Posts by DR_EVIL30564

Broadcom terminates VMware's free ESXi hypervisor

Re: Oh well

as of version 8.1 released a month or two back for ProxMox, it now has an import wizard you can use to import VMware VMs onto your ProxMox Host. I have been using it with excellent results as we migrate VMs running on our current three node VMware Vsphere cluster over to our new ProxMox cluster.

I have only had one Server 2012 VM that I couldn't migrate, it kept blue screening when I would try to install the QEMU guest agent onto the VM after the migration was finished. It was slated for a rebuild to a newer supported version of Windows Server anyways, so I will build a new VM then migrate the hosted application over to the new server.

You're wrong, I'm right, and you're hiding the data that proves it

"Linux Binaries"

I guess that's as good of a description as any for binary files downloaded from newsgroups

Do not touch that computer. Not even while wearing gloves. It is a biohazard

Small Town U.S.A AKA the tale of the Piggly Wiggly porn guy

back as a one of my first IT jobs I worked in a warehouse as a refurbishment technician / computer repair technician for a company that bought tractor trailer loads of computer equipmentfrom companies who needed someone to manage the removal of the no longer in use equipment that was willing to pay them for it to take it off their hands. This was in the early 2000s for a time of frame reference before 9/11 happened.

One of the things our company did in addition to reselling equipment to other companies to refurbish and resell (the choicer bits), was that we would take decent used equipment that wasn't worth enough to make any money off by reselling to other companies, and having me refurbish the machines, reload a legal copy of Windows 95 or (98 SE depending on how old the equipment was), and then put it out in the front show room for sale.

We had a gentleman come in and buy one of the cheaper Windows 95 machines and a 56K dial up modem so he could get on the internet with it. About 2 months later he brought it back saying something was wrong. The machine stank to high heaven of cheap nasty smelling cigar smoke, and the case was coated in tar residue.

Before I did anything else I had to break out the bottle of black lightning degreaser spray to use to spray on the removed case cover to clean it up, then I had to remove the fan wearing rubber gloves and wipe it down with the same degreaser to remove as much of the stink and residue as I could. After that ordeal was done, I then set about working on the issues he was complaining about. The machine was infested with malware that was downloaded from the gay porn websites that were showing up in the history of the browser, I verified the guy didn't need to keep anything and wiped the machine clean and reloaded it again for him, and put some free antivirus on it and advised him to not pay any attention to any pop ups about needing to install software to properly view a site. The guy paid his bill and took the machine home.

You guessed it, about a month later it was back, stinking to high heavens again, covered in tar residue. The guy demands to know why his machine keeps getting messed up, without commenting on the choice of porn, I very carefully advised that the stuff I was removing appeared to be related to the adult web sites being visited on the computer. Guy turns red, begins saying that he has been letting his nephew use his computer, and it must have been him. It came back three more times for work, the last time was right before the company went out of business after dell killed the refurb market along with the U.S. economy slow down after 9/11 happened. That last time I got a potpourri sachet and zip tied it inside the case in front of the case fan, wiped the case down, didn't bother cleaning inside the case. I imagine the next tech he took it to got a good laugh about the efforts to make the computer smell better.

The guy was the butcher at our local Piggly Wiggly supermarket. So henceforth thereafter, whenever we were discussing him in the shop, he was known as the Piggly Wiggly porn guy.

BOFH: I get locked out, but I get in again

Re: ChatGPT

I asked Gemini to write me a long story about the BOFH and got this

The fluorescent lights buzzed a low drone in the server room, casting an eerie green glow on Simon, the BOFH. A particularly dense email from Doris, the Marketing Director, sat on his screen, demanding immediate action on "slow internet speeds hindering our brand synergy." Simon snorted. Brand synergy. Right.

Suddenly, the network went haywire. Printers began spewing gibberish, screens flickered wildly, and a chorus of panicked user calls flooded the help desk. A virus, Simon thought, his fingers flying across the keyboard. But this wasn't your average malware. This one seemed to target specific users – the ones who'd annoyed Simon the most. Doris's inbox was flooded with spam emails singing the praises of rival companies. The CEO's calendar displayed a series of appointments with clowns.

As Simon delved deeper, he discovered the culprit was none other than the Pimply-Faced Youth (PFY), his perpetually acne-ridden apprentice. Turns out, PFY had gotten hold of a script he found online, a "harmless prank" according to him. Except, the script had a hidden payload that targeted specific user profiles.

"You absolute donut!" roared Simon, sending a rogue stapler clattering across the floor. PFY, wide-eyed and sweating, looked like a cornered hamster. This was bad. Really bad. Simon knew he had to fix the mess before the CEO discovered his clown calendar.

He spent the next few hours in a caffeine-fueled frenzy, battling the virus and its after-effects. He rerouted emails, sanitized infected systems, and even managed to rewrite the CEO's calendar with "important meetings" (which were actually just reruns of 80s sitcoms playing in Simon's office). When the dust settled, the network was back online, (mostly) unscathed.

But Simon wasn't done. He needed revenge, sweet revenge. He subtly reconfigured Doris's computer so every time she typed the word "synergy," it autocorrected to "hamster." He set up an automatic email forwarder for the CEO, directing all emails from Doris to a spam folder titled "Marketing Nonsense." Finally, he planted a whoopee cushion on the CFO's chair, just for good measure.

The next few days were filled with delightful chaos. Doris fumed about her "synergy" problem, the CEO wondered why he kept getting spam from clowns (a side effect of the virus Simon "accidentally" left unfixed), and the CFO blamed his sudden flatulence on a dodgy curry.

Simon, meanwhile, enjoyed a smug satisfaction with his work. He'd not only fixed the mess, he'd also taught a valuable lesson – don't mess with the BOFH. The server room echoed with a low chuckle as he popped open a cold beer, the flickering lights seeming to dance in approval.

Official science: People do less, make more mistakes on Friday afternoons

We call them "Read Only Fridays"

The only stuff that gets worked on for IT on Fridays are helpdesk type requests or emergency situations that need to be fixed ASAP. We don't change the network, do any work on server upgrades or patches, new server deployments, etc.

Basically, it is a do not do any work on a Friday that you might be required to fix or undo if it goes sidesways over the weekend policy.

Where are we now – Microsoft 363? Cloud suite suffers another outage

still having issues with shared calendars not being available for some O365 users

We were having issues all last with O365, a couple of people were dead in the water and couldn't sign into office 365 at all so they couldn't work. Another annoying side effect for all the problems was shared calendars were not showing up for people. I assumed this was sorted out over the weekend, but I have already had two people complaining about the calendars again today.

Me explaining that It's an ongoing issue that is only affecting some users is getting old, folks want me to fix the problem for them.

My Boss is talking about needing to move our support guy into an office to work because he's too loud out in his cubicle and folks are complaining about him. One of the discussed solutions is to move me into the server room since we have a desk setup there. I did work as a Data Center Administrator for a managed hosting company for years, so I am used to the noise levels around running servers, switches, and firewalls. It might not be such a bad thing if I move in there, people will certainly leave me alone and let me do the network administrator duties I am supposed to be working on.

Microsoft, if you want folks to pay for and use Microsoft 365 / Office 365 how about doing what is necessary to keep things running smoothly please.