In this week’s newsletter
Is the Great Tech Worker Migration coming? Blocking reply-all storms. Now *that’s* disaster prep! Answers to Ask Our Readers – PowerShell guru needed. Find Group Policy files for Microsoft Edge. COVID Corner: Great African films of the 60s and 70s! Plus lots more — read it all, read it here on WServerNews!
Enjoy this week’s newsletter and feel free to send us feedback on any of the topics we’ve covered — we love hearing from our readers!
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WServerNews goes out each week to more than 200,000 IT pro subscribers worldwide! That’s a lot of expertise to tap into. Do you need help with some technical problem or are looking for expert advice on something IT-related? Ask Our Readers by emailing your problems and/or questions to us at [email protected]
Editor’s Corner
This week’s observations and ruminations from Mitch Tulloch our Senior Editor…
Is the Great Tech Worker Migration coming?
One of the things I’ve been giving a lot of thought to recently is how this COVID-19 crisis — and especially its aftermath which is likely to linger for several years — might affect the lives, jobs and nature of work for those of us who work in the IT/dev sector.
For example, Silicon Valley is not only the hub where much of the amazing tech innovation happens, it’s also a heck of an expensive place to live! Until now if you’ve wanted to be where much of the action is and work at Apple, Google, Facebook, Netflix and the like, you had to move to the Bay Area and live there. The perks of working at such large tech firms have been legendary.
The current situation with the virus may change this. Companies like Twitter and Square are now telling their employees that they can work from home permanently, while Google and Facebook have been telling them they can expect to work from home at least until next year. A few big companies like Microsoft are taking a different view however. But my money is that many of the biggest employers of tech workers will allow or even insist that many and possibly most of their employees transition to permanent or near-permanent working from home.
The question is, how should tech workers respond to this change, especially if it’ll be permanent? (Since nothing in work or life is permanent, especially in tech, you can equate permanent here as nothing significantly changing for at least 5 years.) For example, take your typical millennial tech worker living in a modified half-sized shipping container somewhere in the boonies of San Francisco and free-bussing it to the Googleplex. Said worker is now spending 24×7 in a tiny box and wondering why, with the salary he/she is getting paid, does it still make sense to live in high-cost Frisco? Better to move out into the boonies somewhere, maybe 500 km away from the Plex, and buy a 3500 sq ft home with a swimming pool and room for raising kids.
Well perhaps the high salary of said worker would suffice for such change, but then why should Alphabet keep paying such high salaries if their employees are going to live far away and work exclusively from home? In fact why should a big tech company pay any of their workers Bay Area salaries if they can hire people from anywhere in the world to work at home for their company?
Scary. One offshoot of ubiquitous work-from-home due to the COVID-19 crisis is that big tech companies may no longer want to pay big salaries to their employees. They can argue, probably successfully, that an employee who lives in Cheapsville doesn’t need the kind of huge salary they would need if they had to live in the hyper-expensive Bay Area and surroundings.
The second offshoot of course sees big tech firms casting a wider net and hiring talented people from all around the world — and there are lots of them. This could mean less job security for high-paid tech workers currently employed by the tech giants.
Personally I’m not sure things will get that bad — the pendulum will probably swing both ways as managers become frustrated with their inability to control their workers when they aren’t on-site. I also think this dilemma is more likely to impact large tech companies working mainly in the social area. Mid-sized companies that provide IT services and/or products aren’t likely to be as strongly affected since they haven’t grown to the point where they want to build a monument to themselves.
My guess then — call it one of my Coronavirus predictions — is that big tech will soon become unfashionable to find work at. The real action will happen in IT companies having 25-250 employees — small enough to still be humble, but big enough to have lots of dreams.
My two cents. What are our readers’ thoughts concerning this? Email me at [email protected]
Blocking reply-all storms
Microsoft has apparently started rolling out a new feature for their Office 365 platform that can help prevent the kind of Reply-All storms that happen in many companies to the amusement of employees and embarrassment of management:
Microsoft adds protection against Reply-All email storms in Office 365 (ZDNet)
I’ve experienced a couple of these during my many years in the tech industry. I’m not sure Microsoft’s solution will prevent all of these different kinds of storms, but it’s a start.
Now *that’s* disaster prep!
A few months ago during the early days of the Coronavirus situation the Search Results North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) reactivated its underground Cheyenne Mountain facility in Colorado which it used to use during the Cold War. This facility was changed to being a fully ‘warm” backup command center in 2008, and NORAD has now split its operational staff into two separate, independent and fully-functional groups. I’ve heard that some companies that run electrical grids in the USA also do this — have two physically separate groups of operators, one of which is on-duty in the company’s headquarters while the other is physically isolated at a smaller backup facility. Once every week or two the two groups trade places.
Have any of our readers worked at a company that does anything like this? i.e. does your organization or one you worked at previously have two alternating fully-capable operational teams, one working and the other always at ready standby? Email us at [email protected]
Got more thoughts about anything in this newsletter?
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Ask Our Readers – PowerShell guru needed (answers)
Last week we shared that a reader named Trevor had sent us the following PowerShell question:
I am desperate for help regarding PowerShell and although I know what I want, but I very much lack the ‘how-to. Having found part of my issue below:
$computer = Get-Content c:\pstest\computerlist.txt
$Output = Foreach($C in $computer){
$System = Get-WmiObject Win32_ComputerSystem -ComputerName $C | Select-Object -Property Name,Model
$BIOS = Get-WmiObject Win32_BIOS -ComputerName $C | Select-Object -Property SerialNumber
[PSCustomObject]@{
ComputerName = $C
Name = $System.Name
Model = $System.Model
SerialNumber = $BIOS.SerialNumber
}
}
$Output
$Output |Export-Csv -Path c:\pstest\Result.csv -NoTypeInformation
My issue is that I need to include which devices contained in the ‘computerlist.txt’ have which hotfixes installed on them? As you can see in the script, the hotfixes are not included & even after trail and error, I am only left with frustration and failure.
We asked if any of our newsletter readers could help Trevor with his difficulty and two readers stepped forward. First off Mark Van Noy commented on this with:
In regards to the Ask Our Readers section of the latest Newsletter. I believe what needs to be done to obtain the desired result is to add the following lines of code.
After $BIOS = Get-WmiObject Win32_BIOS -ComputerName $C | Select-Object -Property SerialNumber add
$Patches = (Get-Hotfix -ComputerName $C).HotfixID
Then inside his associative array/hash add the line:
KB = $Patches
Those two lines will pull in the KB numbers of the installed patches for Windows on the remote machine and add them as a collection of items to the hash that is already being used to keep information together by computer. The Get-Hotfix cmdlet also has the InstalledOn property if that is of interest. It is important to note that this only returns Windows patches and not Office or third party updates.
While Mark’s comment should fit the bill, another reader named Shawn Stugart who is a Senior Technical Trainer for New Horizons Learning Solutions offered a more detailed commentary on Trevor’s problem as follows:
This is in response to Trevor’s PowerShell script question in issue #1283. The following code will also fetch the installed hotfixes using the same technique Trevor provided:
$computer = Get-Content c:\pstest\computerlist.txt
$Output = Foreach($C in $computer){
$System =Get-WmiObject Win32_ComputerSystem-ComputerName $C| Select-Object-Property Name,Model
$BIOS =Get-WmiObject Win32_BIOS-ComputerName $C| Select-Object-Property SerialNumber
$HotFixes =Get-WmiObject Win32_QuickFixEngineering-ComputerName $C| Select-Object-Property HotfixID
[PSCustomObject]@{
ComputerName = $C
Name = $System.Name
Model = $System.Model
SerialNumber = $BIOS.SerialNumber
Hotfixes = $hotfixes
}
}
$Output
$Output | Export-Csv -Path c:\pstest\Result.csv -NoTypeInformation
The problem, though, is that while ComputerName, System Model, and Serial Number are single-valued attributes and will render without problem when formatted as a CSV, the HotFixes property is an array of strings, which doesn’t fit easily into the two-dimensional CSV format. Instead, “Hotfixes” will appear in the file as “System.Object[],” which isn’t very useful.
On the other hand, if Trevor were to use a hierarchical file format, like XML or JSON, he’d be able to retain the detailed hotfix information. The final line of the script could be modified to use PowerShell’s “Command-Line Interface XML format” like this:
$Output | Export-Clixml -Path ‘c:\pstest\Result.xml’
The hotfix data will be maintained in the XML file, and Trevor can import and work with the results like so:
$results = Import-Clixml c:\pstest\Result.xml
$results | Where ComputerName-eq ‘Server_Name’| Select -ExpandProperty Hotfixes
Hope that helps!
Tip of the Week
>> Got any IT pro tips you’d like to share with other readers of our newsletter? Email us at [email protected]
How to find Group Policy files for Microsoft Edge
Looking for the latest Group Policy files for Microsoft Edge? Or for the version you’re deploying in your environment? Go to this page:
https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/edge/business/download
Select the channel version, build and platform. Then click Download to download the policy files.
Admin Toolbox
>> Got any admin tools or software you’d like to recommend to our readers? Email us at [email protected]
PPing is designed to give you the easiest possible solution for discovering ports from a windows console:
https://github.com/codingfreak/pping
PuTTY is an open source SSH and telnet client, developed originally by Simon Tatham for the Windows platform:
RML can analyze profiler traces or replay the trace file against another instance of SQL Server:
Mailbag
In last week’s newsletter in the Admin Toolbox section we mentioned Microsoft Message Analyzer as a utility our readers might want to investigate. This prompted reader Wolfgang Gandre from Germany to correct us as follows:
MMA has retired!! Have a look at https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/openspecs/blog/ms-winintbloglp/dd98b93c-0a75-4eb0-b92e-e760c502394f
Oops, thanks!
BTW if any readers of our newsletter have some favorite IT utilities or services they want to plug just email us and we’ll mention them in the Admin Toolbox section of an upcoming issue of WServerNews.
COVID Corner: Great African films of the 60s and 70s!
For your viewing entertaining during this COVID crisis check out these terrific movies filmed in Africa.
Code 7 Victim 5 (1964)
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0058632/
Starting the handsome Lex Barker and beautiful Ann Smyrner, this fun movie filmed around Cape Town, South Africa features action, adventure, and hot girls! — at least so says the advertising at the top of the Double Feature Blu-ray disk put out by cult-movie release company Blue Underground (now Diabolik DVD) and available from Amazon.
Mozambique (1964)
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0059475/
Also available on the same Blue Underground disk from Amazon is the movie Mozambique which stars several of my favorite Euro-actors including Paul Hubschmid, Dietmar Schonherr and Vivi Bach. Mozambique is filmed in — you guessed it — the Republic of Mozambique, and the climax chase scene filmed around Victoria Falls is amazing and way fun to watch. The main star the American actor Steve Cochran is someone I’ve never encountered before in my movie ramblings, and while he does the usual Bogart-coolness kind of thing in his character portrayal, he fills his roll creditably and is well supported by the others in the cast.
Gold (1974)
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0071566/
Those of us who know Roger Moore only from his mostly silly James Bond movies (or from the TV series The Saint, but then that really shows your age) will be surprised to see what a hunk he is in this exciting movie about a sinister plot at a gold mine. Filmed in South Africa and starring Susannah York as the mine manager’s neglected wife, this film may raise some eyebrows for how it portrayed the black/white divide in that country during those days, but if you can set this aside and judge the movie by the standard of its own age instead of the present, you’ll enjoy it!
More fun virus-dampening entertainment to infect you with next week!
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Conference calendar
NOTE: Because of the concerns surrounding the COVID-19 situation some of these conferences may be moved online or even cancelled. Please check the conference websites for the latest updates.
>> Got an IT conference or event happening that you’d like to promote in our newsletter? Email us at [email protected]
Microsoft Inspire
July 20-24, 2020 in Las Vegas, Nevada
https://partner.microsoft.com/en-us/inspire
Cyber Security Summits
For dates and locations see https://cybersummitusa.com/summits/
Other conferences
PowerShell Conference Europe – June 2-5 in Hannover, Germany
European Collaboration Summit – June 8-10 in Wiesbaden, Germany
https://www.collabsummit.eu/en/
Evolve – June 8-10 in Las Vegas
https://evolvetechconference.com/
RSA Conference Asia Pacific & Japan – July 14-16 in Singapore
https://www.rsaconference.com/apj
VMworld – Aug 30 – Sept 3 in San Francisco
https://www.vmworld.com/en/us/index.html
Interop – Sept 21-24 in Austin, Texas
European SharePoint, Office 365 & Azure Conference (ESPC20) – Nov 9-12, 2020 in Amsterdam
https://www.sharepointeurope.com/
DevOpsCon – Nov 30 – Dec 3 in Munich, Germany
Podcast Corner
Office 365 Governance for Work From Home with Martina Grom (RunAsRadio)
WLAN Pi & Python Scripting (Clear To Send)
ExtraHop CTO Jesse Rothstein talks network monitoring (Risky Business)
https://risky.biz/netcasts/risky-business/
Friends Should Let Friends Buy Microsoft 365 Business Premium (Microsoft Cloud IT Pro Podcast)
https://www.msclouditpropodcast.com/
Microsoft Build 2020 Preview (Microsoft Cloud Show)
http://www.microsoftcloudshow.com/podcast
New on Techgenix.com
Preventing remote desktop users from shutting down office computers
When a remote worker accesses their office computer via remote desktop and accidentally or intentionally shuts it down, problems can arise.
https://techgenix.com/remote-desktop-shutting-down-office-computers/
Provide tech support for home users with Windows Remote Assistance
If your remote users are having problems, Windows Remote Assistance can help you provide tech support even if they are using their personal devices at home.
https://techgenix.com/windows-remote-assistance/
Trench Tales: Wrangling too many breeds of computers
Are all the computers you administer the same size, same make, same model? Of course not. Welcome to the real world of desktop management.
https://techgenix.com/desktop-management-many-computers/
Review: Veeam Backup for Microsoft Office 365
As Microsoft Office 365 grows in popularity, users need solutions to back up Office 365 data. Here’s our review of Veeam Backup for Microsoft Office 365.
https://techgenix.com/veeam-backup-microsoft-office-365/
What training for a space mission taught me about working in isolation
Working from home can feel like working in isolation. Our author, because he is training for a space mission, knows first-hand about this and has some tips.
https://techgenix.com/working-in-isolation/
Fun videos from Flixxy
How Sweden Managed The Coronavirus Without Lockdown
Sweden state epidemiologist Dr. Anders Tegnell discusses his country’s decision not to impose quarantine in the face of coronavirus and its consequences.
https://www.flixxy.com/how-sweden-managed-the-coronavirus-without-lockdown.htm
New Rule: Immunity Booster
In his editorial ‘New Rule’ Bill argues that people should fight the coronavirus by strengthening their immune systems, rather than by sanitizing the universe.
https://www.flixxy.com/new-rule-immunity-booster.htm
Are Sunshine and Vitamin D a Cure For COVID-19?
Sunshine and a healthy lifestyle help the immune system.
https://www.flixxy.com/are-sunshine-and-vitamin-d-a-cure-for-covid-19.htm
Stay Fit And Healthy
Who knew how quickly you could burn 2000 calories?
https://www.flixxy.com/stay-fit-and-healthy.htm
More articles of interest
A Kubernetes namespaces tutorial to manage cluster resources
Namespaces in Kubernetes serve several purposes — from allowing teams to share a single cluster to enforcing resource quotas. Use this tutorial to get started with this important Kubernetes feature.
Find and lock down lax Windows share permissions
With help from PowerShell, you can identify the shares that need adjustments across your infrastructure then use a script to fix them to protect sensitive data.
How Telus International addressed remote work challenges
Telus International CTO Jim Radzicki credits Google Cloud for the firm’s rapid deployment of remote work technology, like virtual desktops, in the face of the pandemic.
DRaaS guide: Benefits, challenges, providers and market trends
Disaster recovery once involved setting up an off-site facility and duplicating expensive storage gear. Today, DRaaS offers an alternative to traditional approaches.
Send us your feedback!
Got feedback about anything in this issue of WServerNews? Email us at [email protected]