Best posts made by Kelly

Fun update:

I looks like Windows Defender is now flagging the MicTray process.

Here is one of their more well known videos: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u1ZB_rGFyeU.

@irj said in If not A+, then where should someone start?:

@scottalanmiller said in If not A+, then where should someone start?:

The problem with any cert is that it takes time and money. Time and money that could be used to get experience, job hunt, get a different cert, etc. There is a cost of lost opportunity with any cert process. The A+ is quite expensive and lengthy to get, making it extra problematic for people who shouldn't need it. It is also entry level, so if it does affect you, it tends to affect you only right at the beginning of your career and less and less after that until, quite quickly, it drops to zero.

This exactly!

My buddy is a restaurant manager and works 60 hour weeks. He wants to get out of that field. His customer service skills are already decent. I am not sure he needs to know all the stuff in A+ that is specific to hardware, desktop booting, etc. I feel like Windows 10 training would help him troubleshot on the software side which is the majority of support jobs these days.

If he is a restaurant manager he should see if he can meet people that would give him a start because they've seen his customer service and existing soft skills. Knowing someone is better than knowing things.

@wrx7m said in macOS 10.13 High Sierra Coming with APFS Filesystem:

@scottalanmiller said in macOS 10.13 High Sierra Coming with APFS Filesystem:

@wrx7m said in macOS 10.13 High Sierra Coming with APFS Filesystem:

@scottalanmiller said in macOS 10.13 High Sierra Coming with APFS Filesystem:

@kelly said in macOS 10.13 High Sierra Coming with APFS Filesystem:

My concern is with what it will break. Each macOS release has broken something for us, and some of them go into the "just live with it" category because Apple appears to be completely unresponsive to their power user community.

Like how they broke SMB and AFP protocols and just ignore it?

I have had issues with this for years, here.

Replace Finder

Replace Mac with PC

As soon as I can have a POSIX native environment with Microsoft Office I will be. I'm really, really hoping for Office for Linux to come out soon.

I really wish they'd release Fable 2 on the PC. I played that a long time ago on the 360, and I enjoyed it the most of the series.

@irj said in If not A+, then where should someone start?:

@kelly said in If not A+, then where should someone start?:

@irj said in If not A+, then where should someone start?:

@kelly said in If not A+, then where should someone start?:

@irj said in If not A+, then where should someone start?:

@scottalanmiller said in If not A+, then where should someone start?:

The problem with any cert is that it takes time and money. Time and money that could be used to get experience, job hunt, get a different cert, etc. There is a cost of lost opportunity with any cert process. The A+ is quite expensive and lengthy to get, making it extra problematic for people who shouldn't need it. It is also entry level, so if it does affect you, it tends to affect you only right at the beginning of your career and less and less after that until, quite quickly, it drops to zero.

This exactly!

My buddy is a restaurant manager and works 60 hour weeks. He wants to get out of that field. His customer service skills are already decent. I am not sure he needs to know all the stuff in A+ that is specific to hardware, desktop booting, etc. I feel like Windows 10 training would help him troubleshot on the software side which is the majority of support jobs these days.

If he is a restaurant manager he should see if he can meet people that would give him a start because they've seen his customer service and existing soft skills. Knowing someone is better than knowing things.

I think part of the issue is that A+ is sort of a requirement... I have generally seen a few different scenarios where the filter is used quite often:

SMBs IT people that dont have time to sift through resumes
Recruiters that generally hire for enterprises.

Those two actually cover the majority of job postings for entry level positions. Our company doesnt hire direct anymore unless you are a high paygrade (top 5%). Every other person is required to be a contractor for 3 months before receiving official offer. I know alot of other large companies and enterprises are doing this as well. Recruiters dont want to represent someone that they feel could endanger a corporate relationship. Plus they are in competition with other recruiters. So certs tend to become a big deal. You have no choice, but to go through a recruiter for many companies. Hence why people say it tends to be a requirement.

The best place to get started in IT is in SMB imo. You get to experience a broad swath of the IT experience, and you have more opportunities for access to the business decision makers to understand that side of things. If he can meet a business owner and begin a professional relationship (or may already have one), then he can skip to the head of the line when they look for IT help. The job will probably not be amazing, and it may have all kinds of dysfunction. However, if he can get a few years of experience he will bypass the need for the A+.

Maybe if he can get an internship or something. He knows customer service and the windows desktop side. I am afraid that he may be overwhelmed in SMB. I really think he would be a great helpdesk or perhaps low level desktop tech that can PXE boot to image machines and troubleshoot some OS issues.

This is a strange picture you're painting. A guy capable enough to run a restaurant that would get overwhelmed by SMB IT. He is looking to change careers from running a restaurant and move to very basic IT tasks, and that is perhaps all he could ever do. Not sure if I'm misunderstanding something, but that is what I'm getting.

@nadnerb said in Miscellaneous Tech News:

@kelly said in Miscellaneous Tech News:

@scottalanmiller said in Miscellaneous Tech News:

@tim_g said in Miscellaneous Tech News:

Razer Phone coming November 17th

https://www.vrandfun.com/razer-phone-made-for-high-end-gaming/

Seems like it is going to be pretty nice.

This was what I had in my head:

How did you get it out?

With a Razr's edge...

So I picked up Valkyria Chronicles due to the 75% off coupon, and I have to say this is a good melding of story and gameplay. So far it looks like it deserves all the glowing reviews on Steam. It is a story game set in a world based heavily on late 1930's Europe. In it there is extensive dialog interspersed with turn based, third person shooter action. If it sounds odd, you're right. On the other hand, it works well. Basically you get a turn with a limited number of command points. You spend CPs to allow your characters to perform actions. When you select to spend a CP on a character you then switch to a third person view where you can move freely within the bounds of your character's Action Points. At any point within that you can perform an action, e.g. fire a gun, throw a grenade, heal, etc. Where it diverges further from an XCom style game is that while a character is moving, any enemy that has LOS on it will be firing at them, so don't run out in front of a tank or a machine gunner.

There are RPG, character building elements I understand, but I haven't gotten to them yet. The UI is a little clunk because the game was originally released for the PS3, and then ported to PC. It is one of the best ports I've run across though.

Anyhow, this is well worth the $5 in my opinion.

@WrCombs said in Figuring out what you want to do professionally:

@dafyre said in Figuring out what you want to do professionally:

@Kelly said in Figuring out what you want to do professionally:

Another layer of this is to follow up the energy question with a why. For example, if I just spent an hour configuring a switch and I feel drained (more than is appropriate), I would ask myself why do I feel more drained. Was it configuring the switch and fighting with the config? Was it because I don't really feel confident in what I'm doing, but I liked it in general? Was it because I kept getting interrupted by users?

I especially like your point about energy. I'd also look at focus, maybe? Are there some tasks that you can do with laser focus -- to the point that you have a hard time being distracted:? -- that type of thought pattern.

is that in the same sense as "When im doing (in my case -) Menu 'programming' Im more bored then excited, but when a Windows Issue comes In I jump on and start working through the issue?

Definitely. Very worth a why question for you to think about.

The other aspect of this, that I mentioned in the other thread (adding it here for clarity and posterity), is that when you're feeling meh about things (not much energy either up or down) you can look at the things you procrastinate. If you put something off there is a reason for it. Take a look at the procrastination list and do the "why". You could learn some interesting things about yourself.

@mattspeller said in HP Possible pulling a Lenovo with Stealthy spyware?:

Have we got any confirmation by a forum member of this being a real thing?

I don't want to start the witch hunt without evidence of fuckwittery

It was on my Spectre 360. No notification, no nothing.

@JaredBusch said:

@Kelly said:

HSAs are good for anyone that has medical expenses. They lower your tax burden right off, and can be used for a wide range of expenses that might not seem to fit the category, e.g. chiropractic care, dentists, contacts, etc. It might not be useful for everyone to contribute the maximum allowable to it, but I think there can be value for just about anyone.

But for many that benefit is outweighed by the time spent managing your expense to setup the HSA and make claims against it.

Our bank gave us a debit card that charges against the HSA. All we have to do is save our receipts for taxes.

@mlnews said in Under Armor Security Breach Exposes 150 Million User Accounts:

Under Armor's MyFitnessPal has been compromised in a breach discovered on March 25 exposing 150 million user accounts.

I wonder if it is a state sponsored breach trying to obtain location data for things that are officially not there.

I'm not sure what y'all are talking about. There are only 3 Star Wars movies.

@mlnews said in CloudFlare Launches Spectrum DDoS for All Traffic Types for Enterprise Customers:

CF's new Spectrum DDoS protection service for their top tier customers aims to protect against the "spectrum" of Internet attacks including all ports and protocols, not just web ones as before.

Read the title again slowly...

It sounds like CloudFlare is launching a DDoS. Not criticizing, just finding it funny.

@MattSpeller said:

Head of HR came over and asked me a question. Apparently consulting my spiceworks magic 8 ball, while amusing, is not the correct response.

I need to get out on vacation really bad

Here's some alternate responses for you: https://www.reddit.com/r/sysadmin/comments/2gt7x5/just_sysadmin_things_for_which_ive_been/.

Apparently people like to store user names and passwords in Trello boards: https://medium.freecodecamp.org/discovering-the-hidden-mine-of-credentials-and-sensitive-information-8e5ccfef2724.

I'm rebuilding a XenServer host. It looks like a drive kind of failed on me, but the repair installed to a spare drive and my software raid is rebuilding. Another one of those "it can't be this easy" moments.

Looks like the EU is moving to restrict free speech on the internet: https://edri.org/eu-member-states-agree-on-monitoring-filtering-of-internet-uploads/ and http://copybuzz.com/copyright/france-spain-italy-and-portugal-go-beyond-maximalist-on/.

@MattSpeller said in Random Thread - Anything Goes:

@Kelly said in Random Thread - Anything Goes:

@scottalanmiller said in Random Thread - Anything Goes:

@JaredBusch said in Random Thread - Anything Goes:

@scottalanmiller said in Random Thread - Anything Goes:

@thwr said in Random Thread - Anything Goes:

Yepp, but quite hard. It's said to be one of the hardest languages at all, only topped by Chinese, Japanese and other Asian and some African languages.

US State Department still ranks German in the "easy" language category for English speakers. Only the Nordic and Romantic languages are easier. It's got a special category for "not the easiest, but almost". The Nordics and Romantics are Cat 1 (easiest) and German is alone in Cat 2 (nearly as easy.) Then come the Slavic and other languages. Japanese is listed as the hardest.

Where is Chinese on that list?

Japanese is a very phonetic language. This makes it very easy to pickup the sounds. This also makes it very easy to learn to pronounce things once you learn the Hiragana (and the sound for each one). Getting into sentence structure sucks balls though. I have yet to make it to this stage and i hear Japanese daily.

If I remember correctly, Chinese and Korean and Vietnamese were all one step above Japanese. Japanese was alone as the hardest language and German was alone as the "one step harder than the easiest group" but most other "levels" were full of similar languages.

It seems strange to me that Japanese would be the hardest. I didn't study it a great deal, but I found it much easier than Chinese.

Should have done simplified chinese
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yeah that was a joke

Redshell spyware discovered in quite a few games, both less well known and AAA titles (Civ VI being the one that hits closest to home): https://www.reddit.com/r/Steam/comments/8pud8b/psa_red_shell_spyware_holy_potatoes_were_in_space/.