If it makes you feel any better I'm trying to combine 19 PSTs into one archive mailbox for a user. Some are broken, some are password protected, and they're all "super important". FFS

One user is going to take all day. They have 10GB in their mailbox.

@nerdydad said in First Resume Critique:

@bbigford said in First Resume Critique:

The theme is a little interesting. I don't dislike it, it's just different. The gripe I do have with it is the lines not joining precisely at the bottom. I'm sure that was the point, but I could hardly concentrate on anything else once I saw it.

You have your Master's, but are currently only a junior sysadmin. Did you go straight into your Bachelor's and right onto your Master's? Did you not work in the field for a couple years with your Bachelor's first? I'm asking because the amount of education doesn't really fit your current title, as in you should be much further along and into some kind of management role having been out of school for around 5 years.

Overall... what happened between when you got your Bachelor's and today? What drove you to obtain your Master's? Was it to get into management, personal reasons, or something else?

I'm not so much critiquing your resume, as you asked, but rather very curious about your situation in the last 6 years and how you got where you are today.

Went from the BS to the MS degree. No time gap there.

I got my degree just before I was introduced to SW, which lead to ML.

I tried to find jobs in IT, but the problem was everybody wanted experience but nobody was willing to give experience. Somebody took a chance and gave me some experience in Tech support for a cable company.

Makes sense. I would continue to maintain a strong rule of 18-24 months per job. Get what you can and then move on. When you move on, do not move on without moving up. Take a look at this rough sketch... sometimes you make a direct lateral movement, other times it might feel like you're taking a slight step back but with a much higher ceiling.

@scottalanmiller said in Can it end now? \rant:

@DustinB3403 said in Can it end now? \rant:

@zuphzuph said in Can it end now? \rant:

@scottalanmiller I came in today to find a production web server my boss built had the windows firewall on and was stopping all messages from RabbitMQ for one of our apps. Just a back week overall. Thanks though duder!

Why is the production web server using Windows, and more importantly, Windows Firewall?

Once you are using Windows, why would you ever disable the Windows firewall?

We disable it (for internal-only machines, domain only. Public and private are active) because there are many other layers of security in place. Having it on and risking compromise is outweighed by the added headaches of figuring out why the firewall is blocking something. Anything external facing has maximum security though (web servers/etc).

So I guess reading back through @zuphzuph's comment about it being on and it's a web server, it should be on and configured properly.

@scottalanmiller said:

@BBigford said:

7 users for AD? Noooo thank you.

That would be my take. I'd just manage them individually. Even MS doesn't recommend rolling it out at that size.

I managed a SBS2011 server (took over) for a user base of about 12 people and as many PCs. Came with rolled up Exchange/AD/etc. Some said it was super convenient. I thought it was a damn nightmare. When that server went down, all operations halted. Before I came, there were no UPSs either, just plugged right into the wall, no battery backup. When the power went out, the databases were guillotined. The horror!

@bbigford said in First Resume Critique:

@nerdydad said in First Resume Critique:

@bbigford said in First Resume Critique:

The theme is a little interesting. I don't dislike it, it's just different. The gripe I do have with it is the lines not joining precisely at the bottom. I'm sure that was the point, but I could hardly concentrate on anything else once I saw it.

You have your Master's, but are currently only a junior sysadmin. Did you go straight into your Bachelor's and right onto your Master's? Did you not work in the field for a couple years with your Bachelor's first? I'm asking because the amount of education doesn't really fit your current title, as in you should be much further along and into some kind of management role having been out of school for around 5 years.

Overall... what happened between when you got your Bachelor's and today? What drove you to obtain your Master's? Was it to get into management, personal reasons, or something else?

I'm not so much critiquing your resume, as you asked, but rather very curious about your situation in the last 6 years and how you got where you are today.

Went from the BS to the MS degree. No time gap there.

I got my degree just before I was introduced to SW, which lead to ML.

I tried to find jobs in IT, but the problem was everybody wanted experience but nobody was willing to give experience. Somebody took a chance and gave me some experience in Tech support for a cable company.

Makes sense. I would continue to maintain a strong rule of 18-24 months per job. Get what you can and then move on. When you move on, do not move on without moving up. Take a look at this rough sketch... sometimes you make a direct lateral movement, other times it might feel like you're taking a slight step back but with a much higher ceiling.

Sometimes people get stuck and discontinue growth. You should always be moving into a position you might even be slightly unqualified for. The reason being is if you leave a help desk for another help desk position, you aren't advancing your career. You've already learned all there is in a help desk position and hit your ceiling in 2 years. But you might leave a help desk position for a junior sysadmin position, move up in the company to a senior sysadmin position, then hit your ceiling and leave to become a business infrastructure engineer at another company. Rinse and repeat.

Just because you haven't mastered something, doesn't mean you shouldn't apply for it. You might understand concepts and have done certain things in a lab (valid hands on experience).

Bottom line, if you're not moving up then you should be moving on.

@thwr said in Can it end now? \rant:

@BBigford said in Can it end now? \rant:

We disable it (for internal-only machines, domain only. Public and private are active) because there are many other layers of security in place. Having it on and risking compromise is outweighed by the added headaches of figuring out why the firewall is blocking something. Anything external facing has maximum security though (web servers/etc).

You know that one of the most dangerous attack vectors is the one from within your network? No more IDS/IPS or UTM to pass, it's the free wild. I would leave it on, better some protection than no protection. Adding a new rule for a webserver is a one-liner.

Valid point. I was told not to enable any of them. So maybe they are going based on trust.

If I could, I would move us all to Linux workstations. The length of time it takes to restore a file server because one user got a share encrypted (possibly due to security not being tight enough, my fault there), way too much time. Haven't gotten hit with any yet, in two networks, but I have OCD when it comes to security (or I'm just lucky... I'll go with lucky and eat my humble pie).

@nerdydad said in First Resume Critique:

Version #2

https://goo.gl/7sxSwH

Try a simple template that adds just enough color to give it a little contrast. Redactions for personal privacy.

@Breffni-Potter said in Two new additions to the family. :

@BBigford said

Second addition... Got a new concealed carry today. Smith and Wesson M&P Shield 45. Was hard to find one without a safety as it hasn't been out long at all.

You want an item in your trousers which could go off and blow off your crown jewels?

Why without a safety?

I carry it in the back. That would only be a concern for appendix carry. Plus the holster I have guards the trigger so no accidental mishandlings should happen.

No manual safety, you still have to pull the trigger to make the gun go off. The safety is built into the articulating trigger. Though, I'm going to be dropping in an Apex trigger cause the stock trigger is a little gritty.

Why no thumb safety? It's a self defense firearm. More safeties means more things to do in a crisis. Sometimes you only have a split second to react, your heart is racing, and your mind is clouded. Even cops, who are typically well trained, forget to disengage the safety when they go to pull the trigger on an attacker, rendering their self defense weapon useless, resulting in them using it as a hammer. Also, if you aren't used to safeties, it'll get you every time because remember "practice doesn't make perfect, practice makes permanent."

I've saw a lot of this debate on various forums. "Will on-premise IT support be replaced by MSPs and/or the cloud?" MSPs displacing (not replacing) the IT department, and the cloud cutting down on how many staff members are needed in IT. Either way, you aren't without a job, you are just getting displaced. That got me thinking, would I rather work for a cloud provider, or an MSP? Personally, I'd rather work in cloud operations. I've never been one for programming, so I don't see myself getting into development (regardless of how much you can make, I just don't find it as interesting). So I thought further over the last few months, who would I want to work for?

So I decided on Digital Ocean after much debate. I love their product, their pricing is crazy competitive, and their customer service is great. Lots of reasons why the business would succeed. So I started looking at their career openings, and I found one in operations. One thing though, you need lots of programming know-how, which I don’t have. Fine, I’ll learn it. But programming is a lot like anything else, you can be a master in one trade, or a jack of many. I am always a jack of many trades and a master of none. It’s worked out so far, but I’m a little lost on this one. They say you need to know Go, Ruby, Python, and C/C++. I’ve heard the first three aren’t a steep level of difficulty, but the C library is. I’ve also heard that the first 3 are more for automation, which seems about right. Not sure why a sysadmin would need to be an expert in C but that’s not the scope of this.

The scope is, am I staying ahead of the curve by looking at a cloud provider as a long term opportunity, or should I still stick with on-premise work? That’s a tough one, because I know on-premise isn’t going to die out. Companies like the one I currently work for, will never go to cloud. “Never is a little definitive, aren’t you overstating?” No. They will never switch. It’s not even their decision. Every client contract we have strictly forbids it. Sure, they could go cloud, but they would lose all their contracts.

I’m not sure that I’m looking for advice as much as I just wanted to say that. I know a lot of conversation has been brought up in the last year or so about what businesses are going to do and if on-premise jobs are in jeopardy. I don’t think they are. Will small-medium businesses make a shift? Sure, I could see that. Will all businesses? Of course not, that’s ridiculous. At least not in my lifetime I figure. Not to say they won’t, as the future is unknowable, I am just skeptic.

Long rant coming to an end, what language(s) would you learn, if you really wanted to work for Digital Ocean in operations, and why? Automation languages I can understand, I just don’t really know where to start, and where to end, because nothing in IT really ever ends, it just gets repurposed or reformatted it seems like.

@scottalanmiller said in Nearly All Job Postings Are Fake SAMIT Video:

Youtube Video

One of the most shocking revelations you find once you dig into the IT field is the high percentage of fake or semi-fake job postings and listings that you will find. How can this be? Why would this happen? Is no one overseeing these things and doing something about this?

I remember watching this on YouTube a few months this ago. I've been going through them like a podcast on my way to work. I even listen to some of the beginner stuff to get a different perspective on foundational stuff. Good videos.

I made a short video on the specifics of some of the mechanisms on a few different firearms so you can see some differences of safeties, levers, etc.

Important note for anyone new or need a refresher on firearms safety... you'll notice I check the guns over and over for bullets. Even before the video started, I unloaded the magazines and checked the chambers. Even if you know, and verified, there is no mag in the firearm, no bullets inside either the mag or the chamber, don't pull the trigger when the firearm is pointed at something unsafe to shoot at. Only in demonstrations will I put a hand in front of the muzzel, and even then I prefer a safety orange gun (dummy gun). But in the instance of the 1911, an orange gun couldn't be used to show the action.

Youtube Video

@John-Nicholson said:

@BBigford said:

slack

We just adopted it. its how 90% of my team's communication is done. Its good for teams, less good for 20K users.

/giphy is the greatest integration ever.

Looks like that is a searchable GIF database... if so, haha why is that the greatest integration? Are you using it for funny office GIFs, or something that is pertinent to business?

@scottalanmiller said in How to Spot Fake Job Postings SAMIT Video:

Youtube Video

Fake job postings are sometimes pretty hard to spot. But there are a lot of signs that can help us identify common fake jobs.

The truth about this had me gut rolling in the car the other day. Great video.

Off the cuff other than DR..

DFS-Arrrrrr

@Jason said:

@BBigford said:

I had to give a user a quote for a MacBook Pro. They need dedicated graphics and I went to look at Apple for a build-to-buy. Looks like they really slimmed that down. The only one that doesn't just have Iris graphics is their highest end model for $2499.99 ....

I am Jack's complete lack of surprise.

I think Amazon has one slightly cheaper than that that has AMD r9 + iris 16gb of ram, 512gb SSD. I'd say don't get one unless there's a really good reason. Editing video and needing pro res codec is about the only reason these days. Most video work and all audio and graphics work is now better on windows

No there is absolutely no justified reason for buying it. They ended up getting every top of the line spec (~$3200 plus extras). But when it's for someone in sales, we really have zero pull since they are babied around here. They have quantifiable evidence of how much money they make the company. Whatever. I still use 3 year old monitors and a Latitude E6410. I just got in some laptops people are replacing with brand new ones so I can choose between a Latitude E6520 or M6600 (weighty, but the video card is pretty good, and bigger screen). Neither has support for Windows 10. I know the M6600 does terrible with Win10, the E6520 seems ok so far (setting it up now). Sales get to replace their laptops twice per year. IT, every 5 years (at best). I don't need brand new so I just take the replacement gear. Saves the company money while sales is spending money like it is going out of style. One person in marketing has had three MacBooks at one point recently. That's right, three. I think she is down to two... Plus a Windows laptop. Sales and marketing really push me to the edge of my sanity with all the demands for Apple products. If it was justified, sure. Go ahead, but "well...Mac. I work better on a Mac. Macs don't get viruses. It is faster. It just works." Zero validity in that argument and I hear that crap every argument.

Sorry. Ranting over here.

@kelly said in IT Project Consultant:

I realize that y'all aren't the market for this discussion, but IT staff would be stakeholders in a discussion about this, so I figured I would posit the question here. Do you think that there would be a market or interest in having a third party come in and handle project planning and coordination for IT that is not associated with an MSP or a vendor? The idea would be to have someone come in for larger scale transitions and changes so that it wouldn't affect IT's current staffing/workload ratios, they would handle as much of the coordination and communication for working a project through the stages, and then hand it off to internal IT at whatever point is deemed appropriate by the company.

Lots of MSPs do this exact thing. There's quite a few projects where I will only coordinate with certain clients, and others I'm all hands on. Just depends on the client's needs at the time.

Most of the time, I do the planning and the implementing. Most clients are 500 users and below, with no IT staff. It's not "as needed" though as they have weekly/semi-monthly maintenance and visits.

@BRRABill said in Time for me to move on from Webroot:

@Nic said in Time for me to move on from Webroot:

@BRRABill said in Time for me to move on from Webroot:

@Nic said in Time for me to move on from Webroot:

@BRRABill said in Time for me to move on from Webroot:

@Nic

Will you still be giving out 1 year trials?

While I still have them

There was subtle Internet humor in my joke.

I wasn't talking about Webroot codes.

Ah, I missed that. I'll have gifts for visitors, but I won't be able to send them outside of Colorado

I've said it before, I'll say it again.

MangoCon 201X ... Colorado!

I'd be more likely to attend, since it's just a jump over from Boise. I was just in Denver last month hanging out with @zuphzuph.

So I recently did a price drop on some newer photography gear, and a home lab server. When I reposted, I immediately started getting scammers texting me. The area codes were all spread out so I didn't think much about those. There was one though that is in my area code (living in rural Idaho, the whole state the same area code though, so...)

Fast forward, the scammer appeared to be a scammer as any other. They wanted to pay via PayPal, and do UPS Next Day Air a few states away. I can see where that's going... Ship it out real quick, the payment has a few days to process, and then pull the payment from PayPal.

How does someone get the payment pulled, when the tracking number would clearly show delivery? Short of processing a false payment... If that were the case, how could they do that when PayPal has to verify the payment method during submission of information?