Quick [tech] Questions Thread

[MahrinSkel]

Anyway, the TP-Link Archer C7 is down under $100 now, and by itself will be good for the typical residential situation and roughly a drop-in for what Sky has now. It's the low end of their business line, and mine has given me literally zero problems (I rebooted it once, and I am not even sure it needed that). Upgrades the ethernet to gigabit, gets you 3 channel N and 2 channel AC, functions as a gateway.

Archer C7

I configured mine for separate BG and N networks so the tablets don't screw the bandwidth for the older PC's.

--Dave

[Sky]

Ok, I'll want the gigabit ethernet at least, so may as well bump up the wifi while I'm at it. Going to snag a TP-Link Archer C9 and upgrade my adapter to a Archer T4UH. I've been really happy with the high gain TP-Link USB wifi adapter, so may as well get something that can hang with the faster router.

Hope this 'free' upgrade doesn't continue to get more expensive 

And yeah, schild...that's probably the easiest and best solution this side of the law.

[Sky]

Yeah, moving to 801.11AC: GREAT GODDAMNED IDEA

Srsly. Woah. Between that and the SSD, I'm living in the future.

[Yegolev]

Also in the Living In The Future Department:
My son needs a new laptop since his is pooping out bluescreens.  It occurred to me that if he is going into tech (he is minimally learning Python and Robot C for middle school) that he should just go ahead and move to OSX.  I'm looking at MacBook refurbs but since this is my first foray into that arena, I wanted to get some opinions on where, which, and how much.

[Sky]

I've had good experience with refurbed Macs. I've only bought directly from Apple. http://www.apple.com/shop/browse/home/specialdeals

[Trippy]

It occurred to me that if he is going into tech (he is minimally learning Python and Robot C for middle school) that he should just go ahead and move to OSX.

That's macOS now. OS X is so yesterday.

[Sky]

And yet http://www.apple.com/osx/

[Trippy]

Edit: Some of the new stuff in macOS Sierra:

http://techcrunch.com/2016/06/13/os-x-is-now-macos-and-gets-support-for-siri-auto-unlock-and-more/

[Rendakor]

I didn't think that OSX image was real...

[Sky]

Edit: Some of the new stuff in macOS Sierra:

Ah, gotcha. I don't generally watch Apple hype. Good they dropped the X, but of course they had to find a douchey way to do it. Still hanging on to the iOS thing, though.

[Yegolev]

It occurred to me that if he is going into tech (he is minimally learning Python and Robot C for middle school) that he should just go ahead and move to OSX.

That's macOS now. OS X is so yesterday.

So it is.  So.  It.  Is.

I don't like "Sierra".

[Sky]

We gon' get it. Probably a massive upgrade next year, all whatever Apple is slinging at the time. Should be fun.

I honestly don't give a shit about OS anymore, haven't for a long time. Horror stories of W10 and it's been fine at home. The only time I even begin to give shits is when it's so outdated developers stop supporting it. The worst was the switch from PowerPC to Intel, with a few mactards skeptical about this new chip. Sucked because it was before I had the reins of power, so we bought a shitload of PowerPC macs that year (I finangled myself an intel, even the Core Solo was better than PowerPC, and had longer legs).

God that guy has no right making purchasing decisions. He's old school mac, buys on emotion. And he's broiling because he's been completely cut out of the tech loop after years of incompetence. I'm no guru by a long shot, but at least I acknowledge it and try to learn and listen to people who know what the hell they're talking about (also why I'd be a good manager, hah).

[Merusk]

If I told you, "Hey, I want to move my company files into the Cloud and never maintain a local file server again" what would you do?

Oh, and they don't want to replicate a whole file structure on each local machine either. 

[Trippy]

I don't understand the last part but Box and Dropbox do that sort of thing.

[apocrypha]

If I told you, "Hey, I want to move my company files into the Cloud and never maintain a local file server again" what would you do?

Oh, and they don't want to replicate a whole file structure on each local machine either. 

So.. they want a system that means their entire file structure is completely unavailable if the internet goes down? What I would do is tell them that they're fucking idiots and explain, slowly, with small words, how cheap HDDs are and why there is no reason at all not to have their files locally available.

[Chimpy]

I am sure AutoDesk has a cloud repository service they want to sell you. And since an architecture firm is already paying AutoDesk taxes already, what is a few more zeros? 

[Merusk]

If I told you, "Hey, I want to move my company files into the Cloud and never maintain a local file server again" what would you do?

Oh, and they don't want to replicate a whole file structure on each local machine either. 

So.. they want a system that means their entire file structure is completely unavailable if the internet goes down? What I would do is tell them that they're fucking idiots and explain, slowly, with small words, how cheap HDDs are and why there is no reason at all not to have their files locally available.

Yeah, there were guys in the room arguing this. Their CEO wants to be 100% cloud all the time though, so guess what they're doing! 

I mean, ideally I can see how great it would be. No need to worry if NY/ LA/ Houston remembered to sync today. Also, they're a construction-management firm and the guys in the field currently have to FTP back to 'home' to access the file server and make revisions. This creates tons of downtime and a fileserver in the cloud would honestly fix it for them.

I don't understand the last part but Box and Dropbox do that sort of thing.

Box and Dropbox require local caching and they don't want that because its tons of space on each team member's machine. It also means if Ted didn't sync or was travelling offline and edits his files, things get fucked when he next syncs up.

Their users are currently using Dropbox or Amazon drive accounts to share files cross-country and the above scenario was outlined as being a problem.

I also get the feeling they're just looking to reduce costs and see IT/ Server storage space as a good option to cut. "Everything's in the cloud now. Just save it out there, it's cheaper than paying for hardware every few years and those guys who never do anything but fuck around!"

Of course, not having local-copies also doesn't work for CAD files with x-refs, but this is a C-level discussion and they wanted options.

I am sure AutoDesk has a cloud repository service they want to sell you. And since an architecture firm is already paying AutoDesk taxes already, what is a few more zeros? 

Yep, Autodesk has a few. There's A360 Drive that works like Dropbox and Box. Again, it requires local management and creates a local cache of all data you have access to.  With their BIM 360 Team and BIM 360 Docs solutions it's a manual upload process for anything rather than an auto-sync or URL to upload files to. Missed dollars there.

I've groused at their team about it before because this isn't the first client to ask. I said something along the lines of, "why don't you have real cloud service functionality?"  They didn't reply back after they asked me to elaborate and I explained a scenario similar to the above.

Then again anything cloud apparently local copies to sync from so vOv

Found this article saying a firm's done it. No experience with the company or the named solutions provider, though.
http://www.cio.com/article/2456297/cloud-computing/architectural-firm-puts-giant-data-files-in-the-cloud.html

Our IT guy suggested TNT drive which mimics a mapped network drive for an Amazon S3 bucket. This could work but I can imagine it's beacoup expensive. https://tntdrive.com/

Since I'm not a Cloud Services guy and the BIM 360 solutions aren't what they're looking for, I thought I'd ask what y'all would say.

[Chimpy]

Do they want to pay the (much higher) costs to ensure their remote locations all have adequate bandwidth to be working on AutoCAD/Revit files over the WAN? Because that shit will get expensive quick. Putting Office documents in the cloud is nothing like putting AutoDesk files which are running into the Gigs each in many cases.

And when they get complaints from all of their draftsmen stating "It takes me 10 minutes to open a drawing, and 10 minutes to save any changes" they will have fun too.

[Morat20]

Work at my job stops if the network shares go down. Nobody is supposed to work locally, but to a mapped network setup. It's got impressive uptime, I admit, and it's nice (the automatic backups have saved my ass from a few dumb mistakes). But people just go home if the network is down for more than an hour.

Which does happen. And that's managed locally.

[Merusk]

Super big network or just poorly managed/ funded? I haven't seen network problems like that as a thing from anyone I've talked to in years. Weird.

Do they want to pay the (much higher) costs to ensure their remote locations all have adequate bandwidth to be working on AutoCAD/Revit files over the WAN? Because that shit will get expensive quick. Putting Office documents in the cloud is nothing like putting AutoDesk files which are running into the Gigs each in many cases.

And when they get complaints from all of their draftsmen stating "It takes me 10 minutes to open a drawing, and 10 minutes to save any changes" they will have fun too.

I couldn't even tell you if they'd considered that. I was in the discussion as a product consultant for Autodesk stuff and we're not supposed to go off our niche.

I dropped some hints about such problems, the Forticache option my old firm used and what the delay there was and how we had to increase the size of our network pipe. I also pointed them at Panzura devices and sent along the info about TNT. I think it all flew over the heads of the collective people in the room, though.

That's part of the beauty of consultancy; You aren't responsible for the bad decisions others want to make, only the information you give them. The Autodesk solutions weren't what they wanted, so they can move on and burn dough looking for their white whale. I'm not going back to IT where I'm responsible for the delay because the CEO read a Forbes article where a multi-billion dollar firm implemented a solution, so clearly our $34 million dollar company can do a smaller one 'on a budget.'   

Though - there IS a good option for Revit files: Collaboration For Revit via BIM 360 Team. It's pretty damn awesome for shared models. If you need to do that take a look at it. There's *some* points I'm not a fan of (you can't host .dwg or .jpg links or your .RFA library in the cloud) but all of the .RVT work can be stored off-location. There's a bit-comparison tool as well so the sync process is actually faster than hosting locally. (seems to me they should put that in the base program.)

[MahrinSkel]

Super big network or just poorly managed/ funded? I haven't seen network problems like that as a thing from anyone I've talked to in years. Weird.

If I worked at a satellite office for a big firm and got to take the day off every time there were "network problems", I imagine there would be a wide variety of "problems". Some of them wouldn't even involve a pulled plug.

--Dave

[Merusk]

Good point. I'm too honest.

[Sky]

I'm not going back to IT where I'm responsible for the delay because the CEO read a Forbes article where a multi-billion dollar firm implemented a solution, so clearly our $34 million dollar company can do a smaller one 'on a budget.'   

Actually, this is exactly my specialty. I take ideas from libraries with triple the budget and quintuple the manpower and implement it more efficiently, improving on the original idea most of the time. We're pretty much in a different class than the rest of our library system because nobody else is paying anything but lip service to real innovation.

[Merusk]

Yeah my problem was they wanted the same hardware, capability and capacity for the smaller budget.

Did I tell you the story of how we were tasked with doing a broadcast with a two week timeframe? 

[Chimpy]

CEOs and CFOs keep hearing about how "the cloud can reduce your IT costs by 80% or more."

Which is true only of cap ex IT spending. In most cases, op ex spending goes up to the point of being an even bigger amount of money.

[Surlyboi]

Pretty much that. I turned down a job at a management consulting firm this past winter because they were looking to go whole hog on "the cloud" and none of the c-suite knew their asses from a hole in the ground about the potential ramifications.

[Sky]

I kinda want to get into consulting. Convince suits to go with these trendy options, lots of buzzwords. Laugh at the poor suckers who have to deal with it while I go cash my checks.

That's my evil fetish.

edit: I was shoulder-surfing a webinar where they were explaining it might be too soon for libraries to invest in 3d computing (VR sets). Probably next year, once the market shakes out.

I was like...to what end? /jackiechan

[Strazos]

Here's a weird question for folks:

Look at my avatar - what font do you think that is? I'm trying to figure it out for a separate project.

[Hawkbit]

https://www.fontspring.com/matcherator?matcherator_img=1qlfrupg8cska1e4rfu4goawijhalmzd

OR

https://www.fontsquirrel.com/matcherator?matcherator_img=3ak9r7g3yi6np7304l4gtdfxnclaj8wd#scroll_to_matches

No exact matches, nothing really even close. It's pretty custom. These might get you an idea though.

[Strazos]

After digging and digging and digging, I think I found it:

http://www.fontspace.com/solar-sister/chang-and-eng

[Trippy]

Good job.

[Hawkbit]

Having some trouble with wifi signal in the front 1/3 of the house. We've got a few thick brick walls and a crawlspace that seems to be blocking signal from the front. Is there a 'cheap' (sub-$100) way to beef it up? I have powerline adapters that run up there already for the things that are hardwired like the PS4; am I better off trying to use a wifi extender or just set up a second router? They're pretty much the same price from what I can see.

Or, maybe simply upgrading to a better router may improve performance? Any recommendations would be helpful.

[Chimpy]

Adding access points is really the only good way to deal with spotty coverage. Especially with 5Ghz modes.

[apocrypha]

A cheap thing that's worth trying is relocating your router. Friend of mine had similar problems and put his router in the middle of the attic. Worked like a charm. Most ceilings are wood and plaster, compared to brick walls.

[Viin]

Similar situation for me, I've been thinking of using the powerline ethernet adapters to put an access point upstairs. But I think I might be able to move the WAP to a more centeral location in the basement and fix most of the problem - the challenge is how to run the Cat5 I have back toward the desk in the office (since it's also the wired router for main PC/printer/VoIP phone).