Andrew Hale: IT Talk & Other Topics

Even though I know I'm at least a couple years from seriously buying a new bike, I'm still always shopping. With the internet as my primary shopping tool, I find myself boiling bikes down to the numbers. On paper, Bonnies, Sportsters and others aren't terribly impressive. However, in their day they were fast as hell. Now, we've got street-legal machines that can do 0 to speeding ticket in a few seconds. The dealers might as well take the license plate brackets off and throw in free tire warmers because these new machines are designed with the nearest track in mind.

I know the title doesn't sound like that of an iPhone review but the iOS experience really is a walled garden of sorts. The reason for this is largely because Apple plays a large role in deciding how their devices should an shouldn't be used. This isn't a new concept. AOL did it in their hay-day. They started their business with revenue-sharing agreements with specific information providers in their subscriber-only space. Facebook does it too, requiring you to login to their site before you can view profiles, play games, etc. This isn't to say that a walled garden approach is particularly bad. In the case of Apple, it's actually pretty good. If you want to do something with your phone that Apple decides shouldn't be done with it, tough cookies. However, for most intents and purposes, the iPhone just works and works great.

Earlier last week, I was asked to setup a new phone for our IT Director. I've setup phones before so I figured it couldn't be too big of a task. I'm definitely not well-versed with Cisco's Unified Communications Manager (aka, UCM) but I knew enough to be dangerous. What I thought was going to be a simple swap turned into something more than I'd bargained for.

Recently, a co-worker found my blog, read some bits, and gave me feedback on it. Mind you I don't do this for any kind of promotional reasons or because I have to. I have a gift for gab and I'm not the worst writer so I essentially do this for me. He mentioned that he liked the posts I've done but that I don't have a lot of pictures. He likes pictures. To be honest, I don't post a lot of pictures because my cell-phone sucks.

The other day last week, my co-worker and I were guestimating how many users we have in our organization. We figured it was about 1500 users. We decided to Powershell our way to an answer. In case you've been working in a Windowless datacenter for sometime or under a proverbial rock, Powershell is the automation and scripting framework built into all of Microsoft's recent business and enterprise softwares. It can be a shell for single commands like DOS (but so much more) or it can handle complex scripts the same way BASH can. Below, I'll run you through the first Powershell script I wrote with the help of my colleague, Steven.

There's a dividing belief in the motorcycle community over the saying "Loud Pipes Save Lives". A lot of riders, primarily on cruisers are all for loud pipes while many, both riders and non-riders, just find it annoying. I'm for loud pipes for reasons of safety and for enjoyment. First, let's talk about hybrids.

Providing technical support isn't easy. You have to know your systems and policies for computer usage, how everything works for troubleshooting when things don't work the way they should, and how to assist your users. Helping a user in person is relatively easy. You can show them what to do, explain things a little better and it's usually faster too. However, not every environment has that luxury. A lot of Help Desk techs and people with other IT titles assist users via phone or email. This makes things a bit more tricky, especially phone support. With email, you can prepare each message, verifying that it's carefully crafted and has all of the information you need to provide (plus, if you're smart, you've got templates or hotkeys setup for canned responses). On the phone, you have to think a bit more on your feet and hope your people skills are up to snuff. Below, I examine some general questions and run through a scenario where asking the right questions can...