IT BS thread

From the dev side of the world, I'll also say that PowerShell has been coming into my area. From the little I've seen:
-Soon to have Visual Studio support?
-It's going to be the new standard for importing upgrades on their Dynamics ERP platforms
-I'm not sure if it's totally taking the space of SSIS, but it is at least seen as a viable alternative. At times it can perform faster/easier.

 

I've noticed they're really pushing PowerShell to take over as well. I try to do some things with servers "the old way" now and it tells me the feature has been deprecated and I need to use PowerShell to do it instead. It doesn't seem so hard, just some of the syntax is a little unique. I did find a PS script the other day that let me figure out why a user account kept getting locked out the instant I'd unlock it (told me which machine was trying logons). Took all of a couple minutes to figure it all out and run it.

I learned a lot of this stuff really young from some old dogs, so I still commit Cisco configs to memory with "wr" and find myself trying dcpromo to promote or demote a dc. One of these days I'll have some spare time to learn PowerShell...

 

As shaming as it is to admit it, I did not know this up until about a year ago.

 

Hey guys, hoping you powershell wizards can save me from some hell.
I'm trying to get the below script to run from a command window (in other words, cmd.exe).

Code:

powershell -noprofile -command "& foreach ($a in ([Net.DNS]::GetHostEntry("myserver.mydomain.com")).addresslist.ipaddresstostring) { if ($a –eq [Net.DNS]::GetHostEntry("myaliasedserver.mydomain.com").addresslist.ipaddresstostring) { $true } }"

I'm having troubles getting the parser to not take issues with the spaces and the double quotes, but I'm failing.

 

You know powershell and cmd.exe aren't the same thing, right? I'm sorry to sound like that, but I have to ask.

It may be so simple and simply running the very same command from a PS prompt rather than a CMD window, as CMD has a pissy fit with spaces, and always has. You should have seen the shit we had to sling in batch files back in the early 2K / AD days to map drives and printers and stuff...it was absurd.

Also, check your permission level. A user-level CMD might not work, but an admin-level one might.

Also, always run powershell as admin as well.

 

My end goal is to wrap this in a SQL stored procedure, and SQL can't consume PS directly. Utterly stupid, right?

There might be a better way to do what I'm attempting:
The back story is that we have servers which have a DNS name and multiple DNS aliases. When a new server is installed to take the place of an old one, the new server inherits the aliases, allowing us to perform the hardware upgrade without disturbing our software. Moving on, I have 3rd party program that kicks off a bunch of SQL to go and build up a BI solution database. I have a live server copy, and a development server copy. On the development server, I would like the program to retrieve a reduced record set without me having to change the programming and hard-code the dates.
Since the code is executed as SQL commands, SQL has a command that can resolve the machine running the code via the HOST_NAME() function. This pulls back the dns name, such as 'myserver'.
So, I thought I could write some bit of SQL code that could tell the program that if it was the test server, then use a reduced record set, otherwise the program should assume it is a live server and should run through the full record set. To keep the code futureproof, I need to compare against the DNS alias somehow.

The PS script above allows me to do this, if I could just get all the escape characters right... but maybe there's a better command. My other thought is that I can parse the PING command, but that seems a bit more dirty.

 

http://blogs.technet.com/b/heyscrip...owershell-to-script-sql-database-objects.aspx

http://stackoverflow.com/questions/...n-sql-server-stored-procedure-from-powershell

http://www.dbascript.com/execute-sql-stored-procedure-from-powershell-with-parameters

https://sqlpsx.codeplex.com/discussions/453639

Methinks you might be working with some out of date information?

 

Unless I'm missing something, your links talk about having PowerShell call SQL. I want to have SQL call PowerShell.

 

Hacker implants NFC chip in his hand to hack Android phones

http://thehackernews.com/2015/04/nfc-chip-hack-android.html

 

I leave NFC inactive on my phone, and I wouldn't open a random link prompted from NFC anyways.

 

You should install WiFi in your body so you can ask women to see your antenna system

 

There isn't an IT WTF thread, but today I had a WTF moment at work. One of our facilities guys told me that we had to have every data cable move, add or change inspected by the respective city where the building is located. Yeah, right, like that is going to happen. With 30,000+ devices on the network that would be a full time job for the inspector. I'm going to call his bluff since I've never pulled a permit to do data at any other job.

Any of you all pull permits for data cable?

 

If you can't see it from the road you don't permit it imo.

 

Well, this has been my day.....

 

At my company we are transitioning to a e-commerce platform (probably Magento) however all of our sites are all .aspx. Is there any program that can convert aspx to php out there?

 

Not to discourage you, but this has the potential to be a very complicated project. There's no reliable way to convert the two. In short my advice would be to hire a developer, who has experience in ASP.NET WebForms as well as PHP and Magento, to do some analysis and consulting.

The best case scenario would be that your existing pages are essentially static html pages with little to no back-end functionality (like a brochure site). Then you or your developer should be able to port everything over to Magento relatively easy. This would still have to be done by manually, but it would mostly be a process of copying and pasting with some adjustments to remove the .NET code and migrate to PHP.

In the other scenario, where you might have a lot of existing back-end logic that would need to be ported to Magento, then you would definitely need to prepare for a larger development project (one that could take months). The existing code base would have to be analyzed to determine a strategy to re-implement everything in Magento.

Here are some more questions I would get answers to:

• Are the ASPX pages written in C# or Visual Basic?
• Does the code rely heavily on WebForm Controls? Or is it mostly pure html/css/js?
• What database do you currently use? Does logic exist in stored procedures?
• Does the existing site use any custom class libraries?

All of which will have an impact, and depending on the answers to these questions you could go in any number of directions. If the existing site contains a lot of custom logic, spread across the UI layer, class libraries, and stored procedures (as I've seen with plenty of .NET sites) it may be worth considering sticking with the existing codebase and making improvements (.NET is actually a great platform for adding custom functionality if you have developers). Or possibly even dropping the old system entirely, and starting fresh with Magento (I'm wondering if it would be cost-prohibitive to port everything over).

 

Well next Monday should be interesting. I will take over as interim Technology Infrastructure Coordinator for our school district, in charge of all network, server and storage systems. I just moved from being a computer tech to working under infrastructure 3 weeks ago and it has been a whirlwind of new systems to learn the last couple of weeks. Hoping I got this!! Anybody else been thrown into positions like this?

 

^^ "IT is mostly 30% what you know and 70% flying by the seat of your pants" - that's a quote from my boss at my first real IT job and he had a wall of certs so as long as you know how to find answers (pretty easy nowadays) and you can talk to normal people you should be fine

And you must show promise as they are moving you up, don't worry, you got this

 

Thanks for the tips. We have pretty much decided to stick with ASP.NET. We are looking at DotNetNuke or Nopcommerce as new platform.

 

I got hired on to work as a contractor for a programming job at an Air Force base. The company that hired me out bid the favorite of the government overseer and he was PO'ed. One missed step and he could have canceled the contract (and my job). I was hired because I met all the job requirements, breathing and a BS in a computer related field. So, with my newly minted BS degree, zero experience programming, not knowing the programming language, and pissed off people all around, I started my first job out of college. Long story short I worked my ass off those first few months, fixed about a million bugs in the code and won over the overseer.

Fast forward 2 years and the contract was running out. I had everything running like a Swiss watch, but the job requirements hadn't changed. Because I had 2 years worth of raises I knew we would get underbid by the next guy, so I cut bait and found a new job. I heard through the grapevine the next contractor didn't do so well and they canceled his contract.

Bottom line, work hard, google is your friend, and you will be fine.