grumble

Malware emails - doing it wrong.

I’m currently reading /r/sysadmin on reddit at the moment, specifically this post from someone ranting that a user complain that “malware spam e-mail” went to their mail client’s spam folder. While this is classed as a rant on the site and not intended as deep analysis of a problem, their entire comment on this was: What the hell? This is exactly what it should have done! I'm really not sure what to say to this, or to the responses that suggest telling the "

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Paying the price of free software

Microsoft’s march towards filling their operating system with adverts continues, with people upset to see adverts for OneDrive popping up in Windows Explorer. And lets be honest, we’re all right to be annoyed. I think that’s certainly pretty intrusive. The Next Web has an article on how to turn it off (though ironically, when I first visited their site on my iPad it tried to take over my whole screen. Hmm… …something… something… attend to the beam in your own eye.

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Scratching the Surface

At work I tend to turn up to meetings with a MacBook Pro. This surprises a few people who know me as a former Microsoft MVP, a Windows Server/Infrastructure person and the manager of a IT system that is predominantly Windows based. The MacBook Pro isn’t ideal; it’s a 15" 2010 model and it is starting to be a problem. Even with a SSD installed, it’s starting to get slow and cranky when it comes to waking up.

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Stormy weather for cloud providers and users?

So we’re a Mimecast customer and today they had a few problems with their email services in the UK going offline for a large part of the working day. No big deal as such, other than that they make big claims for their own availability and have been quite ready to point out the failings of others in the past - and the responsible people at those others are probably reacting to today’s events by pouring champagne down their throats as fast as they can get the bottles open… well maybe not at Google.

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Keep taking the tablets Dell

Let me just start this post by saying that professionally at least, I’m a happy Dell customer. I’ve built up a good relationship with them over the years, met senior Dell staff and we almost exclusively use their server & storage infrastructure where I work, we’ve used them for consultancy in the past, and I’ve been delighted with the results. This is not me hating on Dell. But I am going to have to take them to the woodshed over a recent post by Andre Meier on their corporate blog, “Tablet matters - taking the right decision”.

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The problem with Windows 8

When Windows 8 was first released to techies, I made the effort to install it on my main computer at home and use it in order to try and get used to it. I’ve always done this; if you work in technology you need to be up to date with technology. This install lasted for a bit longer than a month before I gave up on it and rolled back to Windows 7.

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I'm not very good with computers

The phrase “I’m not very good with computers” is one you frequently hear, sometimes from people who are embarrassed to have a problem with their computer, sometimes as a response to any technical question (Our helpdesk once had this response back to telling someone that their password was temporarily set to their surname). That phrase, along with “I don’t know what this file does, so how do I delete it?” probably ranks in my top 5 list of frustrations with my job.

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From Hell's heart, I email thee

My feelings about various email servers I’ve had to do battle with over the years are well known to those people who have worked with me. Imagine my surprise to receive an email that began like this: OS2 wasn't enough for me, I feel the need to go the whole hog and get IBM'd*! As it happens I am now officially using Notes instead of outlook, it's weird in here!

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