@Dashrender said in How Do You Replace Active Directory?:

@scottalanmiller said in How Do You Replace Active Directory?:

@Dashrender said in How Do You Replace Active Directory?:

@scottalanmiller said in How Do You Replace Active Directory?:

@Dashrender said in How Do You Replace Active Directory?:

@scottalanmiller said in How Do You Replace Active Directory?:

@Dashrender said in How Do You Replace Active Directory?:

@scottalanmiller said in How Do You Replace Active Directory?:

@siringo said in How Do You Replace Active Directory?:

I saw @jt1001001 mention they could upgrade so they can use Intune &/or Azure AD. Azure AD is AD, but Intune is an MDM.

Azure AD is not AD. It's a directory service, but in no way is it AD. It's no more AD than JumpCloud or Okta is AD. They are all directory services, but that's where the similarity ends.

Intune is MDM, that is true. And MDM is a vastly better way to do system management than GPO. GPO is horrible. One of the biggest problems with GPO is the lack of an agent, which is really what is needed. So something that is MDM or MDM-like in that way is exactly what you want as an alternative to GPO.

Why do you dislike the lack of a client? Sure it's LAN-centric, and we should be looking for LANless options these days...

Reliability. Hoping that the operating system will successfully pull GPO without an agent is a flaky process. You can make a lot of billable hours getting paid to troubleshoot GPO failures because Windows doesn't have a good way to get the data, process the data, and report on that processing. It's the agents that do all the things that make this type of process reliable.

I guess I don't follow. Something in Windows Pro is what tells the PC to pull and process the GPO - there are logs for that process in Windows. of course I've had issues before - are you saying you've never had issues with something that has a third party agent before?

I'm saying that the GPO system is flaky and useless. It's pathetically complex and unreliable. Those that use it tend to either have to keep it very, very basic or do a ton of work to make it work and rarely can you find a shop that's really confident that it is working.

The very idea that you have to go onto the endpoints to look at logs shows how big the problem is. There's no warning, no alerting that something has failed. No central repository. You have to build out some kind of log monitoring solution with an AGENT and deploy it to the end points to bandaid the kind of centralized data into GPO that you'd just expect with any modern solution (or competent solution.)

Everything "has" problems. But how often they have problems, how the agent handles problems, and how you have to deal with problems are what matters. And obviously nothing you'd actually deploy should have the kinds of unreliability or difficulty in monitoring as GPO. If it even comes close, it's not something you'd trust.

You are asking "GPO is bad, so you are saying other solutions are perfect?" Do you see why that is a bad question? Nothing is perfect, why do you ask if other solutions are perfect but don't expect GPO to be?

The way that you ask these questions makes you sound crazy. Don't ask if GPO is perfect. What you should be asking is something like "Oh, so you've found that the good third party agents are reasonably more reliable than the native GPO?" It's logical, it's rational, and it doesn't imply that perfect is a requirement, because obviously it is not.

I guess I've just had good luck. I haven't had to poor huge amounts of time into my GPOs not working.
not zero - but no RMM type solution would I expect zero issues with when setting up.

No, not zero for sure. GPOs tend to be better when you have a very LAN-centric, very homogenous environment. The more variation you add, especially in terms of latency and connection, the harder it gets. GPOs start to get flaky, especially over the WAN, and you start getting a lot of time spent just trying to get them to process.

yeah - that definitely makes sense.

I'm curious - haven't dug in enough yet - how much Intune notifies you of non compliant machines?

You can get total sight and notification of any kind of compliance you want. The default no-setup-needed compliance policies are a great start, and now you can use your own custom compliance scripts. Additionally, through automation, the possibilities are endless.

@siringo said in Migrating to xxxxx:

Questions that dig into how a person thinks and solves, rather than past job history.

That's one thing to look for when you are the one being interviewed. I've interviewed for shitty companies that don't know how to interview and I basically let them know afterwards I'm no longer interested in the position.

@siringo said in Migrating to xxxxx:

But how do you/we get around the problem of an interview panel asking " so how much experience do you have with Ansible, Salt, AD etc"

Either don't interview for those positions, or get experience doing the stuff you want to be doing.

@scottalanmiller

@scottalanmiller said in Wsus for remote vpn and on-premise users:

There is little different between an MSP and internal IT.

They are basically the same thing. In many cases the internal IT is a separate entity that basically bills the company and/or child companies, but is on the payroll of the company.

@pete-s said in Password Managers:

That why there are plenty of vulnerabilities and bugs in everything.

You can't take from them something they don't have...

@pete-s said in Password Managers:

Because you don't know what they do with your master password, encryption keys and other things.

Last I seen, LastPass doesn't have your master password.

LP stores a hash of your email address and master password on your computer (not its servers), which it uses as an encryption key to encode your log-in details for other sites (with a 256-bit AES cypher), before storing them on its servers.

They don't know your details or encryption key, so create a unique ID token for you by hashing your password and local encryption key together. That ID token is then hashed with a random number when you create your account.

Still using LastPass Families. Works well for us, no reason to switch to something else.

@dashrender said in Wsus for remote vpn and on-premise users:

@obsolesce said in Wsus for remote vpn and on-premise users:

You can use Windows Update for Business. No need for WSUS.

Is there any type of reporting in that?

Yes, multiple methods of reporting... reporting out the ass.

You can use Windows Update for Business. No need for WSUS.

@scottalanmiller that you don't exist on Duo anymore. I was gonna start using it again since I'm getting bored with the others.

@scottalanmiller what happened to your DuoLingo?

@siringo there is always a respectful way say someone's suggestion is outdated or not valid, not applicable, not useful, etc.

Also remember you only need to hit about 60-70% of the job description. And you can get a much better job after only about 6 months at a new job. Keep track of your accomplishments and continuously learn and improve.

@jimmy9008 Azure virtual Desktop is decent. A bunch of other contenders didn't pan out and is the only one that hit the most important points in practice.

@phlipelder said in Need audio cable help:

@jaredbusch said in Need audio cable help:

I have a digital piano that my daughter uses.

It has a 1/4 inch headphone jacks for output if desired.

I need to convert that to a mic input for a tablet on a standard mini jack.

She uses an app on her tablet that listens for her to play on the best correctly. But with the built in mic it misses notes often. The app recommends a direct connection to improve that.

I cannot find a cable for that. My search terms are simply returning various standard adapters. Standard adapters do not move the output audio to the mic input. Simply to the audio output of the new size.

As an alternative to mucking about with all of that, a simple YETI Blue microphone close to the piano's speaker would work.

They are phenomenal mics. It could then be used for her to pick up voice if she wants to get into recording and playing around with creating music.

EDIT: Add a FocusRite Scarlett and ProTools if she gets serious and a few YETI Pro series mics.

Ya but nothing beats a direct signal. That's how we did it with ours before and was perfect compared to microphone to a speaker.

@jaredbusch said in Need audio cable help:

I have a digital piano that my daughter uses.

It has a 1/4 inch headphone jacks for output if desired.

I need to convert that to a mic input for a tablet on a standard mini jack.

She uses an app on her tablet that listens for her to play on the best correctly. But with the built in mic it misses notes often. The app recommends a direct connection to improve that.

I cannot find a cable for that. My search terms are simply returning various standard adapters. Standard adapters do not move the output audio to the mic input. Simply to the audio output of the new size.

Are you sure the 1/4 output can be used as a signal input? On the keyboard we had before, there was a separate input for just this reason.

@pete-s said in What do you think about .app domain names?:

@scottalanmiller said in What do you think about .app domain names?:

If it is under the hood, why bother. If it isn't under the hood, I think customers get confused.

So you mean if it's customer facing it's better to stick to .com and there will be no confusion?

That is the only aspect that matters tbh, what people / customers think of it. All other aspects have zero impact.

@scottalanmiller said in Staying at your shitty employer is your fault:

@obsolesce said in Staying at your shitty employer is your fault:

What I've been told is that it goes by local market... based on the cost of labor in a given location, remote or not.

Whose local market, though?

The local market of the potential hire, for the job their being hired for.

@scottalanmiller said in Staying at your shitty employer is your fault:

@irj said in Staying at your shitty employer is your fault:

Even for remote workers sometimes there are differences depending on location

Lots of variation, but the variation is at the employee's discretion. It's not the employer's job to compensate unless the location is of benefit to the employer.

It would be no different than paying employee's more based on the car that they choose to drive. Buy a Mercedes, we give you a raise. Buy a Toyota, your pay stays normal. Be responsible and take public transportation and get a pay cut to add to your woes.

Basically, employer's rewarding unnecessary spending is an insane business tactic. It's not just bad financially, but generally punishes good decision making. An employee living in low cost cities or even villages are likely dealing with fewer business-interrupting problems than employees in big, expensive downtowns.

What I've been told is that it goes by local market... based on the cost of labor in a given location, remote or not.