So this isn't hard to do but I need to do it a lot and it annoys me every time, EVERYONE else uses .pem for ssl microsoft, fuck you stop making me convert them to pfx and just use pem you asshats. IJUFOIHJFEUIHFGEIUOYGIUYADE. Leave pfx support for people obsessed with security but just let me import fucking pems.
Had to do this song and dance a couple of months ago for the lone windows build server we have. It's really annoying.
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RandomHajileNot actually a SnatcherThe New KremlinRegistered Userregular
I will say that if the company is only willing to spend about $5k on an Active Directory implementation, I’d consider getting one physical box with good redundancy (good RAID, dual power supplies, etc) in its own hardware rather than trying to squeeze a bunch of VMs on there just for the sake of virtualization.
I’d also question an installer who wants to do that for $5k. In my opinion, to kind of go along with what Feral was saying, if you’re getting into the virtualization game, I think you should be at two hosts and a NAS to begin with if you want to do it right. I haven’t specced out low cost VMware hosts in a while but I think you’d be in the $20k range total, maybe less if you compromise in a couple areas. But I do have to admit that my virtualization budget is rather good compared to a lot of smaller businesses; they don’t really question what I want to spend within reason (and ultimately the limiting factor is that if it goes over a certain amount, it goes to the board of directors for approval).
Also also remember that Microsoft licensing is now per core, so you have to be careful to walk that line. I uh, have a lot of cores in my hosts, and they were licensed per socket when we started.
I want to clarify something here. I meant if your choice is to compromise a virtual setup or to get a bit better redundancy in a single physical server setup, I’d go with better redundancy. However, as others noted, Hyper-V makes this easy. (But I would still go ESXi because the expansion possibilities are better. Just have to get licensing right with Microsoft.)
I’m trying to decide where I’m headed for our remote AD/file/print/DNS server replacements this year. The biggest sticking point is the amount of storage we have for our file servers (2.4TB) that is currently replicated across all three locations. I think I’m going to propose a single decent ESXi host for the one site, and a full blown 2-host-plus-large-NAS system for the closer site to turn it into the DR site for VMware at least.
Also, homey, 200+ PCs and 1000 users...woof, that’s not a small environment and you should have had AD (or something) a looooong time ago. We have around 400 PCs and 700 users and my AD, VMware, email, backup systems are in the $300k range total, replaced every 5-6 years on average. Not including licensing. I’m lucky that operational expenditures elsewhere dwarf our budget.
Tangential to IT, but I'm hoping we have some sort of IP back-end for our phones. Then again, our office is on a piece of land that's been used for......things......for damn near two centuries.
That being said, can any of you explain why I have to ask an admin to move my desk phone, then wait for her to find the bandwidth to do it, as opposed to using some sort of intranet form/automated process?
I'm moving desks and it's the only thing anchoring me to my old location. I have all the port numbers, so I don't see why I shouldn't be able to do this myself.
Tangential to IT, but I'm hoping we have some sort of IP back-end for our phones. Then again, our office is on a piece of land that's been used for......things......for damn near two centuries.
That being said, can any of you explain why I have to ask an admin to move my desk phone, then wait for her to find the bandwidth to do it, as opposed to using some sort of intranet form/automated process?
I'm moving desks and it's the only thing anchoring me to my old location. I have all the port numbers, so I don't see why I shouldn't be able to do this myself.
It's likely one of three things (or a combination of all of them):
* They may not actually patch all of the ports into the LAN switches up front.
* There is likely special configuration required for the IP phones which is not by default applied to all the switch ports
* There may be a policy that "Users are too stupid to move their own phones" and not wanting to deal with the fallout and/or simply not wanting people to be moving things all over without IT's awareness
Tangential to IT, but I'm hoping we have some sort of IP back-end for our phones. Then again, our office is on a piece of land that's been used for......things......for damn near two centuries.
That being said, can any of you explain why I have to ask an admin to move my desk phone, then wait for her to find the bandwidth to do it, as opposed to using some sort of intranet form/automated process?
I'm moving desks and it's the only thing anchoring me to my old location. I have all the port numbers, so I don't see why I shouldn't be able to do this myself.
Without knowing what PBX you use, what handsets you use, or anything about your network to actually answer that question, 3 immediate possibilities come to mind. You've got analog/digital phones which means the extension number is tied to the physical port you plug into on the PBX. Two, if it's a VoIP phone, perhaps not all your Ethernet ports have PoE available to power the phone and cabling/switch changes have to be made. If it's a VoIP phone, perhaps where you are moving to is on a different subnet/network segment that requires some additional config to support the phone.
Though I am also confused by exactly what you mean by "find the bandwidth to do it". I can't tell if you're just misusing the word or describing a very real concern with phone traffic.
Just remember that half the people you meet are below average intelligence.
Tangential to IT, but I'm hoping we have some sort of IP back-end for our phones. Then again, our office is on a piece of land that's been used for......things......for damn near two centuries.
That being said, can any of you explain why I have to ask an admin to move my desk phone, then wait for her to find the bandwidth to do it, as opposed to using some sort of intranet form/automated process?
I'm moving desks and it's the only thing anchoring me to my old location. I have all the port numbers, so I don't see why I shouldn't be able to do this myself.
Without knowing what PBX you use, what handsets you use, or anything about your network to actually answer that question, 3 immediate possibilities come to mind. You've got analog/digital phones which means the extension number is tied to the physical port you plug into on the PBX. Two, if it's a VoIP phone, perhaps not all your Ethernet ports have PoE available to power the phone and cabling/switch changes have to be made. If it's a VoIP phone, perhaps where you are moving to is on a different subnet/network segment that requires some additional config to support the phone.
Though I am also confused by exactly what you mean by "find the bandwidth to do it". I can't tell if you're just misusing the word or describing a very real concern with phone traffic.
Using "bandwidth" to describe an individual's time isn't uncommon, ie "I don't have enough bandwidth to take on that new project"
I'm going to wear my ISP hat for a second and say that the word "bandwidth" lost all meaning a long time ago.
On its way out the door: "broadband"
My coworker in Accounting was just complaining about people using bandwidth to mean amount of time in the day available to do work, because he’s been on this project with our parent company and they use dumb business guy buzzwords all the time.
Yes, I meant "she has to find the time and find the request email in her inbox"
Also at least at the desk, we use analog RJ11 connectors. We also have a mix of handsets, which points me even more toward the "extension tied to port" scenario.
I'd recently managed to get a IT support guy to admit we've had a phone IP backbone in place for a few years, but it's not being implemented for "reasons". I suspect there's either something in the phone system *really old* that people don't want to replace (that thing may also be a person), or there's some sort of security concern (though we have secure VTC stuff set up in multiple locations)
Tangential to IT, but I'm hoping we have some sort of IP back-end for our phones. Then again, our office is on a piece of land that's been used for......things......for damn near two centuries.
That being said, can any of you explain why I have to ask an admin to move my desk phone, then wait for her to find the bandwidth to do it, as opposed to using some sort of intranet form/automated process?
I'm moving desks and it's the only thing anchoring me to my old location. I have all the port numbers, so I don't see why I shouldn't be able to do this myself.
Without knowing what PBX you use, what handsets you use, or anything about your network to actually answer that question, 3 immediate possibilities come to mind. You've got analog/digital phones which means the extension number is tied to the physical port you plug into on the PBX. Two, if it's a VoIP phone, perhaps not all your Ethernet ports have PoE available to power the phone and cabling/switch changes have to be made. If it's a VoIP phone, perhaps where you are moving to is on a different subnet/network segment that requires some additional config to support the phone.
Though I am also confused by exactly what you mean by "find the bandwidth to do it". I can't tell if you're just misusing the word or describing a very real concern with phone traffic.
Using "bandwidth" to describe an individual's time isn't uncommon, ie "I don't have enough bandwidth to take on that new project"
Yes, I'm aware, but this was specifically used in conversation about networks and phone systems where it has a real, technical definition, hence causing confusion.
Yes, I meant "she has to find the time and find the request email in her inbox"
Also at least at the desk, we use analog RJ11 connectors. We also have a mix of handsets, which points me even more toward the "extension tied to port" scenario.
I'd recently managed to get a IT support guy to admit we've had a phone IP backbone in place for a few years, but it's not being implemented for "reasons". I suspect there's either something in the phone system *really old* that people don't want to replace (that thing may also be a person), or there's some sort of security concern (though we have secure VTC stuff set up in multiple locations)
Yep, you've got a digital handset. The PBX would need to be reconfigured to move your extension to another jack.
Depending on the cards installed in the PBX, it may also support VoIP handsets in addition to your current digital handsets. Whether you have said card or have handsets that support both digital and VoIP connections could significantly impact the cost of implementation. Even if you already have both and all the switching and cabling to support it,
just changing phones over is a rather labor intensive project.
Just remember that half the people you meet are below average intelligence.
"Bandwidth" meaning "an employee's time and attention" is a very common metaphor.
If the phone plugs into the wall with RJ11, it's not VOIP. It could be an old-school digital PBX, which means the phone admin has to go into the PBX management software and assign extensions to physical ports. They may need to wire in the physical port as well in the PBX closet or server closet.
Also, based on my experiences migrating PBX to VOIP, there's a possibility their phone closet is a fucking rats nest of tangled cables.
Feral on
every person who doesn't like an acquired taste always seems to think everyone who likes it is faking it. it should be an official fallacy.
Tangential to IT, but I'm hoping we have some sort of IP back-end for our phones. Then again, our office is on a piece of land that's been used for......things......for damn near two centuries.
That being said, can any of you explain why I have to ask an admin to move my desk phone, then wait for her to find the bandwidth to do it, as opposed to using some sort of intranet form/automated process?
I'm moving desks and it's the only thing anchoring me to my old location. I have all the port numbers, so I don't see why I shouldn't be able to do this myself.
Without knowing what PBX you use, what handsets you use, or anything about your network to actually answer that question, 3 immediate possibilities come to mind. You've got analog/digital phones which means the extension number is tied to the physical port you plug into on the PBX. Two, if it's a VoIP phone, perhaps not all your Ethernet ports have PoE available to power the phone and cabling/switch changes have to be made. If it's a VoIP phone, perhaps where you are moving to is on a different subnet/network segment that requires some additional config to support the phone.
Though I am also confused by exactly what you mean by "find the bandwidth to do it". I can't tell if you're just misusing the word or describing a very real concern with phone traffic.
Using "bandwidth" to describe an individual's time isn't uncommon, ie "I don't have enough bandwidth to take on that new project"
Yes, I'm aware, but this was specifically used in conversation about networks and phone systems where it has a real, technical definition, hence causing confusion.
Yes, I meant "she has to find the time and find the request email in her inbox"
Also at least at the desk, we use analog RJ11 connectors. We also have a mix of handsets, which points me even more toward the "extension tied to port" scenario.
I'd recently managed to get a IT support guy to admit we've had a phone IP backbone in place for a few years, but it's not being implemented for "reasons". I suspect there's either something in the phone system *really old* that people don't want to replace (that thing may also be a person), or there's some sort of security concern (though we have secure VTC stuff set up in multiple locations)
Yep, you've got a digital handset. The PBX would need to be reconfigured to move your extension to another jack.
Depending on the cards installed in the PBX, it may also support VoIP handsets in addition to your current digital handsets. Whether you have said card or have handsets that support both digital and VoIP connections could significantly impact the cost of implementation. Even if you already have both and all the switching and cabling to support it,
just changing phones over is a rather labor intensive project.
I'd recently managed to get a IT support guy to admit we've had a phone IP backbone in place for a few years, but it's not being implemented for "reasons".
It's hard to know what "IP phone backbone" means in this context.
Phone system migrations are always stressful anyway, no matter what you're migrating from. The project stress level just ranges from "house of cards" to "oh god everything is bees"
every person who doesn't like an acquired taste always seems to think everyone who likes it is faking it. it should be an official fallacy.
Any vendor still requiring silverlight should have their asshair ripped out.
You don't want to ever interact with GCA/Everi products then. The redemption machines at the casino I work are from them and the primary transaction programs for cashing tickets/vouchers from the slots/EGDs uses a core that was originally written in 2003, and the backend monitoring software I use to track stats on them is browser based via Silverlight and collates info from the databases that log and track all transactions from the machines via a one-off custom kludge based around Crystal Reports.
Anytime I'm asked to try and do a deep dive to track down irregularities in accounting for one of redemption kiosk (since I'm the only one left that has been here the entire time we've been using this steaming pile of shit), I feel like slamming my balls in a sliding glass door over and over.
No matter where you go...there you are. ~ Buckaroo Banzai
That was a fun stressful evening of restoring a melted web app.
Ryan Reynolds linked us in a tweet! :rotate:
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That_GuyI don't wanna be that guyRegistered Userregular
Last week was "fun". We've been getting record levels of rainfall here in WNC and it's been wreaking havoc on the groundwater. One of my clients has a site way up on a mountain. Last week a new spring opened up on their property and they called in a team to dig a french drain. This campus has multiple out building that have been converted to offices. Well before my company came on, the client had run fiber between several of the buildings. Surprise surprise the good old boys and the backhoe they brought in ripped right through one of the fiber lines. No one at my company has the equipment or inclination to repair a cut fiber line. The "company" we had worked with in the past was some drunken asshole playing the slots in Vegas. At least that's who picked up when someone called the number. So it was left to me to figure out a solution. Enter Ubiquiti Nanobeam AC Gen2. The thing is, we needed line of sight. There was no LOS from the demark to the out building. Luckily the next out building that was working was only around 200 meters away and had perfect LOS. There weren't even any trees in the way. I get my hands on a couple Nanobeams, some extra long screws, a box of outdoor cable, a drill and a bunch of odds and ends to terminate everything. It was 40f and raining. All of the walkways had turned to boot deep mud. The feed building was the hardest. The lines were coming in through holes in the floor. The problem was a whole bunch of insulation getting in the way of passing the cable down. I ended up having to crawl under the building commando style to pass the cable up through the floor. I ran the cable under the building and stapled (using a cable boss) it to the outside frame of the building. I mounted the nanobeam near the edge of the roofline. On the other end there was a well sealed plastic box on the outside of the building where the fiber came in. I was able to drill right through it to get the cable inside. I again just mounted the Nanobeam right near the edge of the roofline. I left a generous drip loop and crossed my fingers. I had preconfigured the APs ahead of time so theoretically it should be plug and play. I connect the POE injector and IT WORKED!!! The phones in the building came online and I was able to make a phone call back to my office with no quality issues. Ping times and transfer rates from the building were looking good too. I spent a half hour cleaning mud from my boots before getting in my car. I was so cold and wet when got out of there. I had the heat cranked on the drive home and took a nice warm shower when I got there.
I told my Monday client she needed to order new monitors because her new workstation only has HDMI and DP, and all of her monitors are old as shit. Also, need one for the server cube/room where I work during the day.
She ordered 32" monitors because they were on sale.
That was a fun stressful evening of restoring a melted web app.
Ryan Reynolds linked us in a tweet! :rotate:
Oh hey I know where you work now. :rotate: My girlfriend pointed an instagram post about that as well.
It's been a really positive social thread. We didn't anticipate Reynolds being part of that on our end because it's a BC-only event, but because of it we are seeing a lot of people donating to Ronald McDonald House charities instead, and Deadpool making Canada cracks about our internet/service.
I told my Monday client she needed to order new monitors because her new workstation only has HDMI and DP, and all of her monitors are old as shit. Also, need one for the server cube/room where I work during the day.
She ordered 32" monitors because they were on sale.
Works for me.
I've just been getting DP/HDMI to DVI adapters here. Monitors are ridiculous. This one has HDMI or VGA. That one has DP and VGA. Another has HDMI only. Same goes for the desktops I've been getting. Some come with DP standard, others HDMI.
How is this still a problem in 2019? I blame laptops coming with HDMI to allow people to connect them to meeting room TVs.
Last week was "fun". We've been getting record levels of rainfall here in WNC and it's been wreaking havoc on the groundwater. One of my clients has a site way up on a mountain. Last week a new spring opened up on their property and they called in a team to dig a french drain. This campus has multiple out building that have been converted to offices. Well before my company came on, the client had run fiber between several of the buildings. Surprise surprise the good old boys and the backhoe they brought in ripped right through one of the fiber lines. No one at my company has the equipment or inclination to repair a cut fiber line. The "company" we had worked with in the past was some drunken asshole playing the slots in Vegas. At least that's who picked up when someone called the number. So it was left to me to figure out a solution. Enter Ubiquiti Nanobeam AC Gen2. The thing is, we needed line of sight. There was no LOS from the demark to the out building. Luckily the next out building that was working was only around 200 meters away and had perfect LOS. There weren't even any trees in the way. I get my hands on a couple Nanobeams, some extra long screws, a box of outdoor cable, a drill and a bunch of odds and ends to terminate everything. It was 40f and raining. All of the walkways had turned to boot deep mud. The feed building was the hardest. The lines were coming in through holes in the floor. The problem was a whole bunch of insulation getting in the way of passing the cable down. I ended up having to crawl under the building commando style to pass the cable up through the floor. I ran the cable under the building and stapled (using a cable boss) it to the outside frame of the building. I mounted the nanobeam near the edge of the roofline. On the other end there was a well sealed plastic box on the outside of the building where the fiber came in. I was able to drill right through it to get the cable inside. I again just mounted the Nanobeam right near the edge of the roofline. I left a generous drip loop and crossed my fingers. I had preconfigured the APs ahead of time so theoretically it should be plug and play. I connect the POE injector and IT WORKED!!! The phones in the building came online and I was able to make a phone call back to my office with no quality issues. Ping times and transfer rates from the building were looking good too. I spent a half hour cleaning mud from my boots before getting in my car. I was so cold and wet when got out of there. I had the heat cranked on the drive home and took a nice warm shower when I got there.
Last week was "fun". We've been getting record levels of rainfall here in WNC and it's been wreaking havoc on the groundwater. One of my clients has a site way up on a mountain. Last week a new spring opened up on their property and they called in a team to dig a french drain. This campus has multiple out building that have been converted to offices. Well before my company came on, the client had run fiber between several of the buildings. Surprise surprise the good old boys and the backhoe they brought in ripped right through one of the fiber lines. No one at my company has the equipment or inclination to repair a cut fiber line. The "company" we had worked with in the past was some drunken asshole playing the slots in Vegas. At least that's who picked up when someone called the number. So it was left to me to figure out a solution. Enter Ubiquiti Nanobeam AC Gen2. The thing is, we needed line of sight. There was no LOS from the demark to the out building. Luckily the next out building that was working was only around 200 meters away and had perfect LOS. There weren't even any trees in the way. I get my hands on a couple Nanobeams, some extra long screws, a box of outdoor cable, a drill and a bunch of odds and ends to terminate everything. It was 40f and raining. All of the walkways had turned to boot deep mud. The feed building was the hardest. The lines were coming in through holes in the floor. The problem was a whole bunch of insulation getting in the way of passing the cable down. I ended up having to crawl under the building commando style to pass the cable up through the floor. I ran the cable under the building and stapled (using a cable boss) it to the outside frame of the building. I mounted the nanobeam near the edge of the roofline. On the other end there was a well sealed plastic box on the outside of the building where the fiber came in. I was able to drill right through it to get the cable inside. I again just mounted the Nanobeam right near the edge of the roofline. I left a generous drip loop and crossed my fingers. I had preconfigured the APs ahead of time so theoretically it should be plug and play. I connect the POE injector and IT WORKED!!! The phones in the building came online and I was able to make a phone call back to my office with no quality issues. Ping times and transfer rates from the building were looking good too. I spent a half hour cleaning mud from my boots before getting in my car. I was so cold and wet when got out of there. I had the heat cranked on the drive home and took a nice warm shower when I got there.
They don’t pay you enough.
Oh, I forgot to tell you guys the best part about the feeder building that I had to crawl under. It's a deathtrap. In each of the 3 offices in the building there is an unvented, open flame gas heater. That by itself is fine, even if the pilot lights keep going out. It's compounded by the fact that the building is all wood, even the walls. It gets better, though. They took down the smoke detectors over a year ago and never replaced the batteries. On top of that someone before me had run an extension cable over and around the door frame to get power to the network equipment. They stapled it in place and one of the staples went right through the middle. The knock on effect was that any time you touched any of the network equipment you'd get a static shock. It took me a year of getting the odd complaint about internet issues in that office and replacing network equipment to finally find the culprit. I replaced the extension cord and just ran it to a different outlet. When I found the staple a thought flashed through my head. It could be a particularly cold week the and the pilot light had gone out at just the right time to start filling the room with gas. Someone could enter the office, bringing in just the right amount of air to reach the explosive stoichiometric level. They could see their phone not connected to the wifi and go to power cycle something. They touch the network equipment, a spark goes off and boom. When I was there to setup the wireless hardware, the smoke detectors were still down but at least I wasn't getting shocked.
Last week was "fun". We've been getting record levels of rainfall here in WNC and it's been wreaking havoc on the groundwater. One of my clients has a site way up on a mountain. Last week a new spring opened up on their property and they called in a team to dig a french drain. This campus has multiple out building that have been converted to offices. Well before my company came on, the client had run fiber between several of the buildings. Surprise surprise the good old boys and the backhoe they brought in ripped right through one of the fiber lines. No one at my company has the equipment or inclination to repair a cut fiber line. The "company" we had worked with in the past was some drunken asshole playing the slots in Vegas. At least that's who picked up when someone called the number. So it was left to me to figure out a solution. Enter Ubiquiti Nanobeam AC Gen2. The thing is, we needed line of sight. There was no LOS from the demark to the out building. Luckily the next out building that was working was only around 200 meters away and had perfect LOS. There weren't even any trees in the way. I get my hands on a couple Nanobeams, some extra long screws, a box of outdoor cable, a drill and a bunch of odds and ends to terminate everything. It was 40f and raining. All of the walkways had turned to boot deep mud. The feed building was the hardest. The lines were coming in through holes in the floor. The problem was a whole bunch of insulation getting in the way of passing the cable down. I ended up having to crawl under the building commando style to pass the cable up through the floor. I ran the cable under the building and stapled (using a cable boss) it to the outside frame of the building. I mounted the nanobeam near the edge of the roofline. On the other end there was a well sealed plastic box on the outside of the building where the fiber came in. I was able to drill right through it to get the cable inside. I again just mounted the Nanobeam right near the edge of the roofline. I left a generous drip loop and crossed my fingers. I had preconfigured the APs ahead of time so theoretically it should be plug and play. I connect the POE injector and IT WORKED!!! The phones in the building came online and I was able to make a phone call back to my office with no quality issues. Ping times and transfer rates from the building were looking good too. I spent a half hour cleaning mud from my boots before getting in my car. I was so cold and wet when got out of there. I had the heat cranked on the drive home and took a nice warm shower when I got there.
They don’t pay you enough.
Oh, I forgot to tell you guys the best part about the feeder building that I had to crawl under. It's a deathtrap. In each of the 3 offices in the building there is an unvented, open flame gas heater. That by itself is fine, even if the pilot lights keep going out. It's compounded by the fact that the building is all wood, even the walls. It gets better, though. They took down the smoke detectors over a year ago and never replaced the batteries. On top of that someone before me had run an extension cable over and around the door frame to get power to the network equipment. They stapled it in place and one of the staples went right through the middle. The knock on effect was that any time you touched any of the network equipment you'd get a static shock. It took me a year of getting the odd complaint about internet issues in that office and replacing network equipment to finally find the culprit. I replaced the extension cord and just ran it to a different outlet. When I found the staple a thought flashed through my head. It could be a particularly cold week the and the pilot light had gone out at just the right time to start filling the room with gas. Someone could enter the office, bringing in just the right amount of air to reach the explosive stoichiometric level. They could see their phone not connected to the wifi and go to power cycle something. They touch the network equipment, a spark goes off and boom. When I was there to setup the wireless hardware, the smoke detectors were still down but at least I wasn't getting shocked.
Up next in 1000 ways to die...
( < . . .
+2
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That_GuyI don't wanna be that guyRegistered Userregular
Last week was "fun". We've been getting record levels of rainfall here in WNC and it's been wreaking havoc on the groundwater. One of my clients has a site way up on a mountain. Last week a new spring opened up on their property and they called in a team to dig a french drain. This campus has multiple out building that have been converted to offices. Well before my company came on, the client had run fiber between several of the buildings. Surprise surprise the good old boys and the backhoe they brought in ripped right through one of the fiber lines. No one at my company has the equipment or inclination to repair a cut fiber line. The "company" we had worked with in the past was some drunken asshole playing the slots in Vegas. At least that's who picked up when someone called the number. So it was left to me to figure out a solution. Enter Ubiquiti Nanobeam AC Gen2. The thing is, we needed line of sight. There was no LOS from the demark to the out building. Luckily the next out building that was working was only around 200 meters away and had perfect LOS. There weren't even any trees in the way. I get my hands on a couple Nanobeams, some extra long screws, a box of outdoor cable, a drill and a bunch of odds and ends to terminate everything. It was 40f and raining. All of the walkways had turned to boot deep mud. The feed building was the hardest. The lines were coming in through holes in the floor. The problem was a whole bunch of insulation getting in the way of passing the cable down. I ended up having to crawl under the building commando style to pass the cable up through the floor. I ran the cable under the building and stapled (using a cable boss) it to the outside frame of the building. I mounted the nanobeam near the edge of the roofline. On the other end there was a well sealed plastic box on the outside of the building where the fiber came in. I was able to drill right through it to get the cable inside. I again just mounted the Nanobeam right near the edge of the roofline. I left a generous drip loop and crossed my fingers. I had preconfigured the APs ahead of time so theoretically it should be plug and play. I connect the POE injector and IT WORKED!!! The phones in the building came online and I was able to make a phone call back to my office with no quality issues. Ping times and transfer rates from the building were looking good too. I spent a half hour cleaning mud from my boots before getting in my car. I was so cold and wet when got out of there. I had the heat cranked on the drive home and took a nice warm shower when I got there.
They don’t pay you enough.
Oh, I forgot to tell you guys the best part about the feeder building that I had to crawl under. It's a deathtrap. In each of the 3 offices in the building there is an unvented, open flame gas heater. That by itself is fine, even if the pilot lights keep going out. It's compounded by the fact that the building is all wood, even the walls. It gets better, though. They took down the smoke detectors over a year ago and never replaced the batteries. On top of that someone before me had run an extension cable over and around the door frame to get power to the network equipment. They stapled it in place and one of the staples went right through the middle. The knock on effect was that any time you touched any of the network equipment you'd get a static shock. It took me a year of getting the odd complaint about internet issues in that office and replacing network equipment to finally find the culprit. I replaced the extension cord and just ran it to a different outlet. When I found the staple a thought flashed through my head. It could be a particularly cold week the and the pilot light had gone out at just the right time to start filling the room with gas. Someone could enter the office, bringing in just the right amount of air to reach the explosive stoichiometric level. They could see their phone not connected to the wifi and go to power cycle something. They touch the network equipment, a spark goes off and boom. When I was there to setup the wireless hardware, the smoke detectors were still down but at least I wasn't getting shocked.
Up next in 1000 ways to die...
It's what I like to call Frontier IT. This part of the country is so technologically underdeveloped that some of the people we are doing business with are lucky to have telephone lines and electricity. Way too many businesses out here rely on T1s and analog faxing. I'm bringing technology to the American Wasteland.
RandomHajileNot actually a SnatcherThe New KremlinRegistered Userregular
That’s, um, really unsafe, dude. Where I work, I would have to take yearly confined space entry training, test the air, and fill out at least two forms before even thinking about going in there. I would probably get fired if I did what you did if I’m being real with you. I mean, honestly, that’s an OSHA violation waiting to happen, if not serious injury potential. Scratch that, reading over the details again, it’s already an OSHA violation. I count at least three.
My “they don’t pay you enough” statement had a double meaning. They don’t pay you enough for the hard work you do, and they don’t pay you enough to put yourself at risk.
That's not my call to make. I don't work directly for the company in question.
That's increasingly the case as our job market embraces precarious and contract work. If your company won't, or you think asking your boss would make things difficult for you, then just file the complaint.
Yeah I'd report them to OSHA at this point because it's obvious they don't give a shit about safety.
I’ve talked a lot here about how fortunate I am to have a decent budget and management that allows me to take the right amount of time to work on projects, but I don’t think I’ve ever said how important safety is here. I think we go waaaaay overboard with it sometimes, but I legitimately believe they care about me leaving the office in the same physical state as when I arrived. Whether that is because of wanting to meet the OSHA regs or because some of our management actually have a heart, I don’t know. I honestly think about doing things more safely at home, even.
My dad retired from the Navy 20 years ago and currently works for the largest hospital in this area, and he doesn’t think about safety like we do here. Again, he works at a hospital! For Thanksgiving, my dad and I fry a turkey every year, and I’m the one who slowly lowers it into the oil. This year, I forgot (one of my three pairs of) my safety glasses at home (all of which were provided by work with the understanding that I could and should take them home if I need to). Since I work in IT, my eyes are very important to me! So I ask him if he has any around the house. He goes into the garage, digs around for a bit, and then comes back with these aviator-shaped clear glasses with basic side shields. I’m in my late thirties and I’d say it was a toss-up whether they were older than me, because my day joined the Navy around four years before I was born. It is genuinely flabbergasting to me that he doesn’t have any others EVEN IN HIS TRUCK that he drives to work every day.
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Had to do this song and dance a couple of months ago for the lone windows build server we have. It's really annoying.
I’m trying to decide where I’m headed for our remote AD/file/print/DNS server replacements this year. The biggest sticking point is the amount of storage we have for our file servers (2.4TB) that is currently replicated across all three locations. I think I’m going to propose a single decent ESXi host for the one site, and a full blown 2-host-plus-large-NAS system for the closer site to turn it into the DR site for VMware at least.
Also, homey, 200+ PCs and 1000 users...woof, that’s not a small environment and you should have had AD (or something) a looooong time ago. We have around 400 PCs and 700 users and my AD, VMware, email, backup systems are in the $300k range total, replaced every 5-6 years on average. Not including licensing. I’m lucky that operational expenditures elsewhere dwarf our budget.
This is a clickable link to my Steam Profile.
That being said, can any of you explain why I have to ask an admin to move my desk phone, then wait for her to find the bandwidth to do it, as opposed to using some sort of intranet form/automated process?
I'm moving desks and it's the only thing anchoring me to my old location. I have all the port numbers, so I don't see why I shouldn't be able to do this myself.
It's likely one of three things (or a combination of all of them):
* They may not actually patch all of the ports into the LAN switches up front.
* There is likely special configuration required for the IP phones which is not by default applied to all the switch ports
* There may be a policy that "Users are too stupid to move their own phones" and not wanting to deal with the fallout and/or simply not wanting people to be moving things all over without IT's awareness
Without knowing what PBX you use, what handsets you use, or anything about your network to actually answer that question, 3 immediate possibilities come to mind. You've got analog/digital phones which means the extension number is tied to the physical port you plug into on the PBX. Two, if it's a VoIP phone, perhaps not all your Ethernet ports have PoE available to power the phone and cabling/switch changes have to be made. If it's a VoIP phone, perhaps where you are moving to is on a different subnet/network segment that requires some additional config to support the phone.
Though I am also confused by exactly what you mean by "find the bandwidth to do it". I can't tell if you're just misusing the word or describing a very real concern with phone traffic.
Using "bandwidth" to describe an individual's time isn't uncommon, ie "I don't have enough bandwidth to take on that new project"
On its way out the door: "broadband"
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Also at least at the desk, we use analog RJ11 connectors. We also have a mix of handsets, which points me even more toward the "extension tied to port" scenario.
I'd recently managed to get a IT support guy to admit we've had a phone IP backbone in place for a few years, but it's not being implemented for "reasons". I suspect there's either something in the phone system *really old* that people don't want to replace (that thing may also be a person), or there's some sort of security concern (though we have secure VTC stuff set up in multiple locations)
Yes, I'm aware, but this was specifically used in conversation about networks and phone systems where it has a real, technical definition, hence causing confusion.
Yep, you've got a digital handset. The PBX would need to be reconfigured to move your extension to another jack.
Depending on the cards installed in the PBX, it may also support VoIP handsets in addition to your current digital handsets. Whether you have said card or have handsets that support both digital and VoIP connections could significantly impact the cost of implementation. Even if you already have both and all the switching and cabling to support it,
just changing phones over is a rather labor intensive project.
If the phone plugs into the wall with RJ11, it's not VOIP. It could be an old-school digital PBX, which means the phone admin has to go into the PBX management software and assign extensions to physical ports. They may need to wire in the physical port as well in the PBX closet or server closet.
Also, based on my experiences migrating PBX to VOIP, there's a possibility their phone closet is a fucking rats nest of tangled cables.
the "no true scotch man" fallacy.
Why would that be "misusing the word" then?
It's hard to know what "IP phone backbone" means in this context.
Phone system migrations are always stressful anyway, no matter what you're migrating from. The project stress level just ranges from "house of cards" to "oh god everything is bees"
the "no true scotch man" fallacy.
You don't want to ever interact with GCA/Everi products then. The redemption machines at the casino I work are from them and the primary transaction programs for cashing tickets/vouchers from the slots/EGDs uses a core that was originally written in 2003, and the backend monitoring software I use to track stats on them is browser based via Silverlight and collates info from the databases that log and track all transactions from the machines via a one-off custom kludge based around Crystal Reports.
Anytime I'm asked to try and do a deep dive to track down irregularities in accounting for one of redemption kiosk (since I'm the only one left that has been here the entire time we've been using this steaming pile of shit), I feel like slamming my balls in a sliding glass door over and over.
~ Buckaroo Banzai
Discover that if you don't send a "recognized" user-agent to a .NET app, it refuses to generate any code to allow you to post form responses.
Now I'm imagining an IoT clothesline with IP address 10.209.10.23.
Ryan Reynolds linked us in a tweet! :rotate:
Oh hey I know where you work now. :rotate: My girlfriend pointed an instagram post about that as well.
Me: I need to leave at 3 PM so I'll have to bail then.
Customer: How about 2:45?
She ordered 32" monitors because they were on sale.
Works for me.
It's been a really positive social thread. We didn't anticipate Reynolds being part of that on our end because it's a BC-only event, but because of it we are seeing a lot of people donating to Ronald McDonald House charities instead, and Deadpool making Canada cracks about our internet/service.
I've just been getting DP/HDMI to DVI adapters here. Monitors are ridiculous. This one has HDMI or VGA. That one has DP and VGA. Another has HDMI only. Same goes for the desktops I've been getting. Some come with DP standard, others HDMI.
How is this still a problem in 2019? I blame laptops coming with HDMI to allow people to connect them to meeting room TVs.
The person I gave the build job to did not name them right. They are not named what networking has in the switch. . .
God damnit. . ..
XBL:Phenyhelm - 3DS:Phenyhelm
This is a clickable link to my Steam Profile.
Oh, I forgot to tell you guys the best part about the feeder building that I had to crawl under. It's a deathtrap. In each of the 3 offices in the building there is an unvented, open flame gas heater. That by itself is fine, even if the pilot lights keep going out. It's compounded by the fact that the building is all wood, even the walls. It gets better, though. They took down the smoke detectors over a year ago and never replaced the batteries. On top of that someone before me had run an extension cable over and around the door frame to get power to the network equipment. They stapled it in place and one of the staples went right through the middle. The knock on effect was that any time you touched any of the network equipment you'd get a static shock. It took me a year of getting the odd complaint about internet issues in that office and replacing network equipment to finally find the culprit. I replaced the extension cord and just ran it to a different outlet. When I found the staple a thought flashed through my head. It could be a particularly cold week the and the pilot light had gone out at just the right time to start filling the room with gas. Someone could enter the office, bringing in just the right amount of air to reach the explosive stoichiometric level. They could see their phone not connected to the wifi and go to power cycle something. They touch the network equipment, a spark goes off and boom. When I was there to setup the wireless hardware, the smoke detectors were still down but at least I wasn't getting shocked.
Up next in 1000 ways to die...
It's what I like to call Frontier IT. This part of the country is so technologically underdeveloped that some of the people we are doing business with are lucky to have telephone lines and electricity. Way too many businesses out here rely on T1s and analog faxing. I'm bringing technology to the American Wasteland.
My “they don’t pay you enough” statement had a double meaning. They don’t pay you enough for the hard work you do, and they don’t pay you enough to put yourself at risk.
This is a clickable link to my Steam Profile.
XBL:Phenyhelm - 3DS:Phenyhelm
Anyone can report OSHA violations.
Clients or customers are not exempt from this.
You don't have to be a manager.
We had a patient turn us in for something a year ago that we had to fix.
That's increasingly the case as our job market embraces precarious and contract work. If your company won't, or you think asking your boss would make things difficult for you, then just file the complaint.
My dad retired from the Navy 20 years ago and currently works for the largest hospital in this area, and he doesn’t think about safety like we do here. Again, he works at a hospital! For Thanksgiving, my dad and I fry a turkey every year, and I’m the one who slowly lowers it into the oil. This year, I forgot (one of my three pairs of) my safety glasses at home (all of which were provided by work with the understanding that I could and should take them home if I need to). Since I work in IT, my eyes are very important to me! So I ask him if he has any around the house. He goes into the garage, digs around for a bit, and then comes back with these aviator-shaped clear glasses with basic side shields. I’m in my late thirties and I’d say it was a toss-up whether they were older than me, because my day joined the Navy around four years before I was born. It is genuinely flabbergasting to me that he doesn’t have any others EVEN IN HIS TRUCK that he drives to work every day.
Anyway, don’t get yourself killed for your job.
This is a clickable link to my Steam Profile.