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Where, what and how do I start practicing my IT skills……?

Refer to the following on how to begin practicing simple IT skills.
Note – I make references to some external sources on this post. I’m not endorsed by these sources nor do I have any arrangement with these sources. I have utilised them purely for my own learning and skill building.

  • Cloud learning
    • Azure, AWS, Google Cloud, Oracle etc
      • Sign up for free (in AWS signing up is free however you will need to enter your credit card into the system)
        • (Note – At the time of writing this is my knowledge and how I recall signing up for AWS. There is also a small charge each month despite having no resources or services running on my account. Be sure to read (or AI) the terms and conditions of fees and charges)
        • For this example I will be using AWS, as I’m familiar with this cloud system
      • Once you’ve signed up and registered, try navigating around the interface
        • The main services you’ll use in AWS are instances, lambda’s, dynamo (for simple flat websites / SPA’s (single page applications)
          • Do a search on the internet on what these services do to get a high level understanding
            • Instances – virtual machines that run and host your applications. Think of it as a virtual computer / server
            • Lambdas – serverless jobs that run in AWS. You can run things like generating reports and documents on sales, send these reports via email from AWS etc
            • Dynamo – storage service to store data, like customer information, names, addresses etc (if storing data like what was mentioned make sure you read on some security principles handling and managing the data)
      • Have a go at doing a basic task or project
        • When I started in AWS, I completed a slot machine app using dynamo and a lambda. I managed to create this slot machine app where you onto the website link to my slot machine app, press the trigger to see the slot machine run and then see the outcome / result
        • Another project I performed was running a flat html website from an s3 bucket
        • I also performed a few actions on running my own instances, logging in via ssh keys, installing python and other packages to see what instances can do
      • Note – if you do attempt to pursue building your own projects in AWS be sure to remove all properties and assets used to create your project.
        • AWS charges you for the properties and assets used to build your project
        • I used Kubernetes to build a simple website. Little did I know that using Kubernetes / EKS in AWS would cost me $20 for the month
          • This is a little amount but had I left this and ignored it, I may have incurred more costs
  • IT support and operations (cms/product/service support)
    • I use Udemy as my main learning resource
    • If you sign up for Udemy and type in ‘IT operations’ or ‘IT support’ you’ll find a list of courses that may be of interest
      • (Try to find ones that focus on customer support / sme support / cms support)
      • E.g. this course https://www.udemy.com/course/it-service-operations-and-service-desk-management/
        • This course will teach you how to manage incidents / problems / issues
        • Once you know the concept of handling these concepts applying it to different systems and programs will be the same
        • Don’t focus too much on the technical support courses like Active Directory, Networking etc, unless you want to pursue this path
    • You can also find other resources that have crash courses on the system you’ll be supporting
  • How and what are you searching; How are you practicing researching the skills needed for the IT skill?
    • Wanting to know a particular skill, have you tried entering the following into your search or AI prompts?
      • How do I create an instance in AWS
      • How do I upload a picture onto a product on Shopify
      • How do I log into <put system name here> system
      • What are the top 5 skills / things to know about AWS
      • What are the top 3 skills to know in Shopify
      • What are the top 5 skills to know about <put system name here>
    • These simple how and why questions go along way to targeting the skill you want to learn
    • Don’t just search for AWS or Shopify in your search or AI prompt, you will probably get bombarded with some data not useful to you
  • Other

Summary:

  • If the system you are using has a free service, register for it and begin navigating around, starting up some services and creating your own projects
    • You can also create a dedicated email address for this IT practice, so you don’t get bombarded with extra emails from the vendors / 3rd parties
  • Search for quick bootcamp type courses that show the functions / features of the IT skill you want to learn
  • Use what and how words in your searching of skills
    • Also search for creators / posts / videos of examples of IT projects
    • Remember to document your learnings

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