Category Archives: Work

IT Pros – we need to take better care of ourselves!

Earlier this year I became aware of a movement within the Ops community – HumanOps.com This is something I’m fairly passionate about. Those of us who keep the lights on, keep the computers going, keep the servers whirring, keep the network lights blinking…we’re not machines. We’re only human. We are fallible. We make mistakes and hopefully we admit to them! We… Read more »

Ownership vs. Responsibility – the fine line of a sysadmin

One of the biggest issues I’m noticing in the industry is that we’re still seeing sysadmins taking “ownership” of certain things. For example, I’ll hear people talking about “my” servers or “my” service or “my” tickets. I know I’ve been guilty of this before (I’ve referred to the DC’s at work as “my DC’s” many many times) but I’m trying to… Read more »

FGPP’s & PSO’s – translated: “Yay! More domain password control!”

I’ve previously spoken about security and password management (if you need a refresher, I’m referring to this post and this post) however I neglected to go into detail regarding one really cool and amazing thing – Fine-Grained Password Policies & Password Setting Objects…and I’ve been promising to write this post for months! I know a lot of this can be found… Read more »

We say this shit for a reason: the sysadmin story

(Thanks to Colin for the title that I pilfered from a Twitter conversation…) So, if you’re not a sysadmin, I’m guessing there are things that we do (or make you do) that really really get on your nerves. That’s fine. We all have that. I still lie to my dentist when he asks if I’ve flossed (Mr Dentist, I totally have….promise!)… Read more »

How to: send an email when a server reboots…including who and why!

So, I was told that this might make a good blog post, so thought I’d be a good person and share (because that’s the kind of person I am). A bit of background: If you follow me on Twitter (and you totally should), over the last few days you may have seen me wearing my ranty pants due to some issues… Read more »

Lessons learnt from an “Oh crap, shit be broke, yo!” moment…

So, if you’re a sysadmin with a few years under your belt, chances are you’ve already had an “Oh fuuuuuck…” moment or two. Something has gone horribly wrong – you may have even been right in the middle of it all when it did! Well, just recently, I was involved in one of those. I won’t go into too much… Read more »

Adding & Removing Domain Controllers – the good, the bad and everything in between!

So, as some of you may be aware, I recently ran a project to upgrade all the Domain Controllers (DC’s) in my organisations Active Directory (AD) environment from a mixture of 2008 R2 & 2012 to 2012 R2. Considering the number of domains/domain controllers involved, this was no simple feat – especially considering I did the entire piece of work myself!… Read more »

“Inbox (0)” – the goal of many, the reality for few

Start of the new year. Lots of people coming back to work…or some lucky sods who aren’t back until February! This time of year is when I often see a number of posts on social media about huge inboxes filled with messages, because people have been away, haven’t checked their work email (good on them!), and they’re now flooded with… Read more »

What’s the point of doing the right thing?

This is a bit of a stream of consciousness post, because it’s something that monumentally frustrates me. This has been eating at me for a while. For those who follow me on Twitter, you may have seen some posts regarding this. May have seen me get a bit angry about a few things in relation to this topic. It’s something… Read more »