PC Gamer, father, and down to earth kind of guy. I'm an IT Professional and the Community Manager for Fosstodon.org. Beard and craft beer aficionado.
This past week, I decided to complete an upgrade on one of my old Dell Poweredge R410 servers. It's nothing fancy but, I'm a hardware nut so, I find it to be fun and relaxing. I also appreciate older, enterprise-grade hardware and it's capabilities.
This won't be a long entry but, I just wanted to share a quick post about my 2020 Father's Day.
When I made the decision to start down the path of de-googling, one of the first things to come up for thought was my smart phone. Using equivalent replacement apps for traditional Google Apps/services seemed like something that would be hard to do. Ironically, that wasn't as hard as I initially expected. There's no doubt that Google makes their apps/services very convenient and easy to use but, for the consumer that values their privacy, it's not hard to acclimate to the “inconveniences” of privacy friendly alternatives. After getting accustomed to some of the nuances of these alternatives, I decided it was time to give Google the final boot.
Any thoughts or opinions are relevant to the time/date of the respective post and are subject to change. This is as a result to additional familiarity with, and/or education on, the subject. Posts should be considered a “snap shot” of my opinion at the point in time of which the post was made. As such, any thoughts and opinions expressed within my posts may not be the same, or even similar, to those I may hold today.
My posts are likely of a technical nature. Many of the things I do, and/or post about, are done under my own assumed risks with no guarantee or warranty. Many times, the environments I test things in may be virtualized which, generally, allows for catastrophic failure and the ability to start from a clean slate, leaving minimal to no collateral damage. I bare no risk and cannot be held liable for any damages to your system(s), data loss, physical damage, or any other hardship you might experience, related to posts I create within this blog.
This disclaimer is subject to change, at any time, without notification.
Undoubtedly, music is a large influence in my day-to-day life. Having been a musician for the better part of 2 decades, I tend to have a deeper appreciation for the elements of an audio track. I find myself picking things out of an arrangement that most people tend to take for granted. The guitar riff doesn't just “sound awesome” but, I appreciate the syncopation with the percussion, etc. This can be more easily identifiable with groups like System of a Down and Tool.
Hello, my name is Matt Cooper. I've been an IT “Pro” for a couple of years but, I've been dabbling in home labbing (yes, that's a verb I just made up) and technology for years.
I cut my teeth in the private security sector and as an insurance claims adjuster but, eventually ended up landing a career in the IT field (and I couldn't be happier). I can't believe I actually get paid to work with enterprise-grade hardware.
I've been called a jack of all trades and, as far as I can tell, that's a pretty accurate statement.
I enjoy tinkering with tech in my homelab which consists of a 44u, enclosed cabinet that's nearly filled to the brim with servers of varying types/sizes. Most of it is for virtualization, in one form or another. I could host a separate blog on the contents of the rack but, I might just save the bits and pieces for another day. Without going into too much detail; I'm running several ESXI Hypervisor boxes that include numerous operating systems via virtual machines.
While I'm not a privacy expert, I'm certainly an advocate on the subject. I've done my best to de-google where possible and support TOR. In fact, I host a TOR Relay to help strengthen the TOR Network.
For a period of time, I managed a gun shop in the Florida area so, naturally, I have an appreciation for firearm nomenclature and an affinity for shooting/range time. I'm never pushy about the subject and reserve my thoughts but, I'm always happy to talk shop if you're genuinely interested.
At this stage, I'm still a little new to the Linux scene. I'm behind the thought/concept of using Linux devices over Windows/Mac, etc. but, I'm not a guru in that department. I'm still learning quite a bit about Linux and the innerworkings of the subject but, it certainly has my attention. At the time of this blog post, I'm running PopOS as a daily driver and absolutely loving it.
I enjoy cooking and, more specifically, grilling/smoking meats of varying types. Chances are, at some point, I'll write about making beef jerky, smoking pork butts, or preserving foods.
I'm a father to the coolest little girl in the entire world and my wife is also pretty incredible. Not to mention, she puts up with me and allows me to do all of my nerdy/geeky stuff, without questioning. I love them both and they mean the world to me.
While I leave my Facebook account active (mainly for keeping a contact method for old friends), I've made my home on Fosstodon which is an instance on Mastodon. @Kev and @Mike recently asked me to take over as the Community Manager for Fosstodon and I've really been enjoying it.
You can reach me on Fosstodon, here. You can buy me a coffee, here.
This post is day 1 of my #100DaysToOffload challenge. Visit https://100daystooffload.com to get more info, or to get involved.