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skipdogg posted:Dell, HP, Lenovo and other business orientated hardware sellers offer onsite support for their products. We buy ProSupport and Accident coverage. If a screen breaks, a motherboard dies, a hard drive fails they will either ship me the replacement part, or send a local technician to replace the part for me. If a 2 year old Dell battery dies, I just order a new one and plop it right in.
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Sep 4, 2015 15:56
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Aunt Beth posted:IBM provides onsite repair services for macs now that it's best friends with Apple. do you have more info on this pls
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Sep 4, 2015 15:59
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NevergirlsOFFICIAL posted:do you have more info on this pls
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Sep 4, 2015 16:59
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If you have a Business Agreement can't you download Office from VLSC?
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Sep 4, 2015 17:36
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McDeth posted:I really don't get the Mac hate here. Well, I mean I understand it, but what kills me is that we're supposed to be helping end users directly here and because this is the SMALL SHOP ADMIN THREAD, that usually means having to do stuff that you wouldn't otherwise have to deal with if you had a job at a >100 person company's IT Department. Because all small shop admins are overworked and "Simplify" becomes a goal you want to attain. In a big shop I can have a mac guy, an iphone guy, a guy who just knows cisco really good etc. In a small shop it's one loving guy. One. Having a single OS (For the most part) to deal with will drastically cut down on the strain of managing his poo poo.
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Sep 4, 2015 18:06
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Crowley posted:If you have a Business Agreement can't you download Office from VLSC? If you want to activate with an office 365 subscription, no.
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Sep 4, 2015 19:09
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I'm one of two guys handling ~100 employees, of which roughly 10 are full-time PHD scientists and another 40 or so of engineers and other highly skilled support staff. The remainder work in a retail setting or as educators for our camps. I have Windows, OSX, and Linux running on dozens of systems that we personally manage.Rhymenoserous posted:
Simplification is good, but not at the expense of pissing off your users. Asking someone to change the way they do things to make your job easier is an easy way to make them hate you. I usually try to stress the benefit from the user's perspective, focusing on things that will improve their workflow and quality of life. If I tried to tell a senior researcher that we were switching everyone to windows half of them would walk out and not return, regardless of any perceivable benefit.
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Sep 4, 2015 19:36
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Yeah a lot of people in science choose osx and there are very good reasons for it. In a normal "office" type environment, macs are pretty worthless and trying to integrate them with the rest of the infrastructure is kinda a waste of time. But if you're dealing with scientists a lot of them are going to be using macs because they really are the best machine for the job, and I found this out first hand when I was doing physics research. You can just carry one laptop and use it to run all your simulations on, and check your email, and watch netflix, and use excel. Nothing else will let you do all that easily.
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Sep 4, 2015 20:30
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wilfredmerriweathr posted:Yeah a lot of people in science choose osx and there are very good reasons for it. is this because there is some OS X only software for the simulations
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Sep 4, 2015 20:36
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No it's just the fact that you can run any unix software you need on it natively. Like for example the software I use to reduce astronomical images is like 35 years old and cryptic as gently caress but it's a breeze to get it installed on osx. Usually unix science stuff is offered with readymade binaries for mac users as well. That means you can just have one computer and do all your work on it, no messing around with VMs or a second laptop or whatever for stuff that won't run on linux. wilfredmerriweathr fucked around with this message at 20:42 on Sep 4, 2015 |
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Sep 4, 2015 20:39
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NevergirlsOFFICIAL posted:The other thing to note is this won't uninstall existing Office versions for you. So you'll need to make a script that uninstalls the old version of office, and then runs clicktorun. If you need any help with this kind of script, let me know. I have a script utilizing the Powershell Application Deployment Toolkit that uninstalls all versions of Office (2003, 2007, 2010, 2013, 2012 Click to Run, and 365) and then installs Office 365 (whatever version depending on the installation xml). This has proved to be a huge time saver as I am the "resource" at my MSP for Office 365 migrations. Automates the entire process so the user can click to begin and then forces them to restart afterward with a prompt.
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Sep 4, 2015 20:56
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dox posted:If you need any help with this kind of script, let me know. I have a script utilizing the Powershell Application Deployment Toolkit that uninstalls all versions of Office (2003, 2007, 2010, 2013, 2012 Click to Run, and 365) and then installs Office 365 (whatever version depending on the installation xml). This has proved to be a huge time saver as I am the "resource" at my MSP for Office 365 migrations. Automates the entire process so the user can click to begin and then forces them to restart afterward with a prompt. 
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Sep 4, 2015 20:57
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wilfredmerriweathr posted:No it's just the fact that you can run any unix software you need on it natively. okay thanks i actually enjoy learning about the edge cases where these things make sense
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Sep 4, 2015 22:14
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go3 posted:okay thanks i actually enjoy learning about the edge cases where these things make sense He's right too - it really is just that being able to run unix software packages is worth the extra time and energy of supporting a mac ecosystem. Perhaps it's because we're in astronomy but most of the software we use for reducing images and dithering massive images without losing information is command line only unix stuff. I'm slowly driving our userbase towards more centralized management but due to the previous IT manager most of our folks don't trust us to manage their systems. It's alright - I don't blame them at all, but it does make utilizing some of the time-saving automation tools more difficult. I work really hard at the fine art of supporting the needs of our user base without being a total pushover. I will stand my ground when someone comes to me with a bullshit reason for a big change e.g  "give me an external IP because someone needs to connect to my server for X software" "How about instead you tell me what the use case is, who is connecting, and why we can't have them use a VPN connection" "Oh yeah that sounds way more reasonable!"Of course that last line can also be "Because of semi-good reason A and terrible reason B". Disagreements happen but I'm usually careful enough when I'm explaining my reasoning to someone as to why I think my way is best. Smart people need smart explanations or else they will immediately do 5 minutes of googling and prove you are full of poo poo. Much better to admit when you don't know, but explain things you do know to people on a level they can relate to. I have highly technical users that I go to for help on certain things, then I have users that can't figure out power switches. It all boils down to communicating effectively.
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Sep 4, 2015 23:48
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LOL didn't notice the thread name change. Awesome.
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Sep 4, 2015 23:57
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Aunt Beth posted:IBM provides onsite repair services for macs now that it's best friends with Apple. I believe you can also do this as a reseller which would be funny having companies all becoming resellers. This is how you can get spares in HK.
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Sep 5, 2015 00:02
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dox posted:If you need any help with this kind of script, let me know. I have a script utilizing the Powershell Application Deployment Toolkit that uninstalls all versions of Office (2003, 2007, 2010, 2013, 2012 Click to Run, and 365) and then installs Office 365 (whatever version depending on the installation xml). This has proved to be a huge time saver as I am the "resource" at my MSP for Office 365 migrations. Automates the entire process so the user can click to begin and then forces them to restart afterward with a prompt. I want your script please. It sounds much better than my batch file that calls that vbscript thing that kills office (you know the one I'm talking about). It works but I have to change it for each version of Office depending on where I am.
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Sep 5, 2015 03:22
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dox posted:If you need any help with this kind of script, let me know. I have a script utilizing the Powershell Application Deployment Toolkit that uninstalls all versions of Office (2003, 2007, 2010, 2013, 2012 Click to Run, and 365) and then installs Office 365 (whatever version depending on the installation xml). This has proved to be a huge time saver as I am the "resource" at my MSP for Office 365 migrations. Automates the entire process so the user can click to begin and then forces them to restart afterward with a prompt. Another vote for please share. I won't need it for a few months, but it sounds awesome.
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Sep 5, 2015 12:20
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NevergirlsOFFICIAL you posted exactly what I needed to deploy this poo poo. Thank you! It's not the way I wanted to do it, but at least now I know how. Is that Powershell Application Deployment Toolkit as good as it sounds? I've never heard of it before.
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Sep 6, 2015 00:45
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NevergirlsOFFICIAL posted:I want your script please. It sounds much better than my batch file that calls that vbscript thing that kills office (you know the one I'm talking about). It works but I have to change it for each version of Office depending on where I am. Gerdalti posted:Another vote for please share. I won't need it for a few months, but it sounds awesome. https://github.com/doxinho/officedeployment It's actually the same thing you're using, just with a nifty wrapper and dialog prompts... but it gets the job done pretty well. quote:# Office 2010 (32-bit) The next step is to fully automate this with the various RMM tools. I've had difficulty doing this with the prompts because it needs to run as the user context and SCCM seems most suited for that. The PSADT is primarily built for use with SCCM. In my case, I haven't been completely successful running it silently with Kaseya but I'm going to continue working at it. My general use case is just dropping it on a network share, kicking it it off via the .exe and letting users finish it. dox fucked around with this message at 05:47 on Sep 6, 2015 |
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Sep 6, 2015 05:37
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awesome thank you
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Sep 6, 2015 06:04
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Holy poo poo that toolkit (and your Office code) is amazing. Thankyou for posting it. My batch file version would have been an abomination.
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Sep 7, 2015 02:12
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I manage a small shop of me and my wife. We have a customer list over 1000 people but say at any one time only a few hundred are active. Includes Macs, PCs, Servers, Wifi, and Web Design. I suppose when you have a small shop you are stuck doing just about anything. In any case I HATE new apple stuff because of all the loving glue/tape they use instead of screws. Makes doing stuff a million times harder than it needs to be. I suppose the upside is you get to be an expert with a heat gun. I also branched out to doing electronics repair. Not too hard! EEVBlog on youtube is an invaluable resource. Oh and Mikrotik routers are a small shop's dream. Cheap and reliable. As far as computers go, both Windows and MacOS are loving up massively right now. Both are needlessly complex and unreliable. Mark my words, Google is gonna eat their cake over the next 10 years. redeyes fucked around with this message at 14:34 on Sep 7, 2015 |
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Sep 7, 2015 14:31
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redeyes posted:I suppose when you have a small shop you are stuck doing just about anything.
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Sep 8, 2015 16:57
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redeyes posted:In any case I HATE new apple stuff because of all the loving glue/tape they use instead of screws. Makes doing stuff a million times harder than it needs to be. I suppose the upside is you get to be an expert with a heat gun.
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Sep 8, 2015 16:57
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Aunt Beth posted:If you're using a heat gun, you're doing it wrong... what components are you heat gunning? probably broken iPad displays. Personally I stuff them in the oven instead.
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Sep 8, 2015 17:49
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I found a coworker today in a cloud of colored toner, "emptying the waste toner box" with a shopvac and paper towels. I have a solid policy of gently caress PRINTERS, so I have service contracts. How much cancer is he going to get?
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Sep 8, 2015 17:53
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SneakyFrog posted:I have a solid policy of gently caress PRINTERS, so I have service contracts. All of it. All of the cancer.
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Sep 8, 2015 18:16
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Crowley posted:probably broken iPad displays. Personally I stuff them in the oven instead.
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Sep 8, 2015 18:25
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Spudalicious posted:I'm one of two guys handling ~100 employees, of which roughly 10 are full-time PHD scientists and another 40 or so of engineers and other highly skilled support staff. The remainder work in a retail setting or as educators for our camps. I have Windows, OSX, and Linux running on dozens of systems that we personally manage. In my environment all of our CRM/ERP crap is windows only, and most small shops I've been in are the same. If I'm spinning up mac vm's or dual booting their macs into windows just so they can do the day to day then I don't care if it pisses them off that they don't get the toy they want. Since all the actual work is done in a win environment, they need to learn it anyways, and having them dual boot when they come in doesn't simplify workflow or quality of life. I don't hate macs, they just have no place in my shop. I don't give a poo poo if our guys have iphones or android, because ultimately the work paradigm doesn't change, it's just an e-mail tool that makes phonecalls, and both support airwatch. Rhymenoserous fucked around with this message at 21:54 on Sep 8, 2015 |
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Sep 8, 2015 21:52
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Rhymenoserous posted:In my environment all of our CRM/ERP crap is windows only, and most small shops I've been in are the same. If I'm spinning up mac vm's or dual booting their macs into windows just so they can do the day to day then I don't care if it pisses them off that they don't get the toy they want. Since all the actual work is done in a win environment, they need to learn it anyways, and having them dual boot when they come in doesn't simplify workflow or quality of life. This is poor customer service dude. Your job is to advise users on and provide tools to make it as easy for them to do their job. But what if it really is easier or simpler for them to use Mac? What if they have an assistant that pulls their great plains reports or whatever for them and they spend all their time making powerpoints and reading email? What if the web portal for your CRM is "good enough" (for example the one we have has a web app that can only access like 60% of the modules, but my president only uses those modules anyway)? You shouldn't say to a user "I know your job description better than you and therefore you should use this. this other thing is too inconvenient for me to support and will make your life more complicated." Make the user aware of the pros and cons, set their expectations, and help them make an informed decision--but they should be the one making the decision.
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Sep 8, 2015 22:03
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NevergirlsOFFICIAL posted:This is poor customer service dude. Your job is to advise users on and provide tools to make it as easy for them to do their job. But what if it really is easier or simpler for them to use Mac? What if they have an assistant that pulls their great plains reports or whatever for them and they spend all their time making powerpoints and reading email? What if the web portal for your CRM is "good enough" (for example the one we have has a web app that can only access like 60% of the modules, but my president only uses those modules anyway)? You shouldn't say to a user "I know your job description better than you and therefore you should use this. this other thing is too inconvenient for me to support and will make your life more complicated." Make the user aware of the pros and cons, set their expectations, and help them make an informed decision--but they should be the one making the decision. And literally none of that is applicable here and generally assumes a level of user computer competency that doesn't exist at this place. Maybe it's because I come from a different world, where people have to submit business cases for getting something other than the norm. "Let them have what they want and we'll sort it out" is absolutely alien to me. And well, also alien to good IT practice.
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Sep 8, 2015 22:09
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frogbert posted:I figured I might ask here because this one has me stumped. I figured out this issue in the shower last night, and confirmed my suspicions this morning. The workstation had a policy applied to it that set Group Policy Loopback processing to "Replace".
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Sep 9, 2015 00:33
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I really should install a shower at work for how often I solve problems while in it.
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Sep 9, 2015 01:33
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bizwank posted:How long have you been in business? We're a two-man shop in year 4, and busy enough now that I'm comfortable turning away jobs that I know will take more time then we can bill for or the high-maintenance customers who will stretch a single repair into 3 months of phone support. Took a while to get here though, first couple of years we took any work we could get just to keep the lights on, but a highly focused marketing campaign (mostly adwords, including lots of negative ones) and a better web presence then the competition gradually resulted in more and more of the gravy jobs coming in, to the point that we now practically own that market and have to advertise very little (most of our referrals are word-of-mouth or via Yelp). It helps that there are a few other good shops in town that I can refer the unwanted work to (they in turn send me the jobs that they don't want) so even the customers that we turn away end up with a good impression of us because we're still helping them. If you don't like working on Macs there's probably someone else in town who does, but doesn't like a segment of their PC business. Couldn't hurt to open a dialog with them about it... 10 years. Yeah I do turn away anything I am sure I cannot fix relatively easily. Just not worth the hassle. I do fix tons of Apple machines, almost always hard drives blowing up. MacOS odds and ends, virus removals is huge now too. Bottom line, I work on any computer. I don't take sides, whoever pays gets fixed. The bigger money stuff is Hotel/business wireless... ooh baby.
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Sep 10, 2015 01:22
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Here's another thing I deal with in small orgs that I don't have a really good solution to... REMOTE ACCESS. My ideal solution is anyone who needs to work remotely, gets company issued laptop + SSLVPN. If they don't have a laptop, VPN then RDP into a terminal server. In some cases this gets tricky... For example graphics dude has some beast desktop and he wants to be able to do some work remotely. He's not expecting native performance ofc but he does want to, for instance, open indesign and make some small edits. In this case my solutions don't work because: 1. If I give him a monster laptop, then he still needs to VPN in and open whatever ridiculously large indesign files he has over the wire. Yuck. 2. RDP - install adobe CS on a shared terminal server? Double yuck. So right now the solution is, VPN in from home, then RDP straight into his desktop. Not wild about it because if his computer shuts off for some reason he's stuck. Also the solution doesn't scale at all. So what's the Correct solution?
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Sep 10, 2015 20:15
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Is it a one-off case? If so, then I'd say you have the ideal solution. There's no reason to go out and spend abhorrent amounts of money on some virtualized solution or equipment for this one guy to be able to use Indesign from home. Unless you're expecting to scale out I honestly wouldn't worry about it. If so, the only real answer is GRID/Shield (somewhat joking here). On another note, the 'Mac Only' shop has invested in their first PC Laptop! Yay! Say what you will about MacBook's and Mac OS X, the crapware is non-existent, which unfortunately, cannot be said about this loving HP EliteBook. It's honestly a joke; I'm sitting here on a brand new account having done nothing other than turn the loving thing on and log in and it's using 50% CPU. What's the verdict on HP-installed bloatware? Nuke it from orbit or is it worth keeping?
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Sep 10, 2015 22:19
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McDeth posted:Is it a one-off case? If so, then I'd say you have the ideal solution. There's no reason to go out and spend abhorrent amounts of money on some virtualized solution or equipment for this one guy to be able to use Indesign from home. Unless you're expecting to scale out I honestly wouldn't worry about it. If so, the only real answer is GRID/Shield (somewhat joking here). No business should run the bloated OS installs that companies sell you, make a nice prepped clean image.
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Sep 10, 2015 22:31
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McDeth posted:Is it a one-off case? If so, then I'd say you have the ideal solution. There's no reason to go out and spend abhorrent amounts of money on some virtualized solution or equipment for this one guy to be able to use Indesign from home. Unless you're expecting to scale out I honestly wouldn't worry about it. If so, the only real answer is GRID/Shield (somewhat joking here). Um, install enterprise volume licensed Windows 7, after DOING EXTENSIVE DRIVER RESEARCH. HP's are the devil and some of their newer systems don't have Win7 driver support natively, you need some third party thing. Sometimes there will be drivers listed as windows 8 only that may work in 7. Given that it's your only system and you may not have volume licensing... Go through the list of installed applications and uninstall them all, one by one?
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Sep 10, 2015 22:37
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McDeth posted:Is it a one-off case? If so, then I'd say you have the ideal solution. There's no reason to go out and spend abhorrent amounts of money on some virtualized solution or equipment for this one guy to be able to use Indesign from home. Unless you're expecting to scale out I honestly wouldn't worry about it. If so, the only real answer is GRID/Shield (somewhat joking here). I uninstall it all via a script I've written. I won't have enterprise licensing until next year, so I'm stuck with the oem licencing until then.
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Sep 10, 2015 22:49
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