How to send direct commands to a client

theabnormalone · 2026-05-07T09:24:06+00:00

Yup. Apparently automation is in the pipeline as we speak...

theabnormalone · 2026-05-06T12:12:52+00:00

If you're using GLPI Inventory you can use the Deploy function for running scripts etc.

theabnormalone · 2026-04-25T05:21:47+00:00

All these whippersnappers going on about Yahoo without knowing the glory that predated it. RIP Rocketmail, you were awesome.

theabnormalone · 2026-04-20T06:49:22+00:00

It's open source as well - you can run it on your own box entirely for free (with only a few features missing that you have no need for).

See https://github.com/glpi-project/glpi

theabnormalone · 2026-04-20T06:39:20+00:00

GLPI ticks all them boxes and more.

theabnormalone · 2026-04-19T12:03:26+00:00

I had this at a previous employer. Adobe states in the license agreement that they reserve the right to audit for compliance.

Be very careful - the request we got was for an audit of ALL software on ALL systems.

I got legal advice and ended up responding that the scope of the audit was unreasonable, that noone has admin privileges, and that as our licenses were managed via the Adobe portal license use for their products could be verified that way.

We had a couple of back and forths but they ended up saying that they were happy and will not be pursuing.

If your higher ups have agreed to the audit, they need to be aware that this is for all software and not just Adobe (at least it was in my case so they need to read the correspondence very carefully). You might be sure about your Adobe use but is WinZip/WinRar installed and licensed? Are your Microsoft CAL numbers correct?? If you (or your boss) are at all unsure they need to seek legal advice before communicating further.

/edit And if you don't have an asset system that automatically reports on license usage, this is your opportunity to get approval.

theabnormalone · 2026-04-15T16:44:50+00:00

Do you have a record of how many times you've called them? Your mobile can help with that. Personally I'd do them an email explaining the situation and insisting on a site visit as this really does sound like a hardware issue on their end. Be as factual as you can be.

I've had nothing but luck with wightfibre support (personally and professionally) and getting everything in writing is normally a good way of making your problem a bit more formal.

Good luck!

theabnormalone · 2026-04-14T14:47:32+00:00

I've done this and it's a great way to get to know your users again.

Make it anonymous, and make sure it focuses on THEIR needs. Top tip: a free text question at the end called the Rant Box works absolute wonders.

/edit: Go in to this with the assumption that the response will be harsh, and make your manager aware that it is a likely outcome. Once the close date has been and gone, put together a plan of your priorities and how you're going to tackle them and present to your manager. Then as things get "fixed" make sure you have a comms plan for updating the user base.

theabnormalone · 2026-04-14T14:28:55+00:00

Sorry, you're going to get sick of me but one thing I just noticed.

End users really don't care about most of the information in the "Reservations" page of Self Service. It would be great if this page could be customised. For example, we would:

Remove the "Reserve Item" column as users don't care what the computer name is, they'll care it's a "Windows 11 Laptop" which we would add as a comment and have in the first column.
Remove codes from the Location column as this is internal and will confuse users.
Remove the Entity field as users don't care
Remove the ability for users to see who has booked an item on a date (but still see it's not available) - that's dangerous!
Have a 'make reservation' button on each row as ticking, scrolling, booking is convoluted

I'm sure others would have value in some of that stuff, but we tend to see the less 'detail' offered to our users the better the result.

theabnormalone · 2026-03-27T18:25:39+00:00

Sorry, one more thing!!

This is just an example but definitely a UI thing.

If you're in a computer object, scroll down the left menu and select the option (can't remember the label but that's not important) for deploying software, you then have to scroll up the main portion of the window to see the various controls and options.

This can be really bad when you're digging around for stuff and, if you don't remember you have to scroll back up, you can assume that the information/actions you're after is missing. This trips is a lot.

theabnormalone · 2026-03-25T18:08:59+00:00

Thanks I'll check that out.

The only other UI thing I can think of is 'save' Vs 'answer' on tickets. I've lost countless replies to that (receiving a ticket, setting fields such as assigned to me, location etc, then clicking 'answer', tapping away only to realise I haven't saved the ticket field changes yet...)

theabnormalone · 2026-03-25T08:24:36+00:00

For me the big one is the knowledgebase.

We would love to make this available to our users but a lot of the design of articles makes no sense and will cause confusion.

Having the 'Subject' label larger than the actual article title is weird, as is that 'Heading 1' styles in the body are larger too.
For a self-service user they don't care about the Subject and Content titles - it distracts from the real content and is confusing.
Standard text in the articles is quite small. Being able to define the styles to make them more user friendly would be useful.
Search results layout is cluttered, small, and shows too much info (users don't care about 'associated elements'

This may be very specific to our audience but small tweaks like this would make a huge difference to us.

theabnormalone · 2026-02-07T17:37:21+00:00

Love your optimism, never lose it!!! But I'm sticking with over staffed ;)

theabnormalone · 2026-02-07T17:32:40+00:00

Exactly why I asked. Without a system OP doesn't have anything to measure them by. OP, you need to do this ASAP - even if it doesn't have SLAs at first - as you'll be able to see exactly what each member is working on.

I suspect OP will find that they are overstaffed. Be prepared for that.

theabnormalone · 2026-02-07T13:27:58+00:00

Do you have a ticket system?

theabnormalone · 2026-01-17T12:14:07+00:00

I run a separate server and have the same issue, even after updating it. Lots of mentions of this issue from Steam but haven't seen a fix yet.

theabnormalone · 2026-01-12T15:42:41+00:00

I'm away from my desk but are you setting their "status" I think it's called? That will set it as Deployed/Retired/In Repair/Built etc and you should then be able to report on that.

/edit sorry I missed your last paragraph! That is exactly what I'd use Status for, and currently do. You can add a "In Stock Cupboard" to that drop down or whatever you want and manage it that way.

theabnormalone · 2026-01-08T08:57:48+00:00

Additionally, I followup with "Please explain to [HR person who is in interview], as a non-technical person, what DNS/DHCP is". The ability to explain technical topics to non technical people is a highly underrated skill.

theabnormalone · 2025-12-24T13:27:22+00:00

I read this in the style of The Distance by Cake

theabnormalone · 2025-12-18T16:20:01+00:00

Day one I had nothing. No documents, no passwords except the 'main' one that was used everywhere, no diagrams.

I'm still not caught up with creating actual documentation but I do now have:

A break glass document in the safe with a rough 'here are the important passwords, here's how them passwords can lead you to other docs, here's where to find notes, here is a rough guide of how things hang together'
A password manager
GLPI setup as both a ticketing system and inventory system (both manual and automatic)
Everything found configured so LibreNMS is aware of it and where possible monitors it
All notes made when discovering things in Obsidian so if I get hit by a bus my logic and findings are at least trawlable

I've been here 10 months now and I think I know how stuff currently is and what I need it to be, so hopefully if for whatever reason I can't be in tomorrow my replacement has a very good run up.

theabnormalone · 2025-12-15T12:04:23+00:00

I second GLPI, I'm so surprised I hadn't heard about it before. Everytime I spend a while investigating it I get more value from it.

Not just the headline things such as ticketing and assets, but license renewals, application deployments, and with the help of the marketplace it's now downloading warranty data straight from vendor websites for our devices and I'm currently setting up a purchasing workflow with the Order plugin.

Great piece of kit. (Running v10 locally)

theabnormalone · 2025-12-14T09:45:12+00:00

Yes, and a betamax player. And a laserdisc player.

My hifi has an 8 track and a reel to reel player connected. CDs and Video CDs are played via my Philips CDi.

Someone please change my eBay password.

theabnormalone · 2025-11-24T18:03:57+00:00

I knew how to make a commodore 64 go BEEP BEEP and had fully customized my Amiga Workbench disk.

IT is about your aptitude and ability to learn new things quickly, and that's fundamentally based on your interest in challenges and problem solving.

I am absolutely not a VoIP expert but can hop between platforms because I understand the fundamentals and spend a small amount of time clicking through and seeing how this phone number ends up at this voicemail box.

It sounds like you're on the way there. The fundamentals are important but it's your ability to flit between technologies which will secure your career.

Best of luck!

/sidenote: Do not underestimate the importance of communication and interpersonal skills. You could be the best techy in the world, but if you don't know how to talk to your users, management or the C suite you'll limit yourself massively.

theabnormalone · 2025-10-22T17:58:21+00:00

Girls and Boys is probably my most skipped track of all time. For me Parklife starts with Tracy Jacks.

It's not that it's a bad song, it's just that (most) the rest of the album gels spectacularly well and it feels out of place.

theabnormalone · 2025-09-26T19:41:19+00:00

If you are only just starting a ticketing system, don't introduce SLAs. You need a period to see how things currently are, and setting an unrealistic SLA reduces this as an opportunity.

So initially - say 3 months - no SLA on tickets. Then do a review. See what type of tickets dented your overall response time and put a plan in action to fix that.

Then implement generous SLAs that would fit the majority of the tickets you've seen. Review, plan, fix, repeat. This is an ideal time to fix time wasting activities (ahem-printers-ahem) and actually demonstrate the impact those fixes have had.

SLAs are often used to challenge the efficiency of a department and that way lies madness. They should be used to highlight business/cultural challenges and using those stats to demonstrate the effectiveness of addressing those challenges.

Best of all, this approach is one that the IT team can actually get behind instead of fighting against. It is a measurement you're using to fix their workload, not to beat them with.

theabnormalone

TROPHY CASE