Lonely Tech

The Return of the Lonely Tech

2009-01-22T20:50:00.004-05:00

Things once again got crazy. Everytime that happens, I drop this blog faster than Asus adds Eee-branded products. But normalization has returned and so I'm picking up the blog again. ("Normalization has returned..."? Where did that come from?

Since I last posted,

the Chrome browser folks have released pre-beta v2. Didn't "pre-beta" used to be called "alpha"? At least it's not a "pre-community technology release" or whatever Microsoft calls it.
Spiceworks moved to v3.5. They now claim to support 500 devices which is enough for me. I'm seriously considering giving them another shot for my network management. I only dropped them because they couldn't handle all my devices. They are dead-easy to install, include a help desk, look slicker than an Apple UI, and provide access to a pretty good forum of small-business tech pros. I need to verify that they include a syslog server to centralize logs. If they do that, I'll probably switch from Zenoss.
Speaking of Zenoss, they're up to v2.3. I really like Zenoss. They have both free and Enterprise (read, $$) versions and scale well if you have lots of devices. The interface is nice, but not as slick as Spiceworks'. They lose some points for not being as easy to install or maintain. In fact, the main reason I'm thinking of switching to Spiceworks is because I totally destroyed my Zenoss install while trying to upgrade to 2.3. I'm not blaming Zenoss entirely, but I am saying that Spiceworks is easier to install and upgrade.
In sad news, Sandy passed on. This was one of the coolest products available. Somebody seriously needs to take that concept and run with it.

For those wondering about the ITIL project... It's alive, sorta. GLPI/OCS NG is working pretty well as a helpdesk/change management system. We seem to have hit a bit of a doldrum, though. I thought that ITIL would lead to more communication but that is just not happening. I'll have to find a way to kick that into gear. Any suggestions would be welcome.
So there is the big catchup post. I'll try to get a post comparing Zenoss and Spiceworks here soon.

Chrome is now available

2008-09-02T13:56:00.001-05:00

They kinda missed the 11am PDT goal, but Google Chrome is now available.

Google Chrome

2008-09-02T07:02:00.001-05:00

I cannot wait for 11am. That's when the new Google Chrome browser will be released. (I just had a scary thought. They might mean 11am PST!)

This browser looks like the answer to many problems. It will run each tab in it's own process which should conserve memory (not on startup, but over time), increase stability, improve security and allow some cool features.

But you don't have to listen to me while you sweat out the interminable wait for the download to go live. Go read this. It's informative, entertaining and has pictures!

Sandy Groks My World

2008-08-26T20:53:00.005-05:00

The two biggest helps early on this school year have been GLPI and Sandy. GLPI, I have discussed. It has proven popular with the staff already and is keeping me way more organized with trouble tickets than I have ever been before. For those who missed my previous post, GLPI is an open source CMDB and help desk application. The staff enters trouble tickets (I call them "requests") and I am able to priorize and work them.

This has been much better than the old "write it on scrap paper which I stuff in my pocket and then lose or run through the washer or (occasionally) actually work" system I used to use. Still, there are times when I am not at a computer and need to remember to do something. This is where Sandy has been a big help.

Sandy behaves as a virtual, electronic personal assistant. Email Sandy a list of things to remember and she reminds you about them by email, SMS, or Tweet. Tag each reminder with @todo and they are added to a Todo list. I've been pulling items from GLPI and entering them into Sandy then printing off a daily agenda of things to do. As I roam the halls working on tasks, I write in additional tasks as I learn of them. Then I sync up at the end of the day, completing tickets in GLPI and tasks in Sandy while adding tickets and tasks to both systems.

Of course it's still early in the year, but I'm feeling a little more in control of things with this system.

BONUS - If you set up a Jott account (Although I use the free account and it is enough for me, there are now accounts you can pay for if you need extra features), you can call Sandy and add things to your todo list. Just make sure to say "tag with todo" at the end of your message.

Wyse Streaming Manager

2008-08-25T12:15:00.001-05:00

Oops. This is a common pattern for me:

Install new technology.
Use new technology.
Realize there were better ways to install said new technology.
Rip new technology out and install it again.

If it is new, I don't think I have installed it less than twice. Sometimes I do it several times. Minus several points for productivity, but I usually gain in knowledge of how the product works and (especially) how it is installed.

So I set up Wyse Streaming Manager last year and wasn't real happy with how I set up the base image. This summer, I deleted the old base image and recreated it. I used Windows XP Pro both times but the new image has the shiny new SP3 installed.

Whoops! WSM doesn't recognize SP3 and so will not allow my streaming apps to work. So now I'm in the middle of base image creation #3, carefully avoiding SP3.

*sigh*

Spiceworks 3.1

2008-08-22T14:53:00.001-05:00

Momma probably told you to never install .0 releases. Spiceworks gives us additional proof.

It seems that the 3.0 release had issues with hangs, duplicate items, and resetting custom attributes. Those are all fixed now in 3.1 so get out there and update, you Spiceworkers.

Negative Pings

2008-08-22T14:49:00.001-05:00

I had a computer today that was having intermittent network issues. I tried a ping as a normal troubleshooting step and was surprised to receive negative ping times.

At first I was excited about the time travel possibilities but soon realized that there must be a glitch in the Windows XP machine I was working on. That's when I found several sites in Google discussing the problem. It seems that AMD dual core processors have an issue with timing between the cores.

There is a patch available, so I guess my time travel fantasies are still unfulfilled.

Lesson Learned

2008-08-21T22:12:00.003-05:00

When you are a tech, you need to think things through completely before acting. When you are the only tech in the organization, you need to spend a little extra time thinking things through. After all, no one is going to have your back so you have to double-check yourself.

Terminal Services in Windows Server 2008 sounds really nice. I read up on RemoteApps, TS Gateway, Web Access, and even EasyPrint (we use network printers not local, so EasyPrint would be of marginal use for us.) I checked into Active Directory integration. I read about the changes to the Session Broker. I was even aware of the changes in RDP.

Ah, the RDP client. We mainly use Neoware C50s from about three years ago. We're adding HP t5135s now (since HP bought Neoware), but the majority of our thin clients are the old Neowares. These clients run a modified version of Linux with an old version of rdesktop.

The problem? rdesktop is not compatible with the new RDP used in Terminal Server 2008. So for now I am back to Windows Server 2003 for my Terminal Servers. All the cool functionality will have to wait until I can replace my old thin clients.

The kicker to the whole thing is that one of the reasons I went to server-based computing in the first place in order to get longer life out of my clients. I guess you really can't fight progress.

How to Manage, pt. 2

2008-07-30T23:00:00.002-05:00

On Tuesday, I discussed the need for monitoring your network. I mentioned Spiceworks, which is a slick program but it didn't scale up enough for me (as of version 2.0). I also mentioned Zenoss which is a great open source app that I'm using to consolidate server logs and monitor server performance. Zenoss is also slick, but it didn't completely scratch my itch.

I know I need to get out of firefighting mode, but a two day introductory course into ITIL has motivated me to actually make some progress. ITIL is a collection of guidelines and best-practices to bring IT departments and business leaders closer together. Using ITIL, the tech guys should only be working on projects that have real value for the organization and the rest of the business should do a better job of letting the tech guys know what's needed. It seems that no one implements the entire ITIL approach. Everyone seems to adapt it to their own needs. A single-person technology department definitely has needs, so we ought to be able to find something useful here, right?

I'm spending this summer working on phase one of our ITIL implementation. This is where we document every piece of hardware and software we own. The theory is that you cannot improve the situation until you know exactly what you have. I thought I had a pretty good handle on what we had until we actually started documenting it. There's a lot of stuff out there that I forgot/never knew about.

All of this information goes into a Change Management Database (CMDB). While I love Zenoss for keeping an eye on my servers and Spiceworks is fine for inventorying a couple hundred PCs, I wanted something different. I found it in the open source application known as GLPI. GLPI is an abbreviation for something in French. For all I know, it is some kind of insult.

Whatever the name means, the actual application is far from insulting. GLPI allows you to keep track of every piece of equipment (including every card, stick of RAM, processor, hard drive, etc. in your PC) and software, tie them together (connecting a monitor and/or printer to a PC), assign them to locations, and assign them to people. It also allows you to store all financial information about the item with the actual item (information like: warranty, value, depreciation, support contracts, and more). Another feature I like is the ability to attach files to an item. I'm attaching PDFs of the user manuals to everything!

GLPI includes a help desk. Tickets can be entered from email or a web form. The tickets are associated with a piece of equipment or software. While looking at the ticket, you can easily bring up the item being referenced. All of the history, financial information, warranty information, and configuration specifications are at your fingertips.

The intial payoff comes from having tickets recorded in a database instead of on hastily written notes stuffed in your pockets. It also comes from having all the information about an item easily available before you begin troubleshooting. But I'm really looking forward to the future day when I can pull out reports showing the history of our computers and use them to quantify new purchases.

There are a few issues we're still working through. First, it is time consuming to get everything in the CMDB the first time. Fortunately, GLPI works with OCS NG Inventory. (OCS is also French, I think.) OCS is a small agent that uploads computer information when a user logs in. This is a huge time saver on getting information into the database. The problem comes with sorting it all out, getting the financial information in place, and verifying that everything is where it is supposed to be. Plus, certain tech items like projectors are not going to be discovered by a software agent.

A second issue I am concerned about is making sure everyone enters their requests into the system. I've taken requests as I've walked down the halls for so long, I'm afraid people will not understand why I'm forcing them to use a web form to enter their requests. I'm going to do my best to explain the reasons and hope that they see this as a win-win situation.

My biggest concern is persistence. It will be really easy to not keep up with the database or not force people to enter tickets in the help desk. The only way we will reap any rewards from this is if we keep at it.

There is a lot more to ITIL than I've covered here. I'm planning on at least one more post about it in the near future. There's also more to the implementation than I've discussed so far. Look for a post on that this weekend.

How to Manage, pt. 1

2008-07-29T22:31:00.002-05:00

See if you can relate to this:

1) Show up at work
2) Start to check email
3) Receive calls from people with login issues or computers that won't boot
4) Run around for the morning fixing issues
5) While running around, meet more people with problems
6) Fix these problems on top of the previous problems
7) Get back to desk
8) Start working on project you were working on yesterday
9) Get more calls about more problems
10) Run around fixing problems
11) Meet more people with problems
12) Get home late - meet angry spouse (and you never did finish checking email!)

This is what we technology professionals refer to as a "Bad Thing". It's what I have been trying to overcome. It just felt like it should be possible to stop fire-fighting and start managing the network in a proactive manner. I'm not there yet, but here's what I'm trying to do to improve the situation.

In the past I have recommended Spiceworks. I've tried it and it is a great product. It inventories hardware and software, includes a helpdesk, has some nice reporting features and comes for the low, low price of free. It's easy to set up, doesn't use agents for the inventory and did I mention it is free? I recommend it highly but have stopped using it.

For all it's good points, there were two problems for me. (Mind you, this is v2.0 I am discussing. I have not tried v3.0.) The bigger problem of the two is that Spiceworks was designed to max out at 200 PCs. The school I work for has about 250 computers. Things were starting to bog down. The other problem is that, despite it's $0 dollar price tag, it isn't open source.

I'm not a raving OSS fanboi, but I think public school systems need to support open source products. I'm not ditching our Microsoft Terminal Servers or XP Pro PCs. I just think that where it's possible, we should seek out open source solutions. So while I would have no problem using Spiceworks if it scaled better to our needs, I wasn't too upset to leave it behind in search of OSS products. But which ones?

My next move was to try out Zenoss. Zenoss has both commercial and OSS versions. Of course, I'm running the open source version. Where this product shines for me is in server log centralization. I never had time to check each server's logs for problems. (Kinda like email.) As a result, I generally found out about server problems when someone else noticed it. Now I am able to quickly scan all my servers for issues and deal with the big ones before anyone else notices them.

Zenoss also includes performance monitoring and uptime monitoring. It monitors printer messages too. There's also addons (called ZenPacks) to add additional functionality. It's definitely worth a look.

One word of warning about the Zenoss virtual appliance. It is a great way to try out the product, but it has a very small virtual hard drive. I ran it out of space in a couple months. In trying to resize the disk, I corrupted the whole thing. I ended up creating an Ubuntu server and installing Zenoss from the repositories. Do yourself a favor, don't plan on running a production server on the appliance.

Zenoss wasn't a complete solution for me. Maybe I could write my own ZenPack to meet all of my needs, but I'd heard about something else I wanted to try. I'm going to discuss that on Thursday along with my grand plan for ~~world domination~~ getting out of firefighting mode.

Yawn

2008-07-26T23:53:00.001-05:00

OK. It's time to shake the dust off. Things went haywire about a year ago and this blog got lost in the shuffle. This post is just to wake things up in here and prepare for great things in the future.

I'm looking forward to talking about some of the things I've been involved with. The web site I was working on a year ago is running (thanks to a lot of help from Isaac), I've dropped Spiceworks for a combination of Zenoss and GLPI/OCS, there's change in antivirus I've made which I'd like to get some feedback about, and VMware claims they'll release their hypervisor for free (which is HUGE to me). I'm looking forward to getting into these topics over the next couple weeks and then hitting some new stuff after that.

Anyone who stuck around while I disappeared - Thank you. Your patience will be rewarded. Any newcomers? Hang on, we're gonna go for a little ride...

PHP, MySQL, Wyse Streaming Manager -- Oh My!

2007-05-17T19:36:00.000-05:00

Lately I've been feeling guilty about not posting here. I've also been feeling overwhelmed in trying to learn PHP and MySQL while putting together a plan for upgrading the desktops at the school where I work. Something had to give, and I'm afraid it was the blog. The good news is that the Web site (which is where the PHP and MySQL come in) is starting to shape up and the desktop plan is coming into focus.
It's all about removing problems. Currently, people ask me to update the Web site and then (more or less) patiently wait for me to get around to updating the site. Or, more frequently, they don't bother giving me the info and so the site remains outdated. With PHP and MySQL, one of the teachers, a student, and myself have hacked together a site that minimizes the amount of work that it takes to update the site. It also sets the stage for a site that the staff can update themselves. I haven't done this much coding since my subscription to Run Magazine ran out!
On the desktop front (which has been documented here, here, here, and here), I've settled on Wyse Streaming Manager. I haven't seen the price yet, so I may back out but the technology itself is something that I really think the school needs. I'll continue expanding our Terminal Services offering, since it meets the needs for the majority of our staff and students at a lower cost but WSM will fill in the gaps where TS won't work. Specifically,

TS does not work well with legacy software designed for Win3.1/9x. If it won't run on the server (Windows 2003 in our case) then it won't run on TS. For the record, we've got a lot of legacy software that I am not about to replace all at once in order to further TS.
TS does not work well with cartoony educational games. There is a lot of video and audio that needs to be streamed and the network just can't handle that for more than a few clients. Also for the record -- we've got a lot of those cartoony educational games in the elementary school!
TS does not do multimedia well. See #2 about the streaming. We don't do a lot of that yet, but I am noticing an increase in kids wanting to use video and audio in their presentations so it is something to prepare for.

TS will work in settings where the staff member or student will be using Office apps or using the Internet. With the servers already purchased and the clients costing half the price of PCs and Wyse V00s, I think we'll continue investing in TS. Since the elementary school has different needs than the upper levels, we'll be trying WSM in their school building. I'll be sure to update as we get deeper into that project.
So, hopefully, when the summer is over, I'll have fewer problems with failing desktops (since thin clients are not prone to the physical problems PCs and laptops face) and fewer problems with the Web site (since we'll be helping the staff to help themselves).

Which should give me more time to blog!

IBM Customer Service

2007-04-25T12:23:00.000-05:00

OK, by now you've noticed that I've been preoccupied with customer service. Just because we are small IT departments doesn't mean that we can mistreat the people who depend on our services. In the past, I've complained about Google's lack of communication. Today I want to talk about a great customer service experience I had.

We have an IBM xSeries 225 that runs our Web server. It had two drives in a RAID1 array for the operating system and four drives in a RAID5 array for data. Because of it had more than enough disk space and RAM for its primary purpose, I began testing VMware Server on it.

VMware Server is a great way to test out implementations before rolling them out to the masses. Because I'm using it as a test environment with no production information, I never bothered backing up the VMware data. Occasionally I would copy the html folder to another server that is backed up. I wasn't worried about the other data as long as the Web site data was safe.

Soon, our resident Web designer began working on our new Web site in a virtual server. I never thought about the lack of back up for that virtual server. Well, I didn't think about it when one drive went defunct in our RAID5 array. "No big deal," I thought. "I'll get it replaced and everything will be fine." I had no worries about the virtual machines stored on that array.

No worries until the next day when a second drive in that array went defunct. No worries until I realized the server was two months out of warranty. No worries until the web designer called because he couldn't access the only copy of his web site! Suddenly I had a lot of worries.

IBM, unlike Google, has their tech support phone number prominently listed on their Web site. I called, expecting the worst. After a very short trip through the automated phone system and a wonderfully brief amount of time on hold, I was on with a tech. He quickly found that the server was out of warranty and told me up front that there wasn't a lot he could do for me. That should have been the end of the story, for all intents and purposes.

But this tech didn't let it go at that. After explaining in detail just what I was potentially up against, he offered to have the RAID controller logs reviewed for me so I would know for sure what was going on. He then got another tech to review the logs and called me back to give me a plan of action.

So, he wasn't supposed to help me. For all I know, his boss wouldn't want him to help me. In the end, he gave me all the information I needed to save our data and spent considerable time on the phone with me to make sure I understood what needed to happen.

I still need to replace a hard drive and put the finishing touches on my backup plan (yes, I have a plan for that server now!), but thanks to some terrific customer service from a terrific tech -- I was able to service my customer and live to tell you about it!

In the end, there are three lessons here:

Review your backup plan often. Servers usage will change over time. Just because it used to not have valuable information on it doesn't mean it still doesn't!
Have a spare hard drive on hand for your RAID array. When one goes bad, you cannot wait to get a replacement!
Go the extra mile for your users. They will appreciate it more than you know. It's good for your career and it is good for your organization.

Official Google Blog: We're expecting

2007-04-17T14:07:00.000-05:00

Official Google Blog: We're expecting

So Google makes it official -- There will be a presentation application added to Documents and Spreadsheets. I really need to step up our testing of Google Apps for Education.

Microsoft DNS Vulnerability - Exploited!

2007-04-17T07:31:00.000-05:00

If you didn't apply the registry hack on your Microsoft DNS servers yet (CERT VU#555920, Microsoft Security Bulletin #935964), now would be a good time. There is known exploit available and in use. Apparently, the Rinbot worm is now using the exploit and it's been added to Metasploit. I'd expect to see attacks pick up rather than decrease at this point.

For the blissfully unaware, the exploit uses a buffer overrun to elevate privileges. Being a DNS attack, this can allow DNS poisoning, pharming, and DOS. Since most people put the DNS server on their domain controller, an attacker who compromises your DNS server is able to compromise your Active Directory. At that point, you are looking at a very bad situation and a minimum of one very long night.

Rules for the Single Employee Tech Department (#1)

2007-04-16T20:53:00.000-05:00

At the risk of sounding pretentious; I give you Rule Number One of Dave's Rules for the Single Employee Tech Department! (Results may vary.)

Rule Number One: Quantify

The first thing to do when you find yourself as the lone tech in your organization is to find out what you are dealing with. Here now is my pretentious-sounding 4-Step Process to Quantify the Technological Assets of Your Organization.

Inventory. You must count all of the PCs, monitors, printers, servers, routers, switches, scanners, etc. More than that, you need to know their serial numbers, asset numbers, model names/numbers, manufacturers, revision numbers (if applicable), location, purchase date, purchase price and replacement cost. Then you need to know what software is running on all that hardware and how many licenses you own for each piece of software. Getting this information: pain in the neck. Having it in an easily accessible location when you need it: priceless.
Benchmark. Take performance measurements of servers and network equipment at regular intervals. It's tough to know how poorly equipment is performing if you don't know how well it should be working.
Log. Keep a pad of paper near your servers (or, if you SSH or RDP into your servers to maintain them, keep the pad near your workstation). Write down the date and time of every patch, installation, uninstallation, shutdown, and maintenance job. Then you will be able to see what you were doing at the time the weird things started appearing in the Event Logs. With everything else you have to keep track of, you need all the help you can get to remember what you've done.

Speaking of keeping track of what you've done...
Report. Start using a help desk application. Spiceworks has a nice help desk. It's free too, so it ought to fit your budget. Keep track of every task you perform in here. Again it is a pain to do, especially when you have so many other things to do but it is important to have a record of what you do all day. Remember, your time is a asset. It needs to be quantified like everything else. Print reports at regular intervals (once a month should work) and turn them in to your boss. Even if he doesn't look at them, you can always use them to your advantage. "As you've no doubt noticed from the monthly reports," you'll say, "I have brought the number of support calls down by 23% in the last three months. Surely that is good for a raise." Or, if the numbers aren't so rosy: "If you would have approved the hiring of a part-time assistant for me, the number of trouble tickets wouldn't be increasing!"

Stay tuned for part two in this special series: Simplify!

New Look for LonelyTech

2007-04-15T23:40:00.000-05:00

I'm playing with the template for LonelyTech. Let me know what you think.

Microsoft DNS Vulnerability

2007-04-13T08:00:00.000-05:00

UPDATE(2007-04-17): This vulnerability is currently being exploited in the wild.

Microsoft released a security bulletin (#935964) last night advising changes to Windows Server 2000 and Windows 2003 Servers running DNS.

It looks like they are recommending a registry hack to block an RPC exploit on DNS servers. Also, the bulletin states that they are working on a full fledged patch, so be looking forward to that.

Jott

2007-04-12T19:56:00.000-05:00

You know how I've complained that I don't remember to get back to people after completing a project? I finish what needs to be done and then I move on to the next task. I think I have a solution.

I signed myself up for an account with Jott. Jott is yet another Web2.0 beta, but one that I have no difficulty in recommending. Once you have an account, you call their toll-free number and leave a message. Jott transcribes your message and sends it in an email or text message. I only use it to send myself reminders (like remembering to call people to tell them a task is completed) but you can set up all your contacts in Jott and send messages to anyone.

This site has a nice idea that I am starting to implement. They use Jott with Gmail labels to create a todo list. It's the next best thing to having a secretary.

Try it out. It's free for now though they haven't nailed down the pricing when they get out of beta.

What to Do With Unknown Devices in Spiceworks

2007-04-12T15:40:00.000-05:00

It happens. Spiceworks does a great job of figuring out which devices on your network are printers, desktops, servers, etc. But sometimes, even Spiceworks can't tell what some devices are. Now if you set up the entire network yourself, then you probably don't need to be told what those devices are. One look at the IP address and you probably know. But if you inherited your network from the previous afraid-to-take-notes tech or if you outsource your WAN administration, then there are bound to be some devices you don't recognize.

Here's one way to get some info on those wayward devices:

Download Nmap. You should already have it. Why? Nmap can tell you a lot about what is on your network. So when rogue devices show up on your network, you can arm yourself with valuable knowledge about the device before you locate it and shut it down.
Extract Nmap. I'll use c:\nmap in this example. (Notice that I am also assuming that you are running Windows.)
Open a command prompt and change to the c:\nmap folder.
Enter nmap -v -v -O --osscan-guess x.x.x.x -oL c:\nmaplog.txt
--- Replace x.x.x.x with your IP range (i.e. 192.168.0.0-254). CIDR notation is acceptable (i.e. 192.168.0.0/16).
Hit the Enter key and wait.
When the scan is finished, you can open c:\nmaplog.txt in your text editor and view the details on each device. You should see the type of device and the OS. Along with the IP address, this is often enough information for me to figure out what kind of device I'm looking at.
Reclassify the device in Spiceworks.
Start a document noting all printers, servers, routers, switches, and such so that you can just refer to the list the next time you don't recognize a device. I recommend keeping a separate list from Spiceworks for redundancy.

Obviously, this is only one way to learn what is running on your network. What other suggestions do you have?

RyanVM Integrator

2007-04-10T12:29:00.000-05:00

Ok, so I haven't spent a lot of time or energy creating an imaging system to rapidly deploy cloned PCs. When I started here, I thought it would be a must have item. It actually hasn't been that important. The procedure so far has been to use a slipstreamed Windows XP Service Pack 2 CD to install the OS while offline then use c't Offline Updater to patch the computer with post-SP2 critical patches. Once that's done, I plug into the LAN and go to Microsoft Update to get the rest of the patches. A couple software installs (anti-virus, Microsoft Office, Adobe Reader) from the NAS with one more MS Update hit (for Office patches) and we're off and running.

I think we can improve that system though and still not need to move to an imaging solution. That's where RyanVM Integrator comes in. From the site:

"This pack is designed to bring a Windows XP CD with SP2 integrated fully up to date with all of the latest hotfixes released by Microsoft since SP2's release. It accomplishes this task via direct integration, where files on the CD are directly overwritten by the updated files."

The beauty of this system is that there is zero lag time between installing the OS and installing patches. They are installed simultaneously with the OS! This saves:

time by installing files once, rather than installing them then overwriting them with patches,
space by not needing to download patches and extract them,
headaches by providing a secure OS from the moment of installation.

TechRepublic has a nice howto article, so I won't bore you with the details of how to set the Integrator up.

The post-SP2 update pack, which includes the patches released after SP2, seems to lag behind Microsoft's patches slightly. As of today, the latest RyanVM pack (version 2.1.8) is dated 3/20/2007. That misses the .ANI fix and the patches that came out yesterday. I think that it might not hurt to run this in conjunction with c't. So, here's my new procedure:

Install the integrated Windows XP,
Run c't Offline Updater,
Plug into LAN,
Install software,
Go to Microsoft Updates for the latest Office updates.

What do you think? Do you have any improvements on that practice?

Neoware Image Manager (The Saga Continues)

2007-04-05T13:08:00.000-05:00

Thanks to the great input from you guys, I'm trying to set up some demos so I can compare Neoware Image Manager with Wyse Streaming Manager. I'm still working on Wyse, but here's what's going on with Neoware.

I called my reseller to set something up. In a three-way call with the Neoware rep, I was told point-blank that Neoware doesn't recommend using their Image Manager! According to the representative of Neoware, there wasn't a lot of effort put into this product. He called it non-intuitive and complicated. Then he spent some time talking about their VDI offering.

It sounds to me like Neoware came out with the Image Manager as a response to WSM. Now that VDI is hot, they are waiting to see what happens in the virtualization space before they spend much effort on NIM.

I may still try it out so I have something to compare WSM to, but I'm leary of this. If VDI takes off, I imagine NIM will get dropped fast.

Wyse Streaming Manager

2007-04-04T17:51:00.000-05:00

I've mentioned before that I'm no fan of Wyse. In past lives I've worked in Wyse environments and didn't find their Rapport software to be particularly intuitive and firmware upgrades without Rapport were painful experiences. Now the readers of this blog have told me that Wyse has answers to some of my problems and I find myself re-examining my biases. (Don't you just hate when that happens?)

The original problem I had when I began working in a public school system was maintaining aging PCs. (I say "aging" when I should probably say "Tell the Smithsonian I found their missing obsolete technology exhibit!") The problem was addressed by moving the district toward a server-based solution of Windows Terminal Servers and Neoware thin clients. We haven't completely moved over, but the drop in maintenance requests is already remarkable.

Unfortunately, solutions tend to bring new problems. Going into this, I knew that legacy applications and media-intensive applications would not work on terminal servers. I didn't know how many educational applications are media-intensive or how many teachers will only part with their ten-year old software when you pry it from their cold, dead hands. I run the risk of splitting our environment in two -- PCs for lower grades and thin clients for the higher grades. That's not good enough. I need to remove PCs from the equation or run myself ragged trying to keep them running.

Wyse Streaming Manager looks like the right solution here. I still haven't seen it in action, so I don't know for sure. If you believe marketing material then this is a slam dunk:

Put Wyse Streaming Manager in place,
Buy a couple hundred Wyse terminals,
Profit! (Well, if we weren't a non-profit organization...)

I'm going to contact some people and try to set something up. I'll post my observations after that. In the meantime, has anyone actually used this setup? Does it perform as advertised? What are the hidden gotchas?

DST Change Is a Bust

2007-04-04T08:06:00.000-05:00

In case you wondered if all that patching you did for the Daylight Savings Time change was worth it -- it wasn't.

P.S. Was I the only one that had systems adjust their time last Sunday (when DST would have gone into effect normally)?

DABCC

2007-04-03T21:30:00.000-05:00

Check out dabcc.com. Actually, most of you probably have. The only reason I discovered it was because I noticed a large amount of traffic coming here from there. Someone (thank you!) posted a link to my article on VDI there.

As much as I appreciate the publicity, I'm more happy that they turned me on to a great resource for server-based computing information. I'm a firm believer that server-based computing improves the ability of LonelyTechs out there to support their organization. This site collects the information, downloads, news and tips you need to make it work for you.

Now excuse me while I start adding their RSS feeds to my Bloglines page...

Lonely Tech

The Return of the Lonely Tech

Chrome is now available

Google Chrome

Sandy Groks My World

Wyse Streaming Manager

Spiceworks 3.1

Negative Pings

Lesson Learned

How to Manage, pt. 2

How to Manage, pt. 1

*Yawn*

PHP, MySQL, Wyse Streaming Manager -- Oh My!

IBM Customer Service

Official Google Blog: We're expecting

Microsoft DNS Vulnerability - Exploited!

Rules for the Single Employee Tech Department (#1)

New Look for LonelyTech

Microsoft DNS Vulnerability

Jott

What to Do With Unknown Devices in Spiceworks

RyanVM Integrator

Neoware Image Manager (The Saga Continues)

Wyse Streaming Manager

DST Change Is a Bust

DABCC

Yawn