Ask MetaFilter questions tagged with system

What is the name of this numbering system?

joelf — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 11:27:12 -0800

Does this Dewey decimal-like numbering system seen in requirements documents, site maps and any numbered system where you don't have to rewrite the numbers every time an update is made and looks like 1.2.1.1 have a name?

2
- 2.1
- 2.2

3
- 3.1
- 3.2
- 3.3
  - 3.3.1

Alfresco or no alfresco

london302 — Sat, 26 Sep 2009 03:48:53 -0800

I want advice on setting up a basic, password protected, document management system to host pdf documents and pdf forms. I am inundated with terms like Joomla, Drupal, Alfresco each one with its pros and cons [similar questions on askmefi havent helped much] I am looking for a quick implementation of a server based system which people from the organisation and outside (who have access via username and password) can download them for their use.

What we need it for: We have to submit reports monthly for the projects we do and currently we manage this via an informal mailiing list but everybody else in our industry has not migrated to 'document portals' and the ability for the clients to have all documents in one place is the most requested feature.

'Must Have' features:
1. Different levels of access depending on the level of user
2. Company logo and branding to give it a professional feel
3. A left pane with a folder tree and when a folder is clicked it brings up a list of documents with a short description of the document and a link to download.

'Nice to Have' features:
1. Ability to upload documents via email
2. Ability to fill and submit pdf forms
3. Advance printing features
4. Email users when a new document is uploaded.

The options I have been offered are:
- commercial document management systems hosted for a monthly fee
- joomla hosted on a third party server
-alfresco hosted on a third party server

Usage:

1. We do not expect for the total amount of data held on the server to be more than a few gigabytes.

2. Total number of users (including all categories) will not be more than 10 and at maximum can rise to 50 if we really really push it.

I am told that Alfresco is the all singing dancing platform for something like this but takes a higher level of skill to deploy than joomla which is not really a document management system but can function like a basic one.

I am looking for advice on the above or any other ideas. Thanks

Learning Management System with Active Directory Support

mrw — Tue, 14 Jul 2009 17:03:24 -0800

I am looking for a (preferably Opensource / free) Learning Management System that will link up with LDAP / Windows Active Directory The company I work for is looking to roll out web-based "exams" on subjects such as desktop security for a certification we are looking to hold. Ideally the software will limit a user's permissions to do many things until they pass the exam/test. I have heard of such software, but I cannot recall the name.

Currently our network setup is on a windows domain, using windows server 2008 active directory to manage user groups. I can set up a box for whatever operating system / webserver / databasing required as i have a few spares here at the moment.

In addition to the above, the software needs to generate some kind of file indicating which users have completed the test and which have yet to do so.

If you have a better idea on how to roll out such a thing, well... any and all suggestions are greatly appreciated

Recommendations for an online Document Management System?

kensch — Sat, 11 Jul 2009 12:25:55 -0800

Recommendations for an online Document Management System? Looking to host ~10 years of mixed files online (minutes, proposals, etc.), and have it be easily accessible and searched. I'm looking to move the entire record of our organization: minutes, proposals, amendments, flyers, and so forth online (This amounts to 10 years of weekly documents), to make them accessible to the general membership and public. I'm trying to find an online program or system that would easily structure these documents, sort them by date, and allow for searching. We're looking for either a free service, or open source package. Nothing should require you to log in, so there is no need for accounts except for administrator access. We also don't need access control (such as checking in/out documents).

I've been toying around with different things for a while now. We tried to use Scribd, which made documents very easy to read and accessible, but I found that it was difficult to sort by date and unwieldy with large numbers of documents. There were a few others that didn't work for various reasons. Knowledgetree was too caught up in version control. My latest attempt is with Owl Knowledgebase, though the normal version has too many features that we don't need and makes file access difficult. Owl-lite actually comes closest to what we need, and I've been doing my best to customize it. However, it has difficulty sorting by dates. So, any ideas? How have you overcome the obstacle of structuring documents online?

He's Not Nemo, but we still want him alive

HeyAllie — Fri, 19 Jun 2009 10:52:05 -0800

How do I set up this filtration system? It's an Aqua expert 600 filtration system for a 2.5 gallon mini-bow aquarium. Our office inherited Grover, a beta fish that came with a tank and a water filtration system. Whoever had it before said the tank stayed pretty clean, but since it came with no instructions, we're not sure if the filtration system is set up right now. Because after changing the water, the tank looks dirty again after 2 or 3 days.

I've taken the tubing apart, but I'm not sure if it's put back together correctly.

Help us keep Grover alive!

Virus Scan Company That Accepts Submissions?

Quarter Pincher — Tue, 16 Jun 2009 17:31:59 -0800

Do any of the major virus-scan software sites permit sending in a questionable programs for possible addition to the ongoing alerts? Ultimately, I'm wondering whether the Marie Brighton / Synovate computer survey is safe to take -- they're asking me to install and run this program that sends them details about my machine (system name, machine name, installed devices, various settings, etc). It sounds really hokey. I don't want to just share the program with the world, here, in case it has account-related information along with it already.

Pretty much all the details are here, and requests to see whether I can just check off a manual survey of "do you have this"-style questions merely state that I'd only get the incentive ($20) for running the program. I've saved-as the program, but haven't run it yet. I'm just fine with simply not running it, but there doesn't seem to be any coverage of the subject on the web much at all, and I'm sure someone else would like to know also.

As for the original question -- I'm curious as to whether there's a well-established scanner/etc site out there that accepts user submissions of questionable programs, instead of just checking it with a scan. I'd like vastly superior details on the program, not just a red or a green flag.

What do I need to know about getting into OS X system administration?

Chris4d — Fri, 15 May 2009 09:06:04 -0800

What do I need to know about getting into OS X system administration? This is phrased broadly, so please feel free to give any advice. I'm coming at this as a potential career path, but I don't have a lot of professional knowledge. I am self-taught on PCs and Macs from a young age and have fiddled around behind the scenes a little (played with mysql, macports, apache, etc.) but don't have a lot of experience in a unix environment. I read slashdot and daring fireball and etc. Basically I am loosely plugged in to the IT world, but no more so than the next guy, so I need help developing expertise and finding out if this is worth pursuing. Originally trained in architectural design, urban planning and real estate, so those aren't going to be a huge help, except that I use computers a lot and I am the de facto fix-it guy wherever I go. Questions:

I know OS X isn't a big market (right now), but I look at it as a stepping stone/complimentary skill to unix administration and I like working in the OSX environment. is this a valid direction?

Is there job potential for a 20-something guy with intelligence but not professional experience? Job security? Money? What does the job market look like going forward? If you must know my secrets, I'm looking especially toward higher education and potentially design firms (when autodesk gets around to an OSX version of autocad)

Is it worthwhile to pursue the apple professional certifications? What other professional networks/certs/etc. knowledge should I be checking out? who/what should I know? What should I read? What should I focus on?

If you have personal experience in the field, what other advice would you give? What's the career like?

Thanks in advance!

I need a certain type of phone system

Anonymous — Mon, 02 Mar 2009 21:07:58 -0800

Is there a system/business/company out there that has the following phone system setup: (I'm asking this anonymously since I don't want some business associates to know.)

I'm trying to find out if the following type of system exists:
- Will let me dial in and "wait" on the line to receive calls
- Has an "unlimited" (virtually) supply of numbers that other people can call and use to talk to me

So, for example, let's say that I want to call a number, for example 555-555-1110, wait on the line and have person A call me on number 555-555-1111, then person B call me on number 555-555-1112, then person C call me on number 555-555-1113, etc ad nausem, and each number will "forward" to me with me staying on the line. (I don't need to talk to all of them at the same time, so it's not a conference line.) The numbers don't have to be sequential; the process is all that matters.

Ultra mega bonus points if there's something like this setup for free, regardless of whether it's meant to be used like this or not.

Does a system like this exist? Sorry if the question is weird, but I can't go into too much detail without breaking my anon cover. :)

Rebuilding Ubuntu Server 8.04 Help!!

purenitrous — Tue, 17 Feb 2009 11:40:27 -0800

I recently lost a raid array on a ubuntu 8.04 server forcing me to rebuild it from scratch and/or restore data from backup. (I have copies of /var, /etc, and /home) The problem is I can't seem to rebuild the server so that it works exactly the way it did before, this is killing me!! (fyi... I inherited this system). My specific problem seems to be with Samba. I'm looking for help in two different ways... help 1) either figure out how to restore this system with what I've got backed up. Or fix samba so it works. See details below: The previous system was Ubuntu 8.04. I've got good backups of /etc /var and /home.

What I want to do is simply build a basic install of ubuntu server 8.04 and restore /etc and /var. But this fails, because I am missing packages. I don't know what packages need to be installed to make this system complete. It seems like there should be something in my backup of /var/lib/apt should be able to tell me what packages are missing, need to installed, or reinstalled.

If I can't restore the server with the strategy above, I guess I need to rebuild the thing from scratch... which is what I've been doing and leads me to my next problem: Samba, LDAP, name resolution, and/or other unknown problems....

Samba user authenticate to openldap directory on another network. I've got nss working. I can do a #getent passwd and see ldap data. I've got my secrets.tdb setup and it seems like samba can query ldap. But I'm not sure all the naming services are working. In my /var/log/samba/log.smbd I see some errors "warning: failed to create BUILTIN\Administrators group! Can Winbind allocate gids?". (smb.conf log level = 5)

anyhow, I can post whatever log files or config files that might be helpful.

Another interesting clue to what might be wrong.... I have a win2k and wink3 server that both have shares with permissions for users from the domain that the failed Samba server was advertising. On the windows servers I've added the IP address of the WINS server on the network that the LDAP server is located... now the windows servers at least show user info in the permissions dialog box for the shares. But folks still can not authenticate to these windows shares... access is denied because of invalid credentials (or something).

Any ideas?

TIA,
Dave

strange WindowsXP problem

Meatbomb — Tue, 03 Feb 2009 05:55:16 -0800

Strange thing happening on my Windows XP, don't know what to do... OK, you know down in the system tray, bottom right corner, how sometimes you get a little speech bubble pop-up, with a little popping noise, when something noteworthy has happened? For example, when a torrent has completed downloading, or a new external hard drive is detected, or whatever? Usually they stay up long enough to click on them for further information, to act on the information.

So my problem is that for the last few months I have been getting these strange little events, where a speech bubble pops but is really quick, too quick for me to see what it is talking about. It is only there for like 1/5 of a second, even when I stare intently and wait for it I cannot read it. When it starts doing this it will continue for an extended period, every minute or so, giving me the little pop / speech bubble.

How the hell do I figure out what is up?

Some further info:
-happens whether or not I am running BitTorrent or Skype
-I have updated AVG on, it tells me I am clean
-I just did a full system malware scan with a couple different tools, nothing fishy was indicated
-here is an image of my current tray, if that is of any help. It is going on right now...

I would love to make this slightly irritating thing stop. Can you nice and knowledgeable people advise me on how to proceed? Thanks in advance.

Ceiling sprinkler head looks like it keeps getting lower, is it going to go off?

slhpatterson — Thu, 29 Jan 2009 17:21:02 -0800

My apartment has a ceiling sprinkler system and one of the heads that has descended slightly from the ceiling. Should i worry that the sprinkler head will go off? I recently moved into a new building with a sprinkler system in the ceiling. One of the sprinkler heads has descended from the ceiling about an inch. I can see metal grooves but can't see the actual sprinkler head. My super says not to worry, is there a chance this one sprinkler head can go off by itself? While the sprinkler head is near the kitchen there is another sprinkler head almost above the stove that is flush with the ceiling.

Video Card for AVCHD editing

Eiwalker — Mon, 26 Jan 2009 06:16:32 -0800

Would a video/graphics card allow me to be able to edit my avchd (.mts) files from my new Canon HF100 camcorder? When I try to play my files, a lot of frames get skipped. They play at about 2 frames per second, skipping all the rest. Nor can I edit.

Worse: the Canon ImageMaker 3 software that came with the camera has the option of burning straight from the camera to a DVD, but when I try this option the application goes into "not responding" mode.

My rig is Pentium 4 3.0 Ghz, 4GB ram, no video card. But the ImageMaker 3 software says you can burn to a DVD with a Pentium 4 1.49 Ghz, 512GB ram, and sound card compatible with DirectSound. So maybe I just need a cheap sound card to be able to do that.

To play or edit, you need at least a Pentium D 3.0 Ghz cpu or an Intel Core 2 Duo 2.13 Ghz cpu, and a sound card compatible with DirectSound. A cheap sound card would meet the sound standard. But what about my having a Pentium 4 instead of a Pentium D? Do I need a better cpu, or can I make up for the deficiency by getting the right video card? I'm poor. Might this $26 card do the trick?

Here are the specs:
Model
Brand GIGABYTE
Model GV-R435OC-512I
Form Factor Low Profile
Interface
Interface PCI Express 2.0 x16
Chipset
Chipset Manufacturer ATI
GPU Radeon HD 4350
Core clock 650MHz
Stream Processors 80 Stream Processing Units
Memory
Memory Clock 800MHz
Memory Size 512MB
Memory Interface 64-bit
Memory Type GDDR2
3D API
DirectX DirectX 10.1
OpenGL OpenGL 2.0
Ports
HDMI 1
D-SUB 1
DVI 1
General
RAMDAC 400 MHz
Max Resolution 2560 x 1600
Cooler With Fan
Dual-Link DVI Supported Yes
HDCP Ready Yes
Packaging
Package Contents GV-R435OC-512I
Driver Disk
User's Manual
L-P Bracket

Looking for hotel booking software.

davebush — Fri, 23 Jan 2009 11:56:57 -0800

If someone wanted to build a website that allowed online booking for multiple hotels, what inexpensive off-the-shelf software/CMS could be incorporated? The business idea: cheap hotel rooms (from one geographic area) are resold online.

The site would need to:

1. Present room options and availablity via calendar.

2. Allow automated and manual inventory management (removal and addition of available hotel rooms) by the site administrator.

3. Allow the addition and removal of participating hotels by the site administrator.

4. Generate a comfirmation email for each booking.

5. Accept PayPal.

All suggestions will be warmly accepted and appreciated.

Playing records and listening to my iMac through one system

Foam Pants — Sun, 14 Dec 2008 01:32:39 -0800

I would like to set up a system where my turntable and my iMac all flow out of a nice set of speakers. I have no idea where to start. This is the junk I have:
1. iMac
2. Pioneer belt-driven turntable with audio out hardwired and no amplifier
3. a super crappy stereo with half of the speakers missing. Funny story, I had to toss one because a mouse made a nest in it. I want to make this ugly, usable-space-sucker go away.
4. Basic Airport
5. Record collection that I like to play AS RECORDS
6. a sizable MP3 collection that I play through iTunes

Stuff I am willing to purchase
1. New turntable, even though my current one sports a kick-ass sticker collection
2. amplifier
3. Another Airport
4. Sweet speakers
5. Something else a dunder head like me doesn't realize she needs.
6. The services of a male escort.

While I love my music, I am an idiot who doesn't know jack about setting up an audio system. Please advise me, you can be condescending if it helps it come out.

People cooperating complicatedly?

zeek321 — Tue, 02 Dec 2008 17:22:06 -0800

I want to design a human system (like a small business) and then bootstrap/instantiate it. At the moment, I'm not focusing on psychology but more on franchise-esque/"operations manual" type considerations. I'm not interested in accounting or legal issues, yet. A "business" is the closest analogy I could find, but I'm interested most in bringing people together with similar values and doing something worthwhile and complex without failing or going crazy.

Ideally, I'm looking for in-the-trenches material that guides one through the mitigation of startup chaos into mild stability and how to evolve and institutionalize practices and procedures during that time. (I'm afraid or spending a month writing a manual or designing a flowchart and, on day one, instantly finding it completely useless and out of touch with reality.)

I know that you start chaotic and tiny with a small group of people and a gripping idea, but then you have to make a leap to complexity beyond what one control freak can handle, and that's what I'd like to learn more about.

What should I read? Who should I talk to?

The E-Myth books are too fluffy. Here's some potentially good stuff I've found so far:

Effective Operations and Controls for the Small Privately Held Business [amazon]

Construction Operations Manual of Policies and Procedures [amazon] (This one is way overkill, but it's sort of right, in spirit. How does a complicated system like a business or a school *function*?)

After the restoration

Sara Anne — Fri, 14 Nov 2008 11:48:37 -0800

A couple of weeks ago I had to do a System Restore on my PC, after which I had to reinstall Microsoft Office (2007). Ever since, every time I I open an office program like word or Excel, the program has to go through a long configuration process. This is only true for Microsoft Office programs. I'd like to figure out a way to make this stop.

Maximizing a function over orthogonal matrices

a robot made out of meat — Sun, 26 Oct 2008 08:26:48 -0800

Maximizing a function over orthogonal matrices, or: solving polynomial order 2 systems. Help me out or point me to a better forum / listhost. I have a function f(T) of a matrix that I want to maximize, which is order two in the elements of T. Easy, partial derivatives gives you a linear system. Here's the catch; I also want T to be orthonormal (the dot product of the rows to be zero or one -- the extension of orthogonal to non-square matrices).

The obvious way to maximize a function with constraints is to tack on Lagrange multipliers g(T) = f(T) + sum{lambda[ij](Ti . Tj - delta(i,j) ) }, but now g(T) is order three in parameters, and partial derivatives are order two and I don't know how to solve that system generally.

The dimension of T can be huge, tens of thousands. Let's not suggest numerics unless there's an amazing trick to deal with the dimensionality.

Any ideas? Maximization subject to orthogonality seems like something that should have come up a lot and someone have figured out.

What are innovative ideas for healthcare to save money, increase efficiency and improve outcomes?

mintchip — Sat, 18 Oct 2008 08:06:55 -0800

What are innovative ideas for healthcare to save money, increase efficiency and improve outcomes? What would be some ideas for changes to the existing US health system to save money and improve outcomes? For example, ways to better manage chronic disease, reduce medical errors, reduce duplicate tests, etc.

I'm interested in new ideas as well as ones that have been proven to work in other countries but could be "hacked" to fit the convoluted system we have here in the US.

Teacher needs cheap iPod speaker with remote for classroom, recommendations?

unclezeb — Thu, 02 Oct 2008 11:34:28 -0800

Ipod speaker filter: 4th grade teacher has ipod to play tunes in her classroom, but needs speakers. What do you suggest for (1) less than $75, (2) with remote, (3) loud enough to fill a classroom with 30 students, and (4) works with a 5th gen 80gb ipod? Ms. Unclezeb teaches in Richmond's "Iron-Triangle" and loves giving her students good music options with positive messages (while not sucking) and other tunes to help them focus during exams. She's been interested in an ipod for a while and I've ordered her one that will be able to hold her music collection for years to come.

But I need the help of the hivemind to figure out how to get the music from the ipod to her students!

Requirements:
(1) Hopefully less than $75 - I can bargain hunt to get lower prices, but spending less than $75 is the goal.
(2) With a remote - she'll need to be able to stop, skip, etc while moving around the room, so a remote is a must. Also, it can then be placed high up enough that kids won't be tempted to make the ipod their own.
(3) Loud - it would have to be able to fill a room that has tall ceilings (over 11' tall) and is about 25' x 18'. Not concerned about power at all ends of the sound spectrum, but limited distortion would be nice.
(4) Must work with her ipod classic that's in the mail (I believe this is a 5.5th generation model, please correct me if I'm wrong).

Optional but desirable:
(5) Operational under battery power (but must be able to plug-in in the classroom)
(6) Bigger isn't bad - less of a temptation to students if it's too big to fit in a backpack.

Under consideration thus far:
JBL OnStage II
Intempo IDS-01
iLive ISPK2806BLK
iLive IBCD3817DT Portable Boombox with iPod Docking Station
iLive iHM8816DT Home Music System with DVD/CD
iH9 White Alarm Clock
Satechi (Black) Dock Station Stereo Round Speaker

Tell me what you recommend (or which of my ideas are terrible) if you have a minute, thanks for helping with her surprise gift!

Fix for Braun Shaver/Razor Syncro Clean & Charge System?

criticman — Thu, 04 Sep 2008 06:18:39 -0800

Fix for Braun Shaver/Razor Syncro Clean & Charge System? The base on my system has been broken for years. Here is a replacement: http://www.theessentials.com/jump.jsp?itemID=186&itemType=PRODUCT&iProductID=186

The upper "arm" that snaps into the bottom of the razor when it is placed in the charge/cleaning station stopped working. It used to snap into place and stay there unless you hit the blue release button on it. Now (and as I said, for years) it never snaps/clicks into place. For about a year, thanks to the position of some shelves in my bathroom at my old house, I could wedge the unit between shelves after inserting the shaver. This kept the top part locked into place & allowed the cleaning and charging cycles to run.

However, in my past two (including my present) living situations, there is no place to wedge it. I spent time on Google seeking answers previously without any luck.

I am hoping someone either A) managed to open it and fix it or B) has a clever way to keep the top locked into place to allow normal operation. Yes, I could spend $50 (plus shipping) to get a new base station, but I worry if they did not update the design, that it may fail (I noticed newer models did not have anything that snapped into the back of the razor, making me believe they recognized the design flaw but chose to ignore it on the old parts).

I love this shaver, but the quality of shave (even with recently replaced foils etc) is not as good as when it is frequently cleaned with the base station. I actually have 3 cleaning cartridges waiting to be used, so hoping someone can help.

Good micro stereo system?

DLWM — Wed, 06 Aug 2008 09:00:54 -0800

I'm looking for a cheap (about $200) and compact stereo system for my apartment. Mainly it'd be for playing CD's and streaming audio via my Airport Express. I'm interested in the Onkyo CS-315S, CS-325 and CS-415 units, but I can't for the life of my figure out what the hell the difference is. Does anyone know about these systems, or have any other recommendations? I'm also toying with the idea of getting a cheap powered subwoofer, like the Polk PSW10, to go along with whatever system I get -- thoughts?

Your victories and woes as a unix/linux sysadmin

Myles — Mon, 21 Jul 2008 16:36:17 -0800

What were your greatest victories and punishing woes as a unix/linux system administrator? I've been learning both unix and linux recently from a desire to use Solaris on a home server, and then the whole system administration thing hit me. So, I wanted to throw this one out there for the real world sysadmins out there: For those who are or were Unix or Linux system administrators, whether for a small company or large enterprise, what were some of the unique challenges or obstacles you encountered while working on the job? Not limited to just technical challenges, but it can be anything.

Competition for Belarc Advisor/Manager?

bartleby — Mon, 07 Jul 2008 12:36:05 -0800

Competition for Belarc Advisor? For a whole network? Mefite reviews? I'm looking for a hardware/software audit & inventory package for a whole WAN network - if it does patches& vulnerabilities, bonus!

After trying the free-for-home Belarc Advisor, I'm looking at a Small Network Option for the whole operation.

I've only been playing with the demo for a day, but I like pretty much everything - I'm not so in love with the format of the reports, but more information is better than none.

So anyone have any love or hate stories?

Anyone use a different/competing product?

I found Belarc early and liked it - the only competitor I found before it was Hyena, but I was scared off by the "Fully Y2K compliant" section of the website.

Ticket system that runs off emails

c:\awesome — Thu, 03 Jul 2008 13:57:33 -0800

Is there a good ticket/support/bug management system that builds a queue out of incoming emails? e.g. user sends an email to support@software.com; the management system receives the email, adds the body to a queue where I can assign it, add updates, mark as done, and do all the other normal ticket system things with.

Help me learn to be the sysadmin I need to be!

Reverend John — Fri, 13 Jun 2008 09:34:00 -0800

What do I need to know and how should I learn it? I am the "IT" guy at my company, a small supplier of building materials, with an office staff of about 10, and a warehouse crew of about the same. Problem is I'm underqualified. Before I arrived here the network and all workstations were set up and supported by an outside consultant. When I arrived my primary responsibility was maintaining our web site, hosted elsewhere, and minor IT support when I could answer or fix immediate problems without having to call the consultant. I was A+ and Network+ certified around 4 years ago, but obviously thats not all that impressive, and really I haven't done much in depth there, haven't been building or fixing machines or doing significant network administration.

Unfortunately over the past year or so the consultant has gradually become less accessible to the point of being essentially useless, and I have recurring nightmares about something disastrous happening to our server or network and not being able to fix it, losing all of our business data, etc. I chatted with my bosses, the owners, last night and they've OK'ed me to upgrade my skills in order to make sure everything here is working well and secure.

Currently we have a single server running Windows 2000 server. The workstations are an amalgamation of Win XP pro and Win 2000 workstation. We have a 24 port switch tying it all together, and some networked printers, and a DSL connection to the internet. The server provides a shared directory, Active Directory services, DHCP, and hosts our business application server.

Given what we have my current plan is to self-study towards becoming an MCSA on Windows 2000 server. Some of the win 2k tests are discontinued, but since thats what we're running I figured I would work first on the tests which aren't discontinued yet, like 70-270 Admining Win XP, then working thru the self study books on Win 2k Server like 70-215 Adminning Win 2k server and 70-218 Managing a Win 2k Server network, as if I was going to try to take those exam. Then after I was up to speed on what we're currently running I might want to learn more on what we might want to move to in order to make sure our network is not too obsolete or insecure.

So, what I want to know from you technical mefites is, is my plan reasonable? Am I being foolish to consider studying for obsolete tests in order to fill out my knowledge of the stuff we already have? Is there a better way I should approach this?

Help! I feel overwhelmed and I live in constant fear that I'm going to come in one day and be told "nothing works, fix it" and not be able to.