Like most people I've been thinking on politics. Not going to a debate on who is right or wrong but instead I'm wondering if any thing will change substantively.
Let me explain.
In the last two years we have seen unprecedented changes in the small business, and nonprofit, communities. The economy is in rough shape though it is slowly improving, but during all this the efforts to improve small business have failed. Why? Simple, even though there have been quite a few positive actions from the previous congress (and some real stinkers), small businesses are still hobbled. Not by government or any immediate actions by either party but instead the whole thing is held back by the banks. Yep, it's well documented that the same banks that our government helped out by dumping money into in the vain hope they would lend it back to the public instead have decided that it's makes more sense to simply hold on to it and use it to make more money abroad.
It is a shame really. We have seen that people are really PO'ed that there are no jobs. But maybe they should really look around. Stop being tools. Start really thinking for themselves and see that regardless of the rhetoric it's not one party or the other that is the problem but instead it is those that have the power AND the money and prefer to pad their own bottom line instead of doing what was expected of them.
In the mean time we look forward to total gridlock in Washington as the Republicans seemingly don't get why they were elected (i.e get jobs not revenge, oh and making sure a kid can go see a doctor is actually a good thing) and the Democrats are totally lost. I fear the next two years will be nothing but one party trying desperately to kill off the other. Compromise? Not likely from either side and it has been stated as an absolute "NO" from at least one. Wonderful.
Ah well enough non tech ranting. I'm back and I'll be posting more soon.
Peace.
Thursday, November 4, 2010
Friday, August 20, 2010
This just in: NPs are hurting.
This from the "wow, really?!" file: charitable groups and private foundations are having a hard time finding donations.
Last year nonprofit groups and organizations were finding it hard to meet demands. Now comes a report that this year they are having an even harder time. Not really a surprise to be totally honest here. Neither was the claim that some were forced to cut services while others had to lay off people or the corollary claim of switching from pay based to volunteer staff (though not as many went that route that I would have expected).
You can get more details by reading the actual survey here. Be sure and read the full survey (linked on that page) as the summary is a bit to simple to be very useful.
It got me wondering though on just how many of those know what a dedicated IT solution provider can do for them. In the survey it highlighted that demand increased for 63% of those surveyed so that means that over all they had even more reason to maintain their tech edge. Hard to do when you're bringing in less ... unless you know how to leverage your advantages. Wink, wink, nudge, nudge.
Still the effect of the economy on NP's in general is sad. These are the people that you go to when all else fails. They fill the gaps left by state and federal cuts or just in areas that never got any coverage at all. Over 6,900 and if things keep going the way they are, we will see up to 547 disappear. I can only hope that I won't need one of those that end up fading away.
Last year nonprofit groups and organizations were finding it hard to meet demands. Now comes a report that this year they are having an even harder time. Not really a surprise to be totally honest here. Neither was the claim that some were forced to cut services while others had to lay off people or the corollary claim of switching from pay based to volunteer staff (though not as many went that route that I would have expected).
You can get more details by reading the actual survey here. Be sure and read the full survey (linked on that page) as the summary is a bit to simple to be very useful.
It got me wondering though on just how many of those know what a dedicated IT solution provider can do for them. In the survey it highlighted that demand increased for 63% of those surveyed so that means that over all they had even more reason to maintain their tech edge. Hard to do when you're bringing in less ... unless you know how to leverage your advantages. Wink, wink, nudge, nudge.
Still the effect of the economy on NP's in general is sad. These are the people that you go to when all else fails. They fill the gaps left by state and federal cuts or just in areas that never got any coverage at all. Over 6,900 and if things keep going the way they are, we will see up to 547 disappear. I can only hope that I won't need one of those that end up fading away.
Back from Vacation and ... wth?
OK so here I am back from vacation and of course there is a bunch of things I need to resolve. While I did stay in the loop while I was gone it's never quite enough.
For those interested, I had a very relaxing vacation.
So on my return I meet with our Strategic Partner Manager (I think that's her title) and she tells me "kudos for squaring away VMware" (I'll post about that some other time ... maybe) but then goes on to tell me that we have a pita situation with McAfee. Seems they need over half a dozen people certified per company or they won't deal with us or give us the savings we need to help out nonprofits. My response was: really? What the heck?! (ok I PG'd that but you get the point)
This from McAfee, the "also ran" of AV solutions.
Look, I'm all for people getting certified. I mean it's only logical that they do it so they can truly know what it is they are actually selling. Considering that nonprofits need even more advice/information/hand-holding it's even more important for us. But really, do you need a cadre of people for a product that is basically considered by many to be on low end of the spectrum for anti virus solutions?!
To be totally honest I can't see any AV solution provider needing anywhere close to that. Anti-virus software is so "point-and-click" and generally automated that the only place I can see needing certified sales and support people is when dealing with enterprise level installations. Even then you really should have the person onsite (or contracted) to install/support the solution with the certification, for sales it's really just a matter of knowing what the best license cost level is the best fit. So there should be at least one (or 2-3 depending on the sales staff size) but what McAfee is asking for is a bit on the ludicrous side of things.
Needless to say we will go ahead and get things rolling so we can service our customers but the writing is on the wall. McAfee can only blame themselves for hurting their sales with draconian reseller requirements. Then again the question is: do they even care?
Somehow I doubt it.
For those interested, I had a very relaxing vacation.
So on my return I meet with our Strategic Partner Manager (I think that's her title) and she tells me "kudos for squaring away VMware" (I'll post about that some other time ... maybe) but then goes on to tell me that we have a pita situation with McAfee. Seems they need over half a dozen people certified per company or they won't deal with us or give us the savings we need to help out nonprofits. My response was: really? What the heck?! (ok I PG'd that but you get the point)
This from McAfee, the "also ran" of AV solutions.
Look, I'm all for people getting certified. I mean it's only logical that they do it so they can truly know what it is they are actually selling. Considering that nonprofits need even more advice/information/hand-holding it's even more important for us. But really, do you need a cadre of people for a product that is basically considered by many to be on low end of the spectrum for anti virus solutions?!
To be totally honest I can't see any AV solution provider needing anywhere close to that. Anti-virus software is so "point-and-click" and generally automated that the only place I can see needing certified sales and support people is when dealing with enterprise level installations. Even then you really should have the person onsite (or contracted) to install/support the solution with the certification, for sales it's really just a matter of knowing what the best license cost level is the best fit. So there should be at least one (or 2-3 depending on the sales staff size) but what McAfee is asking for is a bit on the ludicrous side of things.
Needless to say we will go ahead and get things rolling so we can service our customers but the writing is on the wall. McAfee can only blame themselves for hurting their sales with draconian reseller requirements. Then again the question is: do they even care?
Somehow I doubt it.
Wednesday, July 28, 2010
Windows 7 and printing to network printers
For a while now we have been upgrading all our systems to Windows 7. For the most part it has been fairly pain free and without major issues. For the last few days however we have run into a problem that seemed to be rather major.
When printing to the network a workstation would just, well, not print. Rather annoying when really this is pretty simple and straight forward in most cases. At first a right issue was thought to be the culprit as we have rather stringent limitations set for the regular users to prevent bad things from happening. (limited rights and security are generally a big deal with me) But after doing some troubleshooting that turned out to not be the case.
What ended up being the culprit was a simple case of version compatibility. To wit our printers are still hosted on a Windows 2k3 server (not for long but for now). With Windows 7 having introduced a new print queueing process (called Async RPC) to speed up things it was not playing nicely with the printer server. Making the problem more frustrating was the randomness of it all. Some would work fine, others (more so one in particular) would almost constantly foul up. Making you think that the problem was that workstation in particular instead of a more general problem.
The answer was eventually found here: Windows 7 Printing sends a Local Downlevel Document and will NOT Print so I can't claim to be the fount of all wisdom (but at least lucky in my searches). The key point though is that you need to add the following to a system's registry:
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Policies\Microsoft\Windows NT\Printers]
"EnabledProtocols"=dword:00000006
Note that bold word above as the reg key doesn't normally exist and you do have to ADD it to the registry.
What kills me is that they would do this while knowing that Win 2k3 servers are going to be out there for a really really long time. Ah well, one can waste a lot of time trying to figure out what goes on in the mind of Microsoft.
Me, I'd rather move on to the next problem. :D
When printing to the network a workstation would just, well, not print. Rather annoying when really this is pretty simple and straight forward in most cases. At first a right issue was thought to be the culprit as we have rather stringent limitations set for the regular users to prevent bad things from happening. (limited rights and security are generally a big deal with me) But after doing some troubleshooting that turned out to not be the case.
What ended up being the culprit was a simple case of version compatibility. To wit our printers are still hosted on a Windows 2k3 server (not for long but for now). With Windows 7 having introduced a new print queueing process (called Async RPC) to speed up things it was not playing nicely with the printer server. Making the problem more frustrating was the randomness of it all. Some would work fine, others (more so one in particular) would almost constantly foul up. Making you think that the problem was that workstation in particular instead of a more general problem.
The answer was eventually found here: Windows 7 Printing sends a Local Downlevel Document and will NOT Print so I can't claim to be the fount of all wisdom (but at least lucky in my searches). The key point though is that you need to add the following to a system's registry:
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Policies\Microsoft\Windows NT\Printers]
"EnabledProtocols"=dword:00000006
Note that bold word above as the reg key doesn't normally exist and you do have to ADD it to the registry.
What kills me is that they would do this while knowing that Win 2k3 servers are going to be out there for a really really long time. Ah well, one can waste a lot of time trying to figure out what goes on in the mind of Microsoft.
Me, I'd rather move on to the next problem. :D
Thursday, July 22, 2010
We are now broadcasting from a new underground HQ
Well chalk one up to the corporate machine.
Had to move my blog to my personal account. Long story but not worth detailing here.
Anyway stay tuned from more IT insight and advice.
Had to move my blog to my personal account. Long story but not worth detailing here.
Anyway stay tuned from more IT insight and advice.
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