Best posts made by Veet

The Dual Core Mali 400-MP2 GPU is atleast 5-6 years old ... The Odriod C2 (For around the same ... maybe a tad more) would eat the Pine64 for breakfast .. lunch ... and dinner

@thwr said in What Are You Doing Right Now:

@scottalanmiller said in What Are You Doing Right Now:

Installing TeamViewer for Ubuntu.

Don't know if that is available for Linux (yet), but have you tried AnyDesk? AFAIK from a group of former TeamViewer devs.

I've used Anydesk recently... It's okay, but not as polished as teamviewer

@DustinB3403

@DustinB3403 said in The Inverted Pyramid of Doom Challenge:

@Veet said in The Inverted Pyramid of Doom Challenge:

@scottalanmiller said in The Inverted Pyramid of Doom Challenge:

This is my quote from the original challenge: "We all (I hope by now) know that SANs have their place and a super obvious one that explains why enterprises use them almost universally and know why that usage has no applicability to normal SMBs - scale."

I agree with why lots of shops might deploy systems like you are describing, even if I generally don't agree with that decision, but I'm pretty confident that the use cases that you are describing @John-Nicholson are tied, nearly universally, to a scale that would already prompt a SAN-based infrastructure (or similar.)

Have you seen these in small environments where the scale did not exist to warrant a SAN otherwise?

Just a couple of months ago - I was contacted by a prospective client , who was looking to get his website designed ... So, I went over to his office one day, for a general face-to-face, and we got talking, and quite proudly mentioned about recently acquiring a Synology DS2015 box ... which was all pretty alright, until he mentioned why .. It turned out that their vendor recommended that they migrate their one Windows 2012 server to a VM, and that, if they WANTED RELIABILITY, SCALABILITY & PERFORMANCE, they would HAVE TO, move from a local storage to a NAS .. btw, their current total data size is a little less than 1TB ... They have around 40 users ... Now, for the cherry on the cake .. The vendor took-out the 2x2TB HDDs from the server, and reused them in the new NAS box. Apart from that, they installed another 2 TB HDD in the NAS box for "Backups" (Can you believe it, I could not ), and then installed a 128 GB HDD on the server, to install Hyper-V 2012. This , the vendor said would "further increase performance,, and that they did not have to buy new HDDs, which would save money" The VMs and data were on the NAS box ...

Upon, pointing-out and explaining the rather obvious flaws in this design, the client was left rather gobsmacked ... Anyway, I designed their website, and will be taking-over the support & maintenance of their IT, once the annual contract with the existing vendor runs it course.... I recommended, that they reattach the HDDs to the server, and run everything locally, and return or try to sell-off the DS2015 box, and get a smaller one, just for back-ups (VEEAM)... I hear, that the existing vendor, recently agreed to take back the DS2015, and compensate them by installing a lower-end 4 bay box, and by extending their service contract (I'm not sure if my client is going to agree to this) ....

Shocking, no ?

This is the same practice many SMB's experience every day. The IT Vendor clearly doesn't have an expert in house, just someone who gets paid to sell hardware with enough experience to setup some basic hardware.

I'm not shocked, and glad you were able to point out the issues. I didn't see what server they have that was scaled back to just a compute node though. . .

I don't think it's about lack of knowledge or experience ... I feel, it's just about unscrupulous business practice, of up-selling something ...

@scottalanmiller said in Build a $40 Pine 64 Based Android Desktop:

Oh cheap...

http://www.hardkernel.com/main/products/prdt_info.php

Well ... If you factor in the cost of an 5V adapter, a case, and SHIPPING, it works-out to $66

@scottalanmiller said in What Are You Doing Right Now:

Ugh, someone has Big Bang Theory on in the background. I can hear them getting basic physics wrong. I hate the overtly pretentious yet incorrect way that they do that show.

Most people think that I'd love this show cause "Hey, you're a techie, I bet you love The Big Bang Theory" ... fact is, I don't the this show .. never did .. it's cliched .. and plays on stereo-types .

@StrongBad said in System Fonts: Installing when not an Admin:

@Veet said in System Fonts: Installing when not an Admin:

@tiagom said in System Fonts: Installing when not an Admin:

@BRRABill Once had that with a vet clinic. Pure crap. Their software also stated that you couldn't run it on a virtualized environment. This is going back about 4 years.

I'm facing the exact same situation ... I cannot Virtualize a client's server, cause they run a third-party application, and the vendor says that they will not support the app, if it's running on a VM.... What a load of B.S !!

You can always just not tell them.

Yeah, I've done that, in the past, with another client... and it did not pan-out well ... It so happened that the app kept popping-up some error message (which, I am 100% sure was not to due it being run on a VM).. It ran perfectly fine on a VM, for almost a year... The vendor tried sorting it out remotely, but could not. So, they decided to visit on-site ... Upon seeing it running on VM, the guy, instantly blamed the issue on the VM, and said that the app would be supported, only if it were running on a physical host ... Eventually, I was held accountable, as I had proposed shifting to a VM ... We were forced to move back to a Physical server .. This was back in 2014 ... But, lesson learnt ..

I say to Microsoft "Release Microsoft Office for Linux, and then talk away all you want"

@scottalanmiller

These vendors know, that over a period of time, the client becomes totally dependent on their product, that they (vendors) can dish out any bullshit, and be rest assured that the client would HAVE to lap it up .. To an extent, the client himself is to be blamed for this..

@scottalanmiller said in HelpDesk Ticketing System:

@Jstear said in HelpDesk Ticketing System:

A big concern of changing solutions is the existing tickets. How hard is it to migrate from one solution to another is a question that needs to be asked. I would like to move from Spiceworks to osTicket, but not seeing anything that anyone has done to migrate the tickets. Looks like a script will need to be made to import those old tickets into the new system.

Probably not too horrible.

We've been using osTicket, for a around ..umm.. 2.5 years now .. It's pretty customizable, just out of the box, with deeper customizations possible with coding .. Infact, OsTicket itself offers Customization as an additional service ..

+1 for FreePBX .. it's popular, and has a strong community ..

If you're looking for options, other than FreePBX, have you looked @ XiVO ? It's been around for quite sometime now ..

Downloading Fedora 24

Hi,

Perhaps I'm missing something, or have not read the entire thread properly, but why would a NAS not work over here ? Unless, the server would be performing some other function, apart from acting as a File Server ... Most NAS boxes too use Linux-based operating systems...

I have a 15 month old baby, and I proactively keep her away from technology ... So, I don't have TV, no watching Youtube on laptop, no Wi-Fi (switched back to hard-wire), and we avoid using the phone, when around her .. .. No more microwave.. . We do however, play all kinds of music for her, and it's through the day .. .. We show/read her picture/pop-up-books Yes, I know I'm being a bit extreme .. Yes, she does see me use the laptop, ever so often; and these days, it's become the main object of her growing curiosity .. but, I discourage it ...

I've seen kids turn into complete borgs, while in front of a TV, mobile, game .. I know children who prefer to game-away there holidays in front of TVs, computers, instead of playing outdoors, ,or socializing ... and all the parents say is "yeah, he/she's like this only... we can't help it" .....and I'm like .... whaaaat ?

I'd rather buy my kids a $400 racket, than a gaming console for $200...

I've often wondered, if what I'm doing with my tiny tot, is right, or wrong ... After all, we live in an era where technology has become/is becoming an integral part of our lives.. Is there an appropriate age, for introducing tech to children ... ?

@scottalanmiller said in We live in an era where...:

We work really hard to let our kids have a good outdoor experience and a good video game one. We live in cool European villages with great playgrounds and stuff. But we also set them up with Steam and loads of interesting, thought provoking games. And lots of games that they can play with others.

The things that I seek to avoid are based on passivity, rather than technology. The things that I like them doing the least are watching television or reading books.... passive activities where you just zone out. They are okay in small amounts, but video games or imagination games or physical activities are so much better. Things that engage the brain, rather than shutting it off.

I grew-up in the 80s , where although we had TV, the programming was rather dull .. We mostly watched recorded sports telecasts ...Sundays, were the only days, where there would be something better to watch ... Only the uber rich kids had video games .. So, for us, it was mostly going out and playing with the other kids, which I thoroughly enjoyed .. time indoors was spent reading, snakes-n-ladders, scrable, 1etc with the family ... All this reduced, as the programming on the tele improved, I got my first computer, and then the internet ... quality family time reduced drastically ..

But yeah, I agree - The key is "Balance ", which is challenging, to achieve, but not impossible

@tiagom said in We live in an era where...:

@Veet said in We live in an era where...:

@momurda said in We live in an era where...:

What is a watch?

This is a watch.. It's got more parts and an iPhone, iWatch, iwhatever... It takes longer to make, than an i-whatever, and is infinitely more beautiful ...

Beautiful watch but there are a couple billion transistors in any given iDevice

Yeah yeah ... transistors .. building blocks of all microchips, n all that ... but we don't say "oh, my iDevice has 3 GB RAM, and 200 million bazillion transistors", now do we ...

@dafyre said in We live in an era where...:

why do you write your own blog?

SEO ...

There are a few open-source based options, I've used in the past .. Most of these have free community, and commercial versions

• FengOffice
• Only Office
• Kolab

FengOffice is the one I've used most extensively ....

Hi,

There should be a Data Migration option in the Google Apps Admin dashboard ...

@scottalanmiller - while I back your intent, I don't think a community based black-list would work ...

Congrats ... :thumbsup_tone4: