DSTOVER

Intro

I’m Dan — a systems administrator and lifelong technology tinkerer. I spend my days working with servers, networks, databases, cloud services, automation, and all the other pieces that somehow keep an IT environment running.

Outside of work, I’m usually doing more of the same for absolutely no good reason. I enjoy building home lab servers, experimenting with Linux, hosting my own services, working on websites, and taking things apart just to understand how they work. This site is one of those projects — it doesn’t particularly need to exist, but building and running it myself is half the fun.

Technology has always been something I learn best by actually doing. Build it, break it, figure out why it broke, fix it, and come away knowing a little more than I did before. This site is a place for some of those projects, experiments, and whatever else I happen to be messing with at the moment.

Work

I work as a Systems Administrator, supporting the infrastructure and technology that keeps a business running day to day. My work covers a pretty wide range — Windows and Linux servers, virtualization, networking, Microsoft 365, databases, security, backups, automation, and plenty of troubleshooting when something inevitably decides not to cooperate.

A large part of what I enjoy about IT is solving problems. Sometimes that means tracking down a strange network issue or digging through logs to figure out why an application stopped working. Other times it means replacing an outdated process with something simpler and more reliable, automating repetitive work, or building a solution when there isn't an obvious one available.

I spend a lot of time working with technologies including Windows Server, Active Directory, Microsoft 365, Hyper-V, SQL Server, Linux, PowerShell, networking, firewalls, VPNs, virtualization, and web infrastructure.

Over the years I've learned that some of the most useful IT knowledge comes from being willing to dig into systems you don't completely understand yet. I enjoy getting into the details, figuring out how the pieces fit together, and finding practical solutions that actually make things work better.

And when the documentation says "this should just work," that's usually when things get interesting.

About

I’ve been fascinated by computers and technology for as long as I can remember. What started with simply using computers eventually turned into wanting to understand what was happening behind the screen — how networks communicate, how servers work, why something broke, and whether I could build it myself.

That curiosity never really went away. I’m the kind of person who will set up a server at home for something that could probably be accomplished in five minutes with a hosted service, simply because building it myself is more interesting. My home lab gives me a place to experiment with virtualization, Linux, networking, web hosting, and whatever technology has caught my attention that week.

I especially enjoy projects where I get to start with nothing and eventually have a working system in front of me. There’s something satisfying about taking a new server, an empty virtual machine, or a pile of hardware and turning it into something useful.

Away from the keyboard, I enjoy working on projects around the house, messing with cars and electronics, and generally finding new things to tinker with. If something has buttons, wires, an IP address, or a setting I probably shouldn't change, there’s a pretty good chance I’m going to investigate it.

This website is really just another extension of that curiosity — a little corner of the internet I can build, change, break, rebuild, and call my own.

Contact

• Twitter
• Facebook
• Instagram
• GitHub

Elements

i = 0;

while (!deck.isInOrder()) {
    print 'Iteration ' + i;
    deck.shuffle();
    i++;
}

print 'It took ' + i + ' iterations to sort the deck.';