[SAGE] System Administrator Tool chest..

Sat Feb 4 08:41:00 PST 2006

An impact driver (or wrench) is a little different - it supplies 
'spikes' of rotational force, not vertical impact. They are common in 
automotive work, especially in air tools - the tool that you see 
mechanics use to remove and install tires is an impact wrench. There are 
electrical versions of impact drivers too. Go to 
http://www.harborfreight.com and look up 'impact wrench' and 'hammer 
drill' - they're good for lots of other tools too! (I'm not affiliated 
with them but I am a happy customer. Plastic welders, anyone?)

I have (and use) a lot more tools than a typical sysadmin, and this is 
part of the issue - the tools that you need are the tools that you are 
comfortable with. My father was a sheet metal mechanic, boat builder and 
carpenter, and I learned to use a wide range of tools from the time I 
could walk. Others who do not have the same kind of facility with tools 
can live with a small subset of what I prefer to use.

Of course, if you're asking what kind of tools you need for a newhire, 
it's unlikely that you're dealing with an 'uber' tool user - when I 
started my first job in computing, I had to tell my bosses what tools I 
wanted to order, not the other way around. They didn't quite understand 
why I needed aircraft tinsnips until they saw how I used them. (:-)

For people who have a less mechanical background, a *good* 
multiscrewdriver (e.g. Picquic), a #2 Phillips driver, a couple of flat 
drivers, a crescent wrench, and a pair of pliers is what most of them 
need. It seems that I'm the one they come to for more esoteric 
mechanical problems around my office (I wonder why? :-).

Electronic tools can be similarly basic - an inexpensive volt-ohm-meter, 
and possibly a tone generator and inductive receiver (for tracing 
cables) are good to have around - but could be shared tools as well. A 
simple 'neon tester' is handy for quickly identifying if an outlet has 
power, and is smaller to carry around than a voltmeter.

The kinds of tools you should recommend does depend on your organisation 
as well - at a large company, the range of what you do is often much 
smaller than in a small company. I would expect to be using the full 
range of my mechanical skills in a small company, but when you have tens 
of thousands of people working with you, the sysadmins do much less 
mechanical work, hence the need for a small range of tools.

- Richard

Brad Knowles wrote:
> At 10:36 PM -0800 2006-02-03, Jim Dennis wrote:
> 
>>    My father, who is in his mid-sixties and is still an active
>>    construction worker --- general contractor and electrician, was
>>    just telling me about the neatest innovation in cordless screw
>>    guns --- impact drivers!
> 
> 
>     Do you mean a hammer drill?  I've got a nice DeWalt that I'm going 
> to have to leave here in Europe, because it's corded and is not 
> adaptable to US power.  But I've only ever used it to drill into 
> masonry, concrete, or bricks -- never with drywall screws into wood. I'd 
> be curious to learn more about this particular usage....
> 