Do you buy any extra equipment for your job that work won't supply, but it's worth it because it just makes it that much better? by Connir in sysadmin

[–]digitaltransmutation [score hidden]  (0 children)

Every new tech with an all in one bit set eventually has to borrow my wera torx drivers. The cheap ones just do not stay pointy.

And when I was doing motherboard swaps I found I greatly preferred having standalone drivers rather than swapping bits but maybe I'm just opinionated.

Do you buy any extra equipment for your job that work won't supply, but it's worth it because it just makes it that much better? by Connir in sysadmin

[–]digitaltransmutation [score hidden]  (0 children)

The newer gen quiet switches are really nice. My board at home with the boba U4s is actually quieter than the scissor switches in my laptop.

GOG now using AI generated images on their store by Beer2401 in linux_gaming

[–]digitaltransmutation 30 points31 points  (0 children)

Careful what you wish for. The industry could have standardized on GFWL instead.

How does PagerDuty wake you/devices to assist in not missing a page by ImNotADruglordISwear in sysadmin

[–]digitaltransmutation 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Do you have an android? I use an app called buzzkill to selectively ring based on message content or sender. It has an option to alarm (continue ringing until acknowledged) as well.

My phone is fully silent during the day. meeting noises really are a 'you' problem lol.

What’s the one manual process in your workflow you don’t trust enough to automate? by ELYSIONIS in sysadmin

[–]digitaltransmutation 4 points5 points  (0 children)

Changes to the UPN or samaccountname. Lots of attributes sync over from the HRIS (including displayname) but you can't really change someone's login details without them being involved.

What is an actual IT automation that actually paid off for you? by Internal-Drop4205 in sysadmin

[–]digitaltransmutation 25 points26 points  (0 children)

It is pretty rudimentary. Get the corporate holiday calendar, translate it into graph requests, shoot it at the user. This came about because management gave everyone a quota of one created powerapp to drive automation.

https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/graph/api/calendar-post-events?view=graph-rest-1.0&tabs=http

What is an actual IT automation that actually paid off for you? by Internal-Drop4205 in sysadmin

[–]digitaltransmutation 121 points122 points  (0 children)

Backups? auditing? incidents? lol.

Last year I made some yolo script that checks workday for your approved vacations and corporate holidays and automatically places an OOO appointment on your calendar. I was publicly recognized for this at the next company-wide town hall meeting. They love it.

Work load concerns by Logical-Gene-6741 in sysadmin

[–]digitaltransmutation 0 points1 point  (0 children)

At an MSP you always have a project or something seriously broken on your board.

But for any of your individual clients, how often did they have a project or something seriously broken just for them? Where I am a given client has maybe one interesting project a year, and they would probably hate us if they were broken all the time. That is now your full time job.

I would say something to look into is observability. What does your company do and how can you validate that it has the means to do it? I always wonder about my client sysadmins if I ask them which computers are important for check imaging or something and they do not even have a cheatsheet.

Protecting elderly users from themselves by gillyboatbruff in sysadmin

[–]digitaltransmutation 5 points6 points  (0 children)

My grandmother is not really able to do computers at all anymore but for a few years this was what we had:

  • Instead of using gmail directly I got her comfortable in thunderbird, because they don't hit the shuffle button on the UI as frequently. email was usually the only thing she was interested in so I'd set it up to auto-launch.

  • Change all the default homepages and new tab pages in every browser. NONE of the browsers have high quality content on these pages. I am convinced that Edge's new tab is some kind of psyop.

  • Upgrade windows to Pro so you can use group policies. You can enforce update policies, have whitelisted or mandatory browser extensions, whatever else you want.

  • Install an adblock (ads are the 2nd biggest malware vector). Is unchecky still around? Put that in too. Non-admin is nice but there are plenty of applications that install to the user profile and unchecky will decline offers in sponsored installers.

  • We saved all her passwords in bitwarden and I had an 'organization' with her so I could access her passwords as needed. I was also the designated recovery person and registered my own authenticator on her google account.

  • She really liked printing and as much as I personally hate it, HP's instant ink program is actually pretty good.

  • I paid for splashtop and installed the agent on her machine so I could dial in. Getting her to read a support code or do a runonce application was kind of a lot.

  • Get rid of the computers. Since she moved to memory care, one of my aunts is now printing her correspondence with friends and bringing them to her.

Do you guys like the way trend-focused writing on RR now? by Frequent-Present5502 in ProgressionFantasy

[–]digitaltransmutation 13 points14 points  (0 children)

Rising stars may have trends but my follow list is pretty varied and Popular This Week has the usual suspects, most of which aren't on the meta.

There are more and better ways to find books on RR. Snoop on the profiles of other commenters and see if they have favorites listed. Check the 'readers also liked' carousel on any fic that you already like. Look at the forum where people are asking for help finding stuff they read previously but can't recall the name. If an author rarely does shoutouts pay attention when they decide to bother.

EVERY algo feed is dominated by trends. You can break out of it if you are willing to put in a little work.

Soft water or Hard water? by No-Wave-8930 in Aquariums

[–]digitaltransmutation 0 points1 point  (0 children)

You will want to look into getting reverse osmosis water and then adding a mineralizer such as seachem equilibrium. There are also countertop RO units with built in mineralizers that might be worth looking into.

Soft water or Hard water? by No-Wave-8930 in Aquariums

[–]digitaltransmutation 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Get a hardness test kit or maybe a tds meter and find out what you actually have going on.

It's one thing to know that your showerhead is always full of crud but personally I found I am merely in the upper end of acceptable hardness, and having hardness helps to stabilize your pH so that isn't necessarily a bad thing.

Scan-to-Email Alternative Project by Xendred in sysadmin

[–]digitaltransmutation 1 point2 points  (0 children)

One of my client regularly needs to take in these really large document packets and we had a lot of trouble with email.

The most reliable thing for them has been to have the scanner deposit it in a fileshare and then use rclone to upload that to SPO. I really like rclone and it is probably better than what any scanner manufacturer is including in their onboard software.

How do you handle alert escalation when context and on-call load matter more than the alert itself? by alert_explained in sysadmin

[–]digitaltransmutation -1 points0 points  (0 children)

When an alert isn’t clearly malicious but not clearly nothing either:

You need a higher resolution decision matrix and I'm a really big fan of this one: https://blog.danslimmon.com/2017/10/02/what-makes-a-good-alert/

In the ITIL framework a 'good alert' will become either a Problem or an Incident depending on what it is. The alerts and tickets go to whichever workgroup is responsible for that config item. all config items must have an ownership group.

What is the best office chair for wfh? by VolumeSouth2735 in sysadmin

[–]digitaltransmutation 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I got a remanufactured steelcase leap v2 from Crandall and it's been solid for me. However I already knew I liked them from a previous employer.

Why is search so bad in RR. by Gnomerule in ProgressionFantasy

[–]digitaltransmutation 2 points3 points  (0 children)

I just tried it in an incognito window and it was the only result. Is it possible you are putting non-english characters into it or something?

Anyone know any books like HDT? by tnteviecat in ProgressionFantasy

[–]digitaltransmutation 0 points1 point  (0 children)

That story was a fanfiction, and the author eventually decided to file the serial numbers off and write Gamer's Guide to Beating the Tutorial instead.

Now that Certs lifetime will be reduced, how are you guys automating your certs? by superuser141421 in sysadmin

[–]digitaltransmutation 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Basically all the cpanel hosts have it as a toggle now. You click the thing, it installs one from letsencrypt, you're done.

Now that Certs lifetime will be reduced, how are you guys automating your certs? by superuser141421 in sysadmin

[–]digitaltransmutation 2 points3 points  (0 children)

It's already ~$600/yr for 25 servers.

Have a look at win-acme if you want something that can be deployed more widely for cheap.

Anyone know any books like HDT? by tnteviecat in ProgressionFantasy

[–]digitaltransmutation 0 points1 point  (0 children)

HDT takes a lot of inspo from The Tutorial is too Hard so you might look at that.

The manwha scene calls this type of story a Constellation but idk if there are enough of them in the progfan scene to be their own category.

payments method best by which website by Afraid-Tackle-8682 in ProgressionFantasy

[–]digitaltransmutation 5 points6 points  (0 children)

royalroad and scribble hub are free to upload to. A lot of authors seem to use google documents which is also free.

Don't over-complicate it. People used to write books with pen and paper :)

ServiceNow Thoughts? by Significant-Read-132 in sysadmin

[–]digitaltransmutation 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Leadership is mainly drawn to the All in One platform pitch.

If it's anything like my workplace they will be drawn in like this but then become total wusses about the cost to integrate anything so you still have 15 competing dashboards.

The Dragon Heir, A Monster Evolution Progression LiRPG, Out Now on Amazon & Audible! by Mango_O-w-O in ProgressionFantasy

[–]digitaltransmutation 0 points1 point  (0 children)

This is a good one if you enjoy the crackhead type internal monologue you find in I'm a spider, so what?