That is if they publish this one <grin>