@scottalanmiller said in How do you guys handle counter offers?:

@IRJ said in How do you guys handle counter offers?:

@JasGot said in How do you guys handle counter offers?:

@IRJ said in How do you guys handle counter offers?:

The fact that he is out of the one man shop and onto something bigger is an additional factor as well.

A HUGELY positive factor.

oh yeah of course. I dont know how people get stuck in 1 man shops for so long

Because it's often really comfortable and once you are in you tend to feel badly for the company because leaving seems impossible for them to handle. So you tend to stay.

cough Stockholm Syndrom

@scottalanmiller said in Las Vegas Shooting - Lone Shooter - 50 Killed 200+ injured:

Still creating terror, just domestic.

That's my point.

The media only labels someone a terrorist if they are of foreign nationality and of a specific religion. That's where my issue lies.

@Alket_tux said in Hyper-V VMs in Stopping Critical State:

Hello guys,
i ve been in trouble with hyper v on ws 2012 r2.. the issue is that when i restart my server Hyper-v Virtual machine management service takes an eternity to stop, so i hard reboot.. after that my machines are in runnig state.. also when i try to shutdown my vm-s, their state goes to stopping critical.. any ideas would be helpful..
thanks

When you shut down a Hyper-V server, the default settings for all of your VMs is to save the state of the VM. After that, your server will shut down. Depending on the number of VMs you have, it could take a little bit to save the state of all of them. It has to write the memory to disk, etc. Also, the default startup option is to start the VMs if they were started when they went down, which is why they are back up when you boot up your hypervisor.

If you are killing your server during this process, you are hurting your VMs. This will cause critically stopped states. Hopefully they are .vhdx disks to help prevent corruption.

Update #2: I installed Ubuntu 16.04.2 (17.04 doesn't work right) along side of Win10 for now (dual boot). As noted below, Korora and Fedora were giving me hardware issues that I just didn't have time or the interest to fix... see here.

Update: Project scrapped, see here.

Title used to say Fedora 25 Cinnamon Desktop, but due to issues, I'm leaving it Korora 25 as so far, only Gnome desktop is working. I will edit this post later appropriately to reflect the final set-up.

This is was going to be my experience and/or log (for future reference) of moving to Fedora (or Korora) on my personal main home system. I expect things to take a while to get fully functional (as it was on Win10), but it depends on how much time I have to get things going.

It's an ASUS ROG STRIX GL502VT-DS74 15.6" laptop (Internal small m.2 and a regular SSD), plus I want to use my new Razer Orochi wired/wireless mouse with it, and the ability to configure the mouse.

Normally this isn't something I'd track, but being that my (main) personal home systems have been primarily Windows due to the ease and use of gaming, drivers, Office Suite (and OneDrive), peripherals, other software, etc.

I'm making this switch now primarily due to the (finally) better and wider support available on home Linux based operating systems, covering much of the above. To get things working, it no longer seems like a month-long uphill battle, now that things are a bit more supported, popular, quicker, and well... easier to be honest.

I chose Fedora because, of all of the distros, this one has been the most useful and friendliest as far as supporting the things I care about most on my personal home system, which I listed above already. Also, it uses a familiar format that I'm used to... RedHat-based OSs (mostly CentOS) I manage at work professionally. I tried Korora, but it's just issue after issue. F that.

I've already looked into things before making the decision to switch, as far as support of my hardware and peripherals. The only thing I'm not sure of is my wireless Bluetooth mouse. It works fine wired, but we'll see if I can manage to get the Bluetooth part working. It didn't in the Live-preview, but I didn't spend any time on it.

I think my biggest challenge in all of this will end up being my mouse (hopefully). But we shall see.

Thank you for the very constructive debate about this and for all the time and effort you put into this discussion with me.

My goal was to never argue for the sake of being right, but for the sake of maximizing potential health for everyone.

It looks like the fact is that moderate alcohol consumption is associated with better health and longevity.

I have a lot to read and look into now, and perhaps become a strictly moderate to low alcohol consumer, so long as it's in a healthy drink, to help improve my health in addition to what I already do to be health conscious.

I've started using this for PowerShell and love it. I heard about it in a Podcast a few weeks ago and gave it a go.
Just spreading the word incase it will help anyone else as much as it has been helping me!
Has integrated Git, debugging and extensions.

http://code.visualstudio.com/download

I got Korora 25 Gnome reinstalled and fully updated.

I don't think I'm going to mess with any of the graphics stuff. It's working just fine. If there's any games I want to play, and I can't get it to use the nVidia card on Linux, I'll reboot and fire up Win10.

It looks like Google Chrome runs the best on here, much better and smoother than Firefox does.

Now that I know how to keep Korora stable, and have a stable web browser I can use efficiently, I'll let things simmer a few days and get the original intent of this thread reorganized and written.

@scottalanmiller said in City of Atlanta Shuts Down Due to Ransomware:

@tim_g said in City of Atlanta Shuts Down Due to Ransomware:

@scottalanmiller said in City of Atlanta Shuts Down Due to Ransomware:

Mistakes include... using Microsoft products for critical systems, LAN based security.... the usual

It's not Microsoft's software. It's the fact they aren't patching. There's some nasty shit that can happen to unmatched and outdated Linux systems, too!

But those are less likely to be targeted...

Microsoft products, even patched, put you at far greater risk both of getting infected and of being unable to get skilled staff to deal with the issue once it has happened.

Microsoft products are more highly targeted because more people use Windows on their PCs.

If it was reversed and more people ran Linux on their PCs, then that would be the target, and you'd see people with Linux machines getting infected who never update.

I agree on the skilled staff part.

@scottalanmiller said in Tech Podcast recommendations:

@travisdh1 said in Tech Podcast recommendations:

@EddieJennings said in Tech Podcast recommendations:

TWIT.tv -- in particular Security Now

That's one of the better shows. The problem with that particular one is that Steve Gibson tends to see the tree and not the forest. Don't take his advice on not using the latest version of Windows!

It's not an IT or technical show, right? It's just entertainment for fringe-gadgety people? It's not like it's meant for people that would actually be making decisions.

This is why I really only listen to RunAs Radio for IT stuff... (it's also where I heard about Visual Studio Code). Because it's not really news or entertainment... It's actually useful real-world IT info and knowledge, straight from the horses mouths (in many cases).

The left fan was making a weird noise... kind of like the sound a tiny speaker makes when you get your cell phone too close. Perhaps the bearings or something going? I don't know.

I took the back cover off. The fans were not really dusty at all (surprisingly). I still blew them out with short bursts of breath, carful not to get any moisture in there.

Turned on the computer with the back cover still off, fan still made the noise. Blew some more when the fan was off, it spun the other direction, fan came back on and the noise stopped.

It's been good now for about 10 minutes, hopefully the issue doesn't come back. This ASUS has been great for me so far... thin, light, powerful, stable for the most part.

Remote Desktop web client now generally available
https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/t5/Enterprise-Mobility-Security/Remote-Desktop-web-client-now-generally-available/ba-p/250588

@travisdh1 said in Working Remotely:

@MattSpeller said in Working Remotely:

Dual/Triple screen laptops are coming soon, maybe hold out a bit

Razer Valerie, already here, just expensive. I'd still go with @JaredBusch, buy a monitor locally and leave/donate it when done.

You've got to be kidding me!

I want one yesterday!

@dashrender said in Comcast just told me to call WOW:

Funny, my wife started the cord cutting conversation with me last night.

We should consider ditching cable and just buying Hulu/Netflix/good antenna/HBO Go/Playstation Vue, and we'll be golden.

LOL, all that shit ends up costing the same as cable (except Netflix, we already have it).

We're good with just Netflix and Amazon Prime.

@scottalanmiller said in Miscellaneous Tech News:

@nadnerB said in Miscellaneous Tech News:

Toms hardware encourages people to actively avoid activating Windows
https://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/get-windows-10-free-or-cheap,5717.html

If you don't have a valid key, you can still use Windows 10 on your PC even if you don’t activate the OS. I’ve spoken with colleagues who have used non-activated versions of Windows for years without Microsoft ever shutting it down. In this way, you can have Windows 10 Home or Pro running on your PC nearly flawlessly. Nearly.

Nothing wrong with not activating. Not aware of the EULA requiring that. They aren't suggesting that it not be licensed, just not activated. Very different things.

It does require activation:

So if you are not properly licensed AND activated, you are not authorized to use the software (Windows 10).

I wrote a PowerShell script to run as a task every hour, or as part of another task. I wrote it to work, and it works great and gets the job done. But looking at it, it seems like there's a much cleaner and future-proof way to do it.

In addition to getting this done, I also want to take the opportunity to learn better PowerShell methods where I can as I go, which is the reason for this post.

Imagine if I had to add like 20 or more Firewall rules to this script (which could be possible in the near future)... it will become messy, and the last line of the script may or may not work with so many "-and" statements.

The script:

$FWRule1 = Get-NetFireWallRule -DisplayName "!Allow Sync Fileserv 445 "
$FWRule2 = Get-NetFireWallRule -DisplayName "!Allow Outbound UDP svchost.exe "
$FWRule3 = Get-NetFireWallRule -DisplayName "!Allow Outbound TCP TeamViewer.exe "
$FWRule4 = Get-NetFireWallRule -DisplayName "!Allow Outbound 5938 UDP TeamViewer.exe Local Port "
if ($FWRule1 -eq $null) {New-NetFirewallRule -DisplayName "!Allow Sync Fileserv 445 " -Enabled True -Direction Inbound -Profile Private -LocalPort 445 -RemotePort ANY -RemoteAddress 192.168.4.7 -Protocol TCP -Action Allow -Description "Allows file sync from Fileserv via SMB 445. (FWRule1)"}
if ($FWRule2 -eq $null) {New-NetFirewallRule -DisplayName "!Allow Outbound UDP svchost.exe " -Enabled True -Direction Outbound -Profile ANY -Protocol UDP -Program "C:\WINDOWS\system32\svchost.exe" -Action Allow -Description "Allows Outbound UDP svchost.exe. (FWRule2)"}
if ($FWRule3 -eq $null) {New-NetFirewallRule -DisplayName "!Allow Outbound TCP TeamViewer.exe " -Enabled True -Direction Outbound -Profile ANY -Protocol TCP -Program "C:\Program Files (x86)\TeamViewer\TeamViewer.exe" -Action Allow -Description "Allows Outbound TCP TeamViewer.exe. (FWRule3)"}
if ($FWRule4 -eq $null) {New-NetFirewallRule -DisplayName "!Allow Outbound 5938 UDP TeamViewer.exe Local Port " -Enabled True -Direction Outbound -Profile ANY -LocalPort 5938 -RemotePort ANY -Protocol UDP -Program "C:\Program Files (x86)\TeamViewer\TeamViewer.exe" -Action Allow -Description "Allows Outbound TeamViewer.exe communication via 5938 UDP. (FWRule4)"}
Remove-Variable FWRule1
Remove-Variable FWRule2
Remove-Variable FWRule3
Remove-Variable FWRule4
Get-NetFirewallRule | Where-Object {($_.DisplayName -ne "!Allow Sync Fileserv 445 ") -and ($_.DisplayName -ne "!Allow Outbound UDP svchost.exe ") -and ($_.DisplayName -ne "!Allow Outbound TCP TeamViewer.exe ") -and ($_.DisplayName -ne "!Allow Outbound 5938 UDP TeamViewer.exe Local Port ")} | Remove-NetFirewallRule

You know you have your AD services and redundancy set up well when a DC has been turned off for 6 days, and only found out when a copier somewhere wouldn't scan to email.

This is in a place using a lot of services that rely on an alive DC.

@wrx7m said in Miscellaneous Tech News:

@Obsolesce said in Miscellaneous Tech News:

@Dashrender said in Miscellaneous Tech News:

@scottalanmiller said in Miscellaneous Tech News:

@Dashrender said in Miscellaneous Tech News:

@mlnews said in Miscellaneous Tech News:

Slack isn’t worried about Microsoft’s big Teams push

Slack’s CEO compares Microsoft’s Teams bundling to Google+
Microsoft revealed last week that it now has more than 13 million people using its Microsoft Teams chat software, a milestone that means the app has overtaken Slack.

It's hard not to agree. Actual engagement is the only thing that matters.

Actually, it's businesses being willing to pay for the service is all that matters.

It’s not something you pay extra for since it’s bundled with O365.

You are.

If you want Slack, it's not because you also want Google Sheets or Zimbra email with XYZ. It's because you want Slack because of what business needs it covers.
Slack is $6-$12 per user per month.

If you just want MS Teams (which is a legit need by the way), too bad, you also have to pay for other stuff you may or may not need or use.
MS Teams will cost you $5, which is cheaper than Slack, which does NOT include Office or Office Suite, but does include Exchange... whether or not you need it. To get Office, it's a minimum of $12.50 for Business Premium (< 300 users). Otherwise, you're buying enterprise O365 licenses which just goes up.

We switched from SFB/Teams to slack plus. Waste of money IMO. I didn't like either of them because I don't like chat for work.

I like it because chatting via email is dumb. Email is really abused and extremely inefficient for most of what it's typically used for within most organisations.

What helps a lot in the grand scheme of things, is to first figure out what deeply interests you, what motivates you... what's your passion?

From there, match those answers to a preferred career goal or ideal job.

Once you do that, you can figure out an educational path and career path to get you there.

I see a lot of times people just mentioning what seems like a list of 20 random certs they want to get... but why? If you want to be a C++ programmer, what good are all those cisco sales certs going to do for you? You may as well tell your potential employer at a job interview about the classes you took in 4th grade.

Lol... Had to SS this:

@JaredBusch said in Miscellaneous Tech News:

Red Hat’s crime against CentOS

In the beginning, no one expected to get Red Hat Enterprise Linux for free. The end of CentOS as a free drop-in replacement is no cause for outrage.

In tech, we tend to get angriest when companies take free things away from us. For example, we shake our fist at Google for removing services they once offered for free. And in open source land, we cry out for justice when our free, drop-in replacement for Red Hat Enterprise Linux (namely CentOS) becomes less useful as a way to avoid paying for RHEL.

I don’t know why Red Hat chose to pull the plug on the traditional fixed-point CentOS release, leaving only the CentOS Stream rolling release in its wake. Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols walks through a few possible reasons, and Red Hat CTO Chris Wright gives the company’s rationale. But many CentOS users are furious (just ask Hacker News).

Because if your software company still hasn't adopted Agile framework and DevOps practices, it's time to start. Hopefully this is the start of shitty software / SW companies either disappearing or getting better. Having to rely on a stale OS version isn't good for anyone.