Tales from Techsupport

[Tinthalas Tigris]

Anyone else with MSCE find it amusing that the new version of windows will be lease licensed, and effectively streamed to terminals via IPXE?

It is so humorous, the number of retail/consume products that rely on linux servers and other *nix based systems, and now the new windows will be run via a linux distribution server to provide a Windows GUI for their clients.

This is now year 6 of me running (almost) exclusively linux.

I do have to say, the "One Note" system within Windows is pretty awesome. We used windows on our laptops with work, and having my work phone running OneNote while I run around a site taking notes to have al that data automatically sync with my work laptop is amazing.

Linux already has great programs capable of doing the same thing, but I know very little about OneNote. It cracks me up that it is such a powerful program (OMG, the Image Capture and Insert into Notes is amazing. I can take skewed angles of screens and it will immediatley crop to relevant data!), and it took how frickin' long for Microsoft to package it?

[Merrick ap'Milandra]

Anyone else with MSCE find it amusing that the new version of windows will be lease licensed, and effectively streamed to terminals via IPXE?

What? I haven't been keeping up on my news-of-upcoming-stuff, apparently.

It is so humorous, the number of retail/consume products that rely on linux servers and other *nix based systems, and now the new windows will be run via a linux distribution server to provide a Windows GUI for their clients.

I'd love more information on this. It almost sounds similar to some things I've set up to allow access to expensive 3D rendering hardware in countries that have internet connections but larger barriers to entry for obtaining physical computer parts. Provision something out of an Azure data center and have it serve up a workstation OS with access to the computational power of the rack it's sitting in.

Not really that different than running VMWare or Citrix on a local set of servers, except it's geographically somewhere else and there's not a ton of low-level access to the rack itself.

I do have to say, the "One Note" system within Windows is pretty awesome. We used windows on our laptops with work, and having my work phone running OneNote while I run around a site taking notes to have al that data automatically sync with my work laptop is amazing.

Linux already has great programs capable of doing the same thing, but I know very little about OneNote. It cracks me up that it is such a powerful program (OMG, the Image Capture and Insert into Notes is amazing. I can take skewed angles of screens and it will immediatley crop to relevant data!), and it took how frickin' long for Microsoft to package it?

I started using it on and off like, a decade ago. I still don't utilize everything it's capable of (I probably use ctrl+1 more than anything) but it's definitely handy.

For basic note taking I still defer to google's keep on my android phone/pc's web browser, but that's just for stuff that amounts to the functional equivalent of a post-it note in my back pocket.

For anything more serious, I still whip out OneNote.

It's improved a lot in the last decade, but the idea was there quite a while back and proof-of-concept stuff was shown off by Gates back when EverNote was brand spanking new almost a decade before OneNote actually came out.

I kinda wish MS would buy/create/fund a piece of included-with-windows/office mind mapping software similar to https://thebrain.com/ for a much needed boost to their whole productivity ecosystem.

Maybe it's just me, but I find that particular piece of software to be far more useful than, say, a knowledge base. I stood one up for my department at an old job ages ago back before IT Glue was a thing and found it to be ridiculously helpful and easy to use.

Certainly miles better than any combination of any of the myriad of KB/ERP/CRM/SalesForce/Sharepoint implementations I've ever used, but that might just be due to how my brain works.

[Tinthalas Tigris]

What? I haven't been keeping up on my news-of-upcoming-stuff, apparently.



I'd love more information on this. It almost sounds similar to some things I've set up to allow access to expensive 3D rendering hardware in countries that have internet connections but larger barriers to entry for obtaining physical computer parts. Provision something out of an Azure data center and have it serve up a workstation OS with access to the computational power of the rack it's sitting in.

Not really that different than running VMWare or Citrix on a local set of servers, except it's geographically somewhere else and there's not a ton of low-level access to the rack itself.

I listen to a podcast from TuxDigital (a couple actually), and I believe it was on the episode of This Week in Linux from 2 weeks ago. If I get a chance, I'll try and find the exact episode, time stamp, etc and post it here.

But yep. They are going to start charging $10/mo per license in the new version.

I've been trying to startup my own domestic NAS, because monthly subscriptions are getting out of hand from everyone. I plan on backing up all our physical media to it so we can stream through it, and we will setup a monthly queue in the house on a Note system, once I decide which one, for ordering new serires, etc, and putting them on there.

I started using it on and off like, a decade ago. I still don't utilize everything it's capable of (I probably use ctrl+1 more than anything) but it's definitely handy.

For basic note taking I still defer to google's keep on my android phone/pc's web browser, but that's just for stuff that amounts to the functional equivalent of a post-it note in my back pocket.

For anything more serious, I still whip out OneNote.

It's improved a lot in the last decade, but the idea was there quite a while back and proof-of-concept stuff was shown off by Gates back when EverNote was brand spanking new almost a decade before OneNote actually came out.

I kinda wish MS would buy/create/fund a piece of included-with-windows/office mind mapping software similar to https://thebrain.com/ for a much needed boost to their whole productivity ecosystem.

Maybe it's just me, but I find that particular piece of software to be far more useful than, say, a knowledge base. I stood one up for my department at an old job ages ago back before IT Glue was a thing and found it to be ridiculously helpful and easy to use.

Certainly miles better than any combination of any of the myriad of KB/ERP/CRM/SalesForce/Sharepoint implementations I've ever used, but that might just be due to how my brain works.

6 years ago, I pretty much wiped Windows from everything I owned. Not a rage quit or anything, My laptop just wasn't working very well, my desktop was neither, both didn't want to cooperate with their older versions of windows, and I decided to try Linux Mint. I didn't use it much, because my line of work at the time did not have any true need for it.

Once QUarantine went full effect, I doubled down, and went through multiple distributions, until finally settling on Pop!_OS. It is my favorite distro, and I install it on almost everything, now.

My kids do have windows on their machines, but they also have KDE PLasma on a separate drive (which I encourage them to use, even though they still prefer windows).

OneNote was something I only came across for the first time when I got my new work laptop back in December of 2022, and I needed a note taking software, because most of the Google Suite is locked out of the device's allowed URLs, etc. It works, and I dig it, but I really want to either develop or find something that is a tiny bit more practical for my whole *nix world.

[Tinthalas Tigris]

Guy walks up to me working on a printer on a mobile printer cart. Small space, I am right there, multiple tools and parts scattered around the cart.
"Can I print off of this one?"
"I will be only 2 more minutes."
"you're good"
::moves my tools, drops a part::
"as I said, I am only going to be two more minutes and then you can use the entire cart."
"I only need this printer,and this is the last thing I need to print for the day, thank you."
"well, you are absolutely welcome, in two minutes."
"it's okay, I can just do it now"
roceeds to print:

[Tinthalas Tigris]

I show up to the same site as above, today.

I show 5 parts I ordered have come in, and I have tracking. THey've all been signed for, and the instructions on them say to take to the MDF room.

I arrive, and have one at the front desk. It has been there for a week. Since the day after I left, previously.

There is one in the General Manager's office. It says "Take to MDF Room/Give to Field Service Technician IT."

One is in the Assitant Manager's Office. It says, "Take to MDF Room/Give to Field Service Technician IT"

One is in the MDF room. Where it should be. Right on the bin labeled, "New Freight and Parcel - Rec'd And Ready for IT"

It takes me 1 hour and 15 minutes to track down who signed for it from the tracking, which was less than an hour ago. The other person in Receiving says it went to the Assistant Manager's Office. ASM says "didn't you pick it up?" I show them my laptop screen which says just signed for, shipped via UPS and show them the box that was in there that says FedEx. This game goes on for that whole time. I finally walk into the MDF room, and see it behind the door behind the MDF rack. Genius.

[Mileron]

While our office is still pretty hybrid (with a good contingent being present on Tuesdays, due to free lunch, less on Weds, even less on Thurs, and nearly zero on Monday/Friday) we've got a handful of people who, for various reasons, are permanent WFH.

One recent addition to this list has complained repeatedly since right after the 4th of July - roughly two tickets a month - about his VPN stability.

"It keeps dropping," he says.

He's in an apartment building with dozens of other tenants. Naturally, his wireless list has a couple dozen unique SSID.

Reboot. Restart router. Try different room. All seem to temporarily alleviate the issue.

He states he cannot use an ethernet cable, due to distance from the router and, apparently, the fact that it's in a roommate's room and they don't want a cable strung through the residence.

But that's not the point of this post.

The last ticket we received started out as a VPN issue ticket. But when emailing back and forth with the assigned tech, he also stated "the shocking is really making it difficult to type on the laptop."



I'm off the day he brings it in to swap. My counterpart (the ticket owner) gives him an (undeserved/unnecessary) upgrade during the replacement - before he examined the original device because he wanted me to look at it as well.

I pull the battery and bottom case off and find this.

wonderwhy.jpg

Everywhere underneath. Including the edges where the wireless activation switch and the power port are.



My mental order of operations are:

The guy is absolutely addicted to takeout iced coffee - Starbucks or convenience store, he doesn't seem to have a preference - and he is left handed, so his mouse goes to the left of the computer.
The power port and wifi switch are on the right side - where his drink of choice sits and condenses until empty.
Which means that most of this liquid is just water condensation.
For this go-around. There are many indications of it having dried and encrusted underneath. Which could explain the ongoing VPN issues, especially if water encroached on the WLAN card that early on.
Even the dirt/dust in the fan is showing evidence of clumping from moisture.

It's too late to re-swap him down to a previously-similar model, but he's been informed that in the event of a future swap, evidence of liquid damage will be grounds for compensating the company for damage/repair.

We also told him to keep his coffee the fuck away from the laptop.

[Tinthalas Tigris]

Deployment for nationwide HR offices. New PCs, as the new vx Network layering just doesn't run on the old Windows PCs. We're installing a batch of Lenovo Thin Clients (m80qs) And they have been stupid buggy.
Deployment initially began the last week of November. 2023.
Their DP out does not like mating with the DVI on the monitors we already have deployed. They postponed it.
They rereleased a fix (hold power button to "de-energize the bios/cmos."
Imaging of Office Suite did not work (Hello, can we just rewrite the bash script ourselves?)
My region's deployment manager finally, last week at our monthly meeting, said simply, "Just deploy it, we'll figure out what is wrong with it as we go."
I took monday of last week off, so I was behind by a day, but I wasn't too concerned, as this was our only deployment scheduled for this week.
I went Wednesday to Site A. Brought the new m80q and informed all administration some things:

"This deployment will take 2 hours. I will need unfettered access, and no one interrupting me while I perform this deployment. Periodically, I need to see what is happening on the display monitor, in order to push various modules from the network onto the new terminal if it hangs."
I have everything deployed, hardware wise, one half-hour in, I have removed the old terminal from the DHCP tool, and the new one is on. I have it maging almost immediately.
I step away to use the restroom. I am away for 10 minutes.
I come back, and the door is closed and locked. One of the administrators says I can't go in there because an associate "needs a safe space right now."
I said I needed in, and they refused.
For 2 fucking hours, that employee was in their safe space, while I just waited outside the door/in my remote office, just pinging the unit to see if it was on the network. It isn't. for 2 hours, I just wasted fucking time.
The crew in charge of monitoring deployment was supposed to leave at 2pm PST. The guy working alongside me in North Carolina said he could stick around for an extra hour.
By the time the door opened again, it was 1pm. PST, and I had just barely the amount of time to restart it if necessary.

Little did I know, that in the process of getting the DHCP server to avoid conflicts for what sometimes remains on its port triggering/port forwarding software, the VoIP phone that the terminal plugs into was unplugged, and the VoIP phone plugged into the network adapter (I mean, i probably should have looked to see if it was live, because that is normal procedures, but why shoudl someone unplug a terminal and plug in a phone in their safe space? I mean, one would think that they woudl tell me that they were going to do this, did this, or asked me why it was unplugged in the first place).

For half an hour I trouble shooted. For an hour I trouble shooted. I looked under the paper that says, "DO NOT PLUG IN," covering the screen, and the VoIP phone is one. It is now 2 o'clock PST.

Fuck it. I'm getting two hours of OT. Messaged my deployment manager the above information and his first response was,

"..."

About 5 minutes later he said, "take the 2 hours OT today, and whatever amount of time it takes you to finish this when you come back next, take that whole amount of time, and bill it as OT for the same day alongside whatever else you do that day. Even if you are only there for 15 minutes outside of the 2 hour imaging. Bill them the whole day, plus the amount of time it takes for this."

[Tinthalas Tigris]

Separate Site.
We manage the networking of the Lot Cops (you see these often at Home Depot, Lowe's, Walmart and other big box stores in the parking lot. Every 15 minutes they remind you to lock your car, store your valuables, etc) and have cameras at the top of a mast on the head unit. We occasionally maintain the batteries and the solar system, but they go mostly to the technicians employed by the LVT company themselves, but it costs us less for our contract to deal with the head unit and resituation of solar panels, and periodic voltage checks of the batteries.

We also move them, when the client goes through the motions and requests the move properly.

I had an e-mail forwarded to me from 6/18 on 7/5 requesting that I move the two trailers at Site B immediately. THey are having their parking lots repaved that following morning. I informed them that I would be there first thing Monday morning at 7am.

No response.

The pavers were there at 6am, and already scraped the area around one of the LVTs, but the other had not yet been scraped.

I wrassled a couple of site associates that could drive a forklift, prepped the unit for movement, and we moved it from one side of the building to the other. THe intended site of transfer was already paved, and they wouldn't let me move it over there, because the asphalt was fresh and had not yet been striped.

I informed them verbally, as well as an e-mail to their entire Administration and Management team that they would need to cordon off the locations they would be moved back to (very active parking lot) SUnday evening, 7/14, so that I could move them first thing Monday morning. I spoke directly to the individual who would be closing the site Sunday evening who said they would take care of cordoning off the area.

I arrived Monday morning, and nothing had been cordoned off. I had an itinerary for the day and had to be 4 cities and 23 miles away at 10am. By the time I had pictures, spoke to admin, and cleared it with my bosses, it was 845, and time for me to head to the next location. I informed them that I would be back on Friday to do the move, e-mailed all parties, attached pictures to the e-mail for where it needed to go, and they said verbally they would accomodate me.

NO one from admin responded to the e-mail.

Tonight at 6pm (I complete my day at 3:15 pm and i didn't check my e-mail until 9pm when I was plugging my phone for the night) , I got an e-mail from the Admin who was supposed to cordon things off on Sunday evening VIA PRIVATE REPLY (Not Reply All to the entire thread), saying that I moved all the LVTs to the wrong location, and the contractor needed them moved to an alternate location by 6am tomorrow morning.

FUCK THAT SHIT. That means i would have to be there at 5am. Not fucking happening. less than 24 hour notice? less than *12 hour notice?* I don't care how much i'm getting paid hourly. THat's a $1,000 charge in my book - PER MOVE. That shit is going to my pocket.

I can't stand muggles.

[Delores Mulva]

To those of you having a bad day today because of Crowdstrike: good luck, and I look forward to hearing the stories here!

[FilanFyretracker]

IMG_2612.jpg

[Mileron]

We got rid of Crowdstrike a year and a half ago because the device-resident agent was drastically impacting the usability of half of our fleet.

So I'm glad for that.

That said, I do feel for those who were impacted. (Heck I couldn't log into my bank until after 8pm.)

[Mileron]

https://www.yahoo.com/entertainment/...182703060.html

My company uses first-initial-lastname. We've got one higher up with a name that would make for a bad combo. We've also had some women (three, as I understand it; all occurred before I joined) who were getting married who submitted tickets to get their email changed to match their new married name but were managed to be convinced that using it wouldn't be professional for them and they stuck with their maiden names (or got a uniquely patterned alias).

[Mileron]

https://www.yahoo.com/entertainment/...182703060.html

My company uses first-initial-lastname. We've got one higher up with a name that would make for a bad combo. We've also had some women (three, as I understand it; all occurred before I joined) who were getting married who submitted tickets to get their email changed to match their new married name but were managed to be convinced that using it wouldn't be professional for them and they stuck with their maiden names (or got a uniquely patterned alias).

[Eremius]

We do firstname dot lastname

[FilanFyretracker]

given this does not seem to be an uncommon problem you think companies across the board would just use something else.

[Mileron]

given this does not seem to be an uncommon problem you think companies across the board would just use something else.

Part of it is inertia. Also, a heaping load of "we've never had this problem, it shouldn't be one now". And "this policy has been in place since before 2010".

It's even more troublesome, for example, with people who change their names. (1,2)

Network ID = email address = computer login, i.e. JPICARD (3,4)

1 - Regarding those that changed their names when getting married, for example, I've had one ... very ... opinionated ... user who hates the fact that her maiden name is still in use as her computer login. Hates. It. And I hear about it all the time. However the amount of time to recreate her network account, transition everything over to the new one, let alone email, documents, attached accounts, etc, it's not feasible to complete building her a new account.

2 - Also: we have one user who specifically requested before being onboarded that her full name be used in her user ID. So let's say her name is Danica Patrick Stewart. Upon being told that we create user logins with first initial last name, she requested that her "middle name/prior maiden" be used as the second character, so "DPSTEWART". It was rejected, because it's not policy, and instead is just DSTEWART. And she complains about it all the time...

3 - Similarly, we've had a handful of people who prefer to be addressed by a hyphenated first-middle name, and requested to use the middle initial as part of their login (i.e. JLPICARD) - but it was rejected, because it's not policy.

4 - It's even more annoying when you need to onboard someone whose new network username/email address already exists. So the policy is to use the next letter of the first name, instead of middle initial or a differentiating number. GFOREMAN exists, so the second becomes GEFOREMAN (instead of GFOREMAN2)... and the third GEOFOREMAN... which is policy...

All of which would be easier if a different identification method were to be used.

For example, in my last position, the network user ID was the employee's HR database ID. i.e. EN123456 The email address then became an alias to that ID, so changing the "display name" and email address for the respective user would be SO much easier.

[Zarbonius]

4 - It's even more annoying when you need to onboard someone whose new network username/email address already exists. So the policy is to use the next letter of the first name, instead of middle initial or a differentiating number. GFOREMAN exists, so the second becomes GEFOREMAN (instead of GFOREMAN2)... and the third GEOFOREMAN... which is policy...

All of which would be easier if a different identification method were to be used.

Wait, so if you have a name collision because your company hires a fifth "John Smith", how does that get resolved?

[Mileron]

When I asked that, the response was "when it happens, we'll figure it out."

[Eremius]

1 - Regarding those that changed their names when getting married, for example, I've had one ... very ... opinionated ... user who hates the fact that her maiden name is still in use as her computer login. Hates. It. And I hear about it all the time. However the amount of time to recreate her network account, transition everything over to the new one, let alone email, documents, attached accounts, etc, it's not feasible to complete building her a new account.

These Karens suck. Thankfully they are rare.

Usually most are satisfied with leaving their login the same as long as they can get email with their new name (make new name the primary and old name an alias).

But every once in a while...

[Nerkahia]

1 - Regarding those that changed their names when getting married, for example, I've had one ... very ... opinionated ... user who hates the fact that her maiden name is still in use as her computer login. Hates. It. And I hear about it all the time. However the amount of time to recreate her network account, transition everything over to the new one, let alone email, documents, attached accounts, etc, it's not feasible to complete building her a new account.

This one does not seem unreasonable to me. Would you be fine with using a login that wasn't accurate spelling of your legal name?

You say it's not feasible... but it is obviously a standard task associated with new hires. Why would it not also be considered a standard task for name changes by marriage?