@jaredbusch said in Ubiquiti Security Gateway:

@mike-davis said in Ubiquiti Security Gateway:

I like the ER X for home use because you can get the PoE model and run a couple APs (even the 24v passive ones) off it and not have to have an injector or PoE switch for it. Makes for a clean low power draw install.

This is completely incorrect.

The ER-X has a single passtrough PoE port (eth4). With a wall wart other than the one provided, you can also use that same port (eth4) to power an access point without a PoE injector powering the ER-X itself.

I was sure I had a ER X PoE, but you're right, it's a ER PoE. OK, so for a clean home install, get a ER PoE...

@dashrender > If you're asking what kind of cable went from the ER-X to my UAP-AC Lite, it was a Cat 5e. You really think the Cat 6 makes that much of a difference over 6 ft?

If your AP is 6' away, then no, I don't think that would matter. I was thinking of a couple of them further away on longer runs. The higher gauge cable might increase the heat enough to smoke a small PoE injector. In theory it shouldn't matter, I'm just trying to guess as to what happened with yours.

@dashrender I haven't had to replace it yet. CAT 6 23 gauge cable?

I like the ER X for home use because you can get the PoE model and run a couple APs (even the 24v passive ones) off it and not have to have an injector or PoE switch for it. Makes for a clean low power draw install.

@jaredbusch Thanks for sharing your real world numbers. I don't order much Dell stuff. Here is my last HP order for client desktops:

This time around I'm just under $800, but it depends on if that particular model is on smart buy. Most of the time when I'm getting these bread and butter machines it works out that way.

For HP they keep their EliteDesk models available for 18 months typically, so once you settle on a model, you know you can reorder month to month.

All accounting issues aside, in the end I think the mass upgrade is more disruptive to business on all sides than the trickle replacement.

For those of you that have done mass upgrades, consider the process.
You select a particular model and config based on that days standards.
You have them all shipped and have a pile of PCs sitting somewhere.
They have to all be unboxed. How many fit on your bench.
You spend time (weeks?) working up your image.
You start to push your image as quick as your hardware will allow.
You start swapping out user machines as quickly as you can.
User questions start rolling in - you're still trying to move computers off your bench.
You realize you have to tweak your image.
You redo the image and reimage the machines that were already done.

Trickle replacement
A few machines show up each month.
You unbox them in your office and put them all on your workbench.
You deploy your image and keep working on other tasks.
You deploy them to a few users and troubleshoot any issues.
Make a note of issues and tweak image for the next round.
Order up the next round and repeat next month.

As new OSs or software comes out, you can try it on your next cycle without disrupting the entire company. You don't have to update everything all at once so that users are getting a new OS and new software. In the mass upgrades, how long do the machines sit on the bench depreciating before they are put in front of a user? As employees are added ordering another computer for a new user can be done quickly. If you are in the 3 year of a mass upgrade, you have to price shop and all that since your original model likely won't be available.

@scottalanmiller said in Business thinking - PC replacements:

Pretty sure you can get any lease terms that you want, maybe not from OEMs.

yes, it's called a loan. (Which is what a lease really is.)

@scottalanmiller said in Business thinking - PC replacements:

Now put away every year towards that, consider that money "spent" whether it is or not. Have it at the ready and buy new machines when the right time comes. There is really no better way to handle it.

That doesn't work for many businesses because you get taxed on money you carry over. So essentially for a business to use that model, they would have to do something else with the money all the other years, and then get hit with a huge bill in one year. Add insult to injury if you have an apps that have to be updated because your OS was updated.

Has anyone compared the HP EliteBook 850 G3 to the current Dell model? I've used the EliteBooks and ProBooks and as soon you said weight, thought of the EliteBooks. They are generally a little less clunky than the ProBooks. I think HP was targeting the Execs that said they wanted a business laptop that was as thinner than a MacBook.

Do all your users do the same tasks? Can you justify replacing 20% of your computers to give the power users new machines? Then in year two or three trickle those computers down to other users and get the power users a new batch. That's what I do in CAD environments. The power CAD users always have fast machines and their two and three year old machines are plenty fast for normal office work.

I like the continuous replacement model because you don't get bogged down in a replacement project for months. It's just a background task that entry level people can do.

I would also suggest reaching out to meet with someone from your local score.org chapter. There are other things besides having an LLC that it's helpful to have a coach for.

@eddiejennings said in Forming an LLC:

True. I mean atypical in the sense that the extra time it takes me to do this, isn't of great consequence to me (from @Mike-Davis 's comment).

I get where you're at. For me I was doing side work when my day job slowed down to 32 hours a week. Looking back at first I tried to do my own web site. I don't have a creative bone in my body and at a certain point, I realized every hour I spent on the site was just making it suck slightly less. I would have been much better off putting my time in to other things.

On the legal side, you set up the LLC to protect yourself legally. If you ever did have an issue, would you call up a lawer at zoomlegal to defend you? Would you call up a local lawyer that would look at your cookie cutter LLC and say this is worthless because of this technicality? I wasn't comfortable with the first option so I went with a local lawyer.

I will say this for zoom legal: Doing a dry run seeing what questions they ask you helps you minimize the time you spend with a local lawyer, which in turn saves money - so there is some benefit to starting down that path.

I used a lawyer to from mine about 4 years ago. I know some people have said to do it yourself, but this is a lot like IT. You might be able to do it yourself, but

a. isn't your time better spent on your main business,

b. do you recommend that people learn how to do complicated IT stuff for a one time project or hire a pro that does hundreds of them a year?

If you think about the Rule of 72, if you take 6 years to go to college, you would have half as much money at retirement as someone that started 6 years earlier assuming a 12% return. 12% might be a generous rate of return, but so is doubling your entire 401 as you near retirement.

@guyinpv said in Small office phone setup, looking for improvements...:

since they are an ecommerce, they do make a lot of outgoing calls to customers long distance.

wait, what? You're eCommerce business and your internet isn't reliable and you don't have a second connection? That doesn't seem to fit.

For those wondering how much space you save using the minimal install vs the typical install that Vultr does, here you go:
(note, this is after a unifi controller install: https://mangolassi.it/topic/14601/how-to-install-the-ubiquiti-unifi-controller-on-debian-9-1 ) Thanks for @JaredBusch for both his guides.

minimal install:

root@unifi:~# df
Filesystem                 1K-blocks    Used Available Use% Mounted on
udev                          240480       0    240480   0% /dev
tmpfs                          50432    1060     49372   3% /run
/dev/mapper/unifi--vg-root  19745212 2174736  16544428  12% /
tmpfs                         252144       0    252144   0% /dev/shm
tmpfs                           5120       0      5120   0% /run/lock
tmpfs                         252144       0    252144   0% /sys/fs/cgroup
/dev/vda1                     240972   37023    191508  17% /boot
tmpfs                          50428       0     50428   0% /run/user/1000
root@unifi:~# free
              total        used        free      shared  buff/cache   available
Mem:         504292      316456        7988         624      179848      174336
Swap:        524284        2108      522176

Vultr typical Debian install:

root@unifi:~# df
Filesystem     1K-blocks     Used Available Use% Mounted on
udev              241052        0    241052   0% /dev
tmpfs              50432     1660     48772   4% /run
/dev/vda1       20614932 20598552         0 100% /
tmpfs             252144        0    252144   0% /dev/shm
tmpfs               5120        0      5120   0% /run/lock
tmpfs             252144        0    252144   0% /sys/fs/cgroup
tmpfs              50428        0     50428   0% /run/user/0
root@unifi:~# free
              total        used        free      shared  buff/cache   available
Mem:         504292      301768       52416        5452      150108      184188
Swap:             0           0           0

As you can see, it's the difference between being able to use a 20GB VM and not.

amazon

and now we wait to see who points out that VoIP is a protocol and not hardware.

@gjacobse said in Windows CLI: Net User:

But when I try to sign with this account I am unable to do so, even though the command completed successfully.

Usually the next thing I do after creating a local user like that is add it to the right local group.

Then when logging in, make sure you're using .\testNTGuser
so that it's not looking for a domain account with that name.

I haven't tried it, but it seems like running powershell through screenconnect command line would be problematic at best. I'm not even sure how you would change the execution policy to let you call scripts.

@psx_defector I could count on one hand the number of users that I have that have heard of a pivot table... In this case, by Office, I meant using 5% of the functionality of Word and Excel and having a bunch of web pages open. Rendering videos as they play automatically when scrolling facebook is probably the hardest thing the computer will be asked to do most of the time.

I know there are all kinds of benchmarks out there, but it seems like the real world performance of the machine feels different than what the benchmarks say.