* Posts by Trevor_Pott

6991 publicly visible posts • joined 31 May 2010

Do the Webminimum

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@jake

Re: Q1. If you don't understand the benefits of virtual machines by now, you probably never will. Suffice it to say that using virtual machines makes my life easier. You may have unlimited hardware budget, space, cooling and everything else...I don't. Besides which, it's just a Linux VM. They are free, and disposable. Make a dozen and store the configs and data outside the VM on a networked server.

Not "the most efficient possible" in a purist sense, but I'll accept a 5% performance hit for the ability to throw the VM away like a used diaper when one element or another decides "BTW your distro is too old, we're not going to update properly." Or worse yet "BTW you ran an update and we radically changed the package such that your old config file is meaningless." Configure a VM once, point the configs somewhere central. Make a copy. If your update borks it, throw the VM away and reload the backup.

I know, I know "waa waa waa, test lab." And if wishes were horses, we'd all be eating steak. (It's a reference from a show, don't have an apoplepsy.) Sometimes you don’t have the TIME to do it according to the whitepaper. An update blows up a Linux VM once every six months. Treating a broken Linux VM like a soiled diaper is simply time efficient when compared to stepping through a testing cycle for every round of updates, or frankly for reading the change logs on all 382 updates for my given Linux box.

So why VMs? Because they make my life waaaaaaaaaaaay easier.

Re: Q2 What forum specifically? The hell if I know. One of the dozens I post on. Was it an appropriate forum for the question? Sure! Linux is hostile to newcomers, or anyone seeking to beg information for the great and knowledgeable (but remarkably sensitive) gurus. I know the game, and have for quite some time. You must hold the teacup on one finger while balancing on one leg and chanting the American national anthem during an earthquake. Yes, I asked the right question with the right amount of information in the right place. Even then, you’ve only got a 50/50 shot at get anything other than a pile of static.

Trevor_Pott Gold badge

Paraphrasing

"How DARE you suggest that people like me are hostile, arrogant and condescending? DO YOU NOT KNOW WHO I AM? (Hint: I am your better.)”

My deep and sincere apologies sir. Your eloquent argument demonstrating the warm and inviting nature of the large Linux community has set me straight. I repent.

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@Vic

You sir, may be the single most serious man on the Internet. We need a tongue in check icon.

Being *fully serious* for a second, a Reg LUG might well not be a bad idea...I suspect given the zealotry of it's reader base there are quite a few folks who would lot right in to such an organisation quite well.

Personally, I don't get along with the local LUG because they are quite an inflexible bunch. They are a beautiful self-selecting collection of individuals who aren't open to any form of new ideas or thought. I don't say this because I was particularly interested in brining much new thought to the group...I attended to listen, hear...see what there was to see. I did on the other hand bring with me a buddy who was an order of magnitude smarter than I, and very much the Linux nerd. Moreover he is generally better with people.

Didn’t go down well with the Linux nerds though when he had the termidity to ask some obviously taboo or banned question about something or other. I think the topic was typesetting in Linux. The next attempt involved asking a question about working around a limitation in Samba, which apparently would cause the world to implode for merely considering going against some sacred unwritten rule somewhere.

As for grandstanding and point-scoring…what’s the point? I have never seen any benefit from either. I am a pragmatic individual, which I suspect is why I don’t get along with many die hard believers of anything. It’s also I think why I do get along with quite a few Reg commenters; they too are by and large a pragmatic bunch.

If an El Reg LUG were ever seriously put together by someone, I expect it would be a wholly unique LUG amidst those of the world. A group for Linux users and administrators to come together to discuss the implementation of Linux in a practical environment and what could be done to encourage the uptake without completely alienating the very people you are trying to convince to use it.

A LUG full of pragmatists in which there were no sacred cow. That would be AWESOME.

Trevor_Pott Gold badge

@Vic

It's a simple front-end to use SpamAssassin to filter for exchange. (Exchange’s native filtering is poo.) I am still torn in re: adding SPF. (It has in the past caused me more problems than the minor % of spam that gets through without it.) The point was that you can get away with not needing anything but Webmin to manage Sendmail. Yes; Sendmail and other management tools may need care and attention to coexist...

...but I think it's a pretty exceptional scenario (clustering of Sendmail perhaps) where this might be an issue. Small enoguh at least ot make it a very viable tool for single servers and small businesses without any of the fancier config tools.

Trevor_Pott Gold badge
Happy

Grand.

Hey Vic, wanna join a LUG?

I'm going to call it El Reg's Linux User Group. At the moment the membership is me. The local LUG and I didn't get along all to well, but I don't mind any but the worst of the Reg commenters...so why not a Reg LUG? We can argue amidst threads just like we always have…

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@Vic

Webmin and Sendmail.

M4 Config is your friend. Oh, and a nugget of fun for you: http://www.trevorpott.com/?p=275

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*shudder*

Tried that once. Never again. Maybe otehr LUGs are less elitist....

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@Ian Michael Gumby

"Because people were mean to me, it's my duty to be a dick to you."

Charming.

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@Vic

One experience shouldn't inform someone's opinion on a group of people. Fifteen years of slogging up and down the trenches however makes me a feel a little more than qualified to comment. I’m not exactly new to the Linux game. I’ve been at it since just after Redhat was born. Nearly half of all servers I have deployed are Linux, with an ever increasing number of desktops.

My experience above was but one example amongst countless thousands. This thread can implode into a shower of wailing and gnashing of teeth it won’t for a second change my opinion that on the whole the Linux community is hostile to newcomers. Arrogance is part and parcel of the larger Linux community, and condescension is a way of life for a deplorable number of the individuals that make it up.

I do my ardent best to help newbs to the cause, as I am certain there are thousands of Penguinistas who do so as well. That doesn’t for a second change the fact that finding actual helpful human beings is difficult. The arrogance bug coupled with a lavish helping of condescension are *THE* biggest barrier to adoption of Linux in the server rooms of Windows admins.

As far as I am concerned this means that if a Windows admin wants to take the plunge they need to consider all the various idiosyncrasies of Linux as damage and route around it. Webmin is an excellent way to abstract that all away for the early user. They can get their feet wet there, and slowly work their way into the wider world. If they run up against a block erected by a bunch of cocks, they can always fall back on Webmin to get the job done.

It doesn’t work 100% of the time…but I find it’s been more reliable than praying for help from one’s fellow “human beings.”

That…and frankly once you get used to Linux…Webmin saves even an experienced admin a lot of time. My VM at work has Webmin sessions into something like 50 servers at the moment. I wouldn’t want to try doing my job without it.

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Alternatives

You forgot ISPConfig. Why? Because I don't use them. Tried them, still do from time to time...but I keep going back to Webmin. I love Webmin. Webmin is the only thing that makes the Linux administration side of my job remotely worthwhile. Shill advertisement? No. That would imply I got paid for it. Am I completely and utterly in love with the application though? Hell yes.

A commenter on one of my other articles said “moar linux plox.” I thought a set on Webmin and it’s companions was an excellent place to start.

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@LawLessLessLaw

Anyone who opens webmin to the net deserves what they get. That's no different than leaving cpanel or phpmyadmin open to all and sundry. Absolutely idiotic security practice. Lock it down to the IP/domain you will use, or set it to only respond to internal addresses.

In my environment I have a Windows VM set up for administration on all of my networks with Linux boxen. I can RDP into the Windows VM from outside. The Windows VM is on an internal subnet with the Linux VMs, and they are set to only pass Webmin access to that internal subnet.

A neat configuration tool doesn’t alleviate the need for the proper care and feeding of your firewall.

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@Edward Clarke

SHHHHH. Down with spoilers!

>_>

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@ql

If you are a Windows admin, and you can't figure out Webmin, then you've no business in Systems Administration. I can understand the need to ease into the command line, or editing config files...but Webmin is dirt simple. That’s the point. Webmin *I*S how you ease a Windows admin into the Linux world. It’s not there to take blame, but to be a tool to help people get used to the new OS environment.

In all honesty, I find it’s great backup for when a new admin ventures out into the command line. If they break it somehow…they can always go back to Webmin and fix it. What to a senior administrator is a time-saving systems administration tool is a simple-to-use safety net for junior admins.

Trevor_Pott Gold badge

Clueless idiot?

I post to the internet: I have been trying to get DRDB to work for [insert arbitrarily long timeframe]. I have [series of steps] only to encounter [series of completely incomprehensible errors]. I am using CentOS 5.5, with both test systems in a VM (ESXi, hardware emulation 7). Thoughts?

The Internet respondeth (paraphrased): “zomfgwtf are you doing using such a pathetic distro, that’s half your problem right there. You should be using $distro instead! Anyways, you suck and need to read the man page more. It’s all there don’t you know?

I respond: “I have read the man page, but like any good man page it lacks examples of any kind whatsoever. I have run across [wiki/howto/whathaveyou] but it is written for $otherdistro, not CentOS. There has to be some config difference somewhere that I am missing, but I can’t for the life of me pin it down. Maybe these will help. [Log file contents].

The Internet respondeth: [thread derailed by distro jihad].

I’ve been fighting that one for about a month. Do I qualify as a clueless idiot then?

Trevor_Pott Gold badge
Joke

Re: so which OS do you prefer?

Etch-a-sketch. ;p

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Why still 2003?

WinSXS

Basketball megastar accused of phone hacking

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@Gene Cash

Why?

Shaq seems a bright guy. I am confident that if he had the barest hint of motivation, he could learn everything that might possibly be required to "hack" whatever he wanted. Would i expect him to have that knowledge now? No...but you never know. Computers could be his silent passion. Or perhaps he decided to upskill in order to keep pace with one or more of his sprog.

Never right ANYONE off when it comes to computers. They really aren't that hard. All that's required is a little patience, a little willingness to learn...and to not be afraid of them.

I’ve know a guy who’s now 84 years old, started learning these them thar new fangled computation thingies about five years ago. He runs rings around me now. Why? He wanted to learn, wasn’t afraid of them, and had all day long to do nothing but hack away at them.

Why couldn’t Shaq (or anyone else) learn at least some of the same tricks? (Assuming he wanted to.) Anyone can become a “hacker.” You watch…one day our benevolent overmistress Sarah Bee will have learned so much from these comments threads that she will control the world’s finances from a terminal located next to her “delete commenter” big red button of doom…

You don't have to be crazy to work here

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Oi.

Webmin is no substitute for learning how it all works. It is however both a great introduction to Linux that is less scary for newbs, and it is a beautiful tool for administering a system once you DO know how it all fits together.

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@Lon John Brass

Yar. <3 Puppet. Did a different set of articles that touched on puppet a while back. Good toy, that.

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@AC

Thanks for the DRBD catch.

I do not think it's the be all and end all of systems administration. I think it's the cat's meow for newbies to the Linux or Solaris platforms. TBH, I use both SSH and Webmin for my daily workout. For some things, (such as a good YUM) the CLI is way faster.

I don’t recommend Webmin as the ONLY way to interact with a system. I think it’s a great way to LEARN a system. It’s a beautiful safety net. Once you *do* know how to solve your problems manually, (say…all your NICs going up in smoke when you clone an RHEL VM,) it’s a great way to take the administrative burden off of your daily tasks.

For me the CLI is almost a mid-game item. Webmin for the early-game…learning the ropes. CLI for the mid-game…learning what lies behind Webmin. Then Webmin again for the late game, when you just want to poke at it and have it work, in full understanding of what it’s doing and how to fix it if it breaks.

Mobile phones for minimalists

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@tempest

I have done this with Android phones. Works a treat, once you know how to lock them down.

In-house lawyers have no right to secrecy in EU competition cases, rules ECJ

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Companies aren't people.

"Human rights law can in principle be invoked by companies and it would be interesting for a court to explore whether the institutionalised discrimination perpetuated by this ruling could be attacked on Convention grounds."

Everything about that is wrong. Companies aren't people. People (most of them anyways) are capable of emotion. Feelings of compassion, fairness and an understanding of the plight of others are what allow our society to function. Without these things that make us human, we would degenerate into complete Darwinian anarchy: the person with the biggest stick makes the rules.

Companies, like governments have no “soul.” I don’t speak here of the metaphysical concept of a soul, but rather the ability to empathise with another living being and feel compassion. Companies are instead legally bound in many jurisdictions to be as soulless as legally possible. Anything else would not be maximising shareholder value, and they are legally bound to do so.

Why, why, WHY, in the name of all that anyone ever has or will hold sacred would or should we as a society (or collection of societies) go out of our way to grant the rights and privileges reserved for thinking and feeling human beings to these artificial soulless monstrosities? A corporation is merely a legal concept designed to isolate the owners of an enterprise from the consequences of the actions performed by said enterprise.

Human rights for a corporation? HELL NO. Nyet. Nien. Human rights should only be granted to entities capable of understanding the importance of such rights and thusly respecting the rights of others. Without being coerced or forced to do so.

I will make the obvious exception here for the young and the mentally disabled, whom I believe require our protection as a society despite perhaps not being capable of understanding human rights. I make no such exception for corporations or governments; they are capable of understanding such, but largely unwilling. Not only that, they are legally bound to ignore human right if they can get away with it in a given jurisdiction. (Human rights negatively impact shareholder value.)

I will never, EVER recognise a corporation or government as having human rights. You’ll have to kill me or imprison me if it ever becomes a requirement for our society. My compliance will simply never occur.

Would the individual nearest the control circuitry for this planet please initiate a stoppage? Debarkation has become critical.

Microsoft delivers Google Chrome IE9 beta

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And there's the problem.

Opera users have enjoyed these features. Presumably including the interface. Explains a lot. I'll stick with Firefox 3, and then Firefox 4 after someone gets a skin/theme out that makes it look like 3.

Too old for this new fangled hibbery jibbery. Take the ribbon bar with you when you go!

*grumble grumble*...get off my goddamned lawn…*grumble grumble*

Die-hard bug bytes Linux kernel for second time

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Squirrel!

As above.

(Might make sense if you watch the daily show.)

Intel seeks security through app stores

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Badgers

"No need for an anti-virus vendor."

So why then the recent purchase? If you go this route you need not thier expertise just to vet applications for the Istore. (iStore Apple, Istore Intel?) Curiouser and curiouser...

Facebook fudges policy in page-purging pickle

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@Myself

"It's our as writers job to know them"

It is however our job to proof read. Note to self: disable the rediculously useless trackpad on that laptop. Also: sleep more. As a question to the floor that has been bugging me, (but which I realise won't solve my problems) how pray tell do I actually enable Firefox's spell checker? It seems enabled in options --> advanced, but never seems to work anywhere. I am unsure what I have done to bork that feature...

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Rule 0 of Facebook.

Just walk away....

Trevor_Pott Gold badge

@Rogerborg?

It's our as writers job to know them? I thought it was my editor's job to know that. I believe if my editor doesn't like an article, he can simply not publish it. You are going to have to explain to me why every writer for a news organisation should have the editorial policies memorised? Where is that rule written?

There’s a “general gist” we are supposed to know…but we’re not exactly talking customer support staff who are being paid to answers questions about policy. We’re talking people who write things then essentially have it go through a moderator (the editor) before it’s published.

Now, if my EDITOR didn’t know the standing editorial policies of the company he worked for, I’d be worried. Somehow, I suspect he does. Similarly, I’m going to go out on a limb and say that the lovely and talented Ms Bee and her cadred of undead mini^h^h^h^h^h^h^h^h^h^h^h fellow moderators also know the policies, as they have to parse and filter the ramblings of all the various commenttards.

Fiven that commenters are producing works that get published on the site by The Register, by your logic you should have to know the editorial policies forwards and backwards to post. Not feasible. That’s why moderators/editors/etc exist in the first place.

Novell breakup and sale imminent, says report

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And why not?

Microsoft Linux? Sure. As long as it's garunteed to interoperate with Microsoft operating systems...that sounds like a great plan.

Besides, a huge pile of *nix engineers? Finally, they could create a mobile/tablet/low resource usage operating system that didn't suck.

Intel smarties rain on the clouds

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You can count me in.

You can pry me data from me warm rotting corpse.

Mozilla sics sea monster on SunSpider and Google V8

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@xj25vm

Ahhh, but it's Open Source! If you don't like it...fork it! Then your version of "Realistic" can be the measure. That's quite a bit different from most other browser maker's attempts at the exact same thing...

PARIS emerges triumphant from hypobaric chamber

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New Reg Measurment

1 "Awesome" now measured as the feeling you experience when your second release mechanism works.

The question is how many Awesomes will the actual launch event be?

Ovi maps out Google competitor

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Route calculation.

Route calculation appears to be a factor of where you live. I have done a few long trips this year and I can report safely that Google Maps sucks exceptional [expletive] at routes in Western Canada. Especially rural areas. Blackberry Maps and Bing Maps ont he other hand have both served me quite well.

Google’s fine in every Metro I’ve tried except Calgary. Nothing can find anything in Calgary except a TomTom. Still, it’s Calgary, so nothing of value was lost.

Dell talks memory matters

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Well done.

Quite entertaining. Carry on then...

Zuck buffs image ahead of Facebook movie

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You know, I've heard worse summaries of a life.

Change this:

Mark Zuckerberg:

* He's technically talented

* He comes across as a bit arrogant, even to close friends

* He admits he labelled his users as "dumb fucks" while at Harvard

* He has lost some friends getting rich

* Some people find him difficult to work with

* He's socially awkward and a bit robotic

To this:

Trevor Pott:

* He's technically talented

* He comes across as a bit arrogant, even to close friends

* He admits he labelled his users as "dumb fucks" while sleep deprived

* He has lost some friends while staying miserably poor

* Some people find him difficult to work with

* He's socially awkward and a bit too random

Suddenly I have a lot of sympathy for the man. Hmmmph.

I don't know that I would ever "backstab a friend" as some in this thread have suggested M.Z. has. In fact, I get accused often of going too far in the other direction: helping others to the point of my own detriment. Also; he's rich and I'm not.

Is that it? If I had stabbed a few friends in the back (maybe been more "robotic" and less "random") I too could have been stinking rich? That's a depressing thought, honestly. Maybe I should have spent less time focusing on failed attempts at self-improvement and more time being a cock.

Actually, come to think of it...he can have the money. I wouldn't trade my friends for anything in the world. I know what it’s like to lose a good friend. I wouldn’t want to ever lose the ones I’ve got.

Voice of America chap ejaculates over Paris Hilton

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@Lester

You sir...you are fantastic.

Keep 'em coming.

The end of the beginning of virtualization

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Heart

<3 Freeform Dynamics

More of this sort of thing!

Steve Jobs no ninja, says Apple

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"...or you will have people making him into Darth Vader."

He isn't?

Update kills code-execution threat in Samba

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buh?

[fish eyed stare]

Microsoft closes hole used to attack industrial plants

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When is MS going to make this not the default behaviour?

About six years ago. Where have you been?

An HTC named Desire. OK, two HTCs...

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@Andrew Garrard

The "original HTC Desire" came in two flavours: LCD for Canada and AMOLED for the rest of the world. This was because Canada got them later, and byt hat time Samsung was having trouble producing the screens. The LCD screens SUCK at low-light (flickering) and aren't as bright as the AMOLEDs. On the other hand, the LCDs get better battery life.

Personally, I'm liking my LCD Desire.

Trevor_Pott Gold badge

DESIRE

I am a quite happy owner of the original HTC Desire. These look like worthy sucessors. Continue kicking ass, HTC.

Reasons to be cheerful

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Heart

Of course.

It is the very least I can do.

<3 Sarah.

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@Thad

I got to take the following Thursday and Friday off. Past that, well...it's a tough job market. It doesn't matter how hard you work if the resume papers don't have the right letters after your name.

It's why I've taken up writing.

That said, a beer sounds bloody grand. Bloody grand indeed...

Trevor_Pott Gold badge
Happy

@Thad

Tell my editor that!

Actually, I am quite shocked they let me comment around here, given that I write articles for them. I am sure I cause some people much angst. I am also not sure I can help myself. Writing is my catharsis. That there are people somewhere who will pay for it is something I consider extraordinary.

It’s a good way to talk, debate…work out problems and ideas. The fiancée is back from her acting job soon. I am sure that once my regular conversational companion has returned, the volume of comments from me will drop off rather precipitously. Until then, driving Sarah into an early grave by writing long comments to everything I can find have made the past five months actually survivable.

Counting the days until the end of the month…

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Long story

Not much space to shove it in.

When looking for things to cut, I figured two things would hopefully not have to be explained in detail. 1) NOBODY does this sort of thing without an abort option. 2) I talked oodles about how everything was in virtual machines. I kind of hoped the readers would make the connection to "and the old VMs were kept around." Cutting 12000 words down to 2500 requires (as my editor puts it) ruthlessness.

Trevor_Pott Gold badge

Being expendable is no bad thing.

Expendable people get vacations. The kind where they don't have to remote in every day for four hours to deal with email/various fires. I am okay with being expendable.

One thing that needs to be brought up in these discussions is that, in IT as with many occupations, heroics aren’t rewarded. You won’t get a pat on the back, a bonus or any respect from your peers. (Certainly not if you blog about your experiences!) Hard work isn’t rewarded. What you might get for your trouble is something approaching job security. Maybe. Not because you cannot be replaced, (everyone can be replaced) but that replacing you with a sufficient number of 9-5ers is financially unpalatable.

That ever shrinking niche is SME systems administration. It’s a world where the resources (time, money, manpower) are tight, competition is fierce and sacrifices are made not only be the rank and file but the business owners as well. Part of the social contract in place is that the business provides non-monetary incentives to keep staff on. Allowing the nerds their own coffee pot, ignoring the plushies and geeky posters and putting up with the quirks, tics and lack of social graces. In exchange, we give 110%. We go above and beyond with the expectation and understanding that we won’t get fired for wearing a binary tie and inadvertently causing the dress code nazi an apoplepsy.

In larger enterprises, union shops or government IT departments, the social contract is different. I think that so long as one is aware of which social contract they are signing, they are not being taken advantage of.

Now, when one side reneges on their part of that bargain…that’s a whole other story. What I find far more common (and despicable) than one lone individual taking advantage of a colleague’s enthusiasm is the corporate culture that says “the job market sucks. It’s time to rescind our side of whatever social contract we have with our staff because they have no available alternatives.” For some companies that is cutting pay/hours. For others it is removing non-monetary incentives from the equation. For all of them it involves removing job security. (Rule by fear!)

When the market picks up, and EVERYONE starts heading for greener pastures, the corporate word bemoans the fickle nature of employees and calls for greater immigration.

Technology and best practices aside, we’re really having a debate about the value of LOYALTY. Corporations don’t tend to have any towards their employees. What value then for an employee to have loyalty to their company? I don’t have an answer to that. Some part of me finds it important. I think that in the SME space, the concept still retains some tattered shreds of value, but it is here that my experience hits a wall.

I’m good at this here computer fixing business. I’m good at research and I can invent new and innovative ways to solve almost any technical problem, even on impossible budgets. I work hard, and obviously have a self motivated (driven?) nature that is fairly rare amongst folk my age. I have identified my strengths. Hurrah.

What of weaknesses? Well, I obviously work too damned hard...to a detrimental point, most likely. Somewhere in there though is the knowledge and realisation that I need to learn when to risk saying “nyet”, even if it runs the risk of breaking the social contract an SME admin has with his employer. Always there are limits. I am still learning mine. I honestly don’t think this project was one of those cases…but the reaction of my peers here on El Reg show that it was probably on the border.

That’s a good thing though. Growing, learning...even these very debates and discussions in the comments: where are the limits? Where do the responsibilities of the business owners, management, IT staff, and the user base begin and end? I suspect there is no one true universal answer. Each environment is different; each admin must make their own independent judgements. By reading articles and comments from other admins, real life stuff that isn’t the sterile perfection of a whitepaper, we can see where we stand in relation to our peers. Who knows, we might all learn something.

I sure have.

Trevor_Pott Gold badge

@xj25vm

Except that there was a contingency plan, and it isn't so simple as "the business side of the equation withheld funds." Moreover...the project didn't fail. In fact, it occurred more or less as I figured it would. Some unexpected things went wrong, but no more than I figured would...given the circumstances. A bad couple of weeks were had...but they are over with, and everything is working grandly.

For all the wailing, gnashing of teeth and commenters with axes to grind...the project in question did what it was supposed to do, with predicted parameters and frankly, it could have gone a lot more sideways than it did. If it had, I still had an abort option.

I agree with you: IT as a whole, myself included, accept too many failures. We are very quick to accept compromise. Truth is, doing IT "properly" is bloody EXPENSIVE. Outside the reach of some organisations, like mine, trapped in the mid market. It's easy to say flippant tripe like "well just quit and work elsewhere." That's bull. I've a family, mortgage payments...what's more, I've a sense of loyalty and professionalism that prevent me from screwing over folk I work with, and for.

I understand your overall frustration with how this same story of failed or skin-of-ones-teeth IT projects is continually repeated. I honestly do. The truth of the matter though is that life is never so black and white as it can be made to seem by post-operative diagnosis of some else's issue over the Internet. That's the point of talking about the elephant in the room and doing articles not about things SHOULD be done, but rather how they sadly end up being done in the real world. Learning, thinking...growing our minds beyond just our own experiences by taking those of others into consideration.

Is there no value in your world for innovation beyond “network management by whitepaper?” Should all companies that can’t refine/upgrade/purchase/manage/whatever their IT to some arbitrary standard simply close up shop and go out of business? Who gets to decide? Why should any business owner/manager prioritise IT over other business units? In the SME world, there is almost never enough to around. Why should IT be immune to the concept of “good enough?” What makes IT so special?

I’d love to know, because as someone who works in IT, knowing what supposedly makes me more important than the rest of the company would be a fantastic boost to my ego. Who knows, maybe you have a valid answer with concrete reasoning. Then our entire industry can use it during our various budget talks each year.

Breaking the habit

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Re: Gogle Ops

I've been doing SME networks for so long now that "interesting" is cognate with lack of sleep. On any on the networks I oversee, if I hear someone say "that's interesting" I check the coffee supply. I realise that working for Google Ops as the lowly blue collar drone that my creds would get me would probably be boring.

Oddly enough, I could do with a short spell of boring. :)

There's truth overall to what you say. I thrive on the challenge of making something out of nothing. Sadly, it's a dying art. Computing is heading in the direction of appliances at all levels. Unless you have an iron ring HR types feel you unqualified to innovate. (Or apparently be paid a living wage.) What then for dinosaurs like me?

If the future is fairly inevitably either managing appliances or herding clouds…cloud herding actually seems the less boring of the two. Much as I’d love to, I’ll never be able to afford to get an iron ring. So dreaming of being a Google Cloudherder seems as reasonable a future as any other.

I’d take rewarding over buzzword bingo. I’d also choose “pays a living wage and will exist in 10 years” over rewarding. Both combined would of course be the best possible option.