SME, Inc. Live Remote Support

After a couple weeks of internal debate, I’ve decided to offer nationwide remote support. Most people are familiar with GeekSquad, GeeksOnCall, etc. Have you ever tried to use these services? You have to call, wait on hold, describe your problem, get transferred or accidentally hung up on several times, then you have a $400 charge on your credit card – all before your appointment is even scheduled for a few days later.

This isn’t really what I think of when I think customer satisfaction. My business model is different. Anyone is able to email me, which is instantly delivered on my Moto G Stylus.

I prefer to be contacted on WhatsApp: 509-542-7620. An initial chat with a description of the issue would be best; once I’ve read and assessed what could be at issue, we’ll get on a voice call as I connect to your system/phone/mobile device. Note: since WhatsApp cannot be intercepted, it’s safe to leave any login credentials or Teamviewer ID #s for me, as nobody else can possibly receive them.

Be sure to include a brief description of the problem, as well your name and phone number where you can be immediately reached (include extension if applicable). I will return your call, get a better idea of what the issue is, and then send an e-bill. Paying is as easy as shopping online when you get to the payment screen; name, address, phone #, email, and credit card. Once payment has been sent please open my support window open and provide me with the ID number.

Begin SME, INC. Remote Support

Begin SME, INC. Remote Support

COMMON MYTHS ABOUT REMOTE SUPPORT

• “Remote support isn’t secure” – quite the contrary! I employ the use of an application called Teamviewer. This application is highly encrypted, and all communication sent and received from your computer is encrypted before leaving and decrypted after being received. This also means that even Teamviewer GmbH, the makers of Teamviewer cannot read the data stream between the provider and the computer remotely!
• “Remote support is a back door to always get into my computer” – definitely not. That would be highly unethical and far to easily abused! THE CUSTOMER IS IN COMPLETE CONTROL AND CAN END THE SESSION AT ANY TIME. Furthermore, the session ID changes every time the application is opened, so once closed opening the application again would give you a new session ID which isn’t known until provided again.
• “Well if remote support is so secure and controlled, why isn’t it used all the time?” – Actually remote support is used more frequently than on-site support in business to business support. The day when someone needs to be actually sitting in front of a computer to fix it is gone. Teamviewer is currently installed on over 10,000,000 computers and in use by IT professionals world-wide.
• My last point is that some things may only be done remotely short of ripping a computer apart. I’ve seen instances that a computer was infected with multiple forms of Spyware and viruses. Sometimes these thing install fake firewalls to protect themselves by preventing the user from visiting certain sites (like known sites of Anti-Spyware programs. So, the only feasible way of getting around this is to use remote support – then the Anti-Spyware installation files can be transferred quickly and securely to the machine, installed, and the malware removed. The other option would involve a service call and either formatting and a complete OS reload or removing the hard drive, or copying the software onto the pc from a USB-flash drive. Both of these options would end up costing more in time and resources by the provider than remote support would.

If you like technical thing, I would suggest reading the whitepaper on Teamviewer to find out more information.

Another day, another project completed.

It always feels great to complete a project knowing it was done ethically, completely, and everyone’s happy.

A couple of weeks ago when I was on my way back up to Virginia, I stopped @ Carter’s Motel & Mobile Village in Edgewater, FL. I really wish I could have spent more time there. It was such a relaxing atmosphere and even though I was only able to sleep an hour or two, I enjoyed every minute of it. If I hadn’t been in such a rush coming up here I would have loved to stay a couple of extra days with the Gordon’s.

Who’d have thought calling the office asking for a WPA key would have led to what it did.

I would soon come to find out that not only did they have great ideas about the expansion of their business, but that their website was down. Why do people get greedy, and prey on people that they don’t think will know any better?! It gives honest service providers a bad rep, and it’s just plain not right. This fly-by-night idiot created a website for Carter’s Motel, charged them outrageous prices for “server hosting,” with a “discount per Rich” on a flimsy hand-written contract. Even though all monies had been paid, I soon discovered the guy took down their website. That’s just not cool!

If it were me, I’d track down the guy and sue him – not to be vindictive, but on principle alone. I suggested calling the police quietly if he ever came back to collect any more money for “services rendered.” Even though the police probably wouldn’t do anything about it as it’s a civil matter, they still have to complete an incident report. Every time police make an incident report no parties are allowed to leave until they have all pertinent personal information. Then all one would have to do is go down to the police station and obtain a copy of this report [under the freedom of information act] and they would have all his info. I searched public records and found only a P.O. Box in Tampa for this con artist!

What was done was done unfortunately, so I started back-tracking: hopefully this con artist didn’t have control over the domain name as well or the problem would be even worse. Luckily this wasn’t the case and I was able to transfer the domain to a reputable registrar, setup a completely free and feature rich Google Apps account, and configure all the DNS records to mesh perfectly with Google’s legendary service.

I’m proud to report that the site is back up and in the process of being re-designed – only this time under complete control of it’s owners at no cost beyond the initial technical hurdles required to get the services functioning smoothly. The entire system requires no technical knowledge by it’s owners, is secure, and has a huge reliable Internet Giant making sure everything always works!

It always brings such a smile to my face when I stop and take a moment to appreciate technology working perfectly – especially if it’s my work. I’m not conceited or arrogant, just happy that everything works and was done with honesty and INTEGRITY – which unfortunately is on the decline these days…

Narcissists at work: How to deal with arrogant, controlling, & manipulative bullies in the [IT] workplace.

The following is a ComputerWorld article mom shared with me. All I could say is “WOW.” I’m going to leave it at that. I’ve experienced this personally before but I couldn’t really put my finger on what the problem was or how to effectively combat it. Hopefully this sheds some light on the subject.

Narcissists at work: How to deal with arrogant, controlling, manipulative bullies

Narcissistic employees — yes, IT has its fair share — can wreak havoc in the office and put your own job at risk.

Thomas Hoffman 06/12/2008 08:58:04

Five years ago, Jean Ritala was dating a businessman who started to demonstrate Jekyll and Hyde-like behavior. Well-spoken, charismatic and successful, he could also be manipulative and bullying, telling her that it was “his way or the highway.”

It wasn’t until someone told her she had been “stung by a narcissist” and shared books and Web sites with her on the topic that she fully appreciated what she had encountered. Now, Ritala, the IT support services manager at Mystic Lake Casino Hotel, educates and coaches others on how to deal with narcissists in the workplace.

Narcissism, defined as a personality disorder by the US National Institutes of Health, is a pattern of behaviors that show a pervasive need for attention and admiration, as well as a lack of concern or empathy for others.

In the workplace, says Ritala, narcissists tend to be successful and goal-oriented, with no concern for others who get in their way. They feel a need to control co-workers, projects and situations around them, and they can be manipulative, spinning situations and facts to make it appear that others around them are the problem, not them.

According to Ritala, narcissists often display the following traits at work:

• Arrogant and self-centered, they expect special treatment and privileges.
• They can be charismatic, articulate and funny.
• They are likely to disrespect boundaries and the privacy of others.
• They can be patronizing and critical of others but unwilling or unable to accept criticism or disagreement.
• Likely to be anxiety-stricken or paranoid, they may exhibit violent, rage-like reactions when they can’t control a situation or their behaviors have been exposed.
• They are apt to set others up for failure or pit co-workers against one another.
• They can be cruel and abusive to some co-workers, often targeting one person at a time until he quits.
• They may need an ongoing “narcissist supply” of people who they can easily manipulate and who will do whatever they suggest — including targeting a co-worker — without question.
• They are often charming and innocent in front of managers.

As you might imagine, narcissists can be highly disruptive to a workplace, creating a traumatic environment with high turnover, Ritala says. Eventually the narcissist is caught in action enough times that he is fired, but this does nothing to change his behavior or protect the organization from other narcissists.

Recognizing the problem, Ritala, former president of the IT Service Management Forum – US, teamed up with management consulting partner Gerald Falkowski to write a booklet for IT managers called Narcissism in the Workplace (Red Swan Publishing USA, September 2007). She spoke recently with Computerworld‘s Thomas Hoffman about dealing with narcissism in IT organizations.

Does narcissism play out any differently within IT organizations versus other parts of a company?

IT is more competitive than some parts of the business, much like sales is competitive. I think you’re seeing it more now in IT because IT has become more focused on relationship-building and nurturing relationships. The types of behavior people turned their cheek to in the past, they’re now less willing to.

People are getting educated. Five years ago, fewer people knew about narcissism. Now there are online discussion groups that deal with the topic, such as the MSN newsgroup, and television shows such as Two and a Half Men featuring [the character] Charlie Harper as a narcissist. The dynamics of the workforce have changed, and narcissist personality-type employees or managers are standing out more than ever, creating more problems than their boss and HR can handle.

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What happens if managers simply ignore narcissists’ disruptive behavior?

Often a narcissist remains in an organization for years, creating more and more workplace stress and turnover, due to their managers thinking their contributions outweigh their behaviors and denying and rationalizing the odd behaviors away. That is, until the next complaint comes their way and they continue to be forced to document the narcissist’s behaviors over time. They risk their own jobs by not taking action soon enough with each complaint or series of complaints.

The cost to organizations from narcissism in the workplace is staggering due to illness, stress medications and treatment, lack of teaming and project success, and rising turnover, until the narcissist or corporate bully is shown timely cause and effect from their negative behaviors.

What steps can IT managers take to address these issues?

You have to get educated with a health care professional like a psychologist who specializes in employee counseling services. Get them involved in reviewing the complaints to management and HR, and in helping others to understand these personality types, their behaviors and destructive impact to an organization.

Steps to deal with a narcissist personality type in the workplace include documenting what you observe and get complaints about, and not being afraid to go to HR and say, “This is what I’m seeing and this is what people are bringing to me.”

It often starts as a series of complaints to line managers, then to an HR representative. Once there are enough [complaints], they go to HR, and HR will implore a manager to document what they see as well as come and observe firsthand themselves.

How should managers approach narcissistic employees, particularly if an employee is unaware that he possesses these attributes?

Narcissistic employees should be encouraged by HR to see whatever company employee referral service is available to them, such as counseling, and you hope that the person will take advantage of that.

It depends on how enlightened the person is in terms of seeing how their behavior is impacting staff and their own performance. When you get manipulative, bullying and condescending types of comments and behavior, that’s what impacts performance and teamwork. That’s when you hope the narcissist person will take the encouragement to go seek help.

If they don’t, HR has to play back what [the narcissistic individual] did wrong using a calm approach. Establish firm boundaries with timely progressive consequences from the first complaint received. Follow up to see if behaviors appear to be improving or if they are getting worse. People’s behavior patterns typically don’t change unless they get help.

Up to one-third of a narcissist’s victims in the workplace will quit the company or transfer to another department if nothing is done by the department manager or HR to stop the situation. Once a narcissist’s behaviors are observed and documented, they can become even more cruel and offensive to others, as they no longer can hide their behaviors and rationalize them away or project their shortcomings onto others.

The key is observing, documenting and taking swift action each and every time so the narcissist knows their cruel behaviors will not be tolerated in the workplace.

I got beat – by a girl!

So today I worked a little bit, tried to arrange getting together with my new perspective boss, and then got all dressed & ready.

Liz asked what we should do today (well yesterday by now). I said whatever she wanted to do. So she picked me up, and we begin the roughly 5 mile trip back into town from Mom’s. When getting near town, there’s a fork in the road: left is toward where Liz lives in the newer portions of Leesburg, and right is “15 business” – old town Leesburg. She takes the right fork much to my surprise; “Why are you going right?” I asked curiously. “Cause we’re going bowling.”

Hmph – cool. I haven’t been bowling in quite some time. I used to be pretty good (and when I say pretty good I mean average, nowhere near Liz’s level of skill). Let’s just make one thing abundantly clear: Never, ever ever ever – ever bet Liz that you can beat her at bowling, pool, or darts! If she was homeless and hungry she could win all her meals and never wonder where her next meal came from (much like in the movie Kingpin). She actually has a tattoo on one shoulder with an 8-ball on fire and underneath it says, “Pool Shark.” I was with her when she got that one!

So we get a lane, and she puts our names into the computerized scoring thing (which for the life of me I can never operate even if my life depended on it). I chuckle when look at the screen and see what she put in for our names: B NUT & SUPERMAN. 🙂

Our first game: 161 (Liz) to 82 (me). “Get off your right foot! Keep your thumb straight – that’s why your ball keeps curving to the left….” Ok, I’ll bite – I followed her advice and soon I threw a couple of strikes. I can’t do it consistently though – she either throws a strike or picks up the spare most every time. Very rarely did she leave a pin standing after the 2nd shot of any frame. I’m sitting there watching in awe as she saunters back from yet another strike and as she passes she grins and pats me on the cheek as if to say “It’ll be ok…” GRRR

Our second game: 131 to 75. Damn. Ok so each game we start off neck and neck and then she absolutely mops the floor with me! I saw a few impressive bowlers there with incredible spin technique, I wonder if they were all chuckling that my girl is whooping my butt? My arm was getting sore about now as I haven’t played in so long – unlike Liz who walks in with her own ball, her own girly bowling shoes (which I did tease her a lil about them being white with pink stripes rather girly for her…) all in her bowling bag. I have to rent shoes and use one of the house balls – which you never can find the right weight with the right holes that perfectly fit your hand. She begs me to play one last game….Ok… last game.

Our third game: 141 to 101. This is as close as I’ve ever got to her. I was actually starting to get good – threw a few strikes in this game, but still no match for my hustler. Good thing I knew better than to ever bet her I could beat her!

Mom’s Lesson in Relaxation.

I’ve had quite a hard time relaxing lately. My sleep has been affected to the point of only getting an hour of sleep here, or an hour of sleep there. Causes range from dealing with an excessive amount of ignorant people to people not speaking to me with respect, and responding to emails whenever they pop up on my burry, etc. My infatuation with making sure everything works right got out of hand. The one lesson I took to heart from Dean was putting my Blackberry in “garage mode”. Not vibrate, not phone only, but garage.

Last night mom gave me an impressive lesson in relaxation – or “unplugging” as she calls it. She came home from work, and I gave her a hug when she finally walked in the door. She had a headache, and her back hurt. We talked for a little bit, and she started making dinner. Now mom can COOK. I’m not sure why she doesn’t just go be an executive chef somewhere – or someone’s personal chef. She can make ginger-bread houses that look like they should be in a magazine. Come to think of it, I don’t think there’s a single thing she can’t make! In addition to being a great cook, she’s also funny as hell, a great mother, a horse trainer, and just an all-out great friend. I’m probably leaving about 20 other mentionable qualities out, but I’ll think of them and add them later.

She always wants the best for me, and her advice is timeless. Everyone who meets her and thinks she’s the “sweetest old lady” just made the biggest mistake of their life! They don’t see everything that I do; she didn’t choose to share that side of her with you so you’re not going to see it. The day before I arrived, she was busy making preparations for my arrival.

Such a work of Art, I didn't even wanna mess it up. I finally gave in though. Sooo comfy. I sleep like a rock...

This is the bed she had prepared. WOW. A king mattress, and it’s sooo comfy. I sleep like a rock now. I didn’t before my relaxation lesson, but I sure do now!

She made some great baked Salmon with all the perfect spices, pasta with great veggie combinations with shrimp, and perfectly ripened tomato slices from her garden picked just before dinner. I showed her my wine-bottle opening gadget and was immediately amused: “Well go grab us a bottle of wine!” Of course I would pick a Merlot, Syrah, or Shiraz from the rack. NOPE! It has to pair with the fish, so it has to be a white – ooooh. My bad. So she picks one out, we dust it off, and I show her how the contraption works. “Go get us a couple of wine glasses from the china cabinet.” I don’t have to have wine in a wine glass, but I guess it is the proper way to do it. Then she turns off the lights, and lights candles. Oh my…and puts an ashtray in the middle of the table between us. Are you for real? I don’t have candle – lit dinners even with a girlfriend, unless the restaurant already has candles (like Hosteria Romana, in Miami Beach).

Everything she does is done to perfection – not to impress, but just because she’s good at what she does. I always have had a saying “I don’t do anything half-assed. If it’s going to be done, it’s gotta be done to the fullest.” I didn’t get it from her…but she sure does [exemplify this]. It was so fun catching up and talking while we’re casually eating (which I usually never have the time to do (casually) – it’s just something I have to do from time to time).

Her lesson: Unplug! Blackberry goes on Silent/Garage. Doesn’t matter if the POTUS (President of The United States) is calling, nobody interrupts dinner. They can leave a message. When not actually working, I’m not to touch a computer (this is a bit extreme, as I do blog, but I see her point). Watch a movie, go for  walk, sit

Doesn't get better than this - I have a VERY easy commute to work. It's about 30 seconds.

outside and listen to the birds and bees and the sounds of nature (that’s all that surround the house, just woods. It’s about 5 miles outside of town. Don’t get me wrong, we live quite well out here. We have FIOS, Satelite TV, house is always at a comfortable temperature, phones pretty much don’t ring here. Well almost. Her husband does work from home consulting for Verizon. I will do some work from home as well. Here’s my office.

So during her lesson Liz calls. Lesson learned; phone doesn’t get answered. We finish our dinner and I’m about to do the dishes, but she wont’ let me. So I call Liz back, tell her that I need to jump in the shower and to give me 30 minutes before leaving her house. I’ll text her the directions. We ended up going to see the latest Batman movie which I’m sure everyone else has seen about 3 times by now, but hey we haven’t. We were the only ones in the theatre. Awesome! When I finally got home at about 2am, I was finally able to sleep.

Mom w/ Connor, one of her horses.

Thank you so much! I’m sure you already know, but I appreciate you very much. I always have, and always will. There’s nobody that can hold a candle to you. Everyone loves you (although for different reasons) and you have no enemies. Maybe a few people that envy you because they can’t do what you do, but that’s it. I can’t even begin to imagine what life might have been like growing up with you, and not my own mother.

My Journey North: A lesson in respect.

I left late Friday, about 10-10:30PM. I just wanted to get the heck out of town; I just had my oil changed, gassed up, and my car is getting great gas mileage. At about 4am I couldn’t see straight anymore, so I gps’d some lil family hotel.

Never in my life did I think it would be such a rewarding stay. It was $50 for the night. In the morning I called the office because I noticed they had WIFI. The gentlemen asked if I was staying in his motel, which room I was in, and then provided me with the WPA key. What ended up happening next is still a somewhat a blur.

Apparently all the locals smoke in their motel rooms, and it’s a big problem for them – even in a small town like Edgewater, FL just 20 miles south of Daytona Beach. They want to stop it, as it is causing them a lot of grief. I suggested maybe they should make a website similar to my blog, and then every time someone trashed one of their rooms they could post all the dirty details on their website – everything from empty beer bottles to used prophylactics. I’m not sure why, but he loved my idea – and being a mover & shaker much like myself, he added to my idea! He said he couldn’t wait to meet me.

A short while later we bought a few domain names, he paid me for my time (which I gladly gave him a discount on), I packed my things into the car and we went out to lunch. It was so much fun talking with Peter.

The entire Gordon family are truly “Kindred Spirits” (ref Anne of Green Gables, you have my mother to thank for that). Their legendary hospitality most certainly did not go unnoticed. I felt like one of the family, and unlike some of my previous employers they speak to me with kindness and respect. Sadly, this is a rare quality to be found in this day in age. I would soon find out why. These fine people are quite intelligent, well spoken, and they run a very successful business and keep it all in the family. They don’t rent to just anyone: while I was working someone came and quickly left. I heard Peter say, “Sorry, we’re FULL.” [guy mumbling]. He was apparently drunk – not the type of guest they want!

Various family members jumped to ask a question at the same time, so I quipped that they should elect an agreed upon representative. [Starting to sound familiar here?] We understood each other for our brilliance in two very different fields. I would soon come to find out that Peter and his brother are quite accomplished ASE-certified mechanics (when I mentioned that I needed to stop by the local auto-parts store to get some oil for my car)! [HOW LOVELY… I’m really liking – no wait LOVING where this is going! Peter sends his maintenance guy (his brother if I’m not mistaken) to the store with me to get the necessary part after looking @ my car for a minute or two. Much to my surprise the faulty oil sensor that was responsible for me losing oil (like it was going out of style) was only $5! It was however in a very hard to reach position on the back side of the engine block against the firewall. About 35 minutes later I walked out to see how the repair was going and noticed my car had been moved to their on-site shop. 😀 He told me to start it up, and the car runs great! Not a drop of leaked oil – it runs solid, and performs like Michael Phelps!

Why can’t this sort of thing happen everyday??? I was offered an extra night’s stay on the house to keep me around a lil longer, but I had to decline. I have to be on my way, I really want to start enjoying Liz’s company. 😀

This is yet another lesson in not immediately judging someone you just met. When his brother was talking engines & lawn mowers I had trouble keeping up with the conversation; it just isn’t my area of interest. Each of us has their own strengths and areas of expertise. People as a whole need to stop thinking they are better or more important than someone else because of what they do, how much money they make, etc. Get to know someone, treat them with respect, and you may soon find that you really need their services, and they may need yours. Surely this has to be intelligent design!

Welcome to the club, FRIEND!

You are a force to be dealt with. It's time everyone realized this!

Erin,

I emailed Rob for you. Contact him Friday or Monday. Tomorrow try to obtain Driven to Distraction. It’s time that you stop believing what everyone thinks and to join the elite! We’re a lot alike, yet we’re at different stages in development. It’s time that you start to see what I see when I look at you. When you learn what I’ve learned, nobody will be able to stop you.

Remember the shirt @ Hot Topic? “You look at me because I’m different, but I look at you because you’re all the same.” Everyone else is the same Erin, we were made special. When you know what sets you apart from everyone else, you’ll be dangerous.

You will be a driving force that nobody dares mess with. I’m glad we’ve remained friends from all the way back before Angie and I got married. I hope David truly understands what he has. I say this because soon you’re going to be on my playing field; and if this happens and he stays the same you’ll leave him in the dust! I hope this doesn’t happen because I know how much you love him. I was so supprised when two of my friends got together… I just wonder at times if he really deserves you. I hope he soon does realize what he has – it’s time for him to grow up and be the man you deserve (and that I know he can be). He needs to step up to the plate and get you a ring and marry you. If not he needs to get out now, before any more damage is done. Soon you won’t tolerate any drama, or juvenile games on his part. You’ll know what you want, and you’ll have what you deserve no matter the cost. This will happen with, or without him! I just hope he gets his act together, so that it’s with him!

I’ll miss you ALL!

My boss and I have mutually decided to call it quits. I’m not going to get into the nitty-gritty here; the short and sweet is that it just wasn’t ever going to work. You are welcome to think what you want.

I’m moving back up to VA next week; I miss the cold of winter (I get hot far too easily), and nothing is keeping me in FL. I have no family or girlfriend here, but I do have great job prospects in VA. Liz and I are getting back together. I think it’s going to work for good this time, as she doesn’t drink anymore and has been putting me first since. I pledge the same to you baby – if all goes well in a yr or two, let’s have that kid. I’m not sure if the world is ready for another one of me, but hey: We’re not getting any younger, right?!

I will truly miss the people I’ve come to know well over the last few months. You probably know who you are, but if not – There are a handful of people @ Medsearch: Stephanie, Sherie, Shanna, Kelly, Big & Little, Seth, and of course Sam! You all have your individual talents, and nobody should change a thing! If you constantly conform to someone else’s expectations it will cost you dearly.

• Stephanie: Don’t change a thing. Keep improving on your already almost impeccable photography. You’ll go far some day! Keep the heatr party pics coming, I enjoy talkin’ shop w/ ya!
• Sherie: Get a few drinks in you, and go the heck over to Open Mike night @ Improv @ the Hard-Cock… I mean hard-rock and audition! You seriously are the next Wanda Sikes! You’re funny as hell, and I’m a touch critic! I love you because you tell it like it is, which often is why people don’t like me. Somehow you do it with more finesse than I do. 🙂 Your daughters will go far – keep bein tough on them, when you have an attorney and a recording artist I wanna be there. Both for the 1st record, as well as when the other one passes the bar. I’m sure she’ll be one of the most dangerous attorney’s around!
• Shanna: Incredibly beautiful, and intellectually dangerous! Often the talk of the town, yet like me, everyone is 100% wrong about you! First impressions don’t even begin to come close. Everyone was waaaay off! This woman can mentally spar with me – which she did from day 1. I was impressed! I can’t say that about many women. Usually it’s beauty or brains. She has it all. Continue to do what you do, and ignore the talk. Every guy wants you, and every woman wants to be you. The messed up part is that nobody really knows the real you (except us select few) – and I’m proud to be one of them. Your boyfriend is exceedingly lucky. I hope he knows what a gem he has! You are an up-and-coming force that deserves respect. It’s time for the haters to stop hating and take you seriously.
• Kelly – I don’t know what it is about you, but you’re not like the rest. You have an inner beauty that almost nobody notices. I hope you’re enjoying your Burry – take care of it, and it will always take care of you.
• Nicole Smith: You’re such a wise woman, and one of the few that truly get me. Thanks for your words of wisdom, I’ve taken them to heart. If I can do anything for you, let me know. It has always been a pleasure working with you. I love talking to you; you have a way of putting everyone at ease like they are your best friend, yet you don’t miss even the smallest detail.
• Nichole Meyer: keep doing what you do best! It can’t be easy handling Sam’s every little detail. I’m glad I don’t have as many details for Liz to keep up with!
• Seth: You, are THE man! You should take a few videos sometime of you fishing for the big ones and send it into bassmasters – maybe one of these days I’ll be able to say “Yeah, I went fishin’ for Tuna with Seth – but that was before he was famous….” My dad would pay to go fishing with you. He goes up to Alaska and pays quite a pretty penny to go fishing; it would be much better spent with you. Bassmasters, watch out!

And last but most certainly not least (quite the opposite) Sam Karsch: You DA Man. That’s it. Your forte is business and sales. Your witty sense of humor is un-paralleled! Michael is one lucky kid, hopefully he picks up on your sense of humor. You get things done, and are loved by all – maybe one of these days I’ll be as quick as you with the jokes. Don’t change a thing Sam! One time Martha showed me the joke email you sent to her BlackBerry meant for your son. The one where you told him to make sure he used rubbers so he didn’t get any Jews pregnant, only drank the best beer, and only smoked pot – not any of the other drugs. I was nearly in tears as I was reading it – it was that funny! Martha had such a scowl on her face – “That is NOT funny! How can you call something vulgar like that funny?!” Seriously, if more people could take a joke and not take everything so seriously this world would be such a better place! Humor makes the bad not so bad anymore, and life bearable. It’s also a lot cheaper than all the alternatives (drugs, sex, alcohol, etc).

I already said goodbye to Ron over @ ISC; he wished me luck, and encouraged me to look up a movie called “Wrong Turn.” It was made in the same town his fiance is from in West Virgina. I’ll miss the non-stop slapstick comedy as I fix computers. I’ve never had so many laughs while working on a PC!

I don’t think anyone @ Alpine really knows what’s going on, except maybe Rick. I wish you all the best of luck over there – and hopefully you don’t need it! RL is one tough cookie to keep running! Maybe what Rick needs to do is promote Daniela and make her in-house IT in training?

LJ – good luck. Keep on Keepin’ on. You are seriously one effing hilarious dude! Make sure not to turn off your brain until after 5pm on Friday from now on – afterall it’s only you and Dean now. Never stop learning. The moment you do in this line of work you’re obsolete. Oh and when I told you not to delete the virus on the server you found I was joking! Leaving a few viruses around does not lead to a healthy server immune system! Always delete the viruses! Oh and your RDP on your iphone? Siiiiiick dude! One of the coolest toys I’ve ever seen. I’m gonna check out RDP app’s for my Burry soon.

I wish you all the best!

~Randy

PS – I welcome any and all comments. Appropriate comments will be immediately approved and posted. Hater comments will not, so please just save your breath! 🙂 This world has enough negativity as it is….

When life gives you lemons, make Lemonade!

The more and more I stop and think about how messed up the things in this world are, the more I’m reminded that “Everything is just a chasing after the wind..”

The wisest king of all history, King Solomon, said that. He realized the winds come from one direction, and go to another in different areas. He saw the bigger picture – that winds in one hemisphere really go in a circle. Much like when you flush a toilet, the water swirls with cyclonic action.

So, my reader, you can chase after money, women, success, but it’s all just a chasing after the wind. Sooner or later you will come full-circle and lose it all. It’s in those times one should engage deeply in self-reflection. Killing yourself shouldn’t be the first thought when life comes crashing down. Instead, look deep within. Was what you just lost REALLY making you happy? What if you only thought it was? It is then that you’ll realize you’ve just come full-circle, and you’ve been doing nothing but chasing after the wind.

I guess in a sense, this is my self-reflection. The saying goes, “you never know what you have until it’s gone.” In actuality though, did you really ever want it in the first place? Sometimes what we think we want isn’t always what’s best for us. Likewise, what’s best for us sometimes has been under our nose the whole time. It just takes a bit of self-reflection to find yourself.

I’ve had a LOT of time for self-reflection lately. When I look at my life going back through the years, I say “whoa, this was really me?” I’m 28 now, more sure of everything that I want and deserve, and I’m going to have it. I have a game-plan. The funny thing is I haven’t changed a thing from my younger, silly days. I’ve only learned more about myself. Knowledge is power some say… but I wouldn’t put too much faith in that statement.

Exchange Migration – like that’s hard?

Hey,

 

Life is getting better and better each day! Yeah so my last post about echange migration I was just getting a handle on the issue. My boss “extremely dislikes” domain, otherwise known as AD/Active Directory. It’s required to be installed and Domain Controller to be activated to install Microsoft Exchange Server. This is partially because way back in the day, prior to Windows Server 2000 AD didn’t exist. So, it wasn’t included in the MCSE courses at the time, because they were only up to NT 4 – eww?

• So two domain controllers cannot exist on the same domain. Whoever was there first will win – the second server will no even appear on the network. It will just send and send packets accross it’s NIC, but not ever receive any. Completely stupifies the 2nd domain controller. So, a good way to migrate exchange from one server to a newer, bigger server is to put new server on a different domain, THEN activate domain controller.
• Now, how to get the two servers to talk to eachother since they each think they are the president of their own countries? One way to do it is to trust the two MDC’s/PDC’s (master domain controller or primary domain controller) together through what’s known as a “TRUST RELATIONSHIP” – much like a very technical and highly secure treaty between two presidents. There are many different types of trust: external trusts (leaving one AD Forest and going into another), transitive trusts (two-way), and non-transitive trusts (one way) are a few different types.
• Once DC’s are trusted, it’s like having a draw bridge crossing from one kingdom to another, with a huge gap between them.

Now for migration:

1. Run maintenance on existing exchange server to compress and cleanup all the mailboxes.
2. Forest Prep and Domain prep have already been run on new server to install exchage server on top of Windows server.
3. Since the new server is most likely faster and bigger, make sure to run all Windows updates before installing exchange. Then update the heck out of exchange to the latest version.
4. Now Launch Exchange Migration wizard on new server, give it the Netbios name of existing server, name of domain, click next. Then it’s going to ask for credentials to run the migration. Here’s where someone could easily go wrong. What are you going to use? Administrator, right? WRONG! Migration wizard will not fully authenticate with existing server enough to even pull up a list of accounts to migrate! Instead for username login as enterprise domain admin – e.g. domain\administrator for the username, and of course the domain admin’s password which should be the same as administrator, and click next.
5. List of accounts on the existing exchange server should come up – select some/all of the accounts, hit next, and boom! One president gives the order to the military to get all residents moving accross the bridge at as high rate of speed as possible to the other side, where they are caught by the military on the other side. Then each soldier walks each resident to their new home and gives them the keys (like Habitat for Humanity?).
6. Then while migration is taking place the practical approach is not to have servers connected to the net. That way mail servers across the net will deliver all new mail to the new server once live. For fastest migration make sure all connections are gigabit!
7. Then make sure Ip on NIC2 on new server is the same as the first server, statically set, and once migration is complete unplug server one, plug in server 2, and the network will only see a brief connection loss to servers.
8. Now for the pita process – Pain In The Ass part. Taking each pc out of old domain, and join the new domain – then open open up the mail control panel, change the name of the mailserver to the new server’s name, and bingo, bango, bongo : CONGRATULATIONS, YOU’VE JUST MIGRATED AN EXCHANGE SERVER!

*DISCLAIMER: THE READER SHOULD NOTE THAT THERE ARE DETAILS NOT INCLUDED HERE; THIS IS NOT MEANT TO BE AN ALL INCLUSIVE GUIDE. IF ATTEMPTING AN EXCHANGE SERVER MIGRATION, I AM NOT RESPONSIBLE. PLEASE ALWAYS MAKE SURE YOU KNOW WHAT YOU ARE DOING. THERE ARE PEOPLE THAT DO ONLY EXCHANGE MIGRATIONS – IT’S A BIG UNDERTAKING, TO SAY IN THE LEAST.*