@scottalanmiller said:

No. But every company and every individual had the right and the ability to audit. That's important. Companies have coverage tools that they use all the time on this stuff.

Have you used TrueCrypt before?

@technobabble said:

Unless I am mistaken Bit locker is only for enterprise which is another reason its not a good replacement.

BitLocker's available with 8.1 Pro.

Did you have tracking enabled on your messages?

@scottalanmiller said:

@alexntg said:

@Dashrender said:

@alexntg said:

@technobabble said:

Well everyones talking about it on twitter and other websites. Here's what PC World is saying: http://www.pcworld.com/article/2241300/truecrypt-now-encouraging-users-to-use-microsofts-bitlocker.html

That makes sense, as Windows has the same functionality built-in.

Sure, but it's closed source.. so it's really not trustworthy!

Until recently, no one had actually audited TrueCrypt's code, so for a very long time, it could have had massive backdoors that no one cared to look for. Whether it's open source or close source, it doesn't really matter. On one side, you hope the folks that wrote it were trustworthy and that if there were any issues, they or an associate caught it. On the other hand, you hope that the folks that wrote it were trustworthy and that if there were any issues, they or an associate caught it. Unless you're manually auditing the code yourself, what does it matter?

No one published an audit. Doesn't imply that it wasn't audited.

Nor does it imply that it was audited.

@Hubtech said:

31200-37440 in math-world. Much better than my first two jobs in the IT world. heck I was a consultant for a company for a year for less than that. mississippi....snarl

Given RAM's experience, I ran with $17 per hour, then factored in cost of living for his area compared with DFW. Housing's cheaper, gas is cheaper, and there's no state income tax.

Edit: Sad, I'm not making much more than that now!

@NetworkNerd said:

@RAM. said:

What price range we talking?

I just had a quick chat with the boss, and he mentioned $15 - $18 per hour depending on experience.

Which is equivalent with ~$42k in Baltimore.

@Hubtech said:

Hrm, i'm still picking up on a metric ton of purple

Ugh, yes.

@nazihhaddad said:

@Minion-Queen
Thanks for you prompt reply.
In regards to the Partnership, it's something I would really love to do, however I have contacted many companies such as HP and they have mentioned the below:
*Business Units: EG (Enterprise Group – software, servers, storage, networking) or PPS (Printing and Personal Systems – laptops, desktops, printers, cartridges).
As a general Guideline the threshold is $50 000/year on EG side and $150 000/year on PPS side.

How on earth I can get such amounts and we are still a new established business.
should we have to wait for 2 or 3 years until we target this amount ?
I am just confused.
Am not based in the US.

It really depends on what you're doing. $50k isn't much at all, depending on the projects you're working with. A fully decked-out server can run several thousand per unit. I've come across single projects that go beyond $50k. As far as the residential side goes, there isn't much margin there, and really isn't worth looking into unless you have a very high volume.

@Dashrender said:

@alexntg said:

@technobabble said:

Well everyones talking about it on twitter and other websites. Here's what PC World is saying: http://www.pcworld.com/article/2241300/truecrypt-now-encouraging-users-to-use-microsofts-bitlocker.html

That makes sense, as Windows has the same functionality built-in.

Sure, but it's closed source.. so it's really not trustworthy!

Until recently, no one had actually audited TrueCrypt's code, so for a very long time, it could have had massive backdoors that no one cared to look for. Whether it's open source or close source, it doesn't really matter. On one side, you hope the folks that wrote it were trustworthy and that if there were any issues, they or an associate caught it. On the other hand, you hope that the folks that wrote it were trustworthy and that if there were any issues, they or an associate caught it. Unless you're manually auditing the code yourself, what does it matter?

@RAM. said:

Not sure why it changed my 7. to a 1. ... but it won't let me change it back lol.

It's assuming a numbered list, and if you're starting one, why would you start with 7? So smart it's dumb.

@Gabi said:

@scottalanmiller could not agree more.

Seems that everyone is using the term VDI for any desktop (regardless of user or server desktop) which is accessed through the cloud.

VDI is rather expensive, XenApp/RDS will work for most things as you have well said a million times.

There's a big difference between XenApp and VDI. XenApp's a bunch of folks logged into the same computer. If something gets screwy that requires a reboot, it impacts all the logged in users. Changes can't be made to the environment without impacting all the users. With VDI, if something gets screwy, it just impacts that one user. This is a major advantage for things like LOB apps that are often less well-written than we'd like. It also supports applications that don't run well in multi-user environments.

With a mainstream linked-clone VDI implementation such as VMware Horizon View, if you want to make an environment change, you can do so without impacting the existing environment. You can set up a test pool for users to try out, then phase it in without disrupting existing users. The next time they log in, they'll get the new environment. If you later find that there's an issue with the image, you can roll back just as easily.

@StrongBad said:

Not sure that that clears anything up. If the site was hacked that would explain this. Something is very fishy. And what about non-Windows users. XP retirement would mean nothing for them.

OS X has had disk encryption for years.

@technobabble said:

Well everyones talking about it on twitter and other websites. Here's what PC World is saying: http://www.pcworld.com/article/2241300/truecrypt-now-encouraging-users-to-use-microsofts-bitlocker.html

That makes sense, as Windows has the same functionality built-in.

@Minion-Queen said:

Can we sweet talk you into a MSP helping out and doing everything remotely?

You'd likely have better luck proposing a staff augmentation. From the description of the post and the size of the company, it's a warm body in a chair type of position.

@Hubtech said:

I just use TV through my GFI console. surprised ya'll dont use it at NTG

We do, for clients we fully manage. However, that's a very small subset of computers that we work with on a regular basis. Several of our clients already have LogMeIn Central, and just add us to their accounts.

@JaredBusch said:

Still having issues at one client when trying to access the site. Can see the home page, but cannot log in.he log in page is just a blank screen, though lastpass sees something.

I've seen bizarre results when used in conjunction with a content filter. Do they have one in place, or some type of proxy?

@NetworkNerd said:

@scottalanmiller said:

You do use VDI? Running a Windows desktop in a VM is what VDI is. All that other stuff is later infrastructure that people now associate with VDI. But this is as much VDI as anything else is.

I feel pretty dumb for this, but I just had a misconception about what was classified as VDI. I thought you had to be using something like View or Cirtrix to be considered using VDI, but a virtual desktop is indeed a virtual desktop. Thanks for slapping me around a bit.

VDI's a virtual desktop with an access platform. It's a pretty broad category. A virtual desktop by itself is just a VM. Add access to it (RDS, PCoIP, even LogMeIn), and you have VDI. Something like VMware Horizon View allows you to use non-persistent linked clones effectively and be able to automatically provision/deprovision desktops as needed, which is a must-have if you're looking to scale beyond 10 or so desktops.

A common misconception folks have is considering Citrix XenApp as VDI. It actually isn't. It's just an RDS session on steroids (different connection protocol, better resource management). It can run on a bare-metal Windows server and has nothing to do with virtualization at all.

Interesting turn of events.

All that being said, for a Windows desktop in a virtual environment, the accessing devices need to be covered by SA or you need to get VDA licenses for it. The interesting bit was that one of the new SKUs was for Win8 Pro SA, since Enterprise is no longer a benefit of SA. It's possible to run Windows Pro with SA for VDI. Also mentioned is using 2008 R2 Enterprise instances with RDS licensing for VDI (which is what I'm actually typing this post with).

@IT-ADMIN said:

@alexntg said:

@IT-ADMIN said:

i know that the best practice is to have one additional DC in the branch office, but unfortunately i still not have the skills to get that done, this project was not successful and i risked to damage the main DC because it seem that there was some kind of conflict between the 2 DC, now i'm thinking about having child DC in the branch office, this is my next plan, hoping that will be successful

best regard

Do you mean a child domain? There's very little reason to use a child domain unless there's a legal separation requirement between two business entities or you have so many computers that a single domain wouldn't be practical.

so, i meant child domain, i plan to do that in order to have a backup login server in the branch, i know that additional DC is the best solution for that but this project was not successful. so sad .....

If you go with a child domain, you'd just have 2 domains with single domain controllers. You'd still have the single-DC point of failure (times two), as well as having to deal with domain trusts, group permissions from multiple domains, etc. You really don't want to do that. If it were me, I'd focus on getting the second DC working properly.

From a business perspective, I think the industry hopped from traditional desktops to all-in-ones, laptops/tablets, or thin clients, depending on environment. That being said, I'm considering building one for home use in order to set up Sophos UTM home edition to replace my aging Apple Time Capsule.

Have you come across an Intel NUC yet? They're reasonably powerful and pretty tiny. I'm using one along with a Synology NAS for a backup target at a client location.