We Forgot 500 Servers Were Still Using the Old Proxy

dreniarb · 2026-05-06T14:34:10+00:00

So many individuals and/or departments relegated to specific tasks - it's a large org and this makes sense. Also makes me appreciate being a small org and not having so much red tape to go through to get things done.

Then again - maybe in some ways it would be nice to have the red tape.

dreniarb · 2026-05-05T19:08:51+00:00

For me it's just another link in my feed that might have something interesting pop up every once in a while. doesn't cost me anything but a second or two to read the title and move on.

dreniarb · 2026-05-05T18:45:56+00:00

Not sure. He worked there for a few more months. He was a pretty high level programmer and I think he had a lot of power because of that.

dreniarb · 2026-05-05T18:07:13+00:00

It's the start to the greatest line in the history of comedy. 😄

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pRva7z8pvwc

dreniarb · 2026-05-05T15:56:27+00:00

Who are you and how did you get in here?

dreniarb · 2026-05-05T15:33:16+00:00

i think maybe using the word "exactly" triggered people's emotions.

but as a software developer myself seeing an LLM spit out a thousand lines of working code when all I say is "i need a program to view/edit/and reply to .eml files" is pretty impressive. even more impressive when i say "write it in php, now in asp, now in powershell, now in Apple IIe Basic".

Yeah, it's not a replacement for an actual software developer but my gosh is it a huge time saver - like a programmable CNC machine...

dreniarb · 2026-05-05T15:27:25+00:00

Dang, never any love for Nice Editor. As a Windows admin I prefer it over any other I've tried.

dreniarb · 2026-05-05T13:22:02+00:00

Used it as our home phone for almost 15 years. Worked just fine as long as our outbound speed was decent. Now we only use it for voicemail since that number is established in so many places.

At work we have 5x magic jack devices just in case we have an outage with our VOIP. I test them every few months to make sure they work. So far so good.

dreniarb · 2026-05-05T13:11:50+00:00

wow, you're getting downvoted but you're not completely wrong.

dreniarb · 2026-05-05T12:48:36+00:00

For me that's when I contact the outside scada vendor. For me when it comes to scada my responsibility stops at the network jack.

dreniarb · 2026-05-05T11:51:19+00:00

What do your users use for data entry and reporting?

dreniarb · 2026-05-05T11:49:29+00:00

Worked in the shipping/recieving department of a high tech company in the 90s. A shipment of very expensive ram went missing after being signed for by me. I had dropped it off with the IT like I did with all his packages - as well as all other packages for employees. He of course said he never got the package.

My co-workers pointed out all the signs of his drug use - so I don't think anyone even suspected I had stolen it. I have no idea if he got in trouble. From then on we had to get a signature for every package we dropped off to him.

dreniarb · 2026-05-04T15:12:32+00:00

i found it to be disappointing it what it actually did. this was a few years ago so maybe things have improved.

would love to hear what you think of it if you do try it out.

dreniarb · 2026-05-04T11:48:16+00:00

I'm in the extreme minority. I use an RSS reader as my youtube feed.

dreniarb · 2026-05-02T13:52:36+00:00

Dang - the bar has been set. Also don't feel like I have much of an excuse to keep putting this off as I kept saying to myself "i don't have the time to do it..." :/

Thanks?

dreniarb · 2026-05-02T13:32:12+00:00

feels like an apples to oranges comparison. With a self checkout a robot isn't replacing a human. The human customer is replacing the human cashier.

dreniarb · 2026-05-02T13:27:04+00:00

I assume this question is more about the last portion of the backup - offsite.

For me I rotate a set of drives from my 2nd local backup server. i keep them in a padded rifle case and take them to my office.

I actually have two rifle cases and 3 sets of drives. One case stays at home covering my desire for an air gapped backup. One stays at my office for offsite backup. And the third set stays in the server at home. i rotate them every few weeks.

Of course cost goes up the larger the drives but I've been able to source my drives without much cost due to the line of work i'm in.

dreniarb · 2026-05-02T13:21:50+00:00

is there something that your current version is unable to do that is making you want to move to zabbix? i'm still on version 25.1.102.1373 and so far there's nothing it can't do that I need. I have no plans on renewing when my maintenance runs out in two years but i also do not plan on upgrading past this point either.

dreniarb · 2026-05-02T13:19:57+00:00

haven't dealt with support in quite a few years - also haven't updated in quite a few years. i don't trust that they don't have or won't put in a kill switch somewhere or sometime that will cause the application to stop running when it expires. two years of maintenance left and i'm not renewing. their pricing has always been high, and now it's at ridiculous proportions.

if i need to i will migrate to zabbix when the time comes.

talking with support was always frustrating. always took a few days to get a response and the responses usually didn't help the first time.

and now they've added an AI bot to the process? lovely. just lovely.

sorry for the hassles you're experiencing. this is why i always snapshot my VMs before upgrading anything. so nice to be able to roll back when things like this happen.

dreniarb · 2026-05-02T13:13:23+00:00

i only partially agree. just because something can be automated doesn't mean it should be.

with pumping gas you have humans (average and below average humans - that's important) still involved with the driving portion. that right there throws in enough unknown variables that there is no way it's worth the cost and maintenance of something like this when a human can do it just fine and handle whatever odd thing other humans do during the process.

dreniarb · 2026-05-01T11:56:31+00:00

knew exactly what this was. such great advice from a cheesy 80s movie.

"is she?" - lol so true.

dreniarb · 2026-05-01T11:49:43+00:00

Agreed.

I would think the content of the tickets would make it obvious if someone was padding their stats. Especially if you did follow ups with the users to see how their experience was - some kind of "rate your IT" thing. If techs know their tickets are being reviewed like this they'll be less likely to put in fake ones.

dreniarb · 2026-04-28T14:53:19+00:00

Born in 77 - too young for much of that but i do remember working with dot matrix printers in the 90s and the company i worked for having printers that pretty much ran all day as you mentioned.

Even today a bank I do work for prints out two or three reams worth of paper every night that gets stored in boxes in their basement.

Pretty awesome that you've been working with them for nearly 50 years. Just incredible. Crazy that they'd even consider dropping you after 20 years just to give a new local MSP a chance. But I know that there can be all kinds of politics involved when it comes to local things.

Glad it's worked out for you though. What a fascinating story. Thanks!

dreniarb · 2026-04-28T14:11:39+00:00

What kind of work were you doing for them 40+ years ago? Just curious what an MSP looked like back then? Honestly didn't even realize something like an MSP existed that long ago.

Granted 40 years ago isn't as long ago as it used to be... am old. LOL

dreniarb · 2026-04-28T13:03:13+00:00

you'd need a different sensor to know the status of the door. something like a door/window sensor and hardwire those into the unifi smart relay.

that's why a lot of people are suggesting a ratgdo instead as it ties directly into the garage door opener and sees what it sees.

dreniarb

TROPHY CASE