Posts made by Mario Jakovina

@JaredBusch Thank you.
I will read a little about Cloudflare and its services... I am not familiar with that.

@JaredBusch said in Vultr Firewall added Cloudflare:

No one said it is safer. It was only said that it can only be accessed that way.

@Dashrender said in Vultr Firewall added Cloudflare:

All legit connections to JB's server in Vultr MUST come through CloudFlare,

But what is the benefit of allowing only through Cloudflare if it is not safer?
Do you need to subscribe to some service at Cloudflare to use that or not?

@JaredBusch OK, but why is access by FQDN safer then access by IP adress?
And how can Cloudflare distinguish legitimate user from hacker if they both try to access via FQDN?

(We have one server on Vultr and we access it through IP address. We also have one server on other provider)

@JaredBusch said in Vultr Firewall added Cloudflare:

I'm only allowing Cloudflare IP blocks on the HTTP/S ports.
That means nothing can possibly hit my server by IP. It is 100% safe from direct attacks.

Can you please explain this a little more.
Do you mean that your server is then only accessible by domain name (if not by IP address)?
If so, why is it safer to be accessible by domain name, then by IP adress?

@scottalanmiller said in Video Editing Rig Ideas:

Well I'm using everything on an A10 with a fraction of this CPU performance and essentially no GPU performance today.

During your video editing, CPU/GPU are not that critical. But during final export (encoding), CPU/GPU should always work at 100% utilization.
I think Ryzen 5 with 16GB RAM and NVMe will be just fine. (I would not be satisfied with A10)

@dbeato said in Resentment to Purchasing Software - Split From Unrelated Topic on IT Professionals:

Well, that is also bad IT practice. The software is not longer supported, doesn't have any further security updates. The fact it has worked is great but the major Windows 10 Updates since 1703 with Office 2010 have been a pain.

Windows 10 Updates are huge pain for us unrelated to Office 2010.

I know most of you here will say that using Office 2010 is bad practice.
What would be good practice in our case?
Buy Office 2013. seven years ago, then Office 2016, now 2019 or move to O365 and spend additional money monthly?
Or leave MS Office completely which is most expensive for us (at least for now)?
(Online only is not acceptable for us)

I don't see that we suffer from "bad practice" of not buying newer versions of Office
We do slowly move our Excel-VBA solutions to other solutions (custom apps...) but we do it when we make new versions of solutions, not just to move from Office ASAP

@flaxking said in When Does It Stop Even Being IT: Buyers vs Doers:

Based on my experience, I would guess that most profitable SMBs aren't operating in a competitive market. And if that market becomes competitive, they do not survive.

Here is how I see it:

1. Most SMBs fail in first years - that is natural...

2. They fail becuse they are in competitive market - If they don't have competition, they could easiliy raise their prices and survive, no matter how bad they are at business

3. It is also natural that most survivors are not very profitable - If many are very profitable then new players enter market...

4. After all above, it is normal that most very profitable SMBs (that do not grow fast and stop be SMBs) are in market niches where it is hard for newcomers to enter (low competitive niches).

5. Generally competition drives extra profits to zero. That's why large succesfull company try to make their market less competitive (branding, patenting bullshits

My point is - I don't see many companies in non-competitive environment

@scottalanmiller said in When Does It Stop Even Being IT: Buyers vs Doers:

Youtube Video

Yes, I'm saying that the majority of CEOs and CIOs are really, really bad at what they do. And every bit of market info we has 100% supports that.

I agree with what you explain in this video (most startups fails, average is bad in most fields, Mangolassi is creme...)
I worked for 12 years as SMB banker, get to know many of SMBs deeply...

But I didn't thought that failing startups, with few employees, have relevance for your points. I don'f find common that small startups have 150.000$ IT bugets, or CIOs that actually do nothing. I think that happens at larger SMBs.

I think you should exclude companies that fail in few years from your arguments, because they distort statistics. They make large percent in number of companies, but small percent of employees, market share....

Again, I agree with what you say in this video

@scottalanmiller said in When Does It Stop Even Being IT: Buyers vs Doers:

@Mario-Jakovina said in When Does It Stop Even Being IT: Buyers vs Doers:

I understand that "IT Buyer" for you definitely means "Uncompetent IT Buyer"

Absolutely not. It means nothing of the sort. Where did you get that impression?

In your 1st video - you try to explain and then u say "purely buyers".
Now, in your last video, you also argue that "average is bad, very bad"... so you confirm that you speak of uncompetenet ones, mostly.
But OK....

@scottalanmiller Now, when I saw your video, I understand that "IT Buyer" for you definitely means "Uncompetent IT Buyer"
I don't see why you use plain term Buyer for such bad example. What if someone defines "IT Doer" as somebody who is uncompetent in doing IT...

It seems you think you saw a lot of examples of CIOs not adding value.
But then that means they have uncompetent CEOs who have uncompetent business owners...
I find it hard to believe that it is common in SMBs. How do they survive in competitive markets?
In governement owned organisations - probably this is often the case.

@jmoore said in When Does It Stop Even Being IT: Buyers vs Doers:

Of course it can also be argued that if you don't understand business, are you really doing IT correctly.

Exactly. IT that does not understand business can also make lot of bad decisions (if allowed).

@scottalanmiller said in When Does It Stop Even Being IT: Buyers vs Doers:

@Mario-Jakovina said in When Does It Stop Even Being IT: Buyers vs Doers:

@scottalanmiller said in When Does It Stop Even Being IT: Buyers vs Doers:

IT's primary value is in evaluating options, often an insanely broad range of them in loads of highly disparate arenas, and taking into account all the tech stuff, and applying all of the applicable business stuff, and making a decision as to all kinds of things that might involve.. buying software, hiring programmers for bespoke software, buying hardware, how a network is designed, who is hired, where they work, and on and on.

It seems to me that IT is just different (than examples in my prevoius post) because it is hard to find person who understand business needs and have deep knowledge of various IT solutions available in various IT fields as SAM described in this quote.

I don't believe that it's hard to find people, because nearly everyone you find that knows this stuff struggles to get hired while those with zero skills or clue are readily hired. I think it's more that finding a competent CEO is really hard and they don't want to admit that they dont know what they are doing and tend to favour people who pander to their egos rather than those that do the job. If a CEO actually wanted good work, it's not hard to find people. If every CEO cared, we'd run out of people fast, but in the real world, there's a lot of great people and companies with loads of excess capacity wishing companies would let them do a good job for them.

I am CEO, trying to find person to manage IT. I am on different market then you are. Skilled IT people usually work for companies from richer European countries, or US companies (taking over your jobs there).
I agree, it is hard to find competent CEO. But it is also hard to find competent IT people that understands business.
Most IT people find general business problems "boring" so they are not motivated to understand them. Most expect that somebody else "define needs or problems", and then they can find or give solution.
Good IT manager will see needs and problems that general management does not see, and add value to company in that way.

Same is in Finance (my primary proffession). I came here, saw a lot of mistakes nobody knew about, and I have added a lot of value where nobody see the possibilities. Problems that I was hired for in the beginning where only part of what I've done.

@scottalanmiller said in When Does It Stop Even Being IT: Buyers vs Doers:

So now the question becomes... how much IT work does someone do in position X before they are classified as a buyer or hirer of IT rather than IT themselves?

When I try to answer to this question, it seems that the problem of "classifying" is only with people titled "IT manager" or similar, or others that make IT decisions.

@scottalanmiller said in When Does It Stop Even Being IT: Buyers vs Doers:

Managing IT means you understand what you are doing and using those skills to make decisions, just at a manager level.

Let's think of an example where "IT manager" knows IT very well, makes good decisions, but he outsource everything (no other IT employees).
Can he be good IT manager? Probably yes.
Is he Buyer or Doer? If I understand Scott, he is Buyer?
Does it stop even being IT? I think not.

Let's think of example where "IT manager" is incompetent, makes bad decisions and outsource everything.
What is the difference between these two? Just that the second one is incompetent
Does it stop even being IT? YES - but just becuse he is incompetent.

So I think term "Buyers" should not mean that such person is "not IT themselves".
If we agree on that, we can differentiate Buying vs Doing quite easily.
And I think most GOOD poeple in SMB IT are partly buyers, partly doers.
I do not see need or possibility to "draw a line" between Buyers nad Doers, and classify people in one of two boxes.

@scottalanmiller said in When Does It Stop Even Being IT: Buyers vs Doers:

Managing isn't buying. Managing IT means you understand what you are doing and using those skills to make decisions, just at a manager level. Buying IT means you aren't managing

I completely agree with first and second sentence here.
But how you come up with "Buying IT means you aren't managing"? Is this your definiotion of buying?
To me buying is part of managing (IT, Finance, Sales...), just like it seems you agreed with me on that in other post.

Here it seems you presume that I said that managing is only buying (is not), and that "buyer" means "incompetent buyer"
I can agree that incompetent IT buyer is not IT.
And I can also agree that "incompetent doer" is real IT

@scottalanmiller said in When Does It Stop Even Being IT: Buyers vs Doers:

I like the plumber analogy. There is a huge difference between being a customer who pays for a plumber, and being a plumber. You need both. Plumbers need people to work for, and plumbing work needs to be done. But for some reason, in IT, we tend to confuse the two.

Well I don't like plumber analogy.
Plumbing is much simpler problem, nobody I know have "plumbing department" or "plumbing manager".
All of us need plumbing services, but we do not need to seriously understand plumbing.

IT is much more involved in all business processes.
IT is something that can be one company's serious strength or weakness - I would not say that for plumbing.

That's why I think comparison with Sales or Finance is more adequate.

@jmoore said in When Does It Stop Even Being IT: Buyers vs Doers:

@scottalanmiller said in When Does It Stop Even Being IT: Buyers vs Doers:

This is very different. If I have a sales manager (and I do), I want him to be able to do sales, to know when people in the department are good at sales or not, to know how to hire and fire, to train, to mentor.

I like this point. Managers need to be competent in the area they are managing. They also need to do a little of the work to stay competent. Also nothing is more encouraging than seeing your boss in the trenches with you helping getting stuff done once in a while. That really improves morale.

I completely agree with this.

I do not agree with other points where it seems you (or SAM) presume that "buyer" means "incompetent buyer". Why would we presume that? I will answer to other points...

@gjacobse I also don't know what you mean.
Are you talking about Word and Writer?
In Word, you can move paragraphs, sections... but not page. Page is not an object.

In our case, we still use old MS Office 2010. We do not have troubles with it. We don't pay for it monthly. We can buy additional licenses for 50 EUR (used, we're in EU). Also we can't replace it with LibreOffice without huge costs (macros...)

@scottalanmiller said in Resentment to Purchasing Software - Split From Unrelated Topic on IT Professionals:

@black3dynamite said in Resentment to Purchasing Software - Split From Unrelated Topic on IT Professionals:

@IRJ said in Resentment to Purchasing Software - Split From Unrelated Topic on IT Professionals:

@scottalanmiller said in When Does It Stop Even Being IT: Buyers vs Doers:

@IRJ said in When Does It Stop Even Being IT: Buyers vs Doers:

So you have to go to your NTG or whatever IT labor you use and open your pockets at $150-300 an hour when you have an issue.

The obvious examples would be things like Windows or MS Office vs. Ubuntu or LibreOffice.

I seriously have to question if people who like LibreOffice actually use it for business. It is terrible at so many things. This is coming from someone who has used an Ubuntu workstation with LibreOffice for the last 6 years while working for multiple companies. Microsoft Office is 1000x better, and makes collaboration much easier. I have spent so much time trying to get LibreOffice to work or read MS office documents (that everyone else uses), and there has been nothing but issues. Not to mention LibreOffice is slower than MS Office by a good margin. If you work with big documents, LibreOffice is a dog.

I like both but I'm not exactly a power user when it comes to using Office products like LibreOffice or Microsoft Office, so my use of them works pretty well but if Microsoft made a desktop version for Linux, I'll probably buy it.

I wouldn't here, but I have loads of customers for whom MS Office on Ubuntu would be an acceptable compromise as often their only Windows dependency is MS Office and only that because of some automation from some other application.

If there is a desktop version of MS Office for Linux (actually only Excel), we would remove Windows OS from our office desktops and laptops (30 workstations).
We use LibreOffice on other 25 POS PC's, but on them, we need Windows for POS software.
So - we gladly buy MS Office where we need it, but I would be happy that we don't need WIndows because of all troubles with updates

@scottalanmiller said in When Does It Stop Even Being IT: Buyers vs Doers:

salesman would be presented as a "solution engineer"

This is usual marketing stuff, ridiculous to me, but some buyers buy this, so marketing use this.
But it is not important for our subject.