@scottalanmiller said in Applications; Portable vs. Installed:

If you understand it, describe it. What exactly is the concern?

Ok here are some past things that have occurred that are not desirable. These are portable apps.

1. browsers - they do not get updated when I run my chocolatey scripts. users end up using a very old browser and functionality breaks. Some of our department of education stuff breaks quickly if not kept updated and then students do not get financial aid which means they arent spending money with the school.

2. dropbox etc.. - we have strict regulations and can get in lots of trouble if financial or documents with personal information pass to others in this unsecured way. At least the government tells us this is not secure enough for them and the school has to abide by these rules for funding.

3. email - also another regulation is that we have to have a standardized email platform that everything goes through for proper audits. We can't have users using an unknown client to send/receive that cant be monitored. I was told this a long time ago by our financial aid people, so probably another state regulation.

4. rogue apps - a while back we had a user use a "registry cleaner" because computer was running slow. it was actually malware.

5. general updates - this kind of goes back to #1 but anyone running portable apps wont get updated and so wont be secure if it goes on for long enough.

@scottalanmiller said in Applications; Portable vs. Installed:

@jmoore said in Applications; Portable vs. Installed:

@scottalanmiller said in Applications; Portable vs. Installed:

A big question would be... why do you want to restrict binaries from users?

Thats the sysadmin decision. He considers it a security measure and I can understand it somewhat.

Does he? Because he's not restricting them in any way, and totally okay with all the portable apps delivered in the web browser, right? So he's totally okay with them. Just confused, I'd guess.

Well, I can't presume to know his mind but hes just trying to limit the damage that can be done i suppose. I am guessing that is what he is thinking.

@scottalanmiller said in Applications; Portable vs. Installed:

@jmoore said in Applications; Portable vs. Installed:

@scottalanmiller said in Applications; Portable vs. Installed:

Portable apps are not installed. So your users are not installing whatever they want. They aren't installing at all (which generally users don't have the power to do anyway.)

Yeah your right I just phrased it wrong, I know better lol. Just wasn't thinking.

This also means that they aren't "working around" your permissions. The perms that you have in place are only in reference to installation, not in reference to downloading or running. They aren't working around you, it's that the limitations put on the users are far different than believed.

Yes that is correct. I need more coffee. So the idea is to keep users from installing anything on their own unless its an approved app.

@scottalanmiller said in Applications; Portable vs. Installed:

A big question would be... why do you want to restrict binaries from users?

Thats the sysadmin decision. He considers it a security measure and I can understand it somewhat.

@scottalanmiller said in Applications; Portable vs. Installed:

Portable apps are not installed. So your users are not installing whatever they want. They aren't installing at all (which generally users don't have the power to do anyway.)

Yeah your right I just phrased it wrong, I know better lol. Just wasn't thinking.

@nadnerB said in Random Thread - Anything Goes:

haha too funny

@scottalanmiller said in Copper Termination Standards - CompTIA Network+ N10-007 Prof. Messer:

But I'm literally 100% confident given your description, that you are perceiving it as people using "cell phones" to replace VoIP, and not realizing that it's standard VoIP softphones being deployed onto mobile computing devices that are often, but not required to be, cell phones.

We have cisco everything and I was told it was too expensive to have softphones on our cell, we instead must have a separate cell phone. I doubt that, but who knows.

@scottalanmiller said in Copper Termination Standards - CompTIA Network+ N10-007 Prof. Messer:

@Pete-S said in Copper Termination Standards - CompTIA Network+ N10-007 Prof. Messer:

Company issued cell phones.

That's insanely expensive and very few employees are willing today to have two cell phones, it's awkward. That was a 2004 era experiment that failed pretty quickly once every employee already owned a smart phone.

Sadly, again, most of us are required to have two cell phones.

@jmoore said in Applications; Portable vs. Installed:

One thing I found about portable apps is occasionally a smarter user will install these. Yeah, it gets around our permissions in Ad because they do not modify the registry. so I do not like them for that reason. I can't have users installing whatever they want.

Something else you can do to make chocolatey easier to install in multiple places is use an xml file with the apps you want for yourself or for departments. I made one for myself but I really don't use it, however I have one for a few different departments here because they some specific things and its hard to remember the install names on each. So I just carry them around on a flash drive.

One thing I found about portable apps is occasionally a smarter user will install these. Yeah, it gets around our permissions in Ad because they do not modify the registry. so I do not like them for that reason. I can't have users installing whatever they want.

Yeah I figured you can't get measurements since you asked so I would try to roughly guess how many bottles you can fit in there that might be close to quart size then maybe double to account for empty space that bottles dont fill. That might get you a close estimate.

Possibly but I'd hate to steer you wrong. What size are those drinks you have in there? perhaps we can estimate the volume by knowing that.

Seems a lot smaller than 70 qt. to me.

@brandon220 Yeah that sucks. Ive been meaning to start learning Nextcloud, I want to use it at home so I learn it better using and supporting it.

@jt1001001 said in What Are You Doing Right Now:

Just finished a round of disc golf. For the record I suck at disc golf

Yeah me too but I do have fun

@siringo said in What Are You Doing Right Now:

@scottalanmiller said in What Are You Doing Right Now:

Morning all.

Morning, time to get set up for Thursday. Late start but what the hay.

Morning to you too!

Are you all hosting Nextcloud yourself or remote ?

@IRJ said in When Does It Stop Even Being IT: Buyers vs Doers:

I'm not sure I understand the resentment on mangolassi of purchasing software.

Its not resentment, its more like...just why?

The audio/video person doesn't do anything with it, she hires a company otu of dallas for everything, even exchanging projectors when she buys a new one.

The phone lady also can't do anything on her own except run cable without bringing in a 3rd party. Every change to the phone system is done by a 3rd part. Its all cisco phones on their own pbx.

Our erp people(two dba's) do very little with it and are constantly hiring another 3rd party to help with configuration changes.

My vp is also bringing in consultants and 3rd parties on a regular basis to help with server changes and some of our code bases. Consultants and 3rd parties make a lot of money off us.

@scottalanmiller said in When Does It Stop Even Being IT: Buyers vs Doers:

@jmoore said in When Does It Stop Even Being IT: Buyers vs Doers:

@scottalanmiller said in When Does It Stop Even Being IT: Buyers vs Doers:

they call a vendor and see if they can be sold something

Hey thats us! The wireless/voip person does this constantly, the Audio/Video person does it constantly, the sys admin does it a little bit, the vp does it constantly.

Culture of buying. A "buying manager" running a "team of buyers", each specialized in "buying" a different part of the ecosystem.

In the end you have so many problems from this. For one, there is no one looking at the business as a whole. Second, there is no one overseeing any aspect of IT to protect them from the sellers. Three, there is no technical expertise at any time, anywhere.

Yes sadly for us I have to agree with this totally. That is essentially our situation.

@scottalanmiller said in When Does It Stop Even Being IT: Buyers vs Doers:

So both sides tend to stay quiet because each is, under the hood, offended by the other.

I can attest to this, I cant stand a few people I work with. They buy solutions to whatever problem they have. Yet I have never had a raise here after 5 years. I told our lead Dba I was learning more about Postgresql the other day and she asked, what is that?