Posts made by srsmith

I have this setup on a $5 Vultr instance running Fedora 30, complete with a subdomain, Let's Encrypt and 2FA. I've also got it running as a systemd service running under a limited user account.

I'm only testing with a handful of personal computers right now, but everything just seems to work, and does so quickly. Having secure, easy access to a computer's desktop, files and terminal through a web browser is fantastic! I'm still learning all the features and capabilities, but I'm very impressed with what I have seen so far. Awesome stuff @Ylian!

@DustinB3403 said in What Are You Doing Right Now:

@srsmith said in What Are You Doing Right Now:

@Dashrender

Still don't know wtf caused it, but the laptop is a Win 7 refurb from 3+ years ago, so it's just not worth repairing.

A new screen might be $12 bucks, what model laptop is it?

Dell Inspiron N5050. After a quick search, the best prices I have found are $50-60, which is in line with what @JaredBusch and @stacksofplates mentioned above.

This is a bit unbelievable, but I don't need to worry about replacing the screen right now. The service dept. manager just informed me that another technician called in and said that they ran their laptop over with a vehicle and it is now FUBAR'd. They need a replacement tomorrow, and since I am fresh out of spares, they are OK with me issuing this one as-is for now.

@dafyre Apparently I need more coffee...

Uploaded again and updated post - can you see now?

@Dashrender

Still don't know wtf caused it, but the laptop is a Win 7 refurb from 3+ years ago, so it's just not worth repairing.

Swapping a service technician's old laptop with a new one. The old one has a dead spot on the screen that looks to be the exact size and shape of a quarter, but they swear that they don't know how it happened...

@DustinB3403 I'm inclined to agree with you this morning. Woke up to find the cat skipped the litter box several times and left "presents" in multiple places, and is walking howling like he is in pain. Off to the vet we go.

Hopefully I don't walk into any surprises at work later this afternoon...

@scotth Setting up a new Vultr account / instance was super quick. Within 15 minutes of signing up, I was connecting to a new Ubuntu 19.04 instance on a subdomain of my domain.

I suspect the "hard" part is going to be digesting all of the various configuration options for MC so that I install it securely with a proper Let's Encrypt certificate.

@scottalanmiller Pricing and features look quite nice, so I figured I'd try it out. Plus, they gave a $5 credit when I signed up, so with the $5 instance, that is one month free :thumbs_up:

It sounds like I could have used one of the cheaper instances, since this is for a small number of my family members' machines, but having only 10GB for the OS seems a bit light to me.

Learning about MeshCentral 2 and Vultr, since I constantly read good things about both and I haven't really looked into either of them before.

Nice timing for this - we currently have around 2 dozen machines still on Windows 7 for various reasons. We were planning on buying new Windows 10 machines to replace all of them by the end of the year. I admit, I didn't look into it further than seeing the free upgrade offer was no longer officially on the table. If I can upgrade these Windows 7 machines for free, other than my time and an SSD for those that don't already have one, management will be very pleased.

@travisdh1 said in Comparing MeshCentral 2 to ScreenConnect:

That should be all that's needed. Bothering with dedicated mobile apps seems like a waste of your time.

Agreed. If the basics are available on mobile, that should be good enough for the few "OMG PLEASE HELP RIGHT NOW" instances where I'm not around my desktop / laptop.

@Ylian said in Comparing MeshCentral 2 to ScreenConnect:

@srsmith MeshCentral developer here. There is no Android application for MeshCentral, it just going to be the mobile web site. It's not a feature full as the desktop site, but should get the basics (and supports NFC/Bluetooth two-factor authentication on Android Chrome). Let me know if you try it and what you think of it.

Nice - I was only looking for the basics on mobile for those "OMG I NEED HELP RIGHT NOW" instances when I am away from my desktop. Will hopefully be experimenting with it sometime later today, so I'll let you know how it works out.

@scottalanmiller said in Comparing MeshCentral 2 to ScreenConnect:

Probably can from the web page, but I bet it is awful to do.

Hmmm... looking at the GitHub repo, I see that @Ylian has been working on a mobile site. I'll have to experiment this weekend. I have a spare Raspberry Pi 3 I can use as a local test server.

I currently use Splashtop Personal / Teamviewer Free for the occassional remote assistance that family members need. I'm a big fan of free and open-source projects, and since this looks like it has an awesome set of features, I figure it is about time I finally check it out.

One thing I can't seem to find (or I missed it above / in the user guide) - is it possible to connect from an Android phone to one of the managed computers? Occasionally, someone needs assistance when I can't get to my desktop but I have my phone.

Everybody seems to forget about (or don't know about / care for) foobar2000

Never looked back once I switched to it from WinAMP. Yeah, it's a bit minimalistic, but it plays music without being a pile of useless eye candy, so it works for me.

One thing to keep in mind about compatibility - .zip files may not require installing extra software, whereas others like .rar and .7z usually do. Take Windows for example: Windows Explorer handles .zip files OOB, but has no clue how to deal with .rar or .7z files. You need to install something like WinRAR or 7zip to open them.

Why does this matter? Say you or one of your users are trying to send someone an email with some attachments, but there is no guarantee the recipient has, or can install, extra software. In this case, a .zip file is probably your safest, most compatible choice.

I haven't really had to think about this in quite some time - I've been using 7zip for probably 10 years now.

@DustinB3403 said in Miscellaneous Tech News:

Snipe-IT 4.7.6 has been out for 18 days now but at least on the DEMO and in my production environment there appears to be a bug where no results are displayed for anything (at least in my environment) and partially on the DEMO (assets only as far as I can tell).

I've posted an issue to GH which can be reviewed here. I reverted to 4.7.5 and things are operational again.

I'm also seeing the same thing with 4.7.6. If I click the Refresh button next to the search box, without entering a search term or doing anything else, it will bring up the results as expected.

Running the following seems to have potentially fixed the issue, as results are now showing for me without having to click the Refresh button:

sudo -u snipeitapp /usr/bin/php /var/www/snipeit/artisan cache:clear

@scottalanmiller said in What Are You Doing Right Now:

Cool. Did I know that?

Possibly - I may have mentioned it on at some point.

@scottalanmiller said in What Are You Doing Right Now:

We had an intern in Lockport two years ago. I grew up in Wyoming County.

@jt1001001 said in What Are You Doing Right Now:

I used to live in Lockport, now reside in Amherst.

Nice - I didn't realize there were others on ML that were familiar with Lockport. I usually need to point out Buffalo for people to recognize where in NY I am talking about.

@scottalanmiller Lockport / Wilson

@scottalanmiller Yep - both home and work are a little under an hour from Buffalo.

Outage only lasted a couple of minutes, and no one called me to say that their computer immediately shut off and they lost their work :thumbs_up:. Last one exhausted my supply of spares...