Random Tech/IT Thread

[chipwhich]

Windows 10 officially sucks.

 

I did stop buying the Lenovo's because once they upgrade (pre installed with W10, but without all the patches) the wireless drivers stopped.

 

Now my employees are having a different issue on different laptops.

 

1)  When the laptop goes to sleep you can't wake it up.  You have to power cycle.  That includes closing the lid.  I know I can turn all this stuff off, but you can't awake from sleep mode?

 

2)  Outlook profile keeps getting wacked and you can't log into mail from outlook.  You have to recreate the profile (then it gets wacked again).

 

Any ideas?

[tshile]

our lenovo's wireless drivers have problems.

 

i have the intel wireless n 7260, driver version 18.32.0.5. It's not perfect, but it's the best i've found so far...

 

other than getting the latest drivers i don't know what to tell you about (1). check for a bios update as well.

 

i'd need more specifics for #2... version of outlook, version of mail server... first thought is go to the credential manager in control panel and remove any cached windows credentials related to the domain/mail server. that was a huge problem in windows 7, i haven't seen it in windows 10, but basically you would type your password in when outlook prompted but it would never actually log in. windows 7 had an issue updating the cached credentials, and so you were stuck with it trying to use a bad password until you cleared it out of the credential manager.

[chipwhich]

our lenovo's wireless drivers have problems.

 

i have the intel wireless n 7260, driver version 18.32.0.5. It's not perfect, but it's the best i've found so far...

 

other than getting the latest drivers i don't know what to tell you about (1). check for a bios update as well.

 

i'd need more specifics for #2... version of outlook, version of mail server... first thought is go to the credential manager in control panel and remove any cached windows credentials related to the domain/mail server. that was a huge problem in windows 7, i haven't seen it in windows 10, but basically you would type your password in when outlook prompted but it would never actually log in. windows 7 had an issue updating the cached credentials, and so you were stuck with it trying to use a bad password until you cleared it out of the credential manager.

 

Well I fixed the wireless driver problem with downloading the latest driver from intel (it wasn't on the lenovo site).

 

But number 1 in my post is Windows 10 entering sleep mode on a laptop and not able to wake the laptop up.  That isn't a driver issue.  Any idea how to awaken a Windows 10 laptop from sleeping?

 

With regards to Outlook, it's a brand new machine and I now use Office 365 or Office Portal or whatever it's called.  So I pay a monthly fee and get to download the newest version of MS Office.  You're Windows 7 problem sounds EXACTLY like what is happening.  You keep typing your password in the dialogue, it's the correct password, but it is trying to authenticate with something else.  The weird thing is it's a new machine, and the password remains the same for the original profile and Exchange.  I use Rackspace as my exchange server, would have to see what version they use.

[tshile]

I wake mine up by opening the lid, or pressing on the key pad. If that doesn't work I press the power button.

 

Is it waking up and the display just isn't working correctly? it can be hard to tell with all the passive cooling in the ultrabooks these days...

 

i know rackspace has specific instructions for the outlook over https settings, but i don't believe i've used outlook 2016 to connect to a rackspace setup yet... and they changed outlook in 2016 and how it connects.... but if those settings aren't set right then it's not going to route correctly for authentication, it will also do exactly what you're describing.

 

also, why are you using rackspace over office 365 for exchange? i think rackspace is more expensive and I can't for the life of me figure out what you're getting for the increased cost... off topic, obviously...

Edited May 10, 2016 by tshile

[chipwhich]

I wake mine up by opening the lid, or pressing on the key pad. If that doesn't work I press the power button.

 

Is it waking up and the display just isn't working correctly? it can be hard to tell with all the passive cooling in the ultrabooks these days...

 

i know rackspace has specific instructions for the outlook over https settings, but i don't believe i've used outlook 2016 to connect to a rackspace setup yet... and they changed outlook in 2016 and how it connects.... but if those settings aren't set right then it's not going to route correctly for authentication, it will also do exactly what you're describing.

 

also, why are you using rackspace over office 365 for exchange? i think rackspace is more expensive and I can't for the life of me figure out what you're getting for the increased cost... off topic, obviously...

 

Opening the lid wont wake the system up.  Get a blackscreen.  Nothing appears.

 

As far as rackspace, it's probably because I am an idiot and didn't fully research my options

[tshile]

CNN | The U.S. is still using floppy disks to run its nuclear program

 

(CNN)Want to launch a nuclear missile? You'll need a floppy disk.

 

That's according to a new report by the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO), which found that the Pentagon was still using 1970s-era computing systems that require "eight-inch floppy disks."

...

The report says the Pentagon is planning to replace its floppy systems -- which currently coordinate intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs), nuclear bombers and tanker support aircraft -- by the end of 2017.

 

Other departments were also put on notice to update their systems. The U.S. Treasury for example, still depends on assembly language code "initially used in the 1950s."

 

Bringing government departments into the 21st century has proven difficult across the board.

...

 

My god they can do nothing right.

[PleaseBlitz]

On the plus side, a floppy disc can't be hacked over the interwebs.

[skinfan2k]

you guys really don't understand govt finance.  the reason why some programs are so old and still active because congress won't fund new programs but they will continue to band-aid old ones and they don't want to fund 2 programs at once while you are building a new platform 

[Gamebreaker]

you guys really don't understand govt finance.  the reason why some programs are so old and still active because congress won't fund new programs but they will continue to band-aid old ones and they don't want to fund 2 programs at once while you are building a new platform 

 

Which is why they refuse to get off Windows XP. 

[tshile]

you guys really don't understand govt finance. the reason why some programs are so old and still active because congress won't fund new programs but they will continue to band-aid old ones and they don't want to fund 2 programs at once while you are building a new platform

I get it, I just think it's dumb Edited May 26, 2016 by tshile

[skinfan2k]

I get it, I just think it's dumb

 

Congress is dumb yet people complain at govt workers

[Renegade7]

Anyone else get the feeling there are people in the private sector financially influencing government officials to help make government inefficient so they can both the argument for having the private sector do it instead?

Of course Government isn't going to work if its like pulling teeth to get the budget passed and we kept having people threaten or even accomplish shutting down the federal government all together.

And I was turned off when reading an article about the Nuke system and it was mentioned using floppies in certain places was somehow security through obscurity actually means anything. Some of the first pieces of malware were spread via floppy, before USB became more popular.

Edited May 27, 2016 by Renegade7

[Renegade7]

At SouthEast Linux Fest in Charlotte, NC.  Learning a lot, anyone else ever been?

[PokerPacker]

At SouthEast Linux Fest in Charlotte, NC.  Learning a lot, anyone else ever been?

Has anyone talked to you about the horrors of systemd yet?

[Renegade7]

Has anyone talked to you about the horrors of systemd yet?

 

Funny you mention that, because there's a session my best friend is going to about that that's same time as end of day Keynote I wanted to go to.  

 

Learning a lot about MySQL (job is starting to spinning up LAMP stacks to host for people for specific product we offer), but it's the On-Call session that really hit home.  

 

I cannot keep doing what I'm doing how I'm doing it, but its different hearing it from people with similar experiences that realized the same thing I'm realizing and accepting now.

Edited June 11, 2016 by Renegade7

[PokerPacker]

Funny you mention that, because there's a session my best friend is going to about that that's same time as end of day Keynote I wanted to go to.

It's starting to become a hot-button topic in the linux community, I think. Most of the main distros are adopting it as the init system and it's been absorbing many, well, unrelated services growing to a whopping 550,000 lines of code... good luck code-reviewing that and making sure there aren't any backdoors introduced (and being the init system on PID 1, it can do all sorts of damage if compromised).

I've recently started experimenting with Gentoo as an alternative moving forward. It'll keep systemd off my machine, plus it should probably force me to learn a bit more about the stuff going on under the hood in Linux.

[Renegade7]

It's starting to become a hot-button topic in the linux community, I think. Most of the main distros are adopting it as the init system and it's been absorbing many, well, unrelated services growing to a whopping 550,000 lines of code... good luck code-reviewing that and making sure there aren't any backdoors introduced (and being the init system on PID 1, it can do all sorts of damage if compromised).

I've recently started experimenting with Gentoo as an alternative moving forward. It'll keep systemd off my machine, plus it should probably force me to learn a bit more about the stuff going on under the hood in Linux.

 

Yikes. 

 

He ended up doing something else, but I did hear about an "init" alternative (so I guess that's it, huh?).  I'll need to read more into it, but you can count in me in the "is that really necessary" camp as well right now.

 

I figured the community would have bigger fish to fry, like Bash and OpenSSL vulnerabilities, or working on remaining driver compatibility issues for their best Desktop OS's like Ubuntu and Mint to help sway more converts.  Containers sound cool, and the conference might as well have been sponsored by Red Hat this year   : )

 

Curious about the rumor Linus is going to start taking a less "rough around the edges" approach to how he deals with people in and outside the Open Source community. Some things I'm still feeling out, though it comes across as him being sort of a tone setter and many not agreeing with his tone (cultural differences or not). I can totally see that.

Edited June 12, 2016 by Renegade7

[PokerPacker]

Yikes. 

 

He ended up doing something else, but I did hear about an "init" alternative (so I guess that's it, huh?).  I'll need to read more into it, but you can count in me in the "is that really necessary" camp as well right now.

 

I figured the community would have bigger fish to fry, like Bash and OpenSSL vulnerabilities, or working on remaining driver compatibility issues for their best Desktop OS's like Ubuntu and Mint to help sway more converts.  Containers sound cool, and the conference might as well have been sponsored by Red Hat this year   : )

Potential vulnerabilities are just a part of it. The basic Unix philosophy is to do one thing and do it well. Systemd is attempting to do a billion things, and the more areas it creeps its tentacles into, the harder it will be to replace it. And it's being developed by a couple guys without the best reputation. One was black-listed from committing to the Linux Kernel by Linus Torvalds because his sub-par code was always introducing bugs that he refused to fix. And the other main developer was the guy responsible for PulseAudio which had it's own messes. Both employees of Red Hat (so perhaps the systemd conference thing was some pro-systemd propaganda if the event was as Red Hat sponsored as you led on.)

If you wanna go down the rabbit hole... http://without-systemd.org/wiki/index.php/Arguments_against_systemd

Curious about the rumor Linus is going to start taking a less "rough around the edges" approach to how he deals with people in and outside the Open Source community. Some things I'm still feeling out, though it comes across as him being sort of a tone setter and many not agreeing with his tone (cultural differences or not). I can totally see that.

That'd be a shame. I love me a good Linus rant. I'm a C programmer in an office full of C++ elitists; who would I turn to now, for quotes like:

"C++ is a horrible language. It's made more horrible by the fact that a lot

of substandard programmers use it, to the point where it's much much

easier to generate total and utter crap with it. Quite frankly, even if

the choice of C were to do *nothing* but keep the C++ programmers out,

that in itself would be a huge reason to use C."

[PokerPacker]

Speaking of languages, take a gander at this beautiful new scripting language:

https://github.com/samshadwell/TrumpScript

[chipwhich]

This brings out the geek in me.

 

https://cocreate.localmotors.com/awest/connected-car-project-internet-of-things/activity/

 

Local Motors has become psyched about the opportunity and buzz around the Internet of Everything movement, and we are interested to see where this adventure can take us. To that end, we recently joined the AllSeen Alliance by the Linux Foundation to get a front row seat to the internet of things incorporation into the world.

This open source connected Rally Fighter includes:

• Linux powered with Automotive Grade Linux www.tizenassociation.org automotive.linuxfoundation.org
• Raspberry Pi board wired into the control harness via Arduino relay boards
• Octoblu's open source Meshblu private IoT cloud, Gateblu IoT gateway, and Microblu Arduino IoT operating system
• Octoblu's Nodeblu Chrome app for controlling Internet of Things connected devices

[PokerPacker]

This brings out the geek in me.

 

https://cocreate.localmotors.com/awest/connected-car-project-internet-of-things/activity/

This brings the cringes out of the engineer in me. A Raspberry Pi and Arduino? Those are the two go-tos of a hobbyist, not an engineer.

[tshile]

I give up.

 

I've fought the privacy battle for 8-9 years now. I cancelled my facebook account long ago when they first started resetting your privacy settings with every 'major' update to the platform (then were like 'oh oops' when they were called on it, as if it was an accident.) I stayed away from google's services because they are #1 in the business of mining data, everything orients around them doing that. i stayed away from most apple products and even android phone (i still think webOS is the most underappreciated OS to ever exist, god damn sprint and their terrible marketing and verizon and their 'droid' marketing) for... the better part of the last 8 years.

 

But no one else cares. You cannot fight it on your own. No major company is going to cater their stuff to the 1% of people that actually care about privacy in this country.

 

So I give up. I lose.

 

And now google knows entirely too much about my music tastes. Their i'm feeling lucky radio is spot on.  I'm going to buy the family plan so it's on all our devices. 15$ a month is worth it for music that i actually like and is easy to find (new and old alike)
 

*long sigh*

[Renegade7]

I can understand where you're coming from, tshile, totally.

It's work to fight that, though I'd still recommend limiting your attack surface where you can. I know I may be missing out on the finer things, but I'm perfectly fine with my watch only being able to tell me what time it is. If google was going to do something to me, they would've already done it, but that's not who I'm concerned about the most.

People with too much time on their hand concerns me more.

Edited June 20, 2016 by Renegade7

[PokerPacker]

Don't let them break you!

[chipwhich]

This brings the cringes out of the engineer in me. A Raspberry Pi and Arduino? Those are the two go-tos of a hobbyist, not an engineer.

 

Well if they were doing it for a go to market, they wouldn't do it all open source.  Can't have it both ways.  I would say it was built more as a "hobby" just to show off the technology.

I give up.

 

It's an unwinnable battle you should have never tried to win.  You have no privacy.