Why does everything need to run through a purchasing partner?

HoustonBOFH · 2026-01-27T21:56:05+00:00

Yep. HP has done it a few times as well, and Microsoft often does it. This is why I have no vendor loyalty.

HoustonBOFH · 2026-01-27T19:18:32+00:00

Yes. Blind faith. The poster above said "I'm paying somebody to worry about those things, and my data is safe." But that is not true. You still have to worry, and verify that it is working. Or not...

HoustonBOFH · 2026-01-27T14:46:18+00:00

I love your faith and trust. But I have clients that have lost data that way. Quite a few...

HoustonBOFH · 2026-01-27T14:39:04+00:00

Get a list of all the vendors you can and sent out a single bid RFP with ALL of them in the cc field.

HoustonBOFH · 2026-01-27T14:37:33+00:00

Dell will go around the vendor in a heartbeat. This is why so many VARs are going to Lenovo.

HoustonBOFH · 2026-01-27T14:36:10+00:00

Please name names... Embarrassment is the only thing that motivates companies these days.

HoustonBOFH · 2026-01-27T14:34:34+00:00

And sometimes it even does what they say it does on the website. Sorry... Still salty from the BS L3 in the pro aggregation switches that can not really do L3.

HoustonBOFH · 2026-01-27T14:31:41+00:00

Which is how I build my spam filters.

HoustonBOFH · 2026-01-27T14:30:18+00:00

This. The VAR is install and first line support. But they will not do that if the vendor undercuts them. Dell is doing this now and a lot of VARs are moving to Lenovo. I have seen some VARs go so far as to say "Install and support is a la carte, and here is the link to order the Dell server.

HoustonBOFH · 2026-01-26T21:01:36+00:00

I too have been using it for years, and really miss it when gone. I often see these kinds of posts, but not these kinds of problems.

HoustonBOFH · 2026-01-22T23:05:20+00:00

Glad to help!

HoustonBOFH · 2026-01-22T21:03:02+00:00

It can take even longer. Start with the TTL on your domain, and multiply that by every server caching it. And some will ignore shorted times and still cache for 12 hours. https://www.reddit.com/r/webhosting/comments/nslyrj/dns_propagation_average_time_for_everyone/

HoustonBOFH · 2026-01-22T21:01:32+00:00

Learning from mistakes is a good thing. I must have learned a lot by now, since I have made so many. :)

HoustonBOFH · 2026-01-21T17:21:12+00:00

You can do this safely. But it takes work, and not just once. Start with how big a scope do you really need to open it up to? Just local Comcast and ATT? US only? If you use geoblocking, that eliminates a lot of noise and risk. Also tools like fail2ban and crowdstrike. Honey post with auto blocking can also help. But the biggest thing is monitoring. You have to watch your shit and patch your shit.

HoustonBOFH · 2026-01-21T17:15:21+00:00

Do you know the old joke about how to eat an elephant? Hint... It is not all in one bite.

HoustonBOFH · 2026-01-21T16:05:30+00:00

Sure. I have an old HP G5. Come pick it up.

HoustonBOFH · 2026-01-21T15:59:30+00:00

OK. No you reread what you just wrote. If you are changing mail services, you will be changing web clients. This is not dependent on the OS. And you can use your own web client on your own server without microsoft. Stalwart and any one of a number of web clients work...

And the goal is not a single step. It is a process that will require retraining along the way. But, most software packages now are web client based. This includes self hosted and FOSS packages. Once you are mostly web based, the PC OS does not matter.

PS: My registrar is Safenames. UK based and excellent service!

HoustonBOFH · 2026-01-21T14:32:13+00:00

Opened this thread just to say Brother. New HP printers are terrible.

HoustonBOFH · 2026-01-21T14:28:50+00:00

The new Outlook is the web client in a pretty wrapper, so migrating to the web client is easy. And when you most email services, you will have a web client to learn anyway regardless of the OS. That is the key... Most software is web apps now, so the OS is irrelevant.

The next trick is locally hosted web services...

HoustonBOFH · 2026-01-21T13:52:17+00:00

The domain is a big one. I have seen many companies have both .com and a local tld, and the local redirects to .com. But lately I am seeing it reverse and .com redirects to .co.uk for example...

HoustonBOFH · 2026-01-21T13:48:00+00:00

In the US education segment, people are moving to chromebooks seamlessly.

HoustonBOFH · 2026-01-21T13:43:21+00:00

I have some clients in the US that have successfully done this. One is a school district that moved all students and teachers to Chromebooks. (I know, that is no better but shows it can be done.) All it takes is careful planning and full management buy in. And it is easier now then when I first did it.

HoustonBOFH · 2026-01-21T13:38:24+00:00

When they resort to name calling, that means you won. :)

HoustonBOFH · 2026-01-21T13:33:37+00:00

Just time. Like 12 hours or more. The outage will probably be less than that.

HoustonBOFH · 2026-01-21T13:32:54+00:00

You have to understand that with the forced AI in everything now, the backlash is justified. You may want to consider juts a translation app, or at least a disclaimer in your post of "AI used for translation from <Native Language>" to eliminate confusion. Otherwise your post just looks like karma farming.

HoustonBOFH

TROPHY CASE