@Carnival-Boy said:

@scottalanmiller said:

Except that makes no sense. On premise comes with tons if caveats. And things like not mixing plans - that's why we advise people against opting into those limited plans. That caveat doesn't exist with on premise Exchange and it doesn't exist with Hosted Exchange. So using that's a very odd comparison.

On premise Exchange doesn't come with Lync, Yammer, Sharepoint Enterprise, MS Office, AV, spam filtering, hosting, storage, the servers, the IT team to support them, backups, patch management, a support desk and direct access to the developers. Aren't those things caveats too?

I'd call them features not caveats. And if you want them, you can add them. My beef is simply with the pain of switching plans as your business circumstances change, not the lack of features.

If you go with an Enterprise tenant, it only takes a few clicks to switch plans for your users.

@Carnival-Boy said:

@scottalanmiller said:

Did I miss something about the early adopters? In what way is Microsoft barring them from the mid size plans. Not saying that they aren't but I've not heard about that.

AFAIK, if you signed up to an Enterprise plan, you can't then move to a Midsize Business plan. It's good that you recommend midsize companies to go for an Enterprise plan, and I fully understand and appreciate your reasons behind that. But Microsoft isn't recommending that.

Correct, you'd have to start from scratch if you want to move to a different tenant. Each plan type (Small, Medium, Enterprise) is a completely different type of tenant.

First off, it sounds like someone fed Windows 8 after midnight.

Have you tried a wipe and reload? It should be SOP for new computers, anyway.

CrashPlan Pro has been a go-to favorite for my remote user backup needs. It's pretty quick and simple to use. The central console is quite handy. It has an issue with open files, but otherwise works well. It doesn't do BMR, but chances are you won't be doing BMR on laptops anyway. If you'd rather backup to your own infrastructure instead of "the cloud", CrashPlan PROe would be worth looking at.

@Dashrender

Awesome! Glad to have been of service. Feel free to mark my response as BA!

What I've done for the intern that i've had in the past is a 2-week ridealong to start with. They sit with you at your desk for the few days, then once you know they have a feel for what's going on, set them up with a computer at your desk so that you can start have them doing things under close supervision. At the end of the two weeks, if they're more independent, set them up at a desk nearby and start feeding them more and more basic things. As time goes on, they'll grow, and be able to do more. Expect the first couple of weeks to be really painful, as your own productivity will be incredibly hindered as they strain to grasp the basics. As an example, inside of a month, I had my intern reloading computers, fixing printer issues, and rewiring patch panels. We started going over network design, but his internship ended.

@scottalanmiller said:

Mid size also cannot mix plans.

Yep, so if you get a copier that needs to scan to email, you'll be paying full price instead of putting them on the $4 per month EOP1.

@Dashrender said:

OK Now I know I'm currently stretched to thin... the problem isn't on WIndows 8.1, it's on Windows 7 Pro.

Sigh.. Sorry guys - but the problem still exists where IE 11 wants to install Flash, and is requiring a local admin to do it through the IE Add-on Installer.

Have you considered pushing flash out via GPO?

@scottalanmiller said:

NTG used to be a hosted email vendor. It's a fun business to be in. But a lot if work.

This would be tons of fun. Enterprise-grade Exchange environment, intrusion detection, spam filtering, multi-ISP connections, and scalable infrastructure.

Pricing would be $10/user/month, $15 for larger mailboxes and advanced features.

Do you have all of your Windows updates in place? Flash updates via WU for IE.

If I can get no fewer than 300 users to commit, I can build an ITAR-compliant hosted Exchange environment.

Is the NIC on the pfSense HCL?
https://www.pfsense.org/hardware/

@scottalanmiller said:

Verizon cannot rate limit WiFi. It has no way to detect WiFi.

They do have access to the wireless settings, however. Once I found out that I can view my wireless key on my customer portal, I promptly set up my own wireless router behind theirs.

Is it his next-door neighbor? Is the device on the same channel as his? There could be contention. Has he tried changing channels on his WiFi? Are there any 2.4Ghz phones in the area?

@Mike-Ralston said:

You said it was nearly that for specs

That's not what I said. I said that I paid about the same for the video card and power supply as I did for the computer.

@Mike-Ralston said:

@alexntg You're sure you've got that right? The video card itself he has there is worth significantly more than that.

The pricing I paid was for my computer, not his.

@Seth-Cooper said:

I have spent way too much on my gaming rig..

Core
Obsidian 800D Corsair Case
ASUS Maximus V FORMULA LGA 1155 Intel Z77 HDMI SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 Extended ATX Intel Motherboard
Intel Core i7-3770K Ivy Bridge 3.5GHz (3.9GHz Turbo) LGA 1155 77W Quad-Core Desktop Processor Intel HD Graphics ...
Mushkin Enhanced Blackline 16GB (2 x 8GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800) Desktop Memory Model 997050
EVGA SuperClocked 03G-P4-2783-KR GeForce GTX 780 3GB 384-bit GDDR5

Cooling
CORSAIR Hydro Series H80 (CWCH80) High Performance Liquid CPU Cooler

Inputs/Display
Hanns-G HL272HPB Black 27" 2ms LED Monitor (x3)
Razer Naga
Razer Blackwidow 2013 Ultimate Mechanical Keyboard

Storage
60GB SSD for OS, 250GB SSD for Games, 2TB for Misc.

I started with budget parts and now pre-ordered some of my components. These are my preferences based off of that.

Corsair for Cases, RAM, Coolants
EVGA for Mobos, GPUs
Mushkin or g.Skill for RAM
Intel for CPU (some great AMD's out there though)

Had great luck with EVGA and Corsair's customer service and RMA processes.

Wow. My computer cost me $375 off-the-shelf (Asus Essentio) and about the same for the video card and power supply. That was in 2011. The SSD was less than $100 late last year.

@Dashrender said:

@alexntg said:

A bit on the reimaging rights. Intune with SA is a volume license. You could use the volume license media and key to reimage other computers that run the same exact product version. You could use the Win8.1 Pro media and key for other Win8.1 Pro computers. Upgrade rights are only available with SA, one device per user. Do understand that if you cancel Intune, you'd be revoking your volume license rights.

Alex,
Under the old SA in a VL setup, let's say you bought Office Pro plus with SA, when you purchased it Office 2010 was out, but during your subscription, Office 2013 comes out.
Now say you discontinue your subscription. It is my understanding that you can use 2013 in perpetuity.

Is the same true for machines that you purchase Intune with SA? So you have a Windows XP machine today, you buy Intune with SA which allows you to upgrade to Windows 8.1 Pro (or Enterprise if you wish). If you dump the SA portion of the subscription are you required to go back to XP on that computer? If that's the case, calling it SA was a bad decision as the rules would be different for two things with the same name.

The software, including the OS license, is provided on a subscription basis only. There is, however, a buyout option that's available for cancellations after the initial 12-month term. I'm not sure what the pricing on it is offhand, as that requires contacting MS directly.

I'm running an AMD Athlon 64x2 with 4GB of RAM, nVidia 560TI, and Kingston SSD. It isn't much, but plays FFXIV on high settings with no issues.