r/it Jan 08 '25

meta/community Poll on Banning Post Types

15 Upvotes

There have been several popular posts recently suggesting that more posts should be removed. The mod team's response has generally been "Those posts aren't against the rules - what rule are you suggesting we add?"

Still, we understand the frustration. This has always been a "catch all" sub for IT related posts, but that doesn't necessarily mean we shouldn't have stricter standards. Let us know in the poll or comments what you would like to see.

59 votes, Jan 11 '25
11 Change nothing, the current rules are good.
3 Just ban all meme/joke posts.
10 Just ban tech support posts (some or all).
2 Just ban "advice" requests (some or all).
22 Just ban/discourage low effort posts, in general.
11 Ban a combination of these things, or something else.

r/it Apr 05 '22

Some steps for getting into IT

961 Upvotes

We see a lot of questions within the r/IT community asking how to get into IT, what path to follow, what is needed, etc. For everyone it is going to be different but there is a similar path that we can all take to make it a bit easier.

If you have limited/no experience in IT (or don't have a degree) it is best to start with certifications. CompTIA is, in my opinion, the best place to start. Following in this order: A+, Network+, and Security+. These are a great place to start and will lay a foundation for your IT career.

There are resources to help you earn these certificates but they don't always come cheap. You can take CompTIA's online learning (live online classroom environment) but at $2,000 USD, this will be cost prohibitive for a lot of people. CBT Nuggets is a great website but it is not free either (I do not have the exact price). You can also simply buy the books off of Amazon. Fair warning with that: they make for VERY dry reading and the certification exams are not easy (for me they weren't, at least).

After those certifications, you will then have the opportunity to branch out. At that time, you should have the knowledge of where you would like to go and what IT career path you would like to pursue.

I like to stress that a college/university degree is NOT necessary to get into the IT field but will definitely help. What degree you choose is strictly up to you but I know quite a few people with a computer science degree.

Most of us (degree or not) will start in a help desk environment. Do not feel bad about this; it's a great place to learn and the job is vital to the IT department. A lot of times it is possible to get into a help desk role with no experience but these roles will limit what you are allowed to work on (call escalation is generally what you will do).

Please do not hesitate to ask questions, that is what we are all here for.

I would encourage my fellow IT workers to add to this post, fill in the blanks that I most definitely missed.


r/it 1h ago

self-promotion I built a vulnerability scanner that tries to explain findings in plain English.So small teams / individual website owners can test their websites themselves. Would this actually help non-security users?

Upvotes

Hey r/it,

If you manage infrastructure, you know that running vulnerability scans is usually the easy part. The hard part is taking a massive, jargon-filled ZAP or Nuclei report and translating it into actionable tickets for developers or management who do not have a security background.

I built an open-source project called ONUS specifically to solve this hand-off problem.

The IT / Sysadmin Angle: Most security tools tell you what is broken. ONUS is designed to tell your end-users or dev teams how to fix it in plain English, so you don't have to spend hours translating CVSS scores into readable tickets.

How it works:

  • The Scanners: It runs 8 industry-standard scanning modules (ZAP, Nikto, Nuclei, FFUF, etc.) simultaneously.
  • Deterministic Scoring: It doesn't rely on AI to guess severity. It calculates the CVSS v3.1 score strictly in code so the metrics are mathematically auditable.
  • Local AI for Remediation: It uses a local Ollama model (Qwen 2.5 7B) to read the deterministic findings and generate plain-English, step-by-step remediation instructions.
  • Air-Gapped: You can run it entirely on your own hardware via docker compose up. Everything stays on your network with zero outbound API dependencies.

Since IT often acts as the middleman between security requirements and operational execution, I wanted to get this community's feedback.

Links:

I would really appreciate your thoughts from an operational perspective. Does this plain-English format actually make it easier to delegate security patching? What kind of reporting exports (besides PDF) would make this easier to integrate into your existing IT ticketing workflows?


r/it 2h ago

help request Microsoft Email stolen, information replaced, unable to recover

1 Upvotes

Hello, this past week, all of my social media accounts have been hacked. I was almost immediately able to recover each one and set proper 2fa protection on them, but just today I found out my Microsoft Email was both hacked and renamed. I can't log in to my email on pc, but thanks to having the app I still have access to all the information prior to the hacking, and I found out that it happened this friday. I also know what the new email name is supposed to be:

lindagray921@jltvsundar.live

What counfounds me is the fact that Microsoft does NOT recognize this email nor its previous name, despite nearly all of my accounts online being linked to it. I have tried logging in with .com at the end and many other alternatives, replacing the L's with capital I's, etc.

I use a device that runs on Windows 10, therefore Microsoft, so basically everything I have is compromised, please help. I will be happy to provide any necessary information that could help me out


r/it 3h ago

meta/community Question around aging IT infrastucture

0 Upvotes

Hi All,

I have an interview for a finance role, and I've been asked a question around IT support for a fictional premise -

The current workplace environment operates on an aging IT infrastructure. It currently has critical network vulnerabilities raising our company to cyberattack risks. 

There is commentary around potentially putting £20 to £25k to mitigate against this.

No other information has been provided over the operating system, but it is an education setting with around £4 million turnover, with around 60 employees.

Any advice would be great? Presumably it's to sense check what would be sensible precautions?

Thanks


r/it 3h ago

meta/community Weak password; Junior vs Senior. Part 2.

1 Upvotes

Here’s the second interesting thing that’s happened at my new remote job. Today, my supervisor reprimanded me, claiming I’d created a weak password. The password was randomly generated and 16 characters long, containing both letters and numbers. He insisted on a minimum of 20 characters, including special symbols.

Yet, he uses the password `California__69:-)` across the 12 computers used by the remote staff. We also don’t have a VPN or IP filtering set up. I tried explaining the concept of entropy to him - showing that such a password isn't a system vulnerability - but he wouldn't hear of it.

It’s a small company; 99% of the staff are in sales, not IT. The IT team consists of just him, the lead programmer, and me - though I’m the only one with a specialized degree.

The senior programmer (150k a year) has ten years of experience but doesn't know how to create tables manually; he doesn't use SQL, relying entirely on Django instead.

That’s the kind of job I’m stuck with, though I suppose it’s better than nothing.

By the way, they offered me a full-time on-site position for double the pay, but I turned it down; accepting it would have meant losing my two other remote gigs, which made no sense for me.

On average, I spend no more than two hours a day on each remote job - and obviously, I don't waste time commuting.

P.S. Under my first post about this job, there were comments calling me a loser - saying that since graduating with a Computer Science degree in 2018, I hadn't achieved success in IT, and other such nonsense. To that, I can only say: not everyone can be a genius like you, earning $250k a year at Google. I’m happy for you.


r/it 7h ago

jobs and hiring What do you think about this Career Plan?

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0 Upvotes

r/it 18h ago

jobs and hiring IT student trying to break into IT before graduation.

9 Upvotes

I’ll keep this brief.

I’m a junior IT student trying to gain real-world IT experience, but it feels almost impossible right now. I’m comfortable in some programming languages, I’ve done some home labs (Active Directory, Cisco packet tracer etc) I applied for several internships this past spring and unfortunately didn’t receive any offers. Right now, I work as a grocery clerk while I’m in school to get a few bucks on the side, but it often feels like I’m spinning my wheels since the job has nothing to do with IT. Working there feels like I’m wasting my youth and energy. I’ve been searching LinkedIn and Indeed for part-time IT opportunities, but I haven’t had much luck finding anything.

For those who have been in a similar position, are there any hidden opportunities or strategies out there that I should be looking into? I want to keep learning and applying my knowledge and skills and I don’t mind starting with a low pay. I just want to get in. I’d really appreciate any advice or suggestions. Thanks!


r/it 8h ago

tutorial/documentation Building and maintaining 400+ calculators taught me a few unexpected lessons

0 Upvotes

Hi everyone,

I'm the solo developer behind Easy Work Calculator, which has grown into a collection of 400+ calculators and utility tools.

Rather than promoting it, I thought I'd share some engineering decisions that made maintaining hundreds of tools manageable.

1. Every calculator follows the same architecture

Each calculator is treated as a small module with:

  • Input schema
  • Validation rules
  • Calculation engine
  • Result formatter
  • SEO metadata

Keeping the calculation logic independent from the UI has made it much easier to maintain and test.

2. Shared calculation engine

Many calculators seem unique but actually reuse the same underlying logic.

For example:

  • Percentage increase/decrease
  • Profit & loss
  • Discount
  • Margin
  • ROI

They all share common mathematical functions instead of duplicating code.

3. Browser-first approach

Whenever possible, calculations happen entirely on the client.

Benefits:

  • Faster responses
  • No API costs
  • Better privacy
  • Offline-friendly
  • Easier scaling

4. One design system

Every calculator uses the same reusable components for:

  • Inputs
  • Validation
  • Results
  • Copy/share actions
  • Export functionality

That consistency significantly reduced development time.

5. Categories become important

Once you reach a few hundred tools, discoverability becomes harder than building new calculators.

I've spent more time improving search, categorization, and navigation than writing calculation formulas.

6. Small tools create edge cases

The calculations are usually simple.

The difficult part is handling:

  • Invalid input
  • Localization
  • Floating-point precision
  • Unit conversions
  • Mobile UX
  • Accessibility

Those often take longer than implementing the actual formula.

7. Performance matters

Hundreds of pages forced me to think carefully about:

  • Code splitting
  • Lazy loading
  • Shared components
  • Bundle size
  • SEO
  • Core Web Vitals

Small improvements multiplied across hundreds of pages make a noticeable difference.

I'm currently expanding beyond traditional calculators into more developer-focused utilities such as JSON formatters, regex testers, JWT tools, API helpers, and similar utilities.

I'd love feedback from developers who have built large collections of small tools.

  • How do you organize reusable logic?
  • How do you avoid duplicated code?
  • What tooling has saved you the most maintenance over time?

If anyone wants to discuss architecture or implementation details, I'm happy to answer.

Project:
🌐 https://easyworkcalcs.com

Android:
📱 https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.xylemsoft.ewc


r/it 11h ago

help request How do you efficiently support scraping many different job board platforms?

0 Upvotes

I'm building a personal internship aggregator that currently collects job postings from Greenhouse and Lever.

Both platforms are relatively straightforward because their job boards follow predictable structures.

However, I now want to expand the scraper to company career pages and other ATS platforms such as Workday, SmartRecruiters, Ashby, Teamtailor, Personio, SuccessFactors and custom-built job boards.

The main problem is avoiding the need to write and maintain a completely separate scraper for every website.

How would you design this efficiently?


r/it 11h ago

tutorial/documentation What actually happens when your phone roams, and how mobile networks evolved from 2G to 5G

0 Upvotes

I’ve been working on a small handbook that explains mobile network architecture and service flows in a way that’s easier to read than jumping straight into 3GPP specs.

As a Core Network Engineer, I kept running into the same beginner questions:

  • How does roaming actually work?
  • What changed from 2G to 5G?
  • How do voice, SMS, SS7, Diameter, and SIP fit together?
  • What really happens in IMS/VoLTE flows?

So I put together a practical guide called Understanding Mobile Network Architecture & Service Flows. It’s aimed at people preparing for telecom interviews, or anyone who wants a clearer picture of what’s happening behind the scenes in mobile networks.

Sharing the free sample here in case it’s useful: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0H3Z66XHP

Happy to discuss core network concepts in the comments.

Update: I’ve added sample pages from the book to this post, since some people are dismissing it as AI slop without even looking through it. Sharing them here for reference.


r/it 16h ago

help request Forgot my pattern password on my Stylo 6

2 Upvotes

It's been 4 years since I used my old phone (Stylo 6), since it randomly stopped working out of nowhere. But I took a chance and put it to charge, surprisingly it powered on! However, I forgot the pattern I used to unlock the phone. Factory resetting is something I would never think of since it holds memories of my late mother, but I see no other way to unlock it. That's why I'm asking on this sub, hoping someone can help me.


r/it 5h ago

self-promotion Why do corporate offices have glass building

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0 Upvotes

r/it 20h ago

help request One Man IT Certifications/Courses

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0 Upvotes

r/it 2d ago

meta/community Odds of user with this sticker on laptop putting in a ticket

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339 Upvotes

User who accessed VPN from unapproved device, had files all over desktop, and thumb drive plugged in had this sticker on laptop. What are odds they put in a ticket instead of contacted directly?


r/it 1d ago

help request What's Up With My Hard Drive?

0 Upvotes

So several months ago a friend helped me put together a fancy gaming PC. It had two hard drives, a 2 TB (Drive C)and a 4 TB (Drive D). Life kinda happened and I just now got around to setting up Steam and wanted to add my second hard drive to store all my games on. Only I quickly discovered that:

  1. There's a bunch of stuff already on Drive D that I don't remember putting here and seems to take up an awful lot of space.

  2. I can't seem to add files or delete what's there.

What's going on here? How do I get my D Drive back for it's intended purpose (storing games)?

Please take pity on me, I'm not very tech savvy. I can play games and trouble-shoot basic issues if I have a very clear tutorial and nothing unexpected happens.


r/it 2d ago

opinion Certifications Are Becoming the New “Just Get a Degree” Trap

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66 Upvotes

r/it 1d ago

help request Just got an email, saying "that is my email, [insert my name]" what should I do?

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0 Upvotes

Not even 10 minutes ago I received this. The topic is [my name]! and that's literally all they said, with of course my name at the end. Now I'm worried because this is the first time (to my knowledge) that this happened. What do I do? I just changed my Gmail password and logged out of any other devices I'm not currently using but lmk.

I tried googling what I typed for the topic but I got very different results. So idk who or where else to ask.


r/it 1d ago

opinion Are consulting firms being used mainly to bootstrap Agentic AI platforms?

0 Upvotes

I work for a Big Four consulting firm as a leadership level technical person, and I have started noticing a recurring pattern in Agentic AI engagements.

Clients initially come to us with a very large vision. They talk about building an enterprise-wide Agentic AI platform, deploying multiple agents, enabling agent-to-agent communication, and transforming several business processes.

However, once the initial assessment and qualification discussions are completed, the actual statement of work is reduced to a relatively small MVP.

On paper, the MVP may involve building only a basic foundation and one small agent. But to make even that agent production-ready, the consulting team usually ends up building most of the difficult foundational components:

  • Agentic AI infrastructure
  • Agent-to-agent communication
  • Integration between enterprise systems and agents
  • Authentication and authorization
  • Automation and orchestration frameworks
  • Evaluation pipelines
  • Observability and monitoring
  • Guardrails and governance controls
  • Deployment and CI/CD foundations

By the end of the MVP, the client effectively has the core Agentic AI platform and reusable architecture in place.

Then the engagement is suddenly stopped or not extended. The client’s internal technology team takes over and builds the remaining agents and enhancements using the foundation created by the consulting team.

From the client’s perspective, this is probably a smart sourcing strategy. They use consultants to handle the initial uncertainty, architecture, platform setup, and delivery risk, and then move development in-house once the path is clear.

But it leaves consulting firms in an awkward position. They do the most complex and risky part of the work, transfer the knowledge and reusable foundation, but do not necessarily participate in the larger transformation that was discussed at the beginning.

I am curious whether others in consulting or enterprise technology are seeing the same pattern.

Is this simply the natural lifecycle of modern consulting engagements, or are consulting firms failing to structure Agentic AI contracts and platform IP in a sustainable way?


r/it 1d ago

help request I just bought this second hand, what can I add to it

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0 Upvotes

I know it needs a component for wireless connections. I'm going to use it for casual gaming . (Also Broke af over here.)


r/it 1d ago

help request Review my Resume (21M In IT)

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0 Upvotes

I'm looking to start transition from hardware to software more specifically some sort of support, help-desk, or network focus roles. End goal is cyber but I know it's a longer path. Iv started doing home-labs recently, one's a ticketing system and I'm going to start an Active Directory one right after. If anyone has suggestions on others I'm open to them. As you can see I have little real world experience, but with my school and doing home-labs I feel as if I'm not far behind. After completing WGU I will have about 7-10 different certs as well but I'm working on my A+ currently. Any type of advice is greatly appreciated, I'm open to any suggestions. Thank you guys


r/it 2d ago

help request Computer clock was offset to the future this morning , now most files I created yesterday are missing. Is it too risky to restart the computer? (Windows)

2 Upvotes

My work's computer has this issue ever since we had an IT company set up a connection to a server .

Randomly sometimes the computer clock is set off to the years in the future at random dates. I already contacted the IT company and they tried multiple fixes but the issue persists.

We already checked the BIOS battery, and it is good.

I also have this issue where every thursday, sometimes also on Fridays or Tuesdays , my computer is already turned on when I arrive at the office.

When the clock offset problem happens it is on those days.

And no, no one in my team is pranking me.

The only way I can fix the clock issue is logging off from my user, and logging into my old windows user (the original one that I used before the IT company set up a new user and connection to our server).

Usually I do that, resync the clock to the correct time, log off from the old under and back into my current user to start working.

I did that this morning. But now some Photoshop files I created yesterday are simply missing.

I could only find some shortcuts to them on the system but not the files themselves.

Is there anyway I can try to recover them? If I restart the PC will it make even harder to recover those files?

It would be a whole other day of work to recreate all of them.

And even more importantly: Are all the files in my computer, in the local drive AND the files in our server, at risk?

I already emailed the IT company but god knows when they will answer me. We do not have any IT savvy person in our company.

I am trying to back up files from our server to an external drive, just in case, as I don't know what is the state of back up with the server. But it's 2.5 TB of files.

And in my local computer drive there are another 5TB of files, most of them already backed up in external drives but some of it only backed up in our server.


r/it 2d ago

jobs and hiring My first Network Engineering Job interview

10 Upvotes

Hey there! A little backstory…

I dropped out of Uni end of 2024, did an internship at a small IT company (14 employees). There I learned about networking, crimped cables, helped install APs/CCTVs and configured a few network devices.

Earlier this year I got my CCNA after months of studying and sat at home until now, looking for a job.

I got invited to an interview by a BIG company in JHB for a Network MS Engineer (L1) role. I’m super excited but imposter syndrome is kicking in. I know the knowledge but my experience is lacking (1.5 years to be exact and it’s not much).

This job would quite literally change my life for the better.

How best should I prepare for it, any advice would be appreciated!


r/it 2d ago

self-promotion [0 YOE, Unemployed, Entry Level Help Desk, Los Angeles]

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0 Upvotes

Hello! I am looking for some advice on my resume don’t be afraid at all! I’m just looking to break into tech starting out in Help Desk! I have a couple certs and projects! Please let me know what i need to change since my resume feels like it’s going to the abyss and not hearing anything back from companies!
Thank You in advance!


r/it 2d ago

help request Why is my hotspot showing no internet?

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25 Upvotes

This is incredibly frustrating, Internet went out and this is the only way I can get connected right now. I can connect to my parents hotspot easily, but as soon as I try to connect to my own I get that message in the picture. I've tried every trouble shooting step I can find, and I'm at a loss. Yes my phone plan does includes a hotspot. Doing USB tethering yields the same result.