Posts made by pmoncho

@ElecEng said in Windows Volume License Vendor:

I am in need of some volume licensing help for a small business with around 25 users. Can someone recommend a good knowledgeable vendor to assist?

@Yonah-S at https://datacenterwarehouse.com/

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

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

My guess was it was totally fake or someone messed up the cut/paste job.

Or... both.

It was confusing to me and then I laughed because of all the talk of fake job postings.

Sometimes they hide it pretty well but sometimes it makes me wonder how dumb the person is doing the actual fake posting.

Scouring Indeed last week to take a peak. (No specific link) I was for a Windows System Administrator/ Azure Admin and the very first item in the list of Duties to Perform was to Admin Unix Linux and AWS.

I think Windows AD was the only MS related item on the posting too.

My guess was it was totally fake or someone messed up the cut/paste job.

@stacksofplates said in PS ISE: Unsaved Projects:

@pmoncho said in PS ISE: Unsaved Projects:

@stacksofplates said in PS ISE: Unsaved Projects:

This is what Git is for. Why not just use something like VSCode and have a repo for your powershell stuff?

Github or Gitlab? Does it matter for simple powershell scripts?

For what he's doing it doesn't matter.

GitLab has a lot more features for groups, I like their CI/CD better, and some other niceties. However, in this case it doesn't matter.

I am the same. Just PS scripts mainly for myself and a couple for work

@stacksofplates said in PS ISE: Unsaved Projects:

This is what Git is for. Why not just use something like VSCode and have a repo for your powershell stuff?

Github or Gitlab? Does it matter for simple powershell scripts?

@JaredBusch said in Unable to mark NAS location trusted in Office:

@BraswellJay said in Unable to mark NAS location trusted in Office:

I have a similar issue with a 3rd party developed application that uses an access database. The only way I could find to workaround was to add the trusted location through a registry edit. Here is the notes I have on what I did

I was able to add \\FileServer\Data\ via the built in GUI, by clicking Add new location and then browsing to Network and clicking on the FileServer item, etc. This added the location like this. This works, as I can open the file and have no warning about disabled macros, but is a work around. The Mapped Drive should work also.

I then exported the key and tweaked it to add K:\ in Location1.
No luck opening the file via K:\ does not work.

Even though it does show up in trust center after adding via the registry.

As a side note, I can not click on K:\ entry in the GUI either. I can click on the other two entries.

Just a WAG, but what if you map K:\ to \Fileserver and then trust K:\data folder. Maybe it wants a specific folder verses an entire drive?

@scottalanmiller said in Non-IT News Thread:

@pmoncho said in Non-IT News Thread:

@scottalanmiller said in Non-IT News Thread:

@pmoncho said in Non-IT News Thread:

@scottalanmiller said in Non-IT News Thread:

Wow, thermostat locking in Colorado now...

https://www.theblaze.com/news/energy-company-locks-smart-thermostats

I don't see an issue, especially because the people voluntarily gave away access to the energy company for $.

Legally there is no issue. But 80 is pretty high. Not many Americans prepared for that! And just... wow the state of the infrastructure up there.

80 is way high. Although, if your in Nicaragua, 80 is pretty nice.

Right? It's funny now because I keep things around 80 at night and 83 during the day and that's comfy. But people I know here try to keep around 74 and I'm like "damn, even when I lived in Texas the AC couldn't get it below 80 and this is the tropics now!"

Dang, I'm in Ohio and I only keep it at 75-76 and that is chilly for me.

I don't mind the tropics as I am freeze baby! I do prefer AZ or NV though.

@scottalanmiller said in Non-IT News Thread:

@pmoncho said in Non-IT News Thread:

@scottalanmiller said in Non-IT News Thread:

Wow, thermostat locking in Colorado now...

https://www.theblaze.com/news/energy-company-locks-smart-thermostats

I don't see an issue, especially because the people voluntarily gave away access to the energy company for $.

Legally there is no issue. But 80 is pretty high. Not many Americans prepared for that! And just... wow the state of the infrastructure up there.

80 is way high. Although, if your in Nicaragua, 80 is pretty nice.

@scottalanmiller said in Non-IT News Thread:

Wow, thermostat locking in Colorado now...

https://www.theblaze.com/news/energy-company-locks-smart-thermostats

I don't see an issue, especially because the people voluntarily gave away access to the energy company for $.

@Dashrender said in POTS line replacement:

@pmoncho said in POTS line replacement:

If there is paper to start and confirmation is needed, then I don't see how the process can be cut down any further than what is there other than automating the file name, watermark the barcode and the software "filing" the doc in the system against the patient.

Exactly.
In our case, a person must tell the system what type of document it is, and what do do with it once it's uploaded. That can either be done, and the output generates a barcode - the barcode goes on the page - then scan/upload to the sytem.
OR the person scan/uploads the document - then while confirming it's on the screen - they tell what kind of document it is and what to do with it.

To me the barcode is a huge waste of everything. AND introduces a failure point (what if the scan does a bad job on the barcode?

I'm guessing you probably have users that misclassify scans too? What is required if that happens?

@JaredBusch said in POTS line replacement:

@pmoncho said in POTS line replacement:

We also kept one other POTS line for our main fax line also (not my call).

So sorry. Look into http://faxback.com
This is the service that Skyetel uses under the hood for their HTTPS based ATA fax device. If you already have Skyetel service, then just use it there.

I was looking at this site.

If I understand this correctly, they are selling Fax server software and this device. I would still need to get a SIP line/Number from someone like Skyetel/Ring Central (I know I may not have the terminology correct)?

@Pete-S said in POTS line replacement:

@pmoncho said in POTS line replacement:

I have been pushing my clients with MFP's scan/print to PDF and send via encrypted email. Just cannot seem to convince the remaining clients to change.

You can convince people with incentives, but not with reasoning and logic.

For example by offering them to send documents through email (free) and through fax (surcharge per page).

It's the same as what the operators are doing to you. They are giving you an incentive to move away from POTS by increasing the cost.

Would you look at options if the cost didn't go up?

Good point Pete. I may bring this up to the VP when we discuss this further.

I was looking at the price quote from AT&T and I still don't like the cost as they still want to charge $45 per line with free US calling. May have no choice with the Fire Alarm but the fax lines will definitely be going down a different route.

@Dashrender said in POTS line replacement:

@pmoncho said in POTS line replacement:

@Dashrender said in POTS line replacement:

Our EMR has two ways to get a piece of paper into it.
a)

1. scan document
2. open patient chart
3. upload file
4. label file

b)

1. open patient chart
2. create label
3. print label and place on document
4. scan document
5. upload document (automated process sorts document into desired location)
   forgotten step - make sure document appears

There is actually yet another process
c)

1. open patient chart
2. create label
3. print label and place on document
4. fax document (automated process sorts document into desired location based on barcode)
   forgotten step - make sure document appears

While the number of arguable steps is the same as the first option, it does have the added expense of the label.
If you need to make sure the document actually arrived - then you are absolutely spending more time on option C than option A.

We have a similar process with our practice management software for scanning cards and charge sheets.

If there is paper to start and confirmation is needed, then I don't see how the process can be cut down any further than what is there other than automating the file name, watermark the barcode and the software "filing" the doc in the system against the patient.

@Dashrender said in POTS line replacement:

@pmoncho said in POTS line replacement:

@Dashrender said in POTS line replacement:

Of course that doesn't solve the sending issue. People just don't want to deal with scanning a document, then uploading to a service, then sending from that service, etc...

They want to walk to the machine choose from the address book and hit send.

Offices with an EMR are easier to transition as they can just print to PDF, open website to reply with attachment and done. Some of these PDFs are 50-80 pages too, so they actually save time and money (long distance) if the fax bombs out half way through.

yeah, this is a constant issue for us.

We have some people who have fully embraced the PDF print/upload solution. Then we have those who just push back against pretty much any change.

Since when did we become coworkers?

The world is small when people are people no matter where you turn.

@Dashrender said in POTS line replacement:

Of course that doesn't solve the sending issue. People just don't want to deal with scanning a document, then uploading to a service, then sending from that service, etc...

They want to walk to the machine choose from the address book and hit send.

Offices with an EMR are easier to transition as they can just print to PDF, open website to reply with attachment and done. Some of these PDFs are 50-80 pages too, so they actually save time and money (long distance) if the fax bombs out half way through.

The older providers who still want that paper are a challenge as you stated.

IMHO, interfaces with strict, well defined standards are the key to removing these challenges. HL7 is as bastardized as ANSI5010.

@Dashrender said in POTS line replacement:

@pmoncho said in POTS line replacement:

I looked at the total faxes pages for the last 45 days and we have roughly 9000 pages of faxes.

I just can't recall how many pages a month we do when I last looked, but I do recall the monthly charge from a 'fax service' was going to be around $900/month. I didn't even bother bringing that to management - there was less than 1% chance of that happening.

Bringing in faxes to our own physical machines, then saving to a network share was costing around $30/month per line (we have three). We might be able to save money moving to using full on VOIP from VOIP.ms or Skyetel, but that project has been to high on the tree. I say full on VOIP because Cox (our local dial tone provider) is all VOIP behind the equipment they drop on our doorstep, from there it's analog. We have had the typical VOIP related issues - Cox's network had a HUGE amount of line noise on coax causing packet loss which caused faxes to fail like crazy - after 6 months they finally found some bad taps at neighbors up the street and fixed the cable issue, which fixed our fax failure issue.

Well that is interesting. Some fax service I looked at were capped at around 3000 pages for $100 then per page goes nuts after that. Still looking though.

Using our Hylafax server with a Samba Share has worked well for a while especially when we were getting even more faxes but the lines only costed us $24 per line which included calling anywhere in the 48 States.

@scottalanmiller said in POTS line replacement:

@pmoncho said in POTS line replacement:

I have been pushing my clients with MFP's scan/print to PDF and send via encrypted email. Just cannot seem to convince the remaining clients to change.

When you say "encrypted", do you mean normal email (which is encrypted.) Or what people call "encrypted email" which isn't email at all and is often a huge pain.

The latter. We use Barracuda for email scanning and with the service we can use their web portal to upload/download any attachments.

EDIT: Expanding on this after reading the discussion between Dash and Scott.

When we send out "encrypted" email with some form of the word "Encrypt" in the subject line, our internal email uses SSL/TLS to Barracuda and then Barracuda stores the email. Our user logs into Barracuda website to retrieve the download if needed.

@scottalanmiller said in POTS line replacement:

@pmoncho said in POTS line replacement:

I looked at the total faxes pages for the last 45 days and we have roughly 9000 pages of faxes.

wow

I know. Tell me about it. Trying to work with the LOB app developer to figure out how the heck we can cut that down.

@Dashrender said in POTS line replacement:

@pmoncho said in POTS line replacement:

I have been pushing my clients with MFP's scan/print to PDF and send via encrypted email. Just cannot seem to convince the remaining clients to change.

Sadly that is entirely to much effort for them to invest. If their IT can make it happen, the device could send to an email address of their own- then run a process that then emails any attachments to that address to you via encrypted email.

another option - one my EMR is investigating - IF their MFP support scan to secure FTP - you could setup a secure FTP site, provide credentials to your customers (different for each) and your customers could update the MFP to save to the secure FTP site. This leaves the amount of work for the end users to be exactly the same - choose your company from the phonebook, drop the pages on the ADF, press go - done. Should be the same as faxing.

Ohhhh. This is something to look into. I have a client that just may want to test this out.

@scottalanmiller said in POTS line replacement:

@pmoncho said in POTS line replacement:

@JaredBusch said in POTS line replacement:

@pmoncho said in POTS line replacement:

We also kept one other POTS line for our main fax line also (not my call).

So sorry. Look into http://faxback.com
This is the service that Skyetel uses under the hood for their HTTPS based ATA fax device. If you already have Skyetel service, then just use it there.

We do have one fax line through our VOIP service but is does have it's issues. I noticed others here have talked about their fax service so I am going to check that out this week.

A "line" or a service? Faxing should really always be a service, never a line. Don't try to terminate something doing fax to legacy equipment, that will always be a problem. If you have a fax service, you'll never have issues. If you try to avoid that and shoehorn modern fax into legacy gear, it'll always be flaky, expensive, and a pain in the ass.

We have one fax line from our VOIP company that uses one port on an ATA (don't know the correct terminology here) and then two other POTS line for another fax. Those all go into modems connecting to our Hylafax server. This has been good but when its acts up, your right, it is a PITA.

The service I am looking into are online fax services using something like Faxback, SkyeFax, SR Fax or something similar.

I looked at the total faxes pages for the last 45 days and we have roughly 9000 pages of faxes.

I have been pushing my clients with MFP's scan/print to PDF and send via encrypted email. Just cannot seem to convince the remaining clients to change.