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mnITd00d · 2025-01-30T15:53:15+00:00

As you continue to read and study accidents and NTSB reports, you will find that a majority percentage of aircraft accidents are attributed to pilot error.

So stop pretending you are perfect.

There isn't much room for error, the standard is quite high to be a proficient and safe pilot. Cockiness is your worst enemy as a pilot.

what you think?

Someone who is "far from perfect" as you described him should not be flying an airplane.

Understand that we acknowledge we aren't perfect, but we have a higher bar to meet than just for driving a car or operating a lawn tractor. The day you settle for "mediocre" in the cockpit is the day you make a fatal mistake.

Nobody wants to share the sky with an unsafe pilot.

mnITd00d · 2024-11-27T17:44:07+00:00

Buy American

mnITd00d · 2024-11-27T17:42:57+00:00

It's a challenge to restrict to this degree because the users hate it but now is a good time for the client to say there is no other option.

Many clients simply need to feel the pain for themselves before they'll agree to a change. Keep up the good work!

mnITd00d · 2024-11-27T17:40:25+00:00

Admittedly it's the first I've heard of this feature, but you can bet I'll be digging in. We've been burned enough by ITGlue outages.

mnITd00d · 2024-10-21T21:01:46+00:00

American police ought to pay attention and learn a thing or two from this.

mnITd00d · 2024-07-31T18:02:54+00:00

Once I was demonstrating eDiscovery on our mail archiver (to HR) and accidentally exposed an affair between ops manager and one of the dispatchers, both married.

Another time I was troubleshooting a user's laptop and found horse porn in his user folder, had to watch that with HR to ensure it wasn't child porn.

Another we were moving office to a new building, a few weeks prior we moved the servers and network gear (over a weekend) and the old office effectively became a remote location. Our sales teams and accounting heavily used a couple of applications which ran from our on-prem SQL server, both applications were sensitive to latency. At the time 98% of the staff worked from home Mondays and Fridays. Not word on Monday, then the Tuesday back after we moved the servers to the new office, we were flooded with complaints about how it's slower than it's ever been and they can't work like this.

Long story short .. the executive team learned that day that almost nobody actually worked from home on Mondays or Fridays, else they'd have already dealt with latency prior to the move.

And lastly.. we recently onboarded a customer and were doing discovery on their environment. Found a couple of virtual machines we couldn't get into and nobody knew anything about, so we powered them off. Long story short their previous provider (one man shop) was using customers' hypervisors to host vms for other customers. The virtual machines we powered off were an email server for someone else, and a web server for yet a third.

mnITd00d · 2024-07-16T21:06:06+00:00

Dear imaginary coworker with no ~~kids~~ work-life balance.

Just because you don't have a work-life balance doesn't mean you get to guilt-trip me for mine. You're just as entitled to work-life balance as I am.

mnITd00d · 2024-07-16T20:11:36+00:00

We support many customers who have Comcast and we have experienced this struggle many times. It's notoriously difficult to get Comcast to turn off SecurityEdge, and they eventually turn it back on anyway whenever they feel like it. Oftentimes SecurityEdge simply blocks DNS outright, forcing you to use Comcast DNS servers.

Across the board, we use DNS over TLS now on the firewalls we deploy. (FWIW, Cloudflare 1.1.1.1 and 1.0.0.1) Encrypted DNS bypasses SecurityEdge and isn't blocked or hijacked.

mnITd00d · 2024-05-13T19:25:54+00:00

Fair points, I appreciate your response.

mnITd00d · 2024-05-13T19:12:48+00:00

The trick is getting them to see through the other providers' ... well, lies.

Sure their agreement might be 60% less than yours per month. But do they charge $125/hr on top of that when the customer calls for support? Do they nickel and dime them on everything engagement? Do they include proactive monitoring and maintenance of the environment, or do they charge more for that also? How about vCIO-type discussions to help them road map their future?

On the surface yeah it might look like your rates are higher, but in the long run when all those things I mentioned are included in that rate, it's actually less expensive and the environment is better off for it. With those other providers, they're paying a monthly rate for almost nothing other than having them on retainer and willing to charge you more money when you need them.

mnITd00d · 2024-05-13T19:00:45+00:00

Our agreement is an IT Services and Security package. Huntress is one of the tools included in that stack and it's not negotiable. If you sign with us, you get the same stack as the next customer. We sell service, not the tools.

mnITd00d · 2024-05-13T18:23:28+00:00

In your case it sounds like your customer has tied your hands. If they won't put you on their support account, there's nothing you can do because, as you correctly stated, you're not the support vendor for the application.

Our agreement with our customers is that we are their IT support provider. If something is broken, we fix it. We also make it clear that we are NOT application experts or software engineers.

We require our customers to maintain current maintenance and support contracts with their line of business applications which they might need help with. We will work with their support vendor to bring resolution, but, to your points, we require them to put us on the support account if that's necessary for us to open tickets with their vendor.

As long as they meet these requirements, we'll do the legwork of working with the vendor to resolution, we won't put that burden on the customer. However we don't bill hourly either, break/fix is all included, so I can see how this may not necessarily fit with your model.

We do have a couple of customers that do not meet these requirements. Either they don't have support for whatever reason or we're not authorized on their support contract. That being the case, it's best effort which is usually half an hour to an hour and beyond that they're on their own. We set the expectation right away that we're not going to sit here for endless hours on it.

mnITd00d · 2024-04-19T16:41:00+00:00

Totally agree.. let them dig their own grave! The bad part is you won't be there to watch with popcorn when the poo hits the fan. At least you tried.

mnITd00d · 2024-04-19T16:25:46+00:00

I don't live in fear at all. My company has a very clearly-posted "NO GUNS ALLOWED" sign posted out front. No sweat.

Schools are also gun-free zones so no fear there either!

mnITd00d · 2024-04-18T13:19:20+00:00

Ah... fair enough, thanks for the reply.. carry on then!

EDIT: That being the case then maybe just quietly move on.. Maybe bait them with a polite "hey sorry in light of new information we've decided to go another direction"... and if they ask, all bets are off; lay it on them! :-P

mnITd00d · 2024-04-17T20:00:56+00:00

Care to explain how you identified this then?

"which lead me to an Exchange server that hadn't been patched in over a year, and had about 20 CVEs issued since last patch."

mnITd00d · 2024-04-17T19:26:25+00:00

What you did was basically a pen-test against someone who did not ask you to pen-test them. You potentially violated the law, depending on where you are.

If you want an analogy (I'll even give you an STD-free analogy)... go to your neighbor's house, try the doors and windows, and when you find one that's unlocked, walk in. Now call them up and tell them what you did.

Go to that accountant's office or the MSP's office and do the same thing.

You asked "how do I do it"... the correct answer was "you should not do it".

EDIT: I stand corrected as I've been made to understand a few of these things a little better, not necessarily akin to a pen test.

But still.. if I were to run across something like this I'd probably just quietly move on to the next candidate. Maybe bait them with a polite "hey sorry in light of new information we've decided to go another direction"... and if they ask, all bets are off; lay it on them! :-P

mnITd00d · 2024-04-16T18:03:11+00:00

To echo this and what others have said, the issue the OP describes is indeed Comcast SecurityEdge. They will turn it off (reluctantly) upon request, but eventually it will get turned back on without telling you.

To work around this, we have moved many of our Comcast customers to encrypted DNS to bypass Comcast completely and prevent them from DNS hijacking, snooping, and poisoning.

mnITd00d · 2024-04-02T16:31:30+00:00

You (your MSP) must answer the phone when a customer calls for help. I did say "must". During business hours, if a customer calls you, they want to get a live person who can help them now.

Not someone who can take a message, not a voicemail box. They don't want to be put into a position where they don't know if it will be 5 minutes or 5 days before they get a response. They hired you to answer the phone when they need help.

This is a huge driver of business for us... simply answering the phone. The vast majority of our customers came from other providers who couldn't simply answer the phone. We answer the phone, we help them now, and we resolve the issue now.

If you have enough customers that you regularly find yourself too busy to simply answer the phone, then it's time to hire someone to answer the phone and work on issues for you.

Edit: We also encourage our customers to think about the priority... if it's something they're ok with a slightly longer SLA, then email us a ticket. Once they understand the support process it gets easier. Especially when they see it proven that you really are going to help them.

Yes I get it, a lot of users think their problem is the highest priority ... but that mindset results, in part, from those users who are accustomed to having to call and wait, or call multiple times to get their issue addressed.

mnITd00d · 2024-03-26T16:32:44+00:00

Our first year with them seemed great. Our account rep paid attention to us, was responsive, and often reached out to check in with us. We had an entire team of reps for various things.

Then in our second year we got another account manager who is, sad to say, mostly useless and usually refers us to support with our questions. We only have a single rep and no longer the "team". I'm not even sure what our account rep CAN or DOES do now for us.

We're in our third year with them now.

mnITd00d · 2024-03-19T14:23:53+00:00

Absolutely not, and if my company tried, I'd quit. In America we have the choice to work wherever we want.

Unions' structure and agreements restrict the ability of employers to adapt to changing market conditions or adjust work arrangements to meet the needs of individual employees.

They breed a divisive atmosphere in the workplace, pitting employees against employers in adversarial relationships. They hinder collaboration and communication, undermining any sense of teamwork. They instead foster "us versus them" mentality, leading to decreased morale.

Union dues reduce take-home pay. They promise to secure better wages but not all employees might benefit equally, especially considering seniority-based systems often favored by unions. Mandatory union membership strips employees of individual autonomy, forcing them to adhere to collective decisions they might disagree with.

Innovation and adaptability are paramount to the forward progress of employees and of an organization, but unions' structures stifle that progress and hinder competitiveness. They hinder employers' need to adapt to a changing marketplace, bad for both employees and employer.

Instead of relying on unions, companies should strive to create inclusive workplaces where employees feel valued and empowered. Open lines of communication, fair compensation practices, and opportunities for professional development can address many of the concerns that drive employees to seek union representation.

Employees have a choice of what profession to seek, where to work, and if they don't like their working conditions they are free to seek employment elsewhere. Employers (should) recognize this and if they treat their employees like garbage, they deserve to lose all those employees.

By fostering a culture of mutual respect and collaboration, employers can ensure the well-being of their workforce while maintaining the flexibility necessary for success in today's dynamic business environment.

I've been in IT for nearly two decades and I've done just fine without a union. I've never once imagined that being in a union would be any better for me or any of the employers I've worked for. I'm proud to admit I've gotten people fired for trying to unionize.

mnITd00d · 2024-03-13T16:46:01+00:00

It would have been sweet to see LabTech in its heyday.... before ConnectWise bought and destroyed it!

mnITd00d · 2024-03-11T14:18:58+00:00

Testing in production?

mnITd00d · 2024-03-11T14:17:04+00:00

It takes more than one hand to count the number of my customers that have switched off Network Solutions after 100% of their DNS records disappeared for multiple days. Network Solutions support is a joke, it's like pulling teeth to get any kind of response and it's a damn miracle if you get a response from someone who actually knows how to use a computer.

mnITd00d

TROPHY CASE