Posts made by Nara

I don't use Linux much on servers, but when I do, I use RHEL. Chances are that someone's already done with it what I'm trying to do, so the odds of obtaining assistance with it increase. If needed, I can even go direct to RH for tech support, and have a couple of times.

I use IE11. Why do I use IE11? My web browsing's pretty straightforward and basic. Additionally, as I'm always hopping on and off of various machines, it's the lowest common denominator, which makes it easier to get work done regardless of the environment.

Having some sort of CRM is nearly a requirement in order to grow business without missing out on leads and opportunities. Whether it's Dynamics CRM, built into your PSA, or even making a ghetto CRM in OneNote, not having a system in place can lead lost leads and dropped balls on open items.

I can't say I've used it, but if you're looking for time tracking, check out Harvest: http://www.getharvest.com/ It has time tracking that you can convert over to timesheets. You can also track expenses with it. It has a mobile app for when you're in the field. What I like about it is that it uses elapsed time and allows you to bounce back and forth between items, rather than having to make multiple entries per day. I currently use Harvest, and it's allowed me to capture billable time much more easily than with other methods. It's extensible with add-ons for Basecamp, Asana, Chrome, and more. For some companies, it can even handle invoicing.

Marketing campaigns that involve an in-person presentation, such as a lunch&learn, stick out the most for me. It's more interactive and personal. For example, it took 2 different events from Eaton (a hockey game with CDW/Eaton and a SpiceCorps) before I made the switch. While the events themselves were cool, being able to ask the staff questions and interact with existing customers is what sold it. Being able to talk with other folks that have and love the product goes so much father than any ad, webinar, or flyer.

@ejmillen said:

Dude youre getting a Dell Stuck around for a long time!! Still get that every once in a while

It would have lasted even longer if Steven didn't get busted for pot!

As long as your PSTN provider's configuring the SBC, it should be pretty straightforward, much like any other SIP endpoint for connectivity to your PBX.

@jimk said:

We are using a combination of Spiceworks for our older clients and Autotask Service Desk for our MSP clients. We are in the process of moving everything under Autotask though as this is our PSA and helps us better maintain client relationships and manage the client's locations and equipment better. It also integrates with our RMM GFI Max and GFI Max Backup.

I'm a big fan of Autotask. At first, I didn't think that I'd like it, given that it took more clicks to do some of the same tasks as other systems. However, once I saw how it tied in not only tickets, but basic CRM, projects, helpdesk, service scheduling, billing, and time/attendance, I was hooked. As a hosted platform, it's constantly updated, and they're great about notifying about maintenance windows and pointing out new features when they're added. The way that it handles ticket queues is great.

If I'm not a partner and I refer someone, I'm referring them because I believe in the product and that it'll do the person I'm referring some good. If that company wants to toss some $ my way, I'd be happy to take it.

If I'm a partner, I'd want that company to help give me the tools that I need in order to not only sell the product, but to handle the onboarding and implementation in a way that'll wow my clients. Give me continuous training, be it webinars, self-paced, or both. Give me some IURs so that I can get a feel for and even do my internal work off of the products that I'm trying to sell. If I can provide that superior service to customers, it'll make its own money. How can you help me give my clients the pickle (http://www.giveemthepickle.com/) in order to make them happy and earn us both money?

@FiyaFly said:

If you don't want to deal with a lot of customers/users, you will probably want to try to hit the engineer level in my opinion. I spend a lot of time on the front lines, as it were. I still don't entirely know which direction I am pursuing in the IT field, but I am keeping wide open to suggestions.

Even for non-customer facing, IT is a wide field. You can be a programmer, an engineer, system admin. When I was focusing on certs, I was intending to get a cert for A+, Network+, and Security+. That is where I intended to start, and that will almost certainly help you to get a foot up.

Hope this helps.

Engineering's still very customer-facing, whether it's internal customers or external customers. It just isn't about answering the phones and dealing with end users. I daresay that spending time on a helpdesk helps with some career skills, such as learning about different types of people and how to interact with them. It also gives you a solid foundation so that as you're designing systems, you have the insight to see how it would impact the end-users. Jumping right into Engineering/Systems makes you more of a 30,000 foot tech pilot with no idea how to land the plane.

Rather than focusing on certs right off the bat, immerse yourself in different areas of IT. When you find the area(s) that interest you, you'll just know it. From there, you can plan your career path.

Working in a school library was a nightmare. My supervisor was the Network Admin, but my position dwelled within the domain of the power-tripping librarian. Boss wouldn't stand up to her at all. It turns out that I was the third person in that position in as many years. I bumped into both of my predecessors afterwards, and they had the same experience as me. That job somehow damaged me. Since then, I've only stepped into a library twice in the last 14 years. I have an aunt that's a librarian, and I find my hackles raised any time I'm around her.

I pretty much fell into it. In high school, I was determined to become a Geneticist. I was focusing on biology, attending genetics conferences, etc. However, I don't have any computational math skills, which would impact various of aspects of that career path. I was in the middle of the school hall when it dawned on me that I'd need to pick a different career. Not moments later, the computer teacher came to find me in order for me to bring up a crashed server yet again.

I got my foot in the door working for my high school after I graduated by doing data entry in the library. Things didn't quite work out there, and during my first summer semester of college, 3 of my classmates in my hardware 101 course pointed out a job opening on the college job board to me, and I jumped right into IT from there at that manufacturing firm.

Office 2013's designed to be less system-intensive, and that comes at the expense of slower screen/folder updates, passive spell checking, shorter default cached data periods, etc. The goal was to make it feasible to run the full application on mobile devices while sipping at the battery gently.

When you really get down to it, core still has a GUI. If you log in, you're presented with a command line italicised textwindowitalicised text. There's still a GUI rendering the window, even if it is a minimalist one. With as little resources as the 2012 full GUI takes, I just leave it in. Perhaps if a file server's going to be just a file server, it would be ok, as it could be completely managed from Server Manager and PowerShell. However, it seems like along the way, something always comes up that either requires or works best with the GUI. Something that comes to mind is the QuickBooks database manager. It's a small program that runs on the file server that the QB files are on. Perhaps down the road, third parties will start designing their software to work fluidly without the GUI, and it would be more of an option.
*Edited for spelling

Give pfSense a go; I think you'll like it. If I'm looking for a low-resource business firewall that can handle multiple interfaces, WAN failover, and include outbound traffic filtering, I go with pfSense. It's my go-to product for tiny networks that deal with PCI compliance.

Do you have an old computer laying around? Sophos UTM has a home-user version. IT doesn't have all of the bells and whistles of its corporate bigger brother and is limited to 50 IP addresses, but still has an impressive feature set and a well-polished UI.

Edit: For the really non-technical, Apple AirPort Extremes are really easy to use, run smoothly, and have decent performance.

If you're smooth enough, you could get them to pick up an Office ProPlus subscription through Office 365, which would get them to current by means of "upgrade" to the modern, yet legal version.

So far, all the changes for IE that I've had to make have been doable via GPO. I recall using IEAK years ago, but stopped using it once I could start using GPOs.

I'm in the reluctant category. I like that most refurbished equipment has a warranty. However, the older the items it, the less time it has left on the MBTF. Even if it's under warranty, if it's down, it's down. For a larger project where equipment's running N+1, it may be more viable.