denverpilot
Tied Down
Very few on site. We moved everything important to AWS a while ago. So I just punch a couple of power buttons when someone hollers that their totally non-critical 99% of the time server in the server room is down.
Tomorrow is the first day of new IT career
- Thread starter flhrci
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Very few on site. We moved everything important to AWS a while ago. So I just punch a couple of power buttons when someone hollers that their totally non-critical 99% of the time server in the server room is down.
baboss
Pre-takeoff checklist
Yep, "Fail fast, fail often"
'cept there's supposed to be some learning from all those fast failures...
denverpilot
Tied Down
Yep, "Fail fast, fail often"
'cept there's supposed to be some learning from all those fast failures...
People leave and it leaves with them. And people get old and new people show up with no idea why the old way was how it was done.
You can barely find a developer who codes like the network is unreliable anymore. Notice how badly almost all apps behave when the network sucks?
They don’t know a world of Frame Relay dropping half the packets because it’s having a bad hair day. Which is fine, but it has consequences when that kind of knowledge disappears.
They look at you funny when you say things like, “Never, ever, trust the network stack.”
denverpilot
Tied Down
I was going to do some screenshots but I went to the App Store on an iOS device and actually bothered to click on the “release notes” for various mainstream apps.
I see that Marketing is fully in charge of those now, and even having a release notes feature in a distribution system is useless. LOL.
“Your weekly release! This app is all fixed up now!” Hahaha. No details, no link to a public bugtracker. Nothin’.
It’ll make your teeth white and your hair glossy and it’s so broken we release weekly... hahaha. Wow.
Go read some. They’re hilarious. Some are purposefully entertaining even, but calling them release notes is a hell of a stretch. Ha.
I see that Marketing is fully in charge of those now, and even having a release notes feature in a distribution system is useless. LOL.
“Your weekly release! This app is all fixed up now!” Hahaha. No details, no link to a public bugtracker. Nothin’.
It’ll make your teeth white and your hair glossy and it’s so broken we release weekly... hahaha. Wow.
Go read some. They’re hilarious. Some are purposefully entertaining even, but calling them release notes is a hell of a stretch. Ha.
flhrci
Final Approach
I remember that Facebook did that with their main app for a long time. Said it would be updated weekly. Geesh.
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Well, truthfully, weekly updates of: "Added more advertising", "More ads", "Still More Ads", "Selling your personal information to the highest bidder" aren't really that useful.
flhrci
Final Approach
Nope, nope.
flyingcheesehead
Touchdown! Greaser!
I read the notes pretty much every time. I like to know what new features are there so I can check them out. But, half of the apps just say "bug fixes and performance improvements" every time. I think part of it is that the vast majority of people, easily 90%, have auto-update on and are never going to read the release notes anyway, so why bother writing them?
Some are pretty funny. Yelp tries to put some humor in theirs.
Public bug tracker? Only if it's open source. If it was a software company I owned, I would never have a public bug tracker. No sense telling your competitors and potential customers everything that's wrong with your product! Who would do this?
You are in a good place, man! If you can keep learning useful security related stuff and be able to crank out a good day's work you will always have a job.
Have fun!
denverpilot
Tied Down
Public bug tracker? Only if it's open source. If it was a software company I owned, I would never have a public bug tracker. No sense telling your competitors and potential customers everything that's wrong with your product! Who would do this?
Okay I’d settle for a private bug tracker.
We really got a taste of the new world this last month. Bought some really high end security software and their support portal and ticket system is hidden INSIDE a 90s era forum software package worse than Zenforo here. Ha. It’s awful.
You can’t even open a ticket with that company unless you’re a forum member. I don’t want to read or participate on forums for the price tag they’re charging. But it was fun when I opened a ticket and they pointed me to a one year old forum post with hundreds of people agreeing that their software installer for Windows servers is total trash.
I replied to the ticket, “I see over 100 people with time to waste on your forum have requested that be fixed over a year ago. Please provide a reasonable workaround and a deadline when the installer will behave correctly. Thanks.”
LOL. So frigging stupid how software companies think I want to be chums with al the other users of their software and spend all day chatting with them about how to use it. Nope. Write documentation and answer support questions, that’s why I’m paying you. Hahaha. So lame. Five figures a year for your cloud based rental software service should be able to pay a significant portion of a dedicated support person who I’ll only talk to once a year or less anyway.
“Log into our forums and talk with other users about our garbage!” No. Go stick your forum where the sun doesn’t shine. Here’s a support ticket for you to answer like adults. Sheesh. Haha.
denverpilot
Tied Down
Apps that update weekly in a fully audited environment where nothing is allowed to be installed until it has been vetted... are just peachy. LOL. Even finding HOW to disable the auto-updates for many things is nearly impossible.
Lots of folks don’t know you can kill Chrome and Firefox updates though. XML pricesing and changes on EVERY desktop and laptop to the rescue. Hahaha. Wheeeeee.
If you gotta manage a metric crap-ton or so of Windows machines in an audited environment... PDQ Software... highly recommended. Those guys make stuff that actually works, and that’s rare these days. You want this piece of software installed silently on only machines in these two AD groups, and you want it updated on a schedule to specific versions approved to go? Give me five minutes, I’ll have it set up to start next Monday night along with warning reports if anything doesn’t meet spec.
Macs... good luck. The only thing even close to enterprise management is JAMF or roll your own disgusting messes. Apple’s lack of proper tools for enterprise management of OSX is utterly ridiculous at this point. They have it for iOS. Kinda. It can’t handle two controlled environments like work/personal though. Android can easily. Kinda embarrassingly bad for Apple at this point.
flyingcheesehead
Touchdown! Greaser!
And I bet they have one.
And while wearing my IT hat, I've been dealing with a ticketing system where I was asked to attach six files to the ticket so they could do some testing and get back to me...
Their ticketing system only accepts 5 attachments. No warnings about it either, it just fails when you try to post the 6th one.
I'm using JAMF. The "Now" version is a bit lacking on the Mac. The Pro version seems to do a lot more.
Our business contact at Apple says that iOS is going to support multiple user profiles this fall, and that Mac OS will come with native AD support. That would pretty much remove any remaining issues I have with managing the Macs I'm in charge of, I think.
denverpilot
Tied Down
Haha I meant private between me and them. I want to see the progress or lack thereof on my ticket.
And while wearing my IT hat, I've been dealing with a ticketing system where I was asked to attach six files to the ticket so they could do some testing and get back to me...
Their ticketing system only accepts 5 attachments. No warnings about it either, it just fails when you try to post the 6th one.
Hahaha I feel your pain. What garbage code work.
That was my assessment of JAMF too. Now looks like a half-assed effort to be “cloud” capable — and cheaper. But it doesn’t do the needful. LOL.
Of course it also bugs me to pay $8/mo or whatever we can negotiate to do stuff that should have been in the OS ten years ago just to keep up with their largest competitor in Enterprise class desktops.
That AD sounds promising but they’ve usually screwed that one up by not making it native but just using the ever-broken poor venerable Samba crap. Which always “kinda works” but eventually bites you in the ass for choosing it for any project hahaha.
flyingcheesehead
Touchdown! Greaser!
We're using it in the cloud. I have no need to have an on-prem server for it, since we're pretty small at this point and all but two of our Macs are used by pilots who are rarely in the office.
Apparently it's a thing that one of their engineers just went off and did by himself - Kinda like iMovie! But it worked well enough that Apple now sells it for something like $5500 for a perpetual unlimited enterprise license. Northwestern Mutual uses it, so it's good enough for large orgs I guess. But, they're supposed to be just including it in the OS, probably starting with 10.15.
flhrci
Final Approach
Is JAMF similar to ServiceNow that we are using?
denverpilot
Tied Down
Might have a little overlap but not really. Servicenow’s lane is helpdesk software in the cloud with workflow management.
JAMF is IT management software for Macs. Essentially control software to ensure certain settings and software are on the boxes, or not allowed on the boxes, or the devices must require passwords or must have drive encryption turned on at all times. Stuff like that. Policy enforcement.
Stuff built into Windows since oh, NT... via Domain Controllers and eventually Active Directory, now available as a cloud based version so it even works on mobile/not on the company network devices, without the need for a forced always-on VPN for disconnected clients in areas without Internet.
flhrci
Final Approach
Ah, ok. Thanks. No Macs in the building where I work. I doubt the State uses them at all.