Posts made by Mike Davis

The PSA (Professional Services Automation) automates all the business side that needs to happen so you get paid. You put your sales templates in, then convert them to agreements and as you work tickets, it keeps track of how stuff gets billed.

As a MSP gets larger, to be really efficient, you need a RMM and a PSA to be really efficient. As far as the RMM I'll add that the paid tools like Connectwise Automate (LabTech) and Kaseya go way beyond the stuff you can string together for free. Sure there is probably a developer out there that could string stuff together, but at what cost?

@gjacobse close. Try the single quote.

@gjacobse try typing it out and using the quote next to the enter key.

@gjacobse Your quotes got messed up in translation.

Think of it this way, a potential employer doesn't care about how you were paid (W2/1099/volunteer), they care about your experience and what you can do for them.

The only thing I would add is that if you are submitting your resume to someone that has a HR filter, you might want to word stuff like Point of Sale (POS) so that if they search for either search term, your resume gets a hit. A tech person knows all the server versions between Server 2016 and 2008R2, but a non tech that is told "we have Server 2012R2, so show me resumes that have experience with that" might miss your resume because it doesn't come up in the search...

I have a network I need to secure with device authentication. (802.1x) I'm thinking that copiers and printers won't have a way to install a cert, etc. Do most people just put the printers in their own VLAN and just do MAC filtering? What ports do you typically have to open up between the VLANs to allow printing to work, and this is the real world part, has anyone had any issues with applications like print monitors that would be installed on the secure VLAN being able to access the printers?

Also has anyone set up an EdgeSwitch to authenticate against a Windows NPS server? I saw a couple guides so I don't think this will be an issue.

I'm filling out a form for a government agency and it has the question below. Does this look like VLANS? I'm trying to figure out what they are looking for.

CONTROL#12 - BOUNDARY DEFENSE
Detect/prevent/correct the flow of information transferring networks of different trust levels with a focus on security-damaging data.

@dashrender said in I can't even:

lol - did they tell you it's use case?

No, I saw it in storage and was afraid to ask.

Someone asked for a bigger pipe?

I came across this at a client site today . I was so impressed I had to stop to take a picture. Looks like they were going for water tight flexible conduit.

@ccwtech said in Ubiquity Unifi AP:

Ok, cool. Thanks for the input. Sounds like Unifi is the way to go and I do already have a Vultr server.

If there is a chance you will be rolling out more APs, I would set up a unifi controller on Vultr. It makes rolling every AP after that faster and when it comes time to do firmware updates, all of your sites are right in front of you and you don't have to log in to computers in a bunch of different offices to fire up the controller.

Just when I thought our world wasn't celebrated enough:
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@dashrender said in Purchasing new workstations with monitors:

I suppose if those make sense for the business that can make sense. My management wouldn't have up upgrade for the sake of a new size. Average monitors we have deployed are still 20 or less. Maybe half have a widescreen.

yes, it probably makes a difference who is using it. For some types of work it really makes a difference. People doing CAD would love to have something with the resolution of paper.

@dashrender I budget for it. Don't always do it, but if I think back the last few cycles, today I'm buying 24" 1080 monitors. Before that it was 21" and before that it was 19". I'm sure 5 years from now a 24" 1080 will be nothing compared to a 4k curved whatever sized thing they come up with.

@EddieJennings To answer your original question, it doesn't much matter when you order monitors. I like to replace them every 3-5 years. Just budget and plan for it. The only thing to consider when ordering new machines is if you'll need new video cables or if the monitor only has a VGA connection. For instance a machine ordered today might only have display port/HDMI/mini display port and your monitor may only have DVI for a digital connection. In that case you'll want to order some cables if you don't have any on hand.

@thwr said in Purchasing new workstations with monitors:

New colleague, new machine, new monitors. Research assistants usually stay for 5 years or so, which perfectly matches hardware cycles. Depending on the shape of the hardware after 5 years, monitors and sometimes computers are further used for demonstrators and test systems.
I usually buy same vendor and brand (Dell / Fujitsu etc), due to service.

Maybe if you would get them a new computer they wouldn't leave. I'm kidding in your situation, but it reminded me of a place I heard about.

They were trying to "run lean" since they were a non-for-profit. They would run computers until they died and then buy junk to replace them. The equipment was so bad, that it was effecting staff turn over. When I think about what it costs to hire staff, all I could think was that replacing computers is cheap compared to replacing staff.

Imagine that one though. They come to you and say "you're stealing internet" and you say I asked you to sell it to me and you said you couldn't afford to do it. Have you changed your mind?

I won't allow the free trial to be installed on client computers, so the paid version would be the only option. I was wondering more if having two products actively trying to scan files would end in contention issues. A manual scan kind of defeats the purpose in my mind.