Posts by J. Cook 2193 publicly visible posts • joined 16 Jul 2007
While I don't have a problem with the trademark issue (which is probably stupid and frivolous), I do have an issue with how Matt handled it- slagging another company in public over something that should have just been a "lawyers at twenty paces" issue is IMAO, unprofessional, childish, and uncalled for.
(Bias: I have a problem with the person and how he's been behaving towards the users of one of Automattic's other properties.)
:: shakes fist :: Curse you and your earworms! :D :D :D
(YT link to the song itself- Seven Little Girls Sitting in the Back Seat )
OR THE HEADLIGHTS.
(I know, the obvious question is "WHY DO THE F^&KING HEADLIGHTS NEED CANBUS ACCESS!?!?!!?" Well, dimming, daytime running lights, turn signals, it's all integrated into that one hefty module, and since there's electronics on it, it has to be on the CANbus for the body control module to talk to.)
This is also why replacing the taillight on a brand new, modern Ford F-150 costs several thousand dollars, because not only are they canbus equipment, they are also serial number matched like fricking apple products.
Yup.
I have something of a manifesto on what my ideal next vehicle would be; the problem is that it doesn't exist, at least not in mass production.
It boils down to:
give me buttons for all major controls- do not put it all on a single, multi-thousand dollar tablet that can disable the car by putting a brick through it, or get trashed by ~140 degree heat (Arizona summers, yo.)
NO SUBSCRIPTION FEATURES. The sole exception might be satellite radio, and not even then. Bluetooth is OK for CarPlay.
For the USAians, Adafruit has their MatrixPortal devices which use the HUB-75 standard to communicate with the LED panels, and it runs Micro / Circuit Python.
I have one running, of all things, as a clock with a temperature and humidity sensor on my back covered patio.
I've done this, although not to that bad of an extent.
And yes, the "delete" command within the Exchange Admin Console a) deletes the mailbox by way of deleting the user account; the "disable" command merely removes the mailbox.
And no, there is ZERO confirmation for either of the commands.
Exchange Online allows you to remove a user's mailbox, but keeps their AzureAD account as long as you go in through the appropriate admin console. And if you are like [RedactedCo] and run a hybrid instance, if the account's tied to an on-prem user object, it won't let you delete the user unless you have full write-back turned on, IIRC. (I'd have to go an check on that to be certain...)
While I've not gotten budgeting quotes from the likes of, say, Nutanix, or from our VAR for side-loading enterprise support for ProxMox to us, the renewal quote for our VMWare environment was... brisk- As in "the mafia calls that rate brisk." or "We could migrate to some other platform for that much money" brisk.
Thankfully, I've been hording some of our old out of production servers so that I could make a sandbox to test this migration. :)
Pretty much- Multiply that by... well, most of the small to medium business organizations that went mostly virtual with VMWare, because at the time, it was a safe bet, and you have a LOT of organization's IT directors and CIOs deciding to take the hit and migrate to 'something else', either before their current support contract expires, or just letting it go out of support and taking that risk. (at least for the ones that purchased perpetual licenses like we did.)
It's my opinion (and hot take) that Broadcom decided to alienate the majority of 'small fish' that provide rather a lot of their revenue to go after a small subset of whales that, while they pay a LOT of money, are less than the total amount of the rest of their customer base.
Vmware's cost... is rough.
I asked for a budgetary quote from out reseller several months ago, and it was roughly five hundred US pesos per core for Cloud Foundation. For one year. We have a bit over one thousand cores in the enterprise. (Yeah. Ouch.)
Hyper-V was on the long list of alternatives, but didn't make the short list for the bake-off because of the ridiculous amount of licensing needed. ( per core for the host for the OS, per core for the Hyper-V, and then per core for the guest OS, and if there's a SQL engine running on it, additional cost per core. It's complex enough that even microsoft's own sales reps have trouble with it. (We broke our reps trying to figure out licensing for thin clients many years ago, and that was an experience.)
One of my projects this coming year is to get a sandbox set up in our test lab and do a 'back off' between proxmox and Nutanix as replacements for vCenter.
due to how our company is placed, we can only get the Cloud Foundation product even though we don't use (nor do we plan to use) most of the features it has, and it's MUCH more spendy than what we were paying for support by a factor of ten. It's... insane. It also didn't help that broadcom was/is screwing over VARs with their asinine requirements programs.
It was explained to me like this:
Capex: one time purchase of something, usually needing an ROI or expected usable service lifespan.
Opex: recurring cost to keep something running, like support contracts or cloud services.
The latter can be budgeted against, whereas (at least at [RedactedCo]) we have to ask for Capex money every year. (and the period to collect those requests keeps getting earlier and earlier, I swear to bog...)
The beancounters generally like having those two categories separate in order to run their analysis of why IT keeps costing them so much money and why can't we go back to calculators and paper. /sarcasm
As one of those admins, I can tell you this: We were ignored; we fought it tooth and nail. but ultimately lost for a few reasons, at least for MS Exchange:
1) Security. getting "ZOMG PATCH THIS YESTERDAY" level security exploits on an application that's allegedly supported every month (and sometimes more often!) results in patch fatigue by the admin that's both overworked and underappreciated (and usually underpaid!) having to drop everything yet again to check and deploy a patch to a bunch of servers and deal with the resulting flood of complaints from people expecting 12 nines of uptime. It. Gets. Old.
2) Feature Rot. Seeing features that are uncommon, but used get unilaterally removed or broken by a cumulative update or security patch bundle with no notice or clear upgrade path, and having the next version of the application not have that functionality whatsoever also gets old.
3) and finally, a move to a subscription license for the on-prem application. If we have to pay the same amount for the on-premise email server that we are paying for the Online version, why bother with the hassle of the on-prem version?
We migrated our users once we figured out the 'migration path' for Unified Messaging (removed entirely in Exchange 2019, with Teams taking over that fully) and the ~200 shared voicemail extensions we have left in the environment are getting shoved back to Unity which we used to have before Exchange rolled out Unified Messaging back with the 2007 version. (It helps that Cisco relaxed their pricing for that platform finally.) It also removes the stress of wildcat exploits, emergency patches, and other mitigation strategies and general system administration of the underlying OS.
It also gives me (said overworked admin) time back for the other infrastructure projects I've had to put on the back burner due to the 'drop everything and patch now!!!11oneroneone' monthly hair-on-fire sessions, AND also allows me to tell our support group "user is licensed correctly for email, troubleshoot the client end and provide proof before bugging me with it next time" when people are using an out of date client.
I use the rather excellent Desktop Fusion for managing multi-monitor, (mostly for the wallpaper rotation, but there's a few other nice features that are included in the purchase price) but even it screws up things like showing the clock / calendar on a secondary monitor- there's a border where it should be, but the calendar itself is offset to the right by enough pixels to clip off one of the calendar columns, which is annoying as hell. I should probably swap monitors around on that system, but I'd rather be dipped in bees.
I lay the fault for that with wireless card manufacturers for making their own little applets that either ran from the start menu or the taskbar, and had nothing in the control panel to assist in the days before windows had that functionality built-in. (the transition time with XP SP3 and windows 7 was... aggrevating, because some manufacturers refused to let windows manage the SSIDs, so you had to interfaces trying to set the same thing, and it was utter bollocks.)
Windows 8.1 and windows 10? still have to use the "Network and Sharing" control panel if you want to manually set IP addresses or other information with the NIC, along with some of the more esoteric wireless configuration options like certificate authentication and such.
Or, say, un-mute a mic that Windows 10/11 has decided to mute for reasons not forthcoming. that toggle isn't in the settings app either, which is *quite* frustrating when it does that.
(the only way to fix that one is to go into the Sound control panel, select the device in question, go into it's properties, click on the Levels tab, and unmute it from there.)
Or when windows just randomly decides "oh, you are connected to a 4K TV? I'll make the display 1080p and 300% size, so you have icons that are 10 cm wide and tall, until you go back in and change the resolution back to where it was at the last boot, and then futz around with the icon/UI zoom to get it back to something resembling what it was.
I could go on, but you get the idea.
Yup. it's a little known standard called BTX. Dell and Gateway (at least until they went away) used that form factor for most of the Pentium 4 builds. (Another case of "Blame Intel"...)
Apple liked to do something similar with their LaserWriters waaaay back in the late 80's and early 90's- it used a normal Canon-type print engine, but Apple flipped the VCC and ground pins for the formatter, meaning you had to buy their replacement parts instead of ones that would work in the same type engine.
... The year... is 2018, and we've just received some brand-spanking new servers (Cisco UCS C-series) for our enterprise backup application. Two sets were ordered, one for the main data center, and one to act as a replica for our DR site. They were configured identically, and they cost us roughly 50 thousand US kopeks for the pair. (read: NOT. CHEAP.)
The discovery that the hot-swap power supplies for these servers were auto-ranging 208-240 VAC instead of 120-240 VAC was exceptionally annoying, and set back the project by a month or so as 120VAC supplies were ordered.
We've also had times where we will tell our vendors "Our datacenter uses 240 volts- MAKE SURE YOUR GEAR SUPPORTS 240 VOLT POWER" and they go "what?", or they'll just bring stuff in and start plugging it in, which results in the aforementioned snap, crackle, and pop as the power supply craps itself. (Technically, it's 208, but if we tell them that, they get even more confused because even their technical people are the line of "we plug it in and it works, right?" )
Heh.
the video conferencing kit we have at [RedactedCo] for the conference rooms are (technically) managed by our support and A/V teams, but since these things talk to MS Teams, I get roped into trying to support the stupid things, which is a non-starter because I've not been handed any paperwork for them and have zero clue how to use one, outside of 'make sure the service account has the appropriate license, and is enabled and the password is in the department's password vault'.
I should probably carve out some time and play around with the one we have in the office with one of the people who actually support the thing, so I can at least use it correctly. :D
Indeed; I have, sitting and awaiting for me to get the appropriate plugs for, two nice 6 foot length of 12 gauge, 3 conductor cable- they have ten amp connectors on them now, but I need the 20 amp connectors, because I occasionally need short (read: two or three foot) extensions, and those are surprisingly expensive to buy pre-made.
something something scented markers. :D
and technically, I've used whiteboard markers to get rid of marks made with a 'Sharpie' permanent marker- apparently, the chemicals in the dry-erase markers will lift up and remove the ink from the sharpie markers.
(I also have a bottle of 91% isopropyl used for cleaning things to clean the whiteboards- it's more or less the same stuff as the cleaning fluid and loads cheaper.)
Indeed; the first I heard of the person was back when he was going by Kim “Kimble” Schmitz when Attrition.org was still keeping track of such charlatans.
His antics are, at this stage, not remotely entertaining or amusing- if anything, they are pitiful.
Additionally, if he's holding out on trying to ask the Orange Menace for a bribe paid pardon, Mr. Tiny Hands doesn't work like that- you have to give him something of significant value first- something that would utterly ruin you otherwise. (Just ask Rudy Giuliani how well that worked out.)
In particular, every single Android phone I have ever owned has Just Worked(tm). Have you ever tried one?
Yup; Had a few of them until mid 2015, when it got replaced with an iPhone, because for no apparent reason, it would show 4 bars of signal, but calls placed to it would go straight to voicemail. You know, the one thing that a cell phone is supposed to be able to do reliably. I mean, seriously! It says it right in the name- cell phone.
Performing a hard restart on the phone resulted in a deluge of text messages, 'missed call' notifications, and voicemail notifications, because the radio's software stack had frozen on it, and Verizon (*spits*) along with the phone vendor (Samsung (*spits again*)) decided in their infinite wisdom that keeping the device up to date was too hard a task for them to deal with past the 13 month mark on a phone with a two year refresh cycle.
My next work phone was an iPhone and I've been on that platform since, because my expectations for it are simple:
It needs to RECEIVE AND PLACE CALLS (and text messages) WHEN IN RANGE OF A TOWER (which is ~98% of the time)
Everything else on it (the MFA apps, the camera, the email, the hot spot) is secondary.
Yes. Excellent hardware specs and end user build quality, decent service life, but with the expectation that if it breaks or needs repair, it'll be eWaste because...
shite firmware and software that uses the most contrived, convoluted, and asinine reasons to tie things like consumable parts (read: batteries) to the hardware, and abusive practices against anyone not apple authorized repair centers (which have their own issues).
I've already made a rant about how shitty Apple's iTunes client is on a windows machine, I'll not repeat it here, except to say that there's not a lot of 'decent' audio management tools on any platform, period.
(reminds self to pop the old iPhone 8 out of it's case to see if it's time to look into a battery swap on the thing)
Technically, it is, but when you have a couple billion sitting around for lobbyists and lawyers, you can apparently do whatever you want, including lobbying to have the monopoly and RICO laws tweaked so as to not apply to you.
Also: This is why I tend to not use IOS apps unless there's absolutely zero reason otherwise, because 95%+ of them are essentially reskinned browser sessions. Patreon is now finding out what tying your platform's financial success to the whims of a megalith that's actively known to pull this crap. (And they should have known better, seeing as they went through the whole adult content debacle with their payment processor a couple years ago, but that's a separate and altogether more obscene rant.)
See also: Tumblr, 2018 porn ban, and every other site that used to host adult material but then wanted to get an app on Apple's store.
Yup. been doing it with the few systems we still have on-prem at [RedactedCo], if only to make Internal vs. external DNS resolution product a consistent UX.
I'm still mildly cheesed off that ICANN didn't reserve out .local as a TLD, because for a while Microsoft was suggesting that as a 'best practice' for Active Directory domains that would never see any form of public internet. (which makes for a hellua fun time when reconfiguring a forest that's been around since AD was first rolled out for talking to AzureAD.)
To answer both you and Anon:
One Drive is Sharepoint, just with a different front end on it. on the back end, it's the same dumpster fire. the search functionality doesn't a) know the difference; or b) can't be configured to be more selective.
The Outlook client on mobile? The Search function also trolls through sharepoint and OneDrive. Dumpster fire, I'm telling you.
For Outlook search on the desktop? It's certainly not reliable unless you happen to remember exactly what you are looking for and get lucky.
For at a good 30 years now ICE cars have not felt the need to mark their territory every time you park up
Heh. We are in the "hot and HUMID" season here in Arizona, and if the car has air conditioning, it's marking it's territory with a puddle of condensed water when it's initially parked after a bit of driving about.
However, I'm pretty sure that you meant that it was dripping oil, and yeah, that is a sign of an issue that needs to be addressed. :D
Then there's always the trap card of "Does this make me look fat?" or variants thereof, because there's absolutely no way to get out of that one unless the person asking is known as a joker.
(the only correct answer to that is running away screaming, as mentioned here: http://freefall.purrsia.com/ff300/fv00211.htm )
*yawn* wake me up when those are actual practical things that can be built without it forever being in the prototype phase, or talk.
Fusion has been "ten years away" for the past thirty.
SMRs might be in production by the end of the 2020's, or maybe the 2030's- Magic 8 ball says "uncertain". Same with a modern PBR varient.
Making hydrogen for fueling a datacenter is not *quite* zero-sum; it's being toted as more of a green energy source compared to regular means of generation.
Solar and wind power is flat out not reliable enough for datacenter operations.
That sinkhole will be the many 1U pizza box servers to run their apps in a de-virtualized world, at least in my industry. (each application is expecting a database server and an app server. while we've forced the vendors to share database servers for the most part, several of our LOB applications are (badly implemented) clusters of multiple app servers, interface servers, and database servers. )
We did that for a number of years pre-virtualization.
:: wanders off humming "Circle of Life" from "The Lion King" ::
I hate to spoil your day, but....
OneDrive (And the file sharing functionality in Teams) is Sharepoint, albeit with a different front-end / UI as an intermediary. I share your pain, though.
To use a poor comparison, the admin interface for, Azure AD (Now Entra ID, at least until it's renamed again in a month or two) is a shining paragon of usability compared to the admin interface for OneDrive and Sharepoint. To call it a trash fire would be insulting to an actual trash fire.
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