Random Tech/IT Thread

[PokerPacker]

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.

It's not about going to market, it's about going into a project half-****ed. Those components strike me as going into the project with "ehh, this'll probably work" instead of planning the project and looking at your requirements/constraints and making sure you pick the right components for the job. Plus Arduino puts a layer of abstraction into the programming to hide underlying functionality from the coder and really is specifically aimed at novices.

 

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

Don't be such a defeatist. Together we can take them down. We'll need to coordinate, all I need is your email, your home address, home phone, and cell number.

[Springfield]

All you need is a zip code and a birth date to identify someone with outstanding precision.

[chipwhich]

It's not about going to market, it's about going into a project half-****ed. Those components strike me as going into the project with "ehh, this'll probably work" instead of planning the project and looking at your requirements/constraints and making sure you pick the right components for the job. Plus Arduino puts a layer of abstraction into the programming to hide underlying functionality from the coder and really is specifically aimed at novices.

 

 

What open source hardware would you have recommended?  Perhaps you missed the whole purpose of the concept car.

[PokerPacker]

What open source hardware would you have recommended?  Perhaps you missed the whole purpose of the concept car.

And what constitutes open-source hardware, exactly? Arduino's dev-board, I guess, is open source, but the atmel microcontroller that plugs into it is not. And a devboard isn't really meant for a final product, it's a target to play around with. It would be just as open-source if you took any other microcontroller and built a target board for it. And it's not like the Raspberry Pi's ARM processor is open-source, either. There's not really much in the way of open-source processors... yet. But Risc-V is around the corner, and I'm interested to see where it goes.

[tshile]

just finished reviewing the first batch of 30 resumes for a job we're trying to fill.

 

i'm pretty sure my boss stuck one in there to see if i was actually reading them...

Edited June 23, 2016 by tshile

[chipwhich]

just finished reviewing the first batch of 30 resumes for a job we're trying to fill.

 

i'm pretty sure my boss stuck one in there to see if i was actually reading them...

 

Resume review in the IT world is a real crap shoot.  Although I can typically rule out the bull****ters and the job hoppers.  Sometimes it's hard to identify what I look for which is what I refer to as a technologist.  So many IT guys can only do one thing, because they aren't technologists they are trained to do a task.

 

I especially love the IT resume with a load of keywords at the top.  HTML, MS Office what I call silly keywords, and an abundance of certifications which typically means they can't do anything but earn certs.  There are so many garbage certifications out there, and I have had to get them for previous employers.

[tshile]

yeah, and when you run a small, quality IT department you're looking for a very specific type of person... because almost everyone else would ruin it in some way.

 

we can't afford someone who job hops or after 3 months you realize isn't worth the pay you gave them.. we have to be super selective.

 

i was really disappointed in the first batch. 30 resumes that made it through the first weeding out process, and i can only think or 2 or 3 that i'm even excited to talk to.

 

i was also disappointed in the lack of women. i'm not unaware that it's a male dominated profession, but i expected more than we got and i know that tide is turning. i imagine our job posting isn't the most attractive. if we were in/around a major tech city we'd probably get a much higher number.

 

not that it matters, it's just something that popped in my head when all was said and done. i've heard people say things like 'we need to hire a woman', and i'm most definitely not that type of person. so that's not really the angle i was going with.

[chipwhich]

yeah, and when you run a small, quality IT department you're looking for a very specific type of person... because almost everyone else would ruin it in some way.

 

we can't afford someone who job hops or after 3 months you realize isn't worth the pay you gave them.. we have to be super selective.

 

i was really disappointed in the first batch. 30 resumes that made it through the first weeding out process, and i can only think or 2 or 3 that i'm even excited to talk to.

 

i was also disappointed in the lack of women. i'm not unaware that it's a male dominated profession, but i expected more than we got and i know that tide is turning. i imagine our job posting isn't the most attractive. if we were in/around a major tech city we'd probably get a much higher number.

 

not that it matters, it's just something that popped in my head when all was said and done. i've heard people say things like 'we need to hire a woman', and i'm most definitely not that type of person. so that's not really the angle i was going with.

 

I hear ya.  I am shocked at how many resumes I get with job hoppers.  12 years 14 jobs, crap like that.  And we are always looking for female technologists, they just aren't that plentiful.  I think many females end up taking more creative web design type positions rather than hardcore coding or sys admin/network admin.  When I was working for 2 major relational database vendors, there were a lot of women who did relational database work.

[PokerPacker]

At my place of work, we've got about 30 or so engineers. No females among us, and I don't believe I've seen any come in for an interview yet. They just don't seem to be interested in it.

[Gamebreaker]

We have two females in the NOC at my job. But they don't have any experience with doing anything beyond watching monitoring systems. I've had to teach them a lot about Windows and Linux since they've started in March.

Yeah, a lot of certs are not worth the paper written on. The ones I've earned have been due to a requirement by a customer or my employer. The best certs, like the OSCP or CCIE, are the ones that either mostly or completely lab based. No multiple choice questions that can be memorized through data dumps, here is a problem now find the solution. At my job, we have a laptop with Cisco Packet Tracer and a really easy networking problem. So many people brag about knowing their way around Cisco IOS. As soon as they say that we pull the laptop out and ask them to prove it. I've yet to see a single interviewee get halfway through it.

[Renegade7]

At my place of work, we've got about 30 or so engineers. No females among us, and I don't believe I've seen any come in for an interview yet. They just don't seem to be interested in it.

I have three people in my department with 200+ node network, half of which are virtual customer web servers. My other two co-workers are female, including my boss. One of which decided not to have kids, the other constantly beats herself up for not spending more time with them and family growing up.

I don't know if interested is the word for it. More like this industry requires a lot of time, especially given we're all in the on-call rotation.

[Renegade7]

Why has Mark Zuckerberg taped over the webcam and microphone on his MacBook?

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/2016/06/22/why-has-mark-zuckerberg-taped-over-the-webcam-and-microphone-on/

It often seems like the height of paranoia; the technological equivalent of wearing a tin-foil hat: sticking a piece of tape over your webcam so that hackers aren't watching you.

But it isn't only conspiracy theorists that believe it's a good idea to cover up: Facebook's founder Mark Zuckerberg has resorted to taping over the camera and microphone on his MacBook.

In a post celebrating Facebook-owned Instagram reaching 500 million users on Tuesday, he uploaded a photo showing his laptop in the background.

Edited June 24, 2016 by Renegade7

[tshile]

Project Zero - How to Compromise the Enterprise Endpoint
 
ew. glad i don't have any of those in my environments...

 

edit: sorry, formatted the URL. essentially all symantec/norton products have been found to have a vulnerability where specially crafted files grant access to the root processes. the problem is in a core engine that's used across all their products.

 

 

edit 2:

 

oh good god

 

“Because Symantec uses a filter driver to intercept all system I/O, just emailing a file to a victim or sending them a link to an exploit is enough to trigger it - the victim does not need to open the file or interact with it in anyway. Because no interaction is necessary to exploit it, this is a wormable vulnerability with potentially devastating consequences to Norton and Symantec customers.”

 

The people who found the exploit, sent it to their contact at Symantec. The exploit was in a password protected zip, with the password in the body of the message, and their email server (running Symantec email filtering) grabbed the password, opened the zip, ran the code, and then crashed…

Edited June 29, 2016 by tshile

[PokerPacker]

Norton/Symantec suck? Go figure.

[tshile]

https://bugs.chromium.org/p/project-zero/issues/detail?id=820#c1

 

 

taviso@google.com, May 15, 2016

I think Symantec's mail server guessed the password "infected" and crashed (this password is commonly used among antivirus vendors to exchange samples), because they asked if they had missed a report I sent.

They had missed the report, so I sent it again with a randomly generated password.

 

hehehe

Edited June 29, 2016 by tshile

[NoCalMike]

Not sure if this is the right thread for this but I was having the darnedest time using the search function to find a tech support thread.

 

I have sort of a weird issue going on with my printer.  For some reason the black ink cartridge won't print when I am using any kind of document software like Open Office or Wordpad or notepad (I don't own MS Word).  However if I print something straight off the web it prints just fine.  I attached a pic of a comparison, and I even printed from wordpad in red ink just to verify it was just the black ink.  You can see a faint "#1" on the paper on the right, but it didn't print anything for the other text.  Have no clue what is up

 

[tshile]

ink cartridges dry up and prevent the flow of ink. so even though they're not "empty" they're worthless.

 

makes sure you have it set to black and white printing only, then print, and make sure it's your black cartridge.

 

this is probably the #1 reason why it's worth it to get a laser printer. inkjet will cost you more in the long run because even if you don't run out of ink, it dries up and you have to get new cartridges anyways. the companies that make the printers sell them at a loss because they know they'll make up for it on the ink.

[chipwhich]

ink cartridges dry up and prevent the flow of ink. so even though they're not "empty" they're worthless.

 

makes sure you have it set to black and white printing only, then print, and make sure it's your black cartridge.

 

this is probably the #1 reason why it's worth it to get a laser printer. inkjet will cost you more in the long run because even if you don't run out of ink, it dries up and you have to get new cartridges anyways. the companies that make the printers sell them at a loss because they know they'll make up for it on the ink.

 

He said the black prints fine from the browser.

 

I invested in a laser printer for my home.  It costs more up front but I think in the long run it pays for itself.  Plus the quality is way better.

[Wildbunny]

Yeah, a lot of certs are not worth the paper written on. The ones I've earned have been due to a requirement by a customer or my employer. The best certs, like the OSCP or CCIE, are the ones that either mostly or completely lab based. No multiple choice questions that can be memorized through data dumps, here is a problem now find the solution. At my job, we have a laptop with Cisco Packet Tracer and a really easy networking problem. So many people brag about knowing their way around Cisco IOS. As soon as they say that we pull the laptop out and ask them to prove it. I've yet to see a single interviewee get halfway through it.

 

As a technician for Colt I know a few things about Cisco and can usually find my way through it. Not saying I know much, I'm not certified in any way and don't really intend to do it, but I would love to get a hand on your laptop and see if I can get through it. I don't think I'm a specialist or whatever, but I love to solve things and find solutions to make it work

 

Norton/Symantec suck? Go figure.

 

Nothing new around here

[Gamebreaker]

As a technician for Colt I know a few things about Cisco and can usually find my way through it. Not saying I know much, I'm not certified in any way and don't really intend to do it, but I would love to get a hand on your laptop and see if I can get through it. I don't think I'm a specialist or whatever, but I love to solve things and find solutions to make it work

 

If you can configure a router to be able to allow a device on the LAN to ping something on the internet, even if you aren't very familiar with Cisco, with enough time you can do the problem. It's really very simple, but the issue we've found is most candidates either fail to understand subnetting properly, or don't get NAT at all. It's not even about the commands. It didn't even involve configuring a firewall through ACL or VPNs, just basic networking through Cisco IOS. 

 

Most people who really know networking, but aren't too familiar with Cisco will admit as much and say they're willing to learn. Someone who is BS'ing you in the interview is probably going to be BS'ing you when you give them assignments that require that "I know Cisco" knowledge to come in handy. 

[Wildbunny]

If you can configure a router to be able to allow a device on the LAN to ping something on the internet, even if you aren't very familiar with Cisco, with enough time you can do the problem. It's really very simple, but the issue we've found is most candidates either fail to understand subnetting properly, or don't get NAT at all. It's not even about the commands. It didn't even involve configuring a firewall through ACL or VPNs, just basic networking through Cisco IOS. 

 

Most people who really know networking, but aren't too familiar with Cisco will admit as much and say they're willing to learn. Someone who is BS'ing you in the interview is probably going to be BS'ing you when you give them assignments that require that "I know Cisco" knowledge to come in handy. 

 

Ok, I didn't expected something as basic as that (but usually, tircks like these done in interviews are really basic stuff that should take a few minutes to solve). Basically a few IP routes to add, 2 interfaces to configure...

I encounter that problem lots of time. I even often have to give some indian engineer that ****ed up some customer final conf... Don't know why but they often end up with putting some stuff that blocks all distant connection once they're done and you've got to go through console to help them.

 

I agree on your point though, I'm always willing to learn and I've always got a problem with people that thinks they know when they don't. I you don't, just say it, I'll give you a hand, and you'll learn. I don't think that's specific to IT guys though.

[tshile]

He said the black prints fine from the browser.

.

Oh

Oops. Sorry then.

[tshile]

looks like office 365 took a giant **** today.

 

people roll their eyes when you say you want control over your own stuff, when comparing the price of a cloud based service vs in-house service. but all the people who have email issues are stuck waiting for microsoft to fix it, with no real details, and they're not just fixing it for you they're fixing it for a ton of people...

 

of course, if you have ****ty people to setup/configure/manage your email system you're probably still better off.

 

going on 6 hours now. wonder when they'll fix it lol.

[TheGoodBits]

Awesome. Looks like my colleague is missing out on an end of quarter $100k deal because of 365's issues.

Notable: my company is migrating to 365 tomorrow.

Fan-****ing-tastic haha

[tshile]

turns out i misread the service health alert.

 

exchange *management services* are down for a good portion of my clients

 

exchange *online protection* (ie: email filtering, ie: what inbound email goes through) is down for *GLOBAL EVENT* (ie: everyone)

 

so even a client that hosts their own exchange services, but decided to outsource just spam filtering is down :lol:

 

fun times