I've been in "IT" professionally for 11 years now and have held many different jobs. In each one of them tasks like this have always creeped up on me.

I'm currently in the Telecom area of a large corporation and I need to put on several various hats such as: Project Manager, Data Analysis, Accounting, Sales Engineering, Inside Sales, network troubleshooting, material procurement, vendor management, network designer, financial forecaster, just to name a few. All in the name of "IT"!

I think the first thing we all need to understand is that the button mentioned is NOT a reset button. It's the display button for the lights and is clearly labeled "mode". It cycles between the different information modes such as speed, duplex, stack ID, POE usage, etc. See this article from the Cisco Support forums detailing how to determine which stack ID the different switches are as one example: https://supportforums.cisco.co...

Sorry for the wall o' text. Formatting broke and I didn't catch it before clicking the submit button.

I wish to answer several points here and clarify a few others: First, let me start by saying that I'm not asking anyone to give up their job as a designer and do my work for me. I am a RCDD in training and can do my own design work (as an understudy.) I'm simply asking for any specific tips of things that did or, probably more importantly so, what did NOT work. E.g. Don't go build a huge alert board (as Charliemopps pointed out.) TheBrez also has the right idea. We will be configuring the equipment as a refresh to our other remote sites (I work for a very large company that has ~175-200 sites scattered throughout the US alone.) that will be configured and shipped back out to their respective sites. Also, please consider that this is a configuration center of not-yet-in-production equipment and not an in-production data center or computer room. One example of a design conflict I'm having is racks with shelves vs. tabletop space for configuring equipment. Other good suggestions so far (and thanks to all who have contributed): Raised floors are good for permanent cabling, but poor for heavy turnaround cabling. Barcode systems for organization are HUGE. And just for those who feel I'm reaching out because I'm in over my head....well, there's probably nothing to say that would convince you otherwise, but that is not the case. I've worked a few configuration areas before and have some experience, though on the order of a few months of it rather than years. My design, though sounding vague in text-only form, is to have essentially 3 dedicated areas for the whole space: a storage area for both received equipment not ready for configuration and empty boxes of equipment that is a work in progress, an area for unboxing/boxing the equipment with a typical shipping/receiving feel to it, and the actual configuration space. I lobbied for, and apparently won, the racks w/ shelves design (ideally each shelf representing its own TR.) Cable management is a must, of course, and thank you everyone for making that abundantly clear. In closing, I'm just looking for those tidbits of wisdom that only come from living inside the config area and saying "Man, I really hate that we have ________."

Do you work for my company? Because that sounds just like my company. And we buy up companies all the time and force this awful POS unintuitive "software" upon all sorts of unfortunate souls.

I just put my wife on one of their new plans. We went in there very confused about why we'd want to pay essentially full retail price for a GS3 when I could get one from somewhere else for a lot less (paid in $20 increments over several months). They explained that the new plan takes the cost of the phone out of the plan itself (like the article said) and included all the data, voice, text, AND FULL INSURANCE with it. Essentially saying you buy the phone from us outright and we'll make sure you get to keep it while you pay it all off. I thought it was truly brilliant for once.

I know only a little about the legal system, so riddle me this, Batman. I was on the understanding with this that there are still two (2) avenues for suit against valve if someone were to need them. The aforementioned arbitration as one options (basically settling a suit out of court) and the standard one-to-one type lawsuit. If valve were to wrong me in some way, then I could personally sue them and make my own case. All that this changes is the many-to-one suit type. Am I completely wrong in this evaluation?

My answer can vary depending on my purchasing cycle. I'll usually buy them at Costco, because it's cheaper but I don't really consider myself to be stockpiling them. Plus, I have a Wii, and the rechargeable ones don't seem to be too reliable. Lost their ability to charge after about a year of moderate use.

There's something to be said about old, tried-and-true, low-tech solutions. I manage my company's North American enterprise faxing solution and we still do a few million faxes per month. Faxing has some advantages that email doesn't; and most people don't tend to think about. Here are some examples: In construction (or similar industries) where you have a somewhat low-tech field office like a trailer sending a fax from there is much easier to set up. A simple phone line run there from the neighborhood box is relatively easy and inexpensive and allows the foreman to send a hand-filled order sheet to a supplier so they can get parts right away. In small medical offices doctors often fill out pre-printed order sheets by hand with 2 of theses and 9 of those, etc. Drop it in the fax machine and you're done. In some instances sending a fax is fastest legal means of delivering a document. Things like international export documents at the request of some customs agent that won't allow a shipment to clear the docks until receiving a packing list or other sort of document. Two other small benefits: If you have to write on a document you must scan it first anyway; why not just fax it if high quality isn't a goal; and since phone lines are held to a 99.999% uptime by government regulations, you can still send a fax when the 'Net is down. While I agree that faxing isn't the best transmission medium for all situations, it's sometimes the easiest due to it's pure simplicity and reliability. Until someone can come up with a better way to send a document these ways I don't see faxing going completely dead.

Don't know about the rest of you guys, but my laptops have all kept their heat further toward the back and I tend to use it closer to my knees, not my crotch. It's a little hard to type or use the mouse when it's too close to you. Also, I wonder if the temperature raises more from the laptop itself or just from the fact you are holding your legs together around your junk (in order to balance the lappy.)

Actually, it should be if the *right* data is collected...