A ticket came in...

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ddiddles: Oct 21, 2008; Roses are red, violets are blue, I'm a schizophrenic and so am I

Year of the job indeed.

I've been a CJ at a local computer shop for the past three years, but I've only been making 20k a year.

Got a call about a helpdesk position for 10k+ a year more. The only problem is their ad said I'd have to deal with active directory stuff. I've messed around with it, but am in no way fluent, so I'm a little nervous about that. He's calling tomorrow with a 10 question quiz of the most common problems users have.

So I'm reading up on active directory like crazy tonight, hopefully I can stumble my way through the interview tomorrow. I know helpdesk positions are usually terrible, but I could use the money, and this would be a nice stepping stone into the higher paying IT world.

So goons, whats the best way to get the basics of AD down? Currently I'm just reading all the internet articles I can and some ebooks on it, I've only got 24 hours, so I know its pretty pointless.

# ¿ Jun 22, 2011 00:32

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# ¿ Apr 18, 2024 13:29

ddiddles: Oct 21, 2008; Roses are red, violets are blue, I'm a schizophrenic and so am I

Telex posted:

This is a lovely answer, but it depends on how extensively you're using AD and what your environment is.

AD in its most simplest form is simply a collection of users in groups (Called OU, Organizational Unit) and everything about them is loving obvious initially. On top of that, machines that are bound to your domain network end up in the Computers OU which is a special (and lovely!) OU that most places I assume semi-deprecate in order to put machines in a functional OU that at least separates user machines from servers and even further in subcategories for better organization.

The second layer of things is Group Policy where you can control a poo poo ton of awesome things about everything in your organization. It's complex as gently caress, but it's awesome when you get to using it. You can restrict access, grant access, tweak things on machines, enforce things on machines/users and basically make it an automatically enforced policy that any checkbox on a Windows machine is automatically the way you want it if you want to get that detailed. My latest GP object was to auto-deploy a specific wireless network profile to every single machine, since some people (idiots) kept disconnecting from the secure wireless to the guest wireless and then wondering why their poo poo wasn't connecting anymore. Now, everyone gets the secure wireless as the top priority auto connect default and I have a lot less complaints.

If you're in an Exchange environment as well, there's a lot of stuff that Exchange adds to AD as well.

It's complex but sorta easy to learn the basics. You might be able to spend a long time not mastering the full depth of what you can gently caress around with in AD honestly.

Thanks for the explanation man, I appreciate it! I'm hoping this interviewer realizes that even thought I don't know much about AD, it literally takes one me one explanation and then I'll know how to do it on my own.

One question I'm pretty sure he's going to ask is what the main causes of a user not being able to access a network drive in an AD environment. I know the basics (check network connection, if wireless check if they are the right one, check if network drive is accessible to other users), but as far as AD stuff goes, what would be the main cause of that? If you guys don't mind helping me out.

# ¿ Jun 22, 2011 00:56

ddiddles: Oct 21, 2008; Roses are red, violets are blue, I'm a schizophrenic and so am I

Thanks man, I appreciate it. Hopefully I can struggle my way through it. I don't think this job is that AD oriented, but I'll just be managing user who are in an AD environment.

Anyway, back to our regular scheduled programming.

# ¿ Jun 22, 2011 01:36

ddiddles: Oct 21, 2008; Roses are red, violets are blue, I'm a schizophrenic and so am I

CommanderApaul posted:

If your interview is anything like mine, if you're able to describe what it does and is used for, even if you don't know how to use it or how it works, that's probably good enough to get marked down for a 'correct' answer in the interview.

The golden question that was asked in my interview was "What are the five points of failure in troubleshooting an issue." Answer being User, Workstation, Network, Application and Server.

Thanks man! I've got that written down in front of me for when he calls. Although that answer can be shortened down for 99% of issues to just "User".

# ¿ Jun 22, 2011 04:31

ddiddles: Oct 21, 2008; Roses are red, violets are blue, I'm a schizophrenic and so am I

Crowley posted:

For most things with Active Directory the answer is likely to be: "You can do that with a Group Policy".

Users should only see drives they have access to? Group Policy
Anything with printers? Group Policy
Website needs to be added to "Trusted sites" in IE? Group Policy
Everyone should use a German keyboard layout? Group Policy

This video gives a decent explanation on what Active Directory is (despite the horrible voice sync and bad powerpoint):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qlGamRD3qqc

Haha, I watched that for about 5 seconds before I turned the sound off.

# ¿ Jun 22, 2011 07:51

ddiddles: Oct 21, 2008; Roses are red, violets are blue, I'm a schizophrenic and so am I

Farking Bastage posted:

Doing helldesk, all you will be doing in AD is resetting passwords and maybe adding group memberships.

Well the job description basically says I have to know how to troubleshoot Xp/Vista/7 and MS Office in an AD environment, so I'm pretty sure I just need to know how AD effects that stuff, not actually how to fix it haha.

Who knows, maybe I'll be the next Dick T and drink myself to death.

# ¿ Jun 22, 2011 17:41

ddiddles: Oct 21, 2008; Roses are red, violets are blue, I'm a schizophrenic and so am I

Year of the job update!

Just got off the phone with the owner of the company, never has an interview gone so well. I've got a face to face interview with him next week, if I don't completely frighten him I get to meet the team and see where I'll be working!

The position is half help desk, half onsite repair, the company does IT support for multiple small business companies, at about 900 users. Huge area for growth, the owner is thinking about starting me out at a higher position then tier 1 support due to how I answered his questions. They do anything from virus removals all the way up to design, setup and integration of enterprise networks and data backup.

He also said he fly's his employees out and pays for any certification they want including food and housing if it benefits the business.

Sorry for the info dump, I know to you experienced dudes out there know this job is probably soul sucking and liver destroying, but I'm fuckin stoked.

# ¿ Jun 22, 2011 21:22

ddiddles: Oct 21, 2008; Roses are red, violets are blue, I'm a schizophrenic and so am I

YOJT update!

Went in for my face to face interview today, all went well. Meeting the big boss next week as well as all the rest of the employees. No official offer from them, but I'm hopeful.

# ¿ Jun 30, 2011 23:58

ddiddles: Oct 21, 2008; Roses are red, violets are blue, I'm a schizophrenic and so am I

taremva posted:

I've actually used that to avoid finishing a call with a user who is still upset.

I'm sorry, I cant solve this issue over the phone. A specialist will have to contact you.
*sigh* Are you sure. Why cant you fix it?
He has a bigger FIX IT button. Mine doesn't work on this, I've tried 10 times already! He will contact you as soon as possible.
Haha! Ok, I'll be waiting for his call!

It cheesy, but it works.

My customers immediate reaction if I ever said to them would either be "Well could I just go buy a button at best buy or something?", or, "gently caress YOU I WANT TO NAIL YOU TO A CROSS AND BURN IT TO THE GROUND*"

*Yes someone actually said that to me, christ I need to get out of the consumer world.

# ¿ Jul 3, 2011 01:08

ddiddles: Oct 21, 2008; Roses are red, violets are blue, I'm a schizophrenic and so am I

Kyrosiris posted:

What in the hell was the impetus for that?

I didn't back up his quickbooks company file before reloading a computer he told me he doesn't use quickbooks on.

# ¿ Jul 3, 2011 01:36

ddiddles: Oct 21, 2008; Roses are red, violets are blue, I'm a schizophrenic and so am I

ValhallaSmith posted:

I had that happen to me once. Managed to recover it after the fact though so the guy loved me.

This is also why you ALWAYS do a backup before doing anything that might start wiping out data. Even if the customer says they don't use X.

Oh I could have totally recovered it for him, I image drives before I reload because of issues like this. He decided to say that before I let him know that, so I told him to come pick up his poo poo and his image mysteriously disappeared from my data drive.

# ¿ Jul 3, 2011 01:52

ddiddles: Oct 21, 2008; Roses are red, violets are blue, I'm a schizophrenic and so am I

I love looking like a genius even when I gently caress up.

And old man brought in a Dell that wasn't booting into Windows, diag showed failing hard drive. I plugged his HD in to my data machine, and nothing showed up, even in disk management, so I called him and gave him the bad news. This severely depressed him, as he had 4 years of business files from two separate businesses on there that he never backed up.

He opted to buy a new system, and as I was unplugging the HD from my data machine I noticed I had plugged in the data cable for his HD, but apparently decided not to give it any power. So I plug that in and lo and behold, all his data shows up!

I call him back and tell him that I used an "old tech trick" to "breathe some life" into his HD for a short period of time. He now considers me to be Jesus.

# ¿ Jul 13, 2011 22:48

ddiddles: Oct 21, 2008; Roses are red, violets are blue, I'm a schizophrenic and so am I

enotnert posted:

Eh, thats like what I'm trying to do today. . . I'm home sick and need to work on my new vm's that got put up last week. Found out to work on them from home the steps are as such.

Connect to VPN
RDP to OfficeComputer
Connect to Secondary VPN with OfficeComputer
RDP from OfficeComputer to VM

Jesus, did you click the start menu and then go to lunch while you waited for it to show up?

# ¿ Jul 26, 2011 18:35

ddiddles: Oct 21, 2008; Roses are red, violets are blue, I'm a schizophrenic and so am I

go3 posted:

pet peeve of the day

people who write down passwords with either the first letter capitalized or in all caps, despite the password not being in caps.

It's even worse when users use numbers as letters.

"Could I get your password please"

"Yes is 'password'"

Because password = Pa55w0rD I guess.

# ¿ Aug 3, 2011 22:10

ddiddles: Oct 21, 2008; Roses are red, violets are blue, I'm a schizophrenic and so am I

GWBBQ posted:

"I just went into my office and the phone is making a very funny sound."

This should be fun.

Ticket Resolved: Answered phone and then handed it to employee.

# ¿ Sep 26, 2011 23:09

ddiddles: Oct 21, 2008; Roses are red, violets are blue, I'm a schizophrenic and so am I

A verbal ticket came in:

"Please add my personal laptop to the domain as it will be my primary work computer."

My brain does not like the fact that I'm adding a Ubuntu 11.10 install to our domain. I guess I get to support Linux now.

# ¿ Dec 6, 2011 00:39

ddiddles: Oct 21, 2008; Roses are red, violets are blue, I'm a schizophrenic and so am I

Telex posted:

say no? escalate to your manager?

I mean I could say no to this with absolutely no hesistation and let them turn it into a Thing, and since I'm low enough level to not deal with Things, I wouldn't have a problem with this.

users don't get to declare what you support, only your manager or preferably the person in charge of your entire department should make that decision.

of course all this goes into the toilet if it's your boss who's bringing in their own machine but that seems unrealistic since I gotta figure anyone who is in charge can get themselves a decent company machine and understands how to get around the necessity to bind it to the domain.

I forgot to add this verbal ticket came in from the guy who signs my checks.

# ¿ Dec 6, 2011 02:44

ddiddles: Oct 21, 2008; Roses are red, violets are blue, I'm a schizophrenic and so am I

Telex posted:

"signs my checks" as a metaphor for the CEO, VP of Something Important or the Manager of Your Department?

I give zero fucks for the SVP of Finance at my job. He can deal with policy just like everyone else. He signs a check, big loving deal. The CEO wants local admin on his machine? Cool, ask my boss to make me do it and I'll do it but I am not the guy who makes decisions.

Unless this person is literally your direct supervisor, this is an issue for your direct supervisor and then potentially his supervisor and up to the CTO if you have one. I fully advocate any and every opportunity to push responsibility for poor decisions onto people who have the political clout to fight them or authorize them based on their non-lackey standing in a company.

And of course if said home machine Ubuntu guy is actually your literal direct supervisor, I would try to get out before something horrible happens at that job. If even the people in the technology department are bringing in their own machines because company machines are either too slow OR too filled with invasive programs... that's a red flag isn't it?

The real secret though is to have a VPN for things like this. Solves a lot of these issues.

Sorry, "signs my checks" as in "founded the company"

# ¿ Dec 6, 2011 20:45

ddiddles: Oct 21, 2008; Roses are red, violets are blue, I'm a schizophrenic and so am I

Multiple tickets may come in.

I'm installing SCCM on my secondary server after a few weeks of testing, proof of concept. Wish me luck :ohdear:

# ¿ Dec 9, 2011 23:19

ddiddles: Oct 21, 2008; Roses are red, violets are blue, I'm a schizophrenic and so am I

Spudalicious posted:

We just finished our deployment of SCCM. Using it for patch deployment and optional software is amazing! No longer do we just have every possible application on every computer image! Now the user gets a handy popup saying "There is software available to install", then they can choose to install from a list of apps.

It also does some reporting stuff but I don't really care about that.

Best of luck.

I'm really interested in the remote assistance and windows/software update capabilities. No more will I have to walk anywhere to tell someone they need to right click instead of left click.

I work for a small business with only 17 machines/26 users, I know its overkill, shutup!

# ¿ Dec 10, 2011 01:53

ddiddles: Oct 21, 2008; Roses are red, violets are blue, I'm a schizophrenic and so am I

Yaos posted:

You can use TightVNC or any of the other 10 billion VNC programs. It's free for any use. You'll need to install it on the computers though.
http://www.tightvnc.com/
If you're really lazy you can get DameWare Remote Control
http://www.dameware.com/products/dmrc/ or http://www.dameware.com/products/dntu/ if you can spend more. It integrates with Active Directory so you don't need to know the IP or computer name and you can remotely install it on a computer using your admin account so you don't have to disturb your cheese dust.

You can roll your own remote installer with batch files (or PowerShell!) and remote execute, but you'll have to manually start the install on each machine.

There are a lot of terrible programs that pretend to silent install, but at randoms points will ask the user to click a button because the dumbasses that make installers don't know what the gently caress they are doing. I had one that would silent install, and on reboot force the user to answer certain questions that they can't possibly know. There was no way to answer these as they came after the msi finished, completely defeating the point of having a silent install. It was also one of those lovely programs that prevents anything else from loading until the questions were asked. The software was for a network scanner.

I was able to gently caress around to make it shut the gently caress up, but it did not always work. It was only 3 people so it was not a big deal.

I actually had a customer deployment of ultraVNC going through GPO. I just like having everything integrated into one package as much as possible.

# ¿ Dec 10, 2011 19:34

ddiddles: Oct 21, 2008; Roses are red, violets are blue, I'm a schizophrenic and so am I

Frozen-Solid posted:

It's straight scotch. The article talks about that being one of the biggest issues, because no one should drink 8 shots of liquor in one sitting. It's meant to be shared, and there's mention of a "resealable" version coming in the future.

I think they already make something like that

# ¿ Jan 5, 2012 06:09

ddiddles: Oct 21, 2008; Roses are red, violets are blue, I'm a schizophrenic and so am I

NihilCredo posted:

Mind if I throw an "I sent in a ticket" mini-story for a change? I feel the need to get insulted, but my friends aren't quite nerd enough to see the issue.

So the internet suddenly stops working in my student room - not just the DNS, there's no connection at all. I ask a few people in the same building and theirs work. Hm. I reboot and reset my router and PC a few times, Internet is still down but my router eventually gets assigned an IP address - but it's a local one (.2.4) instead of a proper WAN IP. I can access 192.168.2.1, it's some other router's web interface - it says it, too, doesn't get a WAN connection, I can login with a blank password (I don't change anything except wiping the log before logging out), everything seems to have been left on default settings. Odd, maybe I'm the only guy who is in the building and under that particular NAT device?

Anyway, a few hours later tech support hours begin and I call:

- Hi, I'm in building X, my internet went down a few hours ago.
- Do you have a router in your room?
- Yes, but that part of the connection is working fine, the problem is further up the line
- Nevertheless, could you try and connect your computer directly to the plug?
- Well I tried that earlier on [Lie], but sure, no problem...

*connects the PC directly to the plug*

*Internet works*

- ...thank you.
- No problem, have a nice day!

Then I immediately reconnect the router and it keeps working. (*And* the mystery router is no longer accessible.) I am now considering getting "KEEP IT SIMPLE DUMBASS" tattooed on the back of my hands.

K.I.S.S. is hard to remember sometimes.

I called HP to get a warranty ticket created on my laptop that would not connect to the wireless at all.

First thing they had me check was the wireless switch (FN+F2).

Godammit...

# ¿ Jan 9, 2012 17:18

ddiddles: Oct 21, 2008; Roses are red, violets are blue, I'm a schizophrenic and so am I

Dick Trauma posted:

The CEO and CFO just met with me to discuss technology initiatives. They're intent on my suggestion to review all of our existing systems, all of our manual processes and look for opportunities to integrate or go electronic.

What prompted their interest? My CEO had a talk with my old CEO, then one that protects Tony, and the old CEO was bragging about how soon all their systems will be "in the cloud."

It is, of course, horseshit. I talked to the helpdesk guy a week ago and they still aren't even using the timesheet system I finished a year ago. The old CEO doesn't have a clue what that QuickBase project was about anyway, just that I was making all of our old manual forms electronic.

So I clued them in to this info and they were shocked to find out how backward, short-sighted and closed-minded my old employer was in respect to technology. They thought that we were behind my old employer but I made it clear that we're ahead and explained why. They both got pretty excited by that and have unleashed me to proceed with my review, after which we'll meet again and start examining the results for prioritization.

The new CEO said "If we're ahead I intend to keep us there."

Your pod.

Back in it with you.

# ¿ Jan 20, 2012 22:09

ddiddles: Oct 21, 2008; Roses are red, violets are blue, I'm a schizophrenic and so am I

dpack_1 posted:

A disciplinary notice came in...

Last monday i went to lunch with our Azerbaijan office director to talk about possibilities and opportunity of me moving over there (pay hike, tax free, paid accommodation for a year, sounded good for this time in my life). Stayed all afternoon discussing this but informed office manager and my colleague that i'd be doing so.

Got hauled into a meeting room Friday and a dressing down from London director, claims i 'disappeared' monday, told nobody where i was and that was unacceptable.

I protest, said i had permission from Azerbaijan director, and that was where i was, and i informed colleague and office manager.

He holds off handing me disciplinary notice to 'think on it' for the weekend. I got in today, dragged back into the room. HR manager is there, they say they spoke with Azerbaijan director and he denies ever seeing or speaking to me despite i have a witness that i was with him for 4 drat hours! And the fact his company credit card will report multiple purchases from the establishment we were at.

Currently suspended waiting to get chewed up and spat out on Thursday.

YOTJ anyone? London based. 10 years desktop experience, 3-4 years basic infrastructure and networking. Any leads AT ALL would be much appreciated.

They didn't speak with the Azerbaijan director at all (there is no reason for him to refute it), they are just covering up their gently caress up.

Get a written note from the director, then tell them to go eat a dick and move yourself down to Western Asia

# ¿ Jan 23, 2012 23:42

ddiddles: Oct 21, 2008; Roses are red, violets are blue, I'm a schizophrenic and so am I

HardDisk posted:

How much is ten times almost-zero?

Almost ten.

# ¿ Feb 22, 2012 02:24

ddiddles: Oct 21, 2008; Roses are red, violets are blue, I'm a schizophrenic and so am I

AlexDeGruven posted:

I'll address your particular question first (but you already know the answer): yes.

The reason snacks like those work and don't make you fatter is because the fat in them trigger your body's "I'm full" reflex faster (hence the term "high satiety").

It's the reason that high-fat diets work for a lot of people, including myself (been on keto since 1/4/12 and I'm 25lb down already), it's built-in portion-control.

The Low Carb thread is leaking...

The past year or so I've been not giving a poo poo about my diet, stacked on about 20 pounds. I'm back on my six small meals a day next week though, so here is hoping.

# ¿ Feb 23, 2012 23:59

ddiddles: Oct 21, 2008; Roses are red, violets are blue, I'm a schizophrenic and so am I

Dyscrasia posted:

I think its pretty much illegal (or more like watching the companies rear end so they don't get sued) for a company reference to give negative comments. HR will pretty much confirm that someone worked there and thats it.

Not saying you should be negative when you resign though.

Don't they circumvent this by asking "Would you hire such and such again?"

# ¿ Mar 2, 2012 18:35

ddiddles: Oct 21, 2008; Roses are red, violets are blue, I'm a schizophrenic and so am I

Griz posted:

terrible coworker's notes in a ticket about virtualizing the server:

Ahahaha.

"gave customer answer, turns out I was actually right later!"

# ¿ Mar 16, 2012 04:33

ddiddles: Oct 21, 2008; Roses are red, violets are blue, I'm a schizophrenic and so am I

Volmarias posted:

Fun fact: Outside of IT (and fussy financials), almost no one thinks about backups.

When I started my current job all of our Solidworks and CAD drawings where "backed up" on $16 Patriot thumb drives.

# ¿ Mar 16, 2012 07:01

ddiddles: Oct 21, 2008; Roses are red, violets are blue, I'm a schizophrenic and so am I

A phone call came in:

"hey bmj, forefront popped up with something called blissr? I dunno what that is so I clicked on the details. Is a key longer virus bad? "

Sigh, I guess I'm not that drunk yet, time to take a 40 minute bus ride.

# ¿ Sep 9, 2012 05:03

ddiddles: Oct 21, 2008; Roses are red, violets are blue, I'm a schizophrenic and so am I

Migishu posted:

I will admit, I work for a helpdesk, and I work for the networking team for that said helpdesk. So perhaps my view is (severely) skewed, since none of the products I use need Java.

I'm actually really surprised you don't use some bastardized Java app developed 12 years ago and is slowly whispering "kill me" as they add yet another update bringing it to V103.12.15.0112 with the patch notes "App no longer causes pancreatic cancer"

# ¿ Sep 17, 2012 21:49

ddiddles: Oct 21, 2008; Roses are red, violets are blue, I'm a schizophrenic and so am I

blackswordca posted:

I love shadowcopy so much because of this. Though normally they complain "What do you mean the backup is from noon, Ive put two hours of work into it!"

I asked my users if they'd rather have a 15 minute incremental shadow copy or a longer backup history (though those are taken care of with offsite backups) due to my constrained storage space. Haven't run into an issue where someone needs "this file 13 days ago at 12:45PM!!!"

# ¿ Oct 4, 2012 20:22

ddiddles: Oct 21, 2008; Roses are red, violets are blue, I'm a schizophrenic and so am I

psydude posted:

The most infuriating part was when I was trying to walk him through how to get to Keychain and he goes "This is way above my paygrade. I'm a board member."

So anyway, this meeting was a super secret strategy meeting. Instead of having me fix the microphone on the laptop, they used our conference line instead. Except they didn't bother checking the line schedule, and therefore failed to notice that it was reserved all morning for client calls. So all morning they had clients calling in TO A CORPORATE STRATEGY MEETING.

This is beautiful.

# ¿ Oct 17, 2012 17:37

ddiddles: Oct 21, 2008; Roses are red, violets are blue, I'm a schizophrenic and so am I

Rhymenoserous posted:

I use the hell out of PDQdeploy.

I had no idea PDQdeploy was a thing.

I love this thread. Was about to try and convince my boss to buy me Ninite pro for Java/Flash updates because I'm tired of making my own MSIs for every update.

# ¿ Oct 29, 2012 22:08

ddiddles: Oct 21, 2008; Roses are red, violets are blue, I'm a schizophrenic and so am I

Phrosphor posted:

It's the end users assumption that we will fix it for them right now that has me so incensed. If we do decide to fix this, they are getting charged a lot of money.

Oh god that's amazing. I'm assuming they have already paid you a ton of money for the SQL front end, how did the big wigs who signed the check not freak out when they just started using the old system?

# ¿ Nov 1, 2012 21:10

ddiddles: Oct 21, 2008; Roses are red, violets are blue, I'm a schizophrenic and so am I

nitrogen posted:

Why use this at all? Native email on AOSP or even touchwiz implementations works just fine.

Why use that steaming pile of bovine excrement at all?

Just took a look at it online.

How do you gently caress up app design that badly? Is that just do to the limitations of 2.x android?

# ¿ Nov 6, 2012 17:49

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# ¿ Apr 18, 2024 13:29

ddiddles: Oct 21, 2008; Roses are red, violets are blue, I'm a schizophrenic and so am I

Khisanth Magus posted:

A lot of places require signed consent of your spouse/gf if you are married and want a vasectomy, and some may even refuse to perform them on single guys. Plus it is kind of hard to have her not find out about it if your plan is to do it in secret.

That's a weird way of saying "one place".

# ¿ Jun 3, 2013 16:23

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