Is it good to take pics of your installs for future work?

borumas

I was just wondering if anyone takes pictures of their network/server installs n such for possible future jobs. I thought during a interview you could tell them you have some pictures of installation jobs you have done in the past and if they want you could show them. I got the idea from some vendors we had that did work for us, they always take before and after pictures of their jobs. I took a few pics of my biggest job, here is an install I did myself, I installed all the panduit and cables from the patchpanel to the switches and installed everything else except one ups and the 2 telecom servers it powered in the cabinet on the far right. I first took pics because this was the biggest job I ever did by myself and was proud of it, I didn't totally configure the server or the Cisco 4507 but I did do some tweaking to the config file.

I took pics of a few smaller installs I've done and will probably keep doing this just in case I start looking for work in the next year or so. Is this a decent idea?

keatron

It definitely can't hurt. Part of IT is technical and part of it is art. It can show that you don't do sloppy work. If I were the interviewer it would also give me a sense that you take some pride in your work, which is always a plus. Honestly I use to do this religously (mainly to dazzle friends and neighbors.. ), but it's hard to take pictures of a enterprise level snort installation (which is what I've been doing a lot of lately).

Slowhand

Documentation is good, the more concise and precise, the better. Pictures, screenshots, police-sketches. . . do whatever it takes to document your work. Take it from someone who still has that note on his shoes, "TF"*, in leau of forgetting which way things go in the morning when it's time to get dressed: the easier it is to backtrace your work, the easier it is to figure out how the damn thing broke, when it's time to troubleshoot. Not to mention that it's easier for not-you (that'd be the guy you DON'T want to have phonecalls from on the weekends) to troubleshoot and/or work on things when you're not around, if there's good documentation and pictures to match.



*(Toes First)

Danman32

Slowhand wrote:

... police-sketches. . .

Smallguy

not a bad idea I'd jsut makse sure the place u set up tis ok with you showing pics.

some maybe concerned if u have pictures of there data center and they fell into the wrong hands. Eventhough there is probably little anyone colud do jsut by know what kind of (as in brand) servers ur running and switches as long as it was set up with security in mind.

I've noticed alot of palces are bannnig camera hpnoes in ther office so you don't want it to come back to you... always get the companyies permission

borumas

Smallguy wrote:

not a bad idea I'd jsut makse sure the place u set up tis ok with you showing pics.

some maybe concerned if u have pictures of there data center and they fell into the wrong hands. Eventhough there is probably little anyone colud do jsut by know what kind of (as in brand) servers ur running and switches as long as it was set up with security in mind.

I've noticed alot of palces are bannnig camera hpnoes in ther office so you don't want it to come back to you... always get the companyies permission

Good idea, I won't advertise I'm taking pics of my installs to work then, but if I get another job it really would not matter what work thinks anyways, lol, I do make sure that ip addresses n such do not show in the pics or tell where the install was in my gallery page.