IT BS thread

I've seen cell phones cause issues like that when connecting to the wifi.

 

I've seen this before w/o BYOD's in the mix. I forget the cause but I want to say it was server configuration related. Duplicate DHCP server is one cause I can think of off hand (doesn't have to be MS either-could be some one has connected a wireless router to the network).

Any new network devices lately? Have you snooped the wireless for any new devices?

 

Nice if you have the real estate. I have two 19" at work that are fairly low res.

Giving it a try on my home laptop - 17" at 1920x1080

 

I would definitely snoop the network for new devices or DHCP servers. Especially if your current DHCP server isn't showing the conflicts as well.

 

The mutiple IP addresses will not show up in the DHCP.msc.

Can you check to see how many available IP addresses you have ? If you do not have any left, can you extend your DHCP range ? Worse case go ahead and create a supernet range of IP addresses. Another trick is to shorten the length of time that the DHCP client tried to re-register the IP address. The default is 8 days but you can always shorten it to 4 or 5.

 

That is a great thought. You may have users using static IP addresses that are within the DHCP scope....

 

What I'd do is look at the machines reporting dupes. You should find information in their logs that gives you the name of the server issuing/complaining. If they're the same, you have some issue with the server and the easy thing might be to just restart the DHCP service (I'd follow the advice above with the following caveat. If you have a lot of machines coming in and out of the domain, you should consider making the lease time short. Like a day.). You could try the release/renew thing on the client with issues.

In mixed environments, there's sometimes the tendency to manage DNS separately-if you do that, check the host files to make sure there's no entries for your DHCP range.

 

Didn't expect such an IT presence in a Tacoma forum I spend my days as a VMWare/Cisco guy and my nights trying to stay as far away from computers as possible.

Started out as a Linux/BSD guy in the ISP side of the world, then several years as a Windows admin but lately enjoying the Virtualization and networking side of things more.

 

You know how it is, mate. We're everywhere, and we are nowhere. We're ubiquitous, like beach sand...we are the great seen/not seen. We have access to everything, and have our fingers in every pie.

There's nothing we can't know, nothing we can't find, nothing we can't effect. We're the great underpaid and underappreciated maintainers of social order in the workplace.

And I wouldn't have it any other way!

 

That should be the intro to a movie, or we should be required to recite that for certifications, etc...

 

It's like it came right from the movie Hackers! I like this.

 

I'm going to require all of my end users to recite this before I'll unlock their accounts or reset their passwords...

 

Unfortunately since I am in the management side of IT for my company, I have to eat, breathe and shit computers 24 hours per day. Pays very well and not a bad gig either.

Virtualization is a blast. I run 30 servers in a VMWare environment running on multiple SANS the syncing them up with a DR site. Getting ready to perform a full blown fail over for the execs here.

I spent around 8 years at a law firm down the street from my current position and managed over 240 virtual servers.

The few things you really want to work on if you want the top pay in IT is project management, security and virtualization. Looks like you are part way there....

 

Think about it for a minute.

I'm nobody. Technically, my title is a new one to me..."Network Engineer". I'm relatively underpaid (55ish) for the resources I control and can break (I've got single racks with over 1M in servers, hardware, and data on them).

I'm on every single server as god. THere isn't a single bit of data I cant' see if I wish. If a whimsy were to take me, I could look at every single paycheck, every corporate sheet of paper, EVERYthing. There isn't one iota of this corporation or its officers I couldn't get to, if I simply had the whimsy.

I'm at the CEO's house tomorrow after lunch. Alone. I have the place to myself. I have the admin passwords to all his hardware, his personal machines, his backups. I can access his bank accounts and 401K accounts (his browser auto-remembers his passwords, duh!)

And it isn't just him. I've been in the home and the personal details of every CxO level exectutive in every company I've worked for in the last two decades.

There isn't a detail I can't see. There isn't a locked room I am not allowed to enter. I have wiring in every building, I have outlets in every room, I have cable and fiber in every wall. I have corporate payment information and safe words for security systems.

Had I the wish, I could almost irreperably detonate any corporate structure from the inside out, including the personal ends of anyone and everyone from middle management up the chain. I can nuke backups,,,,,or simply CHANGE them to say what I wish.

The level of power, of trust, of awesome responsibility that is placed in our hands for the amount of money we make is unparalleled in any other facet of modern life that I'm aware of. We are they who walk behind the wires, and we hold all your data in our trust.

Good thing we're not as crooked as the ones that sign our paychecks, or all of western finance and business would have been melted down long ago.

 

Do you have any degrees or certifications ?

 

Xaks, the problem is that no one understands what you do and typically places IT as a maintenance worker. If you were to wear a suit, toss some charts on PowerPoint, and talk fancy for an hour in front of a group, you would be a consultant.
Somehow a sport coat, the ability to work a projector, and say random terms like 'the cloud' or 'customer facing productivity' doubles your pay
PowerPoint and Excel > all other software

 

No degrees. Certs are usually gotten when the employer pays for them, and I let lapse when I have to, unless they're important for some reason. All the normal ones (Cisco, Citrix, MS, etc etc) I usually get as I need.

Most of them are actually lapsed, right now, as I haven't needed to re-take lately. Cisco boot camp was about 3 years ago now, so that one was the last to lapse again.

Re-passing isn't ever tough, it just classwork really.

 

Oh, I know, I'm absolutely invisible most times, please don't think I was complaining!

I love it. Its fun, being some middle-class guy with no formal education and I get to walk into the boardroom in the middle of a massive, important meeting and most people know me and dismiss me immediately. I got about my business, I tap one CxO on the should and hand him a post-it that I've jotted "Give me your lappy, and write password for *bank_x*.

The meeting continues and the exec wordlessly hands me his airbook and writes his password info down for me. I fade a bit back, get the thing up on the secured wireless correctly, log in to his Ameritrade account and see a $44.7 million portfolio. Minimize, lock. Jot down "Done. Account verfied, open but locked", stick it to the lid, and hand it back. I get a small smile and a nod.

While returning, I get the two-finger "cometh ovah heeah" from the President. I stroll around the table (While ignoring "I don't give a rats' ass about the Cayman account, that's chickenfeed compared to what's happening in the Ukraine. Why aren't we talking about the European problem here? You want a check for the tax difference?")

The President leans in, whispers about his iPad not connecting. I already have his password and account(s) info memorized against my will, cause he's a technological moron and I fix his stuff at least twice a week. Fix that, return it, get another nod.

Walk out, the meeting goes on unimpeded. I swing by marketing, get a designer's iMac up and running (why are you trying to use encrypted IPv6 on my server? _ What six huh what now? _ Move a sec, lemme get in there ....)


*yesterday, maybe to be continued later

_____________________

This is my day. My week. My month.

I spend half my time rubbing elbows with 7-10 figure salaried guys that I have to try really hard not to roll my eyes at.

The other half the time I'm out in the warehouse, or in shipping, or somesuch, hanging with the hourly workers and fixing their stuff. These are the folks I grew up BEING. I drove forklifts, I worked wet lap machines in paper mills, you name it. And their wireless devices and computers break too!

Can you believe they *pay* me to do this? Its amazing!

 

Anyone try the Samsung Galaxy Note two? I haven't gone to look at anything yet, but I'm tossing around between gs3 and note 2.