IT Certs

[Chimpy]

Microsoft is serious about Sharepoint. And since you are probably not going to see many companies drop using MS Office, as Sharepoint continues to mature and improve you are going to see a lot more deployments of it as good interoperability between your collaboration suite and the applications your end users already know/use is a big selling point.

And Sharepoint (like anything) is always limited by quality of the implementation. The company I worked at used a quickly kludged together web-portal front-end to their Sharepoint server that left a lot to be desired. But I blame that almost entirely on their horrendous IT policies and practices, not on the technology.

[Morat20]

And Sharepoint (like anything) is always limited by quality of the implementation. The company I worked at used a quickly kludged together web-portal front-end to their Sharepoint server that left a lot to be desired. But I blame that almost entirely on their horrendous IT policies and practices, not on the technology.

lol. I have a technical screening tomorrow with a company whose entire business model is just that -- throwing together web-portal front ends for Sharepoint. Straight B2B stuff.

I think they do other things as well (they're a fairly sizeable consultant firm) but that's the segment they're looking at me for. I swear, months of nada and suddenly I'm consumed by phone interviews and screenings and crap.

Worst of all, the ones moving the fastest is the job I want to take the least, with the shittiest commute (although good pay). Trying to put them off long enough to see if any of the others pan out is a killer.

But to echo your point -- everyone keeps mentioning Sharepoint. EVERYONE. It's on at least half the jobs listings I've checked.

[bhodi]

Remember, Sharepoint is activex, so it doesn't work on macs. At all. And it fucking sucks. But so does most collaborative software, I guess.

[Ingmar]

A lot of it doesn't work properly in Chrome or FF, for that matter.

[Trouble]

Google motherfucking docs. I hope there's no companies that aren't already well into the MS teet thinking of implementing Sharepoint as their starting point. There's any number of much better solutions. The MS "Buyin" is no longer tenable with the last few years of lightspeed web advancement. ActiveX? Seriously?

[Chimpy]

GoogleDocs is fine and dandy for a way to share documents, but their web apps for spreadsheets and word processing blow as much or more than Sharepoint does as a document sharing tool.

I am not a huge fan of Microsoft or many of their applications, but the whole "let google do everything for us!" mantra is not any better.

It also has nothing to do with the topic of the thread which was about what places would be good to get certification in, and whether any of us like it or think it is total garbage, Sharepoint IS something that companies are using and will continue to use.

[Trouble]

Just pointing out there are alternatives. I'm sure there's other better ones but I haven't done the research. Microsoft tie in isn't something you want with the proliferation of platforms that aren't Windows though, I know that much.

[Sky]

Avoiding derail in the book thread:

Security + Guide to Network Security Fundamentals. Whee.

We have a forum component to the class, and the bulk of my posting thus far is critiquing the book. One exercise is to download an app that disables writes to a USB drive. A book on security points to an (ad-laden) website (hey, the guy's getting free hits from the book) and then to DOWNLOAD AN EXE...the best part is that the app's author clearly states, above the download link...all it does is flip a registry bit. So rather than explain how to do that (or at this level, just tell you the path, derp)...Not to mention there's an even better way to do it with a custom .adm that it took me all of one second to find on google. Ye gods.

The example RSS feed has an ad between each entry of the feed.   Again, crazy not to, with the free traffic from the book. But so obnoxious and my mind can't help but rebel. And that's not even getting into the tests themselves, how is it really testing my readiness for hardening my network to know "___ billion dollars was lost due to the Blaster/whatever" I'll take 'a shitload' for the total amount of relevance, Alex. Grr. I do so badly with structured learning, because so much of it is nonsensical. And memorization prioritized over critical thought  

[fuser]

We have a forum component to the class, and the bulk of my posting thus far is critiquing the book. One exercise is to download an app that disables writes to a USB drive.

Why... why... why for yegods sake are they not using Group Policies?!

[Sky]

On that tangent, I was bummed when the Gates Foundation handed over their old public computer security tool (basically some custom policy files) to Microsoft, who ended that program and started Steady State (which is ok, but much more closed). Then they made Steady State into a decent (but limited) product...and end that program with no Vista/7 support. 

Had one woman in the course recognize me. She used to work for Dell and remembered me getting frustrated with her slowness (she put it nicer than that!) during a mobo swap and I just did the swap in the time she was laying out her materials :p Funny how things stick in people's minds, I'd totally forgotten.

About half of the 15-person class has no right being there, Derp Alert. I look at some of the brainiacs here and feel incompetent, and then I see the real morons and remember I can at least get the job done :p

Also, the instructor responded to my post about the exe download by putting out a big yellow banner that the exercises were optional and not to run them on their personal PCs and to only run them on a test installation (because most students have access to that?). This is kind of meta fun.

Really enjoying the kick in the pants, too. First structured learning I've done in six or seven years. Really needed this to refresh the skill sets.

[Ironwood]

Had one woman in the course recognize me. She used to work for Dell and remembered me getting frustrated with her slowness (she put it nicer than that!) during a mobo swap and I just did the swap in the time she was laying out her materials :p Funny how things stick in people's minds, I'd totally forgotten.

Heh.  You could really have shortened that story.  Try this :

One woman in the course recognised me as an utter cunt.

See ?  So much shorter.

[Ingmar]

We have a forum component to the class, and the bulk of my posting thus far is critiquing the book. One exercise is to download an app that disables writes to a USB drive.

Why... why... why for yegods sake are they not using Group Policies?!

I can only assume this is not in an AD environment, because otherwise yeah, it would be completely retarded to not use Group Policies.

[Sky]

You could still set it up with local policies, at least that's how we were doing it before.

IW, an utter cunt who she remembers fondly for teaching her how to quickly install a motherboard  Or maybe the word means something different on the Isle of Uttercunt :)

[fuser]

On that tangent, I was bummed when the Gates Foundation handed over their old public computer security tool (basically some custom policy files) to Microsoft, who ended that program and started Steady State (which is ok, but much more closed). Then they made Steady State into a decent (but limited) product...and end that program with no Vista/7 support.  

Ah so that's where Steady State came from? I remember using those policy files and building upon them on further PC deployments in a public environment. We gave up on trying to secure the pc via registry, policies, file, and bought DeepFreeze licenses.

I can only assume this is not in an AD environment, because otherwise yeah, it would be completely retarded to not use Group Policies.

But you can use local Group Policies to secure a standalone PC. Needless to say this can be defeated by a varity of methods but so can a registry flag  

[Ingmar]

I assume what the exe in question is doing is just changing the local security policy. I do agree it would be better just to teach people how to do that themselves, but hey, then they wouldn't get the ad dollars.  

EDIT: Oh I see, just a registry flag indeed. Even better.

[Sky]

Ah so that's where Steady State came from? I remember using those policy files and building upon them on further PC deployments in a public environment. We gave up on trying to secure the pc via registry, policies, file, and bought DeepFreeze licenses.

Actually, I give a lot of credit to MS on this one. They really developed the SS app to the point where it's almost perfect for our library setting, a nice balance of security and usability. I like having the degree of control over OS, IE and Office components, automagic updates and disk protection all in one package. Every morning I come in and see the computer doing its own upgrades without having to dick around with the disk protection, I grin. It's been interesting watching OSX and Windows go back and forth over the years for the ease-of-use and features crowns (from a management standpoint).

Also, while I've urged the libraries in our system for years to move to it, they're all using Deep Freeze. I like "free" :)

[Yegolev]

Woke up this morning, decided to get an AIX 6.1 Admin cert.

[Sky]

Woke up this morning, decided to get an AIX 6.1 Admin cert.

World's oddest blues song.

[Yegolev]

Works best with trumpet or cornet.

[Sky]

Sitting the Security+ exam this Saturday. Nervous.

The prep course was garbage, already griped about the lame book. For the final week of prep, someone started a thread bitching about the materials and how they felt woefully underprepared, echoed by just about everyone. We all shared a bunch of supplemental stuff we've been using, but total silence from the "Professor". Then he pipes up on Sunday (closing day) and says the book is all you need, everything is fine, ra-ra pom-poms, look at how great everyone did. When we start with 15 people, end with 10 and only 7 (including me) qualified for the voucher with 85% on open book tests?

Either way it goes on Saturday, I'm going to be taking complaints (along with several classmates) to the administrators of the grant. Going to try for an exemption on the '1 cert' rule of the grant, based on the utter mis-handling of this guinea pig session (all my insisting got me in the first round of Security+ prep). Might be able to get a CEH out of it, not sure if I'm ready to tackle CISSP or be able to meet the experience requirements (unless I have to go find a new job, I guess, won't know that until May or October).

[Sky]

Several of the folks taking the test were wicked cocky. They all bombed. The woman I mentioned (who used to work for Dell) and I were both nervous and we were the only two who had used supplemental material. She passed with an 85%, I got a 94%. In the end it was an easy exam but I'm glad I over-prepared anyway.

[Selby]

They all bombed.

This was my favorite part of college: watching cocky assholes bomb tests.  Congratulations on passing!

[RhyssaFireheart]

Congrats, Sky!

[Sky]

My fiancee is taking an intermediate level class with one of the program administrators...2 people passed my exam. She also said they're trying to push for 'exceptional' students to be allowed multiple certs from the program, so there's a possible CISSP or CEH that might be available. I plan on doing a post-mortem with the program admin about our shitty "professor", though I'm pretty sure with 2/15 pass rate it's pretty obvious it's not working.

Less than an hour after passing I had my first offer from the Chamber of Commerce to do a presentation later this year