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Cthulhuite posted:Might hopefully be Working for a games company actually sounds terrible. I feel like you would always be held hostage by your "privilege" of working some place as fun as a games company. There would also be a million people dying to get your job for the same reason regardless of the conditions. I'm not sure I'd want to be involved with the demographic that seems to unusually prevalent in those types of operations either.
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Jul 1, 2016 05:38
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ing out of my current role and into Game Development as a Sysadmin, should start the interview process next week. Anyone worked in the Game Dev industry before? What kind of stuff can I expect of the environment, culture, etc? 
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There are good companies and bad companies, like anywhere. You do your homework, you learn the kinds of questions to ask, and you figure out if the place sounds like someplace you want to work. The games industry can be frustrating from a sysadmin perspective because online gaming is a 24/7 enterprise and loads are extremely spiky, but it's really no different from working in any other kind of web operations role; you learn the characteristics of the applications you're working with, and you scale them. In some ways it's much easier because you're supporting a small number of products that typically are very well-defined very early in their development cycles. Working on traditional single-player games is basically no different from any other sysadmin job except during crunch time you have people in the office 24/7.
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Jul 1, 2016 06:03
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I know a few people who have worked as artists and developers in the game development industry. Pay on the development side is usually pretty bad and the timelines for delivery are entirely driven by the publisher, regardless of quality. All of the artists I know have been doing it since the 90s when 3D textures were first a thing, so there's really no comparison there to anyone getting into it for the first time. Layoffs are also common, as the industry itself functions in a similar fashion to television in that teams are typically built around the product, rather than being considered an internal resource. This may be different for IT or smaller shops, though.
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Jul 1, 2016 09:35
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What should a "good" project manager do exactly? There is a lot of bitching about them but my experience has been varied.
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Jul 1, 2016 12:33
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Bigass Moth posted:What should a "good" project manager do exactly? There is a lot of bitching about them but my experience has been varied. At the highest level: Plan projects/implementations, and help organize, prioritize, work, and manage, NOT MICROMANAGE, workflows. This includes regular communication (not just meetings), encouragement, and teamwork.
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Jul 1, 2016 12:48
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Basically don't be one of our project managers, who thinks that driving a project is to send regular emails consisting of little more than "guys where are we at on this?"
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Jul 1, 2016 14:04
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MC Fruit Stripe posted:Basically don't be one of our project managers, who thinks that driving a project is to send regular emails consisting of little more than "guys where are we at on this?" GnarlyCharlie4u posted:At the highest level: Plan projects/implementations, and help organize, prioritize, work, and manage, NOT MICROMANAGE, workflows. This includes regular communication (not just meetings), encouragement, and teamwork. Being a PM is a relationship. You not only need organization, workflow and time line management as a PM, but you critically need those there are performing the work to communicate reliably. I tend to do this via status update calls that last for 30 minutes with a planned stretch to a full hour if needed. If the team doesn't report to the PM, the PM has no information to provide to management who constantly and without fail ask every seven seconds for the status of the second coming.
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Jul 1, 2016 14:58
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PMs also typically manage the project's financial details, including the current budget, invoicing of customers after key miles, and ensuring that resource utilization is being used most efficiently to achieve the desired objectives, customer satisfaction, and targeted gross-profit (if it's an external project). They may also coordinate delivery and acceptance of equipment as well as the filing of any necessary paperwork (clearances, visas, etc.).
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Jul 1, 2016 15:41
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Bigass Moth posted:What should a "good" project manager do exactly? There is a lot of bitching about them but my experience has been varied. When i was at Lenovo they laid of all the PMs and automated their jobs with a website that tracked status. It was perfect
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Jul 1, 2016 16:11
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Alright so I do computer janitor stuff for hire privately, there's your backstory. A few months ago he had been using it for CAD work and it went into a screen saying it was shutting down to protect the processor. So that's an obvious overheat thing, need to check the cooling and w/e. It's a laptop. So he took it to a guy around here who does that, who said "your hard drive is dying, I put in a new solid state drive". Uh okay I mean that's an upgrade in some ways although not strictly necessary or related to the problem. Also it was $400 and he never called to say "hey this is what's up, here's what a replacement would cost". Well then it didn't boot up properly because I guess he imaged the drive incorrectly somehow? So he took it back and put the original disk back in. Never refunded the cost, never gave customer the new drive. So I ended up with it. I load up a S.M.A.R.T. viewer. Every metric that you want at zero is at zero and the ordinary life ones are a smidge less than 1/3 they way through their engineered lifespan. Drive isn't making any weird noises or anything. No read errors, no write errors. Nothing. I get lots of computers after this dumb motherfucker has looked at them and done something that was either completely unnecessary or that didn't even solve the problem I loving despise this guy on both professional and personal levels
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Jul 1, 2016 16:22
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Bigass Moth posted:What should a "good" project manager do exactly? There is a lot of bitching about them but my experience has been varied. I like to think I was a good one back when I did that. My team seemed to like me, at least. For me, it was about getting good, actual estimates and a breakdown of work, and relying on my engineers for that instead of myself. There were certainly times I questioned it, and having an engineering background helped, but for the most part I trusted them. The next bit is being the frontline communicator, and not just taking a customer's side. If something came up, the engineers would call me and I would call the client. If the client was bugging the engineer, they'd refer them back to me. I protected my guys as much as the project itself, because that's how you prevent overages. And you need to take constructive feedback. I didn't give you enough time to travel? Ok, that's fair, next time I'll bump it up. You need a day to spec new projects? Okay, here you go. To me I always saw it as management first, then the project, and as a manager I want to protect my people from things they don't need to be doing, as I've found that makes them more productive.
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Jul 1, 2016 17:03
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Does anyone have any experience of adopting Meraki APs that are already 'owned' buy another company? We are taking over IT support for a pub chain and one of the pubs has 8 Merakis (it's a big pub....) that are currently owned bythe IT company they have recently ditched. The IT company are prepared to 'release' them, and looking into it, we will need a Meraki Portal account and a licence for each device, but thats all I know. Has anyone done this, and out of interest how long did it take and are there any things I should be aware of ? I'm in the UK if that makes a difference.
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Jul 1, 2016 17:05
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I've got some sidework I'm going to do to help a buddy out, he really wants to roll wireless in his office rather than pay a ton for structured cabling (current cabling is a nightmare and they'd need to have poles installed + 8 or so runs to accommodate), instead paying for a run or two for POE WAPs. The office is small, perhaps 10-12 workers at once, all in the same room that's 30'x35'(merely an estimate at the moment), I don't yet know what their throughput requirements are, I was going to gather some data on how much traffic they're actually pushing. I'm guessing it's not too much, they have a webapp that they do 90% of their work in and it's pretty light-weight from what I see. Basically, what would you guys recommend we drop in there? I'm going to get a POE capable managed switch, I know a contractor that could run the cables for a decent price (and he's good), but I don't know what APs would be good. Preferably something I can admin remotely if needed and doesn't cost a shitload, my buddy is willing to spend money, but I'd prefer to help him out and keep costs as low as possible while delivering a decent solution.
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Jul 1, 2016 17:16
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MF_James posted:I've got some sidework I'm going to do to help a buddy out, he really wants to roll wireless in his office rather than pay a ton for structured cabling (current cabling is a nightmare and they'd need to have poles installed + 8 or so runs to accommodate), instead paying for a run or two for POE WAPs. The office is small, perhaps 10-12 workers at once, all in the same room that's 30'x35'(merely an estimate at the moment), I don't yet know what their throughput requirements are, I was going to gather some data on how much traffic they're actually pushing. I'm guessing it's not too much, they have a webapp that they do 90% of their work in and it's pretty light-weight from what I see. Ubiquiti makes some great APs that are easy to install and manage and at a good price. They can be on backorder a lot though, or at least they used to be. I'd definitely look into them though.
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Jul 1, 2016 17:20
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BaseballPCHiker posted:Ubiquiti makes some great APs that are easy to install and manage and at a good price. They can be on backorder a lot though, or at least they used to be. I'd definitely look into them though. Cool, yeah I've heard of ubiquiti stuff and almost bought one for my buddies cottage at one point, I'll check on that, thanks!
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Jul 1, 2016 17:35
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MF_James posted:Cool, yeah I've heard of ubiquiti stuff and almost bought one for my buddies cottage at one point, I'll check on that, thanks! They also make managed PoE switches, but I don't think I've ever seen any hands on feedback on them.
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Jul 1, 2016 18:06
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Erwin posted:They also make managed PoE switches, but I don't think I've ever seen any hands on feedback on them. Yeah I saw they have a few different kinds for a fairly reasonable price. Anyone had any experience with ubiquiti edge/unifi switches?
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Jul 1, 2016 18:17
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MF_James posted:Yeah I saw they have a few different kinds for a fairly reasonable price. I've got an edge router 8 at home. Was pretty good for about a year and a half, now i am getting squashfs errors that are going to be a pain to fix.
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Jul 1, 2016 18:24
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We have both an Edge router and a Tough switch, and I like them both. They're inexpensive enough and do what they need to do well.
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Jul 1, 2016 18:31
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RFC2324 posted:I've got an edge router 8 at home. Was pretty good for about a year and a half, now i am getting squashfs errors that are going to be a pain to fix. Yeah mine recently poo poo the bed. I had to reformat the flash memory and reinstall the operating system. Unfortunately I didn't have a config backup, either. Otherwise it's been good.
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Jul 1, 2016 19:17
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spiny posted:Does anyone have any experience of adopting Meraki APs that are already 'owned' buy another company? Create a Meraki dashboard account, buy some AP licenses, add those licenses to the account. https://documentation.meraki.com/zGeneral_Administration/Inventory_and_Devices/Moving_Devices_Between_Organizations You might have some luck getting the licensing migrated as well if you open a support case and explain that the APs aren't being resold or physically moved, they are just changing ownership.
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Jul 1, 2016 19:56
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MF_James posted:Yeah I saw they have a few different kinds for a fairly reasonable price. Yup. My going away present to my last job was replacing all our lovely AP's and Mikrotik Cloudcore, and RB2011 with Ubiquiti stuff. We kept the I love Ubiquiti. When I get around to it, I'll be putting a couple AP's, and an edge router, and a tough switch in my house. Maybe a couple cameras too. A buddy of mine has a couple of their airfiber 24 dishes and those are awesome. Another buddy uses their outdoor wifi stuff and he swears by it.
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Jul 1, 2016 23:18
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spiny posted:Does anyone have any experience of adopting Meraki APs that are already 'owned' buy another company? You need to contact support to transfer the licenses to the new organization. You will also need to re-configure them in the new org since the configuration is linked to the organization.
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Jul 1, 2016 23:29
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Last Sunday our IBM/Lenovo V7000 SAN has one of its two controllers die. My boss was contacted by their support and they dispatched a tech to our office to replace it, my coworker met him there. While on-site, the tech pulled the wrong controller. Thankfully Sunday is one big maitenence window for us. (It was back up and running 9 hours later)
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Jul 2, 2016 03:31
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Spring Heeled Jack posted:While on-site, the tech pulled the wrong controller. My heart would have loving stopped.
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Jul 2, 2016 19:20
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Had that happen swapping out the controller on a DS4800 once. The old LSI stuff had controllers that were only removable from the back, and they occupied the entire 19" width. So if you were a sane person with a 0U PDU in back, the width of the PDU + the power cables hanging off didn't leave you enough clearance to get the controllers out. So it was a three-person job: one person to remove and hold PDU #1 just outside the rack, one person to remove and hold PDU #2 just outside the rack, and one person to remove the controller while everything was powered on and running from these airborne PDUs. As we pulled the controller, either it or my elbow happened to pop just the right receptacle on one of the precariously-placed PDUs to my side, and the thing that happened to come out was the power to the B controller. We gave a huge collective "oh poo poo" and popped the thing back in, and that fucker must have kept running on an enormous capacitive charge, because the lights came on and without any initialization it just kept trucking along like nothing had happened.
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Jul 2, 2016 19:24
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Vulture Culture posted:Had that happen swapping out the controller on a DS4800 once. 
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Jul 3, 2016 05:50
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Anyone have a 2015-ish installer for the Intel Integrator Toolkit (5.0.4+) lying around?
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Jul 3, 2016 19:57
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Thanks Ants posted:Create a Meraki dashboard account, buy some AP licenses, add those licenses to the account. NippleFloss posted:You need to contact support to transfer the licenses to the new organization. You will also need to re-configure them in the new org since the configuration is linked to the organization. cheers guys. The config is less of an issue as they'll be re-setup with a landing page by a third party company (once we 'own' them)
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Jul 4, 2016 08:35
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I am currently the only person with my skill set at the MSP I work for, and have been since late last year. At the time I expressed dissatisfaction with this to the people above me – I made it known that I wanted someone on my level to collaborate on projects with, bounce ideas off and hopefully enable the progression of both parties. I was told that it was a priority to get that sort of person in. Last month a new guy was hired, and from what I understand they had to significantly lower their sights due to the salary they were offering. The new hire has started and it's pretty clear that they aren't at my level, and the new hire as well as his manager admits this. However, I am now expected to have this guy shadow me on basic things like configuring a network switch and putting some VLANs on it, and my own plans for projects are getting scaled back because the company don't want me deploying anything that only I understand (obviously everything is documented but I don't write documentation that is a noddy guide for what to click, it assumes a certain skill level). I am already halfway out the door here anyway due to various reasons, but am I way off the mark to take issue with being expected to train people up to my level instead of being able to work on my own personal development? The way I feel at the moment is that the company are happy with what I know and aren't bothered about me learning any more, which is a really quick way for me to become completely disinterested and not something that I am ever going to be comfortable doing in my late 20s while the industry is visibly changing around me. I am not against the idea of sharing knowledge, but in this situation it's all very one-sided. If it's a reasonably common request then it would be good to know before I get my hopes up too much that this element of the job will disappear with a change of employer - or at least it's something I can discuss at interview framed as a personal development query.
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Jul 5, 2016 00:45
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My guess is that you train that guy to be more skilled then he leaves for more money.
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Jul 5, 2016 00:49
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Or you train him up to your level, then they let you go because it saves them 20K a year.
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Jul 5, 2016 01:17
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Unless it's specifically in your job description your boss should be training people.
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Jul 5, 2016 01:22
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Training people is a good way to solidify your skills, and sometimes advance them (people who are learning a thing tend to ask questions you should follow up on)
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Jul 5, 2016 03:20
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If you think the path to personal development includes working for an MSP, I encourage you to re-check your career plan.
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Jul 5, 2016 03:49
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Vulture Culture posted:If you think the path to personal development includes working for an MSP, I encourage you to re-check your career plan. Not a bad first step out of help desk.
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Jul 5, 2016 03:52
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Thanks Ants posted:However, I am now expected to have this guy shadow me on basic things like configuring a network switch and putting some VLANs on it RFC2324 posted:Training people is a good way to solidify your skills, and sometimes advance them (people who are learning a thing tend to ask questions you should follow up on) MC Fruit Stripe fucked around with this message at 04:06 on Jul 5, 2016 |
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Jul 5, 2016 04:03
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Hahahaha you fuckers are so cutthroat. Jesus. Training owns.
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Jul 5, 2016 04:03
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Dr. Arbitrary posted:Not a bad first step out of help desk. If advancement is concerned what is a worse step up from help desk? Printer tech? Share Point admin? An msp gig?
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Jul 5, 2016 04:05
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MC Fruit Stripe posted:Ugh, I had something very similar to this and never did find a good answer - in that, the situation is still happening and I've just basically stopped engaging. We promoted a guy to sys admin who is thoroughly not a sys admin, and management was basically like, Stripe train this guy. Let's skip all of the thoughts I had on that, all of which are pretty straight forward. My ultimate reply which ended that conversation now and forever: "The only individual I will be training during my down time is myself." That's kind of an extreme view. Showing best practices for making a firewall ACL or something isn't the end of the world. Having co-workers taught best practices regarding clarity or straightforwardness will probably make your life easier than understanding a tangled mess of figuring from them figuring it out on their own. Methanar fucked around with this message at 04:07 on Jul 5, 2016 |
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Jul 5, 2016 04:05
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