Random Tech/IT Thread

[tshile]

It finally topped out at 277,000+ items to transfer . . . "about 26 days". Can't decide if that's legit, something that will speed up as the process goes, or if I just need to restart. 

 

Sounds like your drive may be on its last leg. I can't imaging anything on your laptop, copying over USB, should take 26 days...

 

I'd plug the drive into another computer and see how long it takes to copy large files. Makes sure it's not the usb drive that's trashed.

[Elessar78]

Sounds like your drive may be on its last leg. I can't imaging anything on your laptop, copying over USB, should take 26 days...

 

I'd plug the drive into another computer and see how long it takes to copy large files. Makes sure it's not the usb drive that's trashed.

Yeah, I gave up on that transfer Monday. I set it to target disk mode this morning and I'm done transferring the entire hard drive already. Started at 8:30 and it's now 11:38. 

 

Basically, I'm thinking that it's the OS since I was able to transfer everything with no problem? A fresh install. 

[tshile]

Yeah, I gave up on that transfer Monday. I set it to target disk mode this morning and I'm done transferring the entire hard drive already. Started at 8:30 and it's now 11:38. 

 

Basically, I'm thinking that it's the OS since I was able to transfer everything with no problem? A fresh install. 

 

Yeah, that would definitely point to the OS... interesting.

[Mufumonk]

Anyone good with phones?

 

I have an Samsung S4 an am on AT&T's network through Straight Talk. I finally got the option to upgrade to 5.0 (lollipop) from 4.4.? (kitkat).

 

However, now that I have upgraded, I keep getting the error message that my phone cannot connect to the google play store and that "Unfortunately, the process com.google.process.gapps has stopped."

 

Am I going to need to reset to factory default and try again? 

 

 

Edit..figured out how to unbrick it. Well..it wasn't bricked. How about..exterminate the bugs. 

 

So yeah. 

 

When I updated to Lollipop I had the same issue as well as decreased battery life and general sluggishness.  All of my issues cleared up after a factory reset.

[The Evil Genius]

When I updated to Lollipop I had the same issue as well as decreased battery life and general sluggishness.  All of my issues cleared up after a factory reset.

 

Probably a stupid question - but does the factory reset revert it back to the original android version that it came stocked with or does it just wipe all the downloaded apps/files/customizations?

 

I was able to fix it without doing that - but it worth knowing in case the problem pops up again.

[Elessar78]

OS 

 

Yeah, that would definitely point to the OS... interesting.

reinstalled the OS and things seem to be working fine for the past few hours. Hope it sticks. 

[Mufumonk]

Probably a stupid question - but does the factory reset revert it back to the original android version that it came stocked with or does it just wipe all the downloaded apps/files/customizations?

I was able to fix it without doing that - but it worth knowing in case the problem pops up again.

It gives you a clean install of the updated OS. You'll have to reinstall all of your apps but it's worth it and really doesn't take long.

[Kosher Ham]

Had a friend today ask me about potentially going to ITT.

Her being her, she has clearly done no research and has no idea what she may potentially want to do...

 

Seems like a leap of faith to me. She said something about different certifications, and the main question was about which ones she needs, and which ones are not really needed.

 

Some advice would be helpful to pass along. Thanks.

 

She is working two jobs now and is simply worn out from doing it, she is looking for an out. She figures she can take classes online and quit one of the jobs if it leads her to a better place. I was excited for her enthusiasm, yet skeptical of her commitment.

[Gamebreaker]

Well, it certainly isn't easy. The first question I would ask her is what exactly does she want to do? Does she want to work in software? Network Administration? Databases? Cyber-security? She should do research on each field, read up on what the day-to-day work entails , then decide on which field she'd like to enter..or even if she still wants to do it. 

 

A lot of people hear software engineers make a lot of money. So they pursue it, land a job, and realize they hate coding at a desk eight hours a day. 

[tshile]

 

Some advice would be helpful to pass along. Thanks.

 

ITT is expensive. They do a hell of a job marketing, but I'm skeptical of the payoff there. If you get lucky with a great job in a great environment, sure. If you have a clean record and can get a security clearance, you can make a lot of money doing low level stuff in the field (it's actually quite absurd.) But for the average person... it seems like a rip off to me. Notice the degrees they offer, and the ones they don't...  They're really expensive, but like all schools you get out what you put in. A dedicated, smart, driven person could absolutely go to ITT and wind up with a career that justifies the cost.

 

I, on the other hand, would suggest looking at a community college.

 

If she's local, GMU has a great program for people just like her.  http://techadvance.gmu.edu/programs.htm

 

She can earn certs to get her in the door somewhere, while taking classes that might end up with her obtaining some sort of degree (if she works with a counselor and picks the appropriate classes/certs.) There's A  TON of jobs in this area you can get if you're working towards something as a student. A family friend's son just got an internship at $20/hour working for a local government doing some pretty basic stuff, he's still in school for software development. These are all over the place around here. And if you're good, you'll wind up being asked to come on full time while you finish your schooling.

 

The other option is to learn enough to get a basic helpdesk job and then work your way up. The problem with this approach is that your talent level is normally identified pretty quickly, and your path at the company is determined then. If you're coming in fresh with no experience and aren't quit really good at your job, you'll be stuck in helpdesk until you go somewhere else. This path is best for someone who's already really good at their job, as they'll be promoted within 6 months out of helpdesk. That's the general way I've seen it work, there are always exceptions for talented/smart people.

[tshile]

NOVA offers some cert programs too...

https://www.nvcc.edu/workforce/programs/index.html

 

I went to NOVA and got my AS in IT and AS in CS there. I also went to GMU and got my BS CS there.

 

I was not, in any way, impressed with either program at NOVA... I consider both degrees absolutely worthless. Edit: And yes, I'm factoring in that an AS in either field is worthless to start with.

 

My BS from GMU is worth every penny. That department/program, and those teachers, were really, really good. They rank well too (~50 in the country in CS) so it's not just my bias, that's a really good ranking for what many consider a glorified community college and most of us consider (at best) 4th 'best' school in the state (in some order UVA, VT, JMU... then fight it out with CNU, radford, GMU, VCU, etc)

 

The CS department is completely different than the IT department.... I have no experience with GMU's IT department... but I would be inclined to recommend GMU's program over NOVAs...

 

Not to mention in the STEM fields at GMU, many of that faculty have ties to federal government/military work (many of the staff comes from that line of work too), which means if you are a quality student that gets recognized by staff you might wind up with some rather important connections and opportunities...

Edited October 1, 2015 by tshile

[Gamebreaker]

Two interns at my job are students at George Mason University. They are more knowledgable and more valuable to my company than employees who've been working here for 12 years or a guy who's worked in IT for 38 years. I've only seen one bad graduate from there so I think their reputation is well deserved.

[PokerPacker]

As a recent GMU Graduate from the Volgenau School of Engineering, I can confirm what others have said about them having a good program. I spent more time with ECE professors than CS, but I still came away with a positive impression of the CS department in the classes I took from it.

[ExoDus84]

For those that work in IT, specifically DBA, SQL, etc., what is a good technology to learn and/or focus on? I've been working on the client side, as an Access/VBA/MS-SQL developer. I'd like to learn some new tech, something that's in demand and will offer a good chance at a financial boost. I'm not sure if I should spend some time trying to learn T-SQL/SQL Server 2012/2014, or maybe focus on cloud technologies, etc.

 

Any suggestions?

[tshile]

For those that work in IT, specifically DBA, SQL, etc., what is a good technology to learn and/or focus on? I've been working on the client side, as an Access/VBA/MS-SQL developer. I'd like to learn some new tech, something that's in demand and will offer a good chance at a financial boost. I'm not sure if I should spend some time trying to learn T-SQL/SQL Server 2012/2014, or maybe focus on cloud technologies, etc.

 

Any suggestions?

 

My suggestion, and this may sound lame.... is to spend your time making sure you understand relational algebra since it's, for the most part, the foundation of databases. Once you have a firm grip, start learning about nosql and that little movement.

 

The people that are bad at databases are bad at understanding relational algebra and the performance hits of doing things certain ways.

 

Then spend time learning best practices about databases. For example, if you're going to develop software, how to use checkpoints so a failure of the system doesn't result in a completely corrupted database or one you can't roll back to except for the last full backup (i'm dealing with that right now...)

 

I spend an inordinate amount of time looking at scripts/calls/code written for expensive software and shaking my head. It's clear these people barely understand what is going on.

 

From there it's just a matter of understanding the differences in syntax and performance.

 

Right now there's a big framework... movement (i guess i'd call it?) where everyone's constantly talking about, and trying to sound like experts, in the next big framework. From databases to coding to SaaS stuff. You can get lost and spend hours chasing that stuff. It's to the point where I genuinely wonder how some of these people ever actually get things doe, they spend so much time chasing the next big framework/database/method.

 

If you're only concerned about administering the databases then just spend time reading the best practices written by the developers/maintainers of the systems. Because that's crucial. Understanding different backup methods, maintenance for performance, how to apply upgrades (and reading through enough reviews/notes/etc to understand how critical upgrades are.)

 

But I suppose I'm old school... I think understanding the underlying methods, reasoning, etc is way more important that being specialized in any particular system/language/etc. I see too many people who act ****y because they think they've mastered a specific system/language, then you look at their work and it's clear they don't actually know what they're doing... and some of them are borderline dangerous in the way they do things, the only saving grace is they don't have an important job.

 

edit: I realize I didn't really answer your question. hah! sorry about that.

the stuff I constantly see popping up:

Postgres, NoSQL, and MongoDB

Edited October 2, 2015 by tshile

[tshile]

Also look at Amazon's AWS system. It's taking off

 

https://aws.amazon.com/

 

There's actually a lot of companies looking for people that specialize in AWS. That's about all the help I can be on AWS, I haven't spent any time with it. I know a few people that have, they get job offers constantly.

 

edit: I asked a group of people about this and here's the conversation that ensued...

 

person1: it's a competition to see how fast you can throw money into AWS using their tools to draw wildly incorrect conclusions about data you don't understand

 

person2: haha

person1: what amazes me is the amount of people jumping into mongoDB and trying their hardest to use it like a regular db. or, in my world, the amount of inefficient waste putting data suited for mongoDB into regular DBs because Oracle

person3: they should just use excell and a team of interns

 

 

heh, it's the way things are right now. quite a divide over what it means to know/use some of this stuff

Edited October 2, 2015 by tshile

[Elessar78]

So I have a dedicated printer at work. Only I use it and I run the only Mac in the building. Everytime I update my password or I do an OS update my access drops and I have to reinstall the printer (or some other work around). Last week, I had more issues and couldn't get printer server access. Brought in IT and they couldn't resolve it either and I had some deadlines to meet. 

 

The short term work around was that I just hardwired the printer to my Mac via USB. IT was okay with this workaround as a short term solution. 

 

The printer is about 18 inches from my mac through a wall, so I asked Maintenance dept if they could drill a hole through the wall or install some kind of connection and they said they would. Today, I got a sharply worded e-mail saying that drilling a hole to bridge that 18 inches is not an acceptable solution. Like I said, I respect our IT guys, so have no problem playing by their rules. But why would not printing off the network be an issue? Is it a security issue? Control issue?

[HOF44]

So I have a dedicated printer at work. Only I use it and I run the only Mac in the building.

Couldn't you just put the printer in your office??

[Elessar78]

Couldn't you just put the printer in your office??

 

no, its a big xerox printer. 

[mattsb84]

Gonna preface this by saying none of the following is going to resolve your issue, but;

 

Why do you have the only MAC in the building? Personal or did they provide it? We're a windows environment so if anyone brings in a MAC, its a do it yourself type of deal. If your company provided the mac, they need to figure it out and get it sorted for you (hound them until they do, squeaky wheel and what not).

 

Off the top of my head, I can't think of a reason why a password change would cause your particular issue, but I have 0 familiarity with MACs OSX environment. I know when our it admins install a printer locally (which isnt correct) and they change their passwords, it can occasionally lock out their account (and then I laugh at them).  So I would start looking at stored credentials for the printer/network and whether or not you can change them when you do your routine password change. Or just reinstall the printer each time.

 

And I would agree with whomever said that drilling a hole in the wall to connect your laptop is not a proper solution. That would get a good laugh and a "no" from me as well.

[Elessar78]

I'm in design/advertising. It's my "industry standard". My predecessor also worked off a Mac. 

 

Well, we connected to the printer via USB and it's working fine. So I don't see the reason why we can't keep operating this way. Right now the USB cable goes out my door to the other side to the printer. 

 

I agree with you that it's not the "proper" solution. But "proper" solution takes productive hours away from me and away from IT. When drilling a hole would be about 30 minutes of Maintenance's time. We've already spent at least 4 hours of my time and at least two hours of IT's time trying to resolve this without a resolution. IT wants me to leave my computer for at least an hour to figure this out. 

 

To me, we have a solution that will work 100% of the time. How can it get better than that? 

[Gamebreaker]

Ok, so this is a network computer with an IP address and credentials? I've dealt with this when I was network admin and the issue was always a driver problem that took 2 minutes to fix.

[ixcuincle]

Wrong thread

Edited October 13, 2015 by ixcuincle

[skinsmarydu]

Anybody else having problems with DISH this morning?  My Hopper DVR has been cleaned out, and my soaps and The Daily Show scheduled recordings have been erased.

WTF?

[Zguy28]

Dell to buy EMC for $67 billion in biggest tech takeover ever

 

http://www.msn.com/en-us/money/companies/dell-to-buy-emc-for-dollar67-billion-in-biggest-tech-takeover-ever/ar-AAfmUf4?ocid=ansmsnmoney11

 

***************************************

As somebody who is forced to use EMC storage, I hope that Dell improves the support.

 

 

****************************************

Anybody else having problems with DISH this morning?  My Hopper DVR has been cleaned out, and my soaps and The Daily Show scheduled recordings have been erased.

WTF?

They have been deemed unhealthy and therefore have been removed. For your own good.

Edited October 13, 2015 by Zguy28