The Petri IT Knowledgebase Names Richard Pugh as Most Valuable Forum Member (MVM)

Call me biased, but I think that the Petri IT Knowledgebase is one of the best resources on the internet for technical, how-to information about Microsoft Windows and Server products, VMware offerings, Cisco networking products, and more. While some Petri IT Knowledgebase readers are familiar with our forums, our own reader survey results show that many site visitors don’t visit our forums, and many forum members don’t regularly visit the content portion of our website. We’d like to change that, so you’ll start seeing more news and information about the Petri IT Knowledgebase forums in the near future.

We’d like to start by announcing some good news: Our forum moderators and administrators, led by Daniel Petri, have just selected the latest in a long line of Most Valuable Forum Members (MVM), and have awarded the latest MVM designation to Richard Pugh, known by his forum username RicklesP.

The MVM award is given to active forum participants who helpfully (and accurately) answer questions from visitors, help moderators keep the forums running smoothly, and generally contribute to the ongoing success of the Petri IT Knowledgebase forums.

In addition to special MVM avatar badging and public acknowledgement in the forums, Richard also will receive the following items:

  • A $200 Amazon Gift card
  • Free 1-year subscription to Trainsignal online training ($540 value)
  • Assorted T-shirts, USB keys, and other items donated by IT vendors (~ $75 value)

I’d also like to personally thank and acknowledge the support of such IT vendors as Specops Software, Qualys, Veeam, Titus, and TrainSignal for donating some of the prizes used in our MVM award program, and for their support of the good work that our forum administrators and moderators do.

To go along with his MVM award I interviewed Richard via email, the transcript of which I’ve posted after Richard’s photo, below.

Richard Pugh, the Petri IT Knowledgebase Forums MVM for Q2 2013

Richard Pugh, the Petri IT Knowledgebase Forums MVM for Q2 2013

Q. How long have you been involved in IT?
A. As a hobby, since the first IBMs came out in the 80’s. My first personal PC was an Atari 130XE, then a 1040ST, then I made the change over to IBM clones (a Packard Bell, never again!) in the 90’s. Professional career IT began following my military retirement from aircraft avionics maintenance in July 2003.

Q. When did you first find out about the Petri forums?
A. A couple of years ago, searching for an answer to some problem or other (don’t remember the details). I think it was about 2009-2010.

Q. Are you also an active visitor/reader on the content side of the Petri website?
A. Sadly, not yet. I simply haven’t had the time. Trying to keep up with the demands at work and studying at night doesn’t leave a lot of time.

Q. What are some of the other IT community sites you like to visit?
A. No other favorites, to be honest. Any site which offers a possible solution is fair game, but Petri is the only bunch I ‘hang with.’

Q. What was it about the Petri forums that made you stay and contribute?
A. Simply that the advice/solutions in the forums are wide open to anyone to read, without having to sign up first: to participate, you sign up; to view, you’re welcome to look around, maybe find the answer you need, no strings attached. Information without borders, I love it.

Q. What sort of PC hardware do you currently use on a personal basis?
A. Cisco small business broadband router, Netgear NAS storage arrays, wired and wireless IBM PCs/laptops, network media players, some Apple devices. I treat my home network as important as my work one, for backups, security, stability, etc.

Q. If you could give an IT pro some advice when it comes to ways to find solutions to problems, what advice would you give? How do you personally approach solving an IT problem?
A. From my days troubleshooting electronics in the military, my approach is to understand why something happened, not just what fixes it, this time. If you don’t get to the root cause, it can happen again somewhere else, maybe manifest differently, but still be the same initial problem. So you end up applying the same or different band-aids to surface effects which is a repeat of effort, instead of correcting the original problem. It may not be the fastest way to solve something up front, but it’s better for your own education/experience, which means you get faster as you grow and learn.

Finally, we’d also like to thank and acknowledge all of the forum administrators and moderators — which are also getting their own collection of prizes donated by the vendors mentioned earlier — that help keep the forums up and running smoothly. The next time you’re in our forums, take the time to thank each of these individuals if you come across any of the following usernames:

  • Auglan
  • Biggles77 (Admin)
  • Dumber
  • Dyasny
  • Guyt
  • Jeremyw
  • Joeqwerty
  • L4ndy
  • M80arm
  • Maish
  • Ossian (Admin)
  • Rems
  • Sembee
  • Sorinso
  • Tehcamel
  • Teiger
  • Tmd
  • Tonyyeb
  • Tspeciale
  • Virtual
  • Wired (Admin)
  • Wullieb1
  • Yuval14