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

@Breffni-Potter 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 !!

Then demonstrate to the client what they are missing out on. You are their technical adviser, present them the business losses by continuing with this method.

How many downsides can you think of by not going virtual? Help them make an informed choice with all the facts.

And that would indicate that there is probably a competitor out there with a better product that has been missed. there are exceptions, but it's pretty rare that no one makes good software. Customers love to claim that they are stuck with one vendor, but that is almost never the case.

I wish it were that simple ... Things for the client to consider, before shifting to a better product ...

• Cost of Shifting to a new product ...

• Migrating the data from the existing product to the new one

• Training

So, more often that not, the client would just prefer to stick with the existing software .. Infact, doing so, would, more often than not, work-out to be the cheaper option, as compared to shifting to a new product, just so that their servers can be Virtualized ..

@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 ..

@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 !!

@Breffni-Potter said in System Fonts: Installing when not an Admin:

@Veet said

I have a way of doing this, but works if UAC is off... .

No, don't do that ever

I nearly went apocalypse on a vendor who did just that, completely broke my ability to work on the client machines remotely because I could not elevate anything as admin and you completely disable the sandbox protections which have been in place since Windows Vista.

https://woorkup.com/install-fonts-without-administrator-access/

I agree ... Turning UAC is not recommended ... But, what does one do, when a application just won't work, until UAC is turned off .. .

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

@Breffni-Potter said in System Fonts: Installing when not an Admin:

@Veet said

I have a way of doing this, but works if UAC is off... .

No, don't do that ever

I nearly went apocalypse on a vendor who did just that, completely broke my ability to work on the client machines remotely because I could not elevate anything as admin and you completely disable the sandbox protections which have been in place since Windows Vista.

https://woorkup.com/install-fonts-without-administrator-access/

I work with a few medical clients, and all their software requires UAC to be off (and some the firewall as well). It's nuts.

Yep, I face this ever so often ... What is the solution ?

I got to know of Anydesk, recently, by a local Sophos channel partner .. I quite liked it ... While, it's not as polished as Teamviewer, it has small foot-print, and work pretty smooth ...

@scottalanmiller said in Starting own IT consultancy - Gathering list of tools required and recommendations:

@larsen161 said in Starting own IT consultancy - Gathering list of tools required and recommendations:

Yes, I would presume you have access to the local lan via VPN and then access is available to those 'local' machines.

that would suck, you never want to be on a VPN with clients.

Why would one, never want to be on VPN with clients ?

Always pointed it to itself, as the primary ... Also, doesn't Microsoft itself recommend this as a Best Practice ?

Hi,

I have a way of doing this, but works if UAC is off... .

Log on as administrator. Run command prompt as admin.

attrib -r -s %systemroot%\fonts

takeown /f "%systemroot%\fonts" /r /d n

(Although not necessary, you could give the Administrator full control on the fonts folder): icacls "%systemroot%\fonts" /grant administrators:F /t

You should now, be able to can now add or change permissions on the Fonts folder like any regular folder.

Give user(s) modify access to %systemroot%\Fonts

icacls "%systemroot%\fonts" /grant USERNAME ... you could even do a GROUP:M /t

Give user(s) modify access to %systemroot%\system32\fntcache.dat

icacls "%systemroot%\system32\FNTCACHE.dat" /grant USERNAMEorGROUP:M /t

Give user(s) modify access to HKLM\Software\Microsoft\Windows NT\Current Version\Fonts

Let me know if this works for you

Yep, implemented the same, for a majority of our clients... it's quick n easy to deploy, and manage .. This, along with Thin-clients, has been a winning combo for us .. . works like a charm every time ..

Going a bit off-topic - Earlier, this year , we were contacted by a vendor, pushing these really really dirt cheap China-made thin-clients (They go by the name Thnder-X) ... So, for $18 a pop (only if you buy a minimum of 50 Units), it offers : -

Arm Cortex 1.8ghz CPU
1GB RAM
512MB on-board Flash
100/1000 Network Port
3 USB ports (2xUSB 2.0, 1x USB 3)
1 HDMI Port + 1 VGA Port support upto 1920x1080 / 32 bit colour depth / Dual Display
Audio Port.
7.5W Power consumption
Windows CE

We were rather skeptical at first, so the vendor gave us a unit to demo ... We're using it on a daily basis for around a month.. Worked well for most basic office tasks (Documents, Spreadsheets, Emails, Browsing, Accounting etc) ... Videos didn't do too well, but still, not as bad as we were expecting ..

The only catch is that it comes with a 6 month replacement warranty...

We bought around 10 units, and gifted 4 to a client ... at $18/unit, I don't mind gifting these to 20 MangoLassi users ... you pay for your own shipping ... hehehe

Anyway, the client has been using these in a production environment (on the above setup), for over 6 months, and they've been pretty happy with it, so far ..

@wirestyle22 said in Would You Hire Someone in IT Who Does Not Have a Home Lab:

@Veet said in Would You Hire Someone in IT Who Does Not Have a Home Lab:

@JaredBusch said in Would You Hire Someone in IT Who Does Not Have a Home Lab:

@Veet said in Would You Hire Someone in IT Who Does Not Have a Home Lab:

@JaredBusch said in Would You Hire Someone in IT Who Does Not Have a Home Lab:

I work 24/7. I may only average 6 to 8 hours per day and 42 hours per week. But those hours are spread out over all 24 hours of the day and all 7 days of the week.
Any employee of ours will be expected to do the same.

In return what can an employee expect from the organization ?

Depending on skill, an hourly rate between $30 and $50.

Seriously ? Is that all an employee can expect from your company ? An hourly wage ? pity ...

I'm sure they have healthcare, dental, vision, 401k, etc too. What is to be expected?

meh ....

What about, in terms of Quality Of Life ? Job Satisfaction ? Personal/Professional enrichment ?

btw, Quality of Life is not to be confused with Packet life or Quality of Service .. for all you "live IT" , dedicated , 24x7 available, type of IT guy ...

@JaredBusch said in Would You Hire Someone in IT Who Does Not Have a Home Lab:

@Veet said in Would You Hire Someone in IT Who Does Not Have a Home Lab:

@JaredBusch said in Would You Hire Someone in IT Who Does Not Have a Home Lab:

I work 24/7. I may only average 6 to 8 hours per day and 42 hours per week. But those hours are spread out over all 24 hours of the day and all 7 days of the week.
Any employee of ours will be expected to do the same.

In return what can an employee expect from the organization ?

Depending on skill, an hourly rate between $30 and $50.

Seriously ? Is that all an employee can expect from your company ? An hourly wage ? pity ...

@david.wiese said in Would You Hire Someone in IT Who Does Not Have a Home Lab:

Also that description right there is what is wrong with the American culture. To much emphasis put on work and not enough put on life outside of it. Like I have already stated, I work to live, not live to work.

wow, I was typing something very similar to this, when the thread refreshed, and you beat me to it.... I couldn't agree more

@JaredBusch said in Would You Hire Someone in IT Who Does Not Have a Home Lab:

I work 24/7. I may only average 6 to 8 hours per day and 42 hours per week. But those hours are spread out over all 24 hours of the day and all 7 days of the week.
Any employee of ours will be expected to do the same.

In return what can an employee expect from the organization ?

@Breffni-Potter said in Would You Hire Someone in IT Who Does Not Have a Home Lab:

@david.wiese said

Nope, you shouldn't be excluded. Personality and people skills tumps technical knowledge to some degree.

HR says you are worthless to the company without a degree. I don't care what experience or personality or qualities you have, no degree, no interview.

That's backwards and stupid thinking I know but it keeps happening.

Yep, it's a rather unfortunate reality ...

@Minion-Queen

• "Live IT"

• "24 hours Shift"

• "24/7 so while it might seem unfair it is life"

• if when you are at work you are..working

wow ... based on your posts, it seems like you're running a really tight ship ... I could be wrong, ofcourse.. I see these as red-flags ... personally, I would not want to work in this environment ....but, that's just me ...

We focus primarily on "Satisfaction" ,and not just profits. ...be it with our team-mates, or with our client .. ofcourse, we too set high standards for ourselves - a high quality of life ..

Although, we provide round-the-clock services to a few clients, who have 24 hr operations, no one from my organization has ever pulled a 24 hr work shift ... If a client requires 24 hrs or service or support from us, we have 3 team-mates working, each for 8 hours.. Over-n-above, there's one person on stand-by, to fill-in, just incase 1 person cant make it, for some reason .. Plus, the shifts are rotated (it is decided by the 3 of the above persons)

Taking work home, for most parts is discouraged... Ofcourse, if you want to learn/practice @ you home-lab, on your time, we certainly can't/won't stop you... However, we certainly don't encourage it .. .. We encourage our team-mates to have a life, apart from IT .... Using the office lab to learn, test, crash, burn, experiment etc etc, is highly encouraged .... providing you're willing to share the knowledge, findings, test-results, outcome etc ... I don't think anyone even has a home-lab .. Most of us find time to learn something new, and improve our skills sets, at the office-lab ( plus a couple of instances on AWS) is used extensively for that, by everyone...

No one in our organization actually works ....cause we're all just doing what we love, and are passionate bout it, and dedicated to it.... For most parts nothing is really forced-upon anyone ...However, what we've all agreed to, and practice, is a continuous improvement cycle - On a organizational level, professional level and personal level ..

We're a small team of 13, so I guess this works for us ... Oh, and there's no boss ... no employee ... Although, the company was founded by me, I'm not the sole owner.. all 13 of us are..

@Veet said in Would You Hire Someone in IT Who Does Not Have a Home Lab:

@Minion-Queen said in Would You Hire Someone in IT Who Does Not Have a Home Lab:

Our hours can also be 24/7 so while it might seem unfair it is the life. While I have no issue with someone who wants to disconnect and just not be available. We could never hire someone who does that, our clients need us during outages etc. when they need us. We have had times where we are all hands on deck and work in 24 hour shifts for days and then all crash and take vacation days.

IT is what IT is

@Breffni-Potter said in HelpDesk Ticketing System:

@Veet said

Say, does anyone use osTicket ? and how has your experience been, with it ?

Now that I've seen the page
http://osticket.com/features

I can tell you that this is what Comodo One uses and offers as their branded Service Desk. - The UI is clunky and awful.

Yep ... One of the plus point of osTicket is that its pretty customizable ... I've used and implemented osTicket (Haven't any deep feature customizations, though), and while the backend UI could be better, it's pretty functional and responsive .. Plus, it's not as resource hungry as some of the other ticketing systems I've seen (Spiceworks, being one)

huh ? How did the above response get posted on this thread .... have I stumbled-upon a bug ?

@Minion-Queen said in Would You Hire Someone in IT Who Does Not Have a Home Lab:

Our hours can also be 24/7 so while it might seem unfair it is the life. While I have no issue with someone who wants to disconnect and just not be available. We could never hire someone who does that, our clients need us during outages etc. when they need us. We have had times where we are all hands on deck and work in 24 hour shifts for days and then all crash and take vacation days.

IT is what IT is

@Breffni-Potter said in HelpDesk Ticketing System:

@Veet said

Say, does anyone use osTicket ? and how has your experience been, with it ?

Now that I've seen the page
http://osticket.com/features

I can tell you that this is what Comodo One uses and offers as their branded Service Desk. - The UI is clunky and awful.

Yep ... One of the plus point of osTicket is that its pretty customizable ... I've used and implemented osTicket (Haven't any deep feature customizations, though), and while the backend UI could be better, it's pretty functional and responsive .. Plus, it's not as resource hungry as some of the other ticketing systems I've seen (Spiceworks, being one)

@nadnerB said in HelpDesk Ticketing System:

I really like the Spiceworks helpdesk interface but it's really slow & a bit greedy on resources when in a VM (haven't tried it on a baremetal workstation) and that's with really just me using it, my boss also used it but not as heavily as I did.

Yep ... rather slow and resource hungry (wasn't as bad with some of the older versions) ..

Say, does anyone use osTicket ? and how has your experience been, with it ?

@scottalanmiller

@scottalanmiller said in Would You Hire Someone in IT Who Does Not Have a Home Lab:

@Veet said in Would You Hire Someone in IT Who Does Not Have a Home Lab:

Also, I would not discount a candidate just cause she/he does not have a home lab.. I typically hire someone based on their, attitude,

That's a key point that I think that a lab gauges, attitude. It shows that someone is really dedicated.

umm.... well ... I kind of agree, and disagree ... Yes, attitude matters the most ... But, what if a person has the right attitude, but does not have resources ? I know so many deserving professionals, who don't have access to resources, simply because they just can't afford, lack the space, etc ... I've been there ... When I was starting off, I couldn't even afford a desktop ...

Most IT pros I know of, who have some really fancy knowledge and/or certifications , do so on the company's dime .... They learn and practice, at the office ... That's precisely, why we have a lab @ the office - Work as a team, learn as a team, share the knowledge, bounce ideas, off each other... We prefer that our team-mates, learn and practice @ the office... We encourage this, and provide the resources (whatever we can afford).. .

A home lab is something nice to have , but it's not a must have ...

@John-Nicholson

@John-Nicholson said in The Inverted Pyramid of Doom Challenge:

@Veet said in The Inverted Pyramid of Doom Challenge:

@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 ...

Stupidity, and there's multiple people to blame.

1. Small business's are not blameless, they should seek good advice and consulting. When they hire people who they pay less per hour than geek squad this is what you get. By refusing to pay real consulting rates, this is what they end up getting...

2. Small consulting shops that center around Hyper-V these days seem to be in love with building clusters on prosumer grade QNAP/synology etc. As there is no deal registration its not actually something they can "mark up" much. It does add a lot of labor, but you have to look at these shops training commitment (or often lack there of). They tend to be fed with cert mill grade MCSE's who learned out to make a Hyper-V cluster and Microsoft's storage curriculum emphasis this without ever discussing quality of storage. (Meanwhile a VCP 5.5 or newer will cover scale out local storage as there are quite a few VSAN questions on that test).

3. There is a growing trend where the self taught IT guy in the SMB's knoledge is drifting farther and farther from the enterprise. The tools and best practices are making the "Cargo Cult of the Enterprise" even more dangerous.

As far as a shop with only a single server instance I'm starting to ask why even bother? Why not host the application, get as many of your apps delivered by SaaS, and leverage MDM/MAM/SSO tools and move away from the need for GPO or local domain for management.

Does doing this cost a little more? Sure. It does however give you a much more transparent cost to IT (Your not assuming risks because the SLA's are fairly well known and far more absolute from a SaaS provider these days than a server in a closet).

I think our real boogyman in the (S in SMB) is not the guy with the Synology but anyone advocating physically local servers at all. Servers with some exceptions for SME's or niche industries increasingly belong in datacenters.

Yep... I agree - Small Businesses are not blameless .. . For some, it's as if, it's a matter of pride, that they have a NAS or SAN ... Most small businesses will opt for vendors who come cheap ...This is what I say to them "You throw peanuts, you'll attract only monkeys"

Where, I don't agree with you - Shift to a hosted SaaS based platform ...been there .. done that .. failed ... does not work, where I am ... Primarily due to poor bandwidth quality... I have a few clients, with factories in areas, where no ISP even wants to provide service ..

Hosting with local data centers is an expensive affair over here (India) ... If we were to host in US/Europe data centers (which work-out to be cheaper), then the issue of latency arises ..

Hi,

I used to have a home-lab .. but, no more .. now, with kids , I need all the space ...@ home, I just work from a laptop... The lab is @ the office only ...

Also, I would not discount a candidate just cause she/he does not have a home lab.. I typically hire someone based on their, attitude, real-world experience, real-world skills etc .. ... Infact, most technicians (network, desktop, server) I hire probably did not / or don't have a desktop or laptop, leave a home-lab. Simply, because they can't afford one, or they lack the space... On the other hand, most developers & designers I hire, have atleast a desktop or laptop ..