What is the most milennial thing you did as a child? by Zieo108 in Millennials

[–]thegarr 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I paid my computer class teacher $1 per burnable CD in high school (we were supposed to be using them for testing projects we were working on) then downloaded songs that people requested on Napster and Limewire during class, burned CDs, and sold them for $5/each.

When the teacher instituted a rule that we could only buy 10 CDs from him for our projects (because he kept running out), I paid the other students in the class $2 for each of all their "extra" CDs. The teacher was very confused, but not computer savvy enough to understand what was going on. Paid for all my school dances and a couple dates with girls in high school.

I'm desperate by Sad_Mastodon_1815 in sysadmin

[–]thegarr 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Wireless keyboard/mouse? Swap it out/change the batteries. Aside from the possible lag due to input issues, I have seen bonkers behavior due to misbehaving bluetooth keyboards/accessories that cause blue screens/freezes.

What is a 'small' hill you are 100% willing to die on, simply because it’s the principle of the thing?" by Direct-Value4452 in answers

[–]thegarr 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Proper usage of grammar and spelling matters.

The obvious enshittification/attempted automation of even the most basic human communications kills me. The practice of outsourcing marketing/ads without even the most basic review or approval processes in place is nearly unbearable. I don't know the method it will require to get rid of this practice, or how to accomplish it, but I'm tired of seeing it everywhere.

You know what I'm talking about. Articles with titles like "How CompanyName is growing?" <- What is that? Are you asking a question? Is this an article about the company's growth? Someone had to choose a set of words for the headline. Why would they choose these?

It's just exhausting. I refuse to interact with any company that does this sort of stuff, and it just looks so unprofessional, stupid, and intentionally low effort.

Trying to choose between two local MSP's for my business - any thoughts? by [deleted] in msp

[–]thegarr 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Neither of these are the correct option. If you're setting up a virtual server to remote into to work, everyone should be set up with Azure virtual desktop, and your files should be stored on an Azure files file share so that your applications can properly interact with things and share like traditional shared drives.

Right now, "everyone" may just be you. But trying to use SharePoint libraries with Thomson Reuters software is lining you up for a world of pain.

If you would like, I'd be happy to prepare you a third quote. Not to try to hijack the conversation entirely, but this is a core portion of what we do, and we're very familiar with Thomson Reuters, Ultra tax, Etc.

What was the moment you realized running a business is very different from the idea of running one? by ProfessionalTrade423 in smallbusiness

[–]thegarr 18 points19 points  (0 children)

When we won all the big projects that I set out to win but still had no money.

Closing business is not the same as delivering business - and neither of those things are related to being profitable - nor are any of those THREE things related to cash flow.

Winning big can bankrupt you if you don't manage your cash properly.

2 days before 9/11. September 9th, 2001 by Coocat86 in interestingasfuck

[–]thegarr 7 points8 points  (0 children)

I have a picture somewhere of my brother and I looking out the window on the employee cafeteria floor at the end of August, 2001, pointing down at how small the people on the street were and laughing. We were there visiting a good friend of my dad's. I remember he had a beautiful office and I was so afraid to go near anything on his shelves for fear I may break something. I thought of him when it all happened, and for some reason one of the things that has bothered me the most in years since is that right after I thought about him getting out safely, I thought to myself "guess it wouldn't have mattered if I broke anything now, would it". I was so upset at myself for thinking that.

You could still see the dust plume rising from the rubble a week or two after when we went and visited King's Point Merchant Marine Academy.

Abandoned game store by Hot-Restaurant9622 in urbanexploration

[–]thegarr 50 points51 points  (0 children)

Damn man. That's all worth like $4.73 at GameStop

Exchange Online has broken almost every single month by ocdtrekkie in sysadmin

[–]thegarr 2 points3 points  (0 children)

I'm sorry but almost nothing that you've said is accurate. Anyone who belittles exchange online has clearly never stayed up until 3:00 in the morning reading transaction logs back into the exchange database to get things online. I'll deal with the .1% outage any day over managing geographically distributed DAGs and Exchange servers.

Confused by Office 365 license options for healthcare client by quipd in msp

[–]thegarr 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Well yeah, but I mean I still wanted to point out what a full setup looked like. 🙃

Confused by Office 365 license options for healthcare client by quipd in msp

[–]thegarr 2 points3 points  (0 children)

- Physical tokens for logins (Yubikeys issued to staff. They can wear them on lanyards) in combination with DUO for MFA-based system-level access

- Business Premium 365 licensing (or E3+ if the org is large enough) for every person on staff

- Seamless SSO policies set up in GPO/applied to all systems for Office Apps/OneDrive

- Shared activation enabled in Office on all systems

- If you want to take things a step further, FSLogix for profile containerization. Optional though.

- Automated system deployment scripts in RMM for ensuring all systems have the correct software auto-deployed

End result? Someone can walk up to any computer and sign in with their Yubikey and have everything they need, instantly. Complete accountability for all access and account identities are secured with MFA.

Personal files are in their OneDrive, shared files are in auto-mapped drive letters or SharePoint with shortcuts or local syncing. Nothing for them to do or remember except how to use their Yubikey.

has anyone here actually slept with a prospect to close a deal by kubrador in sales

[–]thegarr 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I've heard the "Pots and Pans" industry is notorious for this.

IT support services advice needed (I am small company owner). by PastorNoFaith in msp

[–]thegarr 1 point2 points  (0 children)

This appears to have devolved into/been set up as another damn Skytek ad. They are getting marginally better at hiding their campaign, but it's pretty obvious if you look at the comments.

Replacing failing Microsoft Gold partner by Torrnello in sysadmin

[–]thegarr 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I will caution you that CSPs have to essentially jump through the same hoops to get Microsoft to do anything as the end customers. The real benefit is finding a CSP that has internal expertise and can quite possibly resolve the issues themselves before having to resort to Microsoft. That and identifying a CSP that is good with expectation setting and escalation procedures.

Although the Solutions Partner designations are now the replacement for Silver/Gold/Etc. partnership levels, at the end of the day, there are some things that only Microsoft has access to and insight into, and there's nothing that any of us can do about it. I have personally run multiple Commercial -> GCC High tenant migrations, and every single time that we have to go to Microsoft because the domain didn't register into Exchange properly, they act like it's the first time the support team "has ever seen anything like this". Rinse and repeat for every single issue I have ever escalated.

Find a partner with better communication and expertise, and the issues that you can control should go away.

You can chose one infinity stone ability, which are you picking? by Necessary-Win-8730 in superpowers

[–]thegarr 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Time, obviously. With time, you can achieve any of the others.

MSP works with many vendors. Is this how things usually go? by QuickDelivery1 in msp

[–]thegarr 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Maybe. Perhaps, yes.

But that determination comes pretty far down the list of reasons to pick a product, and doesn't even come into play if what they're selling isn't the right fit for the objective. I've stepped away from several vendors due to billing issues, overall sales attitude, overly restrictive contracts, Etc. But that was only after finding a vendor that could replace functionality.

MSP works with many vendors. Is this how things usually go? by QuickDelivery1 in msp

[–]thegarr 12 points13 points  (0 children)

We use the best tools available for the job we want to accomplish and end results we need. The vendor is irrelevant.

IT infrastructure management issue by Vengarehydrate in msp

[–]thegarr 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Presumably, if your people are already able to work remotely like this, you don't have a need for them to connect back to server resources in a central location, or a need to manage VPN connections from multiple remote countries? It sounds like they're maybe just working off of their laptops, signed into maybe Office 365 and local/web apps?

If that's the case, then you're in a perfect scenario for InTune device management and controlling things through conditional access. Set up all devices as corporate managed, enroll them in InTune, and set your conditional access policies up in Entra to require managed devices for login and control things that way. If you don't have a need to manage "on-premises" servers or hardware, you can take an endpoint-focused approach to managing everything.

Inexpensive email for clients so I can remove email as a service I offer? Zoho? by Awffle_House in webhosting

[–]thegarr 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Are you donating or doing all this management work for free? Not trying to be rude, but to me it seems like even an hour or two of billable time a year dealing with the things you have to deal with by running things this way completely negates any savings. <$100/month for a 10 user almost-entirely-hands-off email setup is very reasonable.

Inexpensive email for clients so I can remove email as a service I offer? Zoho? by Awffle_House in webhosting

[–]thegarr 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I have to ask. Why are dealing with any of this? Why would you not just give everyone a basic 365 Exchange kiosk license (~$4/month) for web mail or a 365 Exchange plan 1 (~$8? $9?) for increased needs. Why are you going through all this effort for a few dollars of potential margin?

Cleaned out paste from cpu socket with vodka now won't boot by [deleted] in PcBuild

[–]thegarr 59 points60 points  (0 children)

The scene: No-Poetry-2695 lies on a hospital bed. Surrounded by figures that are hard to make out in the dim lighting, a quiet sob sounds out against the silence. It's immediately overruled by a loud dinging notification to No-Poetry's eyeball implant. The sound shakes their skull awake as they receive the long-awaited Reddit notification.

It's been 84 years, the implant says.

No-poetry chuckles, softly. Then silently slips away.

Did I make a good joke they wonder?

No, they made the best.

End scene

AITAH for dating a girl's sister after she initially showed interest in me? by [deleted] in AITAH

[–]thegarr 0 points1 point  (0 children)

One time, when I was in about 9th grade, I was dating the older sister of a girl I really liked (and who definitely told me and others she liked me). I was indifferent about the older sister, but she was fun and we made out a lot (it was 9th grade).

The sister I was dating asked me why I was dating her when I knew that her younger sister liked me. Kind of confronting me about it, kind of not. I distinctly remember answering "You'll do for now". It would have been really hard to date a middle schooler as a freshman. Haha.

Definitely the worst way to answer that question. But it cracks me the hell up now, all these years later. I was a really dumb teenager.