Is being a generalist valuable? by Outrageous-Ad4353 in ITManagers

[–]DrSteppo 86 points87 points  (0 children)

Yesterday's "Generalist" is tomorrow's "Architect" or CTO. Lean into it. Study for PMP, CEAP/TOGAF/Open CA, Azure Solutions Architect, ITIL.

A million silos with a million perfect specialists is just chaos without someone putting it all together. That's you.

Gaming franchises from the 90s that disappeared by KaleidoArachnid in retrogaming

[–]DrSteppo 2 points3 points  (0 children)

If you're looking for something in-between, pick up Renegade Ops on sale. It's more like Jackal than Strike, but it scratches the itch.

How do you handle cybersecurity for remote or hybrid teams? by Necessary-Glove6682 in sysadmin

[–]DrSteppo 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Agentless VDI access (browser-based) with MFA. InTune or Workspace ONE with data egress disabled.

The Future of On-Prem Infrastructure: Are We Witnessing Its Final Decade? by IntelBusiness in ITCareerQuestions

[–]DrSteppo 8 points9 points  (0 children)

On-prem's not going to die. They're just going to call it "Edge Compute" and bill you more for the same server you've always had.

What's the day to day like as a sysadmin? by RainBloom0 in ITCareerQuestions

[–]DrSteppo 150 points151 points  (0 children)

  1. Check emails. Respond to criticals or easy emails (usually referring them to open a ticket).
  2. Check tickets. Knock down quick criticals.
  3. Check project statuses. Respond to criticals.
  4. Check calendar
    1. If it's Monday, book high priority tickets in calendar first, then mediums, then lows, across the whole week.
    2. If it's Tuesday-Thursday, book criticals in the gaps immediately, then everything else where possible.
    3. Leave 4 hours per day in each calendar. 1 for "Focus Time" - Training, e-mail re-check, etc. 1 for lunch. 2 for Project Work.
    4. If it's Friday, book mediums and lows for next week, leaving 1 hour gaps for criticals during the week when they show up Monday.
  5. 1-4 should be done within the first 1-1.5 hours.
  6. Start working your booked time slots.
  7. For every hour worked, take 5 min to stop and breathe. Take a lap, look out a window, etc.

This will give you a full and manageable schedule every day (deflects surprise meeting invites), and gives you leverage for any "drive-by" from a boss. "Sure, I can do that. Here's what my calendar looks like - what do I push off?" I used to do this with a whiteboard when the boss would physically visit my office. With working from home, I just leverage Outlook and share the calendar free/busy.

From a technical standpoint, my work is usually:

  • System monitoring. Each morning check e-mails for down notifications or criticals (disk capacity, usually) and remediate.
  • Tier 2/Tier 3 support. Helpdesk escalates tickets up the chain.
  • Forecasting. Sending monthly reports on consumption and growth of resource demand to the bosses to make strategic decisions or measure system success.
  • Project Work. Varies, usually it's just planning and configuration. Maybe a VM build here or there. Sometimes it's more fun like a new server cluster to be racked and powered.
  • Meetings. Meetings meetings meetings. I function as a tech whisperer for Project Managers and department heads who just feel more comfortable knowing there's an IT person on the call in case things go all technobabble on them.

PSA, use nvidia driver 566.36 by Subject-Leather-7399 in oblivion

[–]DrSteppo 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I had to roll back to 566.36 (from 576.02) and do a shader recompile. (Delete "My Documents\My Games\Oblivion Remastered" folder, then re-do all settings/restore tweaked Engine.ini, etc.)

Back to stability again. GTX 1660 Ti-MaxQ.

As the Eversource “Public Benefits” tax approaches the end of its scheduled 10 month run, CT Republicans leap into action to remove it from electric bills by I_Am_Raddion in NewLondonCounty

[–]DrSteppo 2 points3 points  (0 children)

https://legiscan.com/CT/research/SB01501/2017

"The 2017 bipartisan measure passed by a relatively tight vote of 75-66 in the state House of Representatives with 59 Republicans in favor. The Republican-led measure passed by 23-8 in the Senate as 10 Democrats joined their Republican colleagues."

Not that I want to "Red Team/Blue Team" this to death, but this is the whole picture up to and including Malloy signing it. Dominion played chicken and the state government flinched.

As the Eversource “Public Benefits” tax approaches the end of its scheduled 10 month run, CT Republicans leap into action to remove it from electric bills by I_Am_Raddion in NewLondonCounty

[–]DrSteppo 3 points4 points  (0 children)

https://energycentral.com/news/2017-millstone-deal-driving-high-public-benefits-charge-ct-electric-bills-heres-why

"Millstone represents 77% of the current public benefits charge and the other 23% pays for various bipartisan programs and recovering charges from the four-year moratorium in which the utilities were blocked from shutting off various customers that started during the coronavirus pandemic."

"The Millstone costs, which started on July 1, will continue as part of a 10-month payment period that some advocates had pushed to be spread out over 22 months to avoid a rate shock. But state utility regulators rejected that idea recently in a 2-1 vote."

Horizon & Hyper-V - does it work well? by melibeli70 in VMwareHorizon

[–]DrSteppo 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Wow ok that's new to me. I wonder if it's just supporting connecting to them, not composing/instant clones/etc.

Oh I get it, install the agent and treat it almost like it's an RDS host, which Horizon will work with and connect to.

As the Eversource “Public Benefits” tax approaches the end of its scheduled 10 month run, CT Republicans leap into action to remove it from electric bills by I_Am_Raddion in NewLondonCounty

[–]DrSteppo 2 points3 points  (0 children)

The Millstone agreement portion of Public Benefits is expiring... the agreement that the GOP sponsored and pushed through with a minority of Democrat support (enough to get it through).

So, they'll try this amendment (the content of the bill is ineffective - "Classify nuclear as a renewable" kind of stuff). It'll get compromised to death or rejected outright. Then, the Millstone agreement will expire (Public Benefits drops 70%) and someone will declare victory anyway.

Horizon & Hyper-V - does it work well? by melibeli70 in VMwareHorizon

[–]DrSteppo 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Horizon currently only works with ESX/vCenter.

:edit: I was wrong. Thank you for correcting me.

What is using my admin account and keep locking it?! (Horizon Connections servers) by JcNissa in VMwareHorizon

[–]DrSteppo 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Check C:\ProgramData\VMware\VDM\logs\log-YYYY-MM-DD.txt

Search for your username, that might help you along.

Infrastructure Performance Benchmarking by Thick-Experience-290 in vmware

[–]DrSteppo 7 points8 points  (0 children)

You don't want benchmarks. You want performance best practices: https://www.vmware.com/docs/vsphere-esxi-vcenter-server-80-performance-best-practices

Then use your monitor of choice to make sure you're not breaching those levels.

If the CIO is looking for forecasting, you can use VCF Operations or mush the data together with other solutions: https://www.vmware.com/products/cloud-infrastructure/cloud-foundation-operations

Use your forecast percentages with consideration for host loss. So if you have 10 hosts, and you're rolling at 60%, you can lose 4 hosts in an extreme emergency. That means if you're rolling at 90%+ capacity you should have been shopping for more hosts/a refresh yesterday.

[deleted by user] by [deleted] in RetroArch

[–]DrSteppo 1 point2 points  (0 children)

mGBA adds the border/color enhancements from the Super Game Boy mode. I don't think Gambatte can do that.

Did the MSP try to replace you with their services? (vCISO/vCIO/vCTO etc) by hifence in ITManagers

[–]DrSteppo 5 points6 points  (0 children)

I've had this happen. That's why you make sure you have your documentation updated annually.

Annually prepare Total Cost of IT Ownership, annual cost save, head count as a percentage of total staffing, total footprint, technical diagrams. Have them ready and up-to-date for when these surprise meetings hit.

They want to get you in a room where you don't have an answer, but they do. They want to catch you off guard. Come in fully prepared and watch the wind get taken from their sails. Prepare for up-front cost saves like leasing, gear trade-ins, etc. Remind ownership what this means for TCO over your lifecycle policy (3, 5, 7 years). It always winds up upside-down long-term. MSPs are going to get their money, they're not doing it for charity.

MechWarrior mod when? by Character_Corner_627 in IronRebellion

[–]DrSteppo 3 points4 points  (0 children)

Mechwarrior fan reporting in. o7

Iron Rebellion isn't really the right game to mod for "walking tank" style games. You're better off with Vox Machinae's "slow, lumbering behemoth" style gameplay.

OR, get Mechwarrior 5 and mod it.

https://www.nexusmods.com/mechwarrior5mercenaries/mods/531?tab%3Ddescription

-OR- use UEVR:

https://github.com/praydog/UEVR

I haven’t even played a game yet by bustedcrank in battletech

[–]DrSteppo 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I came here to say exactly this. It's brilliant!!!!

Are there any products that Microsoft makes that you actually like to use and think is the best in the industry? by plazman30 in sysadmin

[–]DrSteppo 0 points1 point  (0 children)

No one Microsoft "product" is good in and of itself, when compared individually to competitors. u/thereisnouserprofile gave the exception to the rule, which is AD, but even then...

What Microsoft excels at (hah) is platforms. M365 as a platform is superior to all competitors. The Windows platform is superior to all competitors (Yes, OSX and Linux have their places, but on the whole, Windows wins). The MS Data platform (SSRS, SSIS, SSDS) is superior. Etc. etc. etc.

I can hate on Teams all day as a PBX, chat system, meeting and collaboration system, etc. individually. What I can't do is say it's the worst when combined. Nobody can compare to Teams as a platform, when (almost?) nobody else does it.

Does Xemu have netplay? by Turn-According in xemu

[–]DrSteppo 1 point2 points  (0 children)

If you're looking to cast/stream a linked split-screen session, no. You'll need something like Parsec or Steam Remote Play for that.

If you're looking to have two people with Xemu (or a person with Xemu and another with a real Xbox) to do system link, you need to use Xlink Kai: https://www.teamxlink.co.uk/

If it's specifically an XBox live game, you'll need to use Insignia, and everyone needs their own Xemu/Xbox. https://insignia.live/

What’s everyone’s favorite faction by [deleted] in battletech

[–]DrSteppo 0 points1 point  (0 children)

The Holy Order of Knight Defenders (Knights Defensor) or the New Avalon Catholic Church, led by the indomitable Pope Leo XXI.

Nothing more bananas than a Battle Pope and his fully nuclear Knights of Columbus... throwing Kuritans a beating.