First, many people perceive documentation as something they write and shove in a pile. This isn't true, especially in regards to IT. Stuff changes and with it the documentation must be kept up to date. Yes, you have to invest the initial time, but once you do, revising the documentation in the future is a fairly easy process that should be done on a regular basis.

Documentation should always cover absolute worst case scenario. As in should the entire department be unavailable or turned to zombies or whatever and new people have to come in from the ground up.

And if you think there is a such thing as too much documentation, try complying with documentation for ISO... that can be a headache...

But @networknerd stated, the best way is to start with a template. Then outline what all you want to cover. It gets easier the more you do it.

More than a few of these names look familiar to me, but I'm Bud and I live in Norman, Oklahoma.

I like coffee.

And we all know that A.J needs his beauty sleep or else he'll be cranky in the morning.

Nice! I'll be downloading and installing this at work in the next couple of days for evaluation.

I saw that the other day. It's scary. I learned when I was a kid that my parents were responsible for me up until I was 18. After that, it was me. No one could force them to take care of me or provide for me or assist me in any way. Legally forcing parents to provide for their adult children is something that can add more crybaby litigation to an already overburdened legal system.

Thanks! I was just thinking about this the other day and I need to pass this information on to a coworker or two...

Lately at work, I've been putting on Pandora. Currently the band (and associated type of music) that I've been listening to is Tesla. Which has had a lot of Guns N' Roses, some Foreigner, Whitesnake, etc.

@scottalanmiller said:

@ajstringham said:

@scottalanmiller Ok, well it's a disk drive just not platters.

Yes, but the physical nature of spinning disks was the issue. SSDs don't burn, not easily. You're point above was that because platters were used in airplanes that you assumed black boxes were going through forensic recovery and that that was a reliable process. But flight recorders do not use spinning rust as it is too fragile (and slow for their needs.)

Those FDRs and CVRs have to be able to withstand a lot of shock and still retain the data. Prior to using the same tech that is available in SSDs, tape was used for a long time. Basically 8-track looking things. The more moving parts, the more potential for some kind of failure.

I've been following Elio for a while. It seems like a great idea, the problem is that, as previously stated, under Federal Laws, it operates as a motorcycle. States have different guidelines for motorcycles, helmet laws, etc. I know that I had read on one web site that they are trying to get them classified as cars. I think it's a pretty great idea and to be honest, you can't beat that kind of price for something that you can drive all year round.

But this is the one I would rather get
http://www.campagnamotors.com/

For a long time, I was truly a night person. Then I made the transition to being a 'morning' person, where my day normally started around 4:30 am. Now, due to my work schedule, I'm an evening/night person.

A.J. if your body needs sleep (usually 7-8 hours) then caffeine is only going to help a little bit. You can't 'bank' sleep or 'catch up' on sleep either. You use it or lose it. Kind of difficult sometimes.

@art_of_shred
No worries. Everyone is entitled their own opinions. Operation: Mindcrime was the last good thing I heard from them and I hated the song Silent Lucidity.

Currently, in house, we are using Lotus Notes. I'm looking at different options now just for us. Spiceworks is frowned upon due to the ad based version being the only one that any of them have seen. I previously (circa 2003) used BMC Remedy (which he also run in-house for another department's ticketing system) which wasn't great then and now, well, it causes quite a bit of the headaches in this department.

Here's a decent comparison chart: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_disk_encryption_software

Depending on which A/V solution you are using, you might want to go with that. Our philosophy here is to not put all our eggs in the same basket, so we use McAfee for encryption and Symantec for A/V. YMMV.

@Hubtech said:

Laptops will not boot. I assume the file system corrupts. That's why I was recuva Ing this weekend. Central management would be nice.

McAfee, Symantec, Sophos, all have centrally managed solutions. I'm sure that Kapersky and others do as well.

If the laptops post, but the login screen does not launch, it sounds as if the partition that has Bitlocker may be corrupted. It could also be something within the file that got screwed up.
CAVEAT - I've never used Bitlocker, so I'm just trying to make some assumptions based on other things I've used. Is it integrated with AD? If so, did users reset their passwords while off the network and does that affect Bitlocker? What mode does Bitlocker run (my understanding is that there are various modes)?

My first question to people asking about an encryption solution is: Do you need a centrally managed solution or are you good with a version that is managed on a machine-by-machine basis?

Here, we use a centrally managed solution. We use McAfee Endpoint Encryption. Yes, it is a McAfee product. It's pretty straightforward. The only issue we've had with it is we changed one group to a single sign-on after we deployed and it wound up corrupting the token. Big deal? Nope. Still works. Just have to perform a recovery operation with them on the phone that takes about 15 minutes.

Plus, when the person is no longer employed by us and we receive their laptop, we can decrypt the laptop and back up everything we need to for long term storage.

@scottalanmiller said:

@ajstringham said:

@scottalanmiller Ok, well it's a disk drive just not platters.

Yes, but the physical nature of spinning disks was the issue. SSDs don't burn, not easily. You're point above was that because platters were used in airplanes that you assumed black boxes were going through forensic recovery and that that was a reliable process. But flight recorders do not use spinning rust as it is too fragile (and slow for their needs.)

Those FDRs and CVRs have to be able to withstand a lot of shock and still retain the data. Prior to using the same tech that is available in SSDs, tape was used for a long time. Basically 8-track looking things. The more moving parts, the more potential for some kind of failure.

Thanks! I was just thinking about this the other day and I need to pass this information on to a coworker or two...

@FiyaFly said:

@RAM. I was wondering if we'd see you here!

Ditto.

@scottalanmiller said:

@Bud said:

I have a few machines at work running XP

I just got a new XP laptop last week facepalm

New? Or just New to you?

@Joyfano Sorry Joy, I do need to crash. I hope the rest of your day and your night go well.