Posts: 108
Rank: Veteran Member
Level: 
Last Activity: 31/12/2012
Member Since: 18/04/2010
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13 September-
04 September-
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Peter created an article titled Who is AuTechHeads?
who is AuTechHeads? are you a blogger, a technician, an industry professional?Do you have things that make you passionate about technology that are outside the norm? Why are you here? what could the site do for you?These are the questions that I have in my head every time I write a blog post. I am here because I love technology. I love printers, scanners, computers, routers, unified communications, network design, helping people with technology, you get the idea.What the site does for me is help me learn about stuff that normally I would never hear about. I love reading blog posts about real people using technology to help their clients or their companies. I learn from others on this site. The site is a gateway to experiences - your experiences, whether a new technology or old, a new way to approach a problem, using technology, or how you worked out that a specific product that you work with every day can do things that the rest of us never dreamed were possible.I am the token member, not a tech, yet I can be technical, not qualified, yet I have a fair understanding of technology, I am an industry professional.On this site, I am another member. Interested in what you have to tell me about any experiences. Interested in what you do, what you think and how you like to spend time immersed in technology. I want to hear about your experiences with the cloud deployments it seems so many companies are engaging in. I want to hear about how you are dealing with the deployment of BYOD in your environment. I want to hear about open source engagements, designs and solutions that you are building for your client or company. I want to hear from other members - I want to know what you get out of this site, how you feel about it and what can be done to make it better / different. I want to organise meetups for the canberra members, but in order to do that, I need to know who you are and whether you are up for a coffee, a BBQ, a few beers after work. Right now, I know that there are canberra people on here. I have no clue who most of you are and I am certain that you know very little about me. This site is about collaboration. It is about one massive hive mind, not using the information against each other - if there are things you do that you don't want the competition to know about, don't tell them. If you work in areas that are very secure, and the stuff you do can't be talked about, blog about what you can, what you love and how you use technology after hours. This site is for all disciplines of ICT. if there is a brand that you love that you feel strongly about, but are worried about how it might look if you blog about it, ask the question. The core team are here for you. They will be able to tell you how to talk about your experience without sounding like an ad or a whitepaper. Give me something new to read. I like reading a lot. (I also like writing a lot, but reading my own work is a bit boring)
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29 August-
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Peter created an article titled Okay, who blinked?
If you blinked and missed it, I had a job. I don't right now, but am hoping to change this pretty soon. The following happened when I did.I have told a couple of vendors to check out this site, see if they can get interested and perhaps contribute to the content. Out of the blue, recently, one popped up as a review for the products that they sell. It was, essentially, one great big ad.Angrily, I phoned the local representative and blasted him for getting one of his people to put up a patently obvious marketing piece. He was as angry as I - the particular vendor doesn't engage in that type of marketing as it sullies their image, which is never an ideal thing to promote for a short term exposure, long term condemnation.The ad originated from a serial blogger overseas, and this is where it got a bit squiffy. (I like that word, even though it isn't real)The site admin on autechheads had removed the article. no problems with that, the vendor was a bit relieved. We managed to get the name for the poster, and, as the vendor is a very large organisation, a global player, they checked to see if the person was one of theirs. not one of theirs. They did, however, manage to track down who it was and sent them an email asking for a please explain. The serial blogger was surprised at their response - wasn't the site for members to blog reviews etc about products? The reply that the vendor received was about 3 pages long and cited freedom of speech, right of reply etc, etc. Obviously hadn't twigged that the vendor was the owner of the product and that there were some things that, whilst they would love to have their product do them, it currently didn't. Maybe they will work out a way to integrate the bits that the serial blogger had suggested it did, but not just yet.The upshot is that the serial blogger has become a serial emailer and is sending them many per week. This is the underlying problem with blogging about something you don't about - telling the creator of the product things that they certainly know it cannot do doesn't increase their confidence in your expertise, it makes them wonder what else you have said, and where.Then, I got roped into the discussions. The serial blogger has finally (dang!) worked out that their emails about freedom of speech etc, etc have been aimed at the wrong target and has managed to get my details from somewhere. (not here, elsewhere, but the bugger who did it is going to pay)In the midst of all these nasty emails I have been getting, finally a ray of light appeared. The serial blogger has finally worked out that this site is australian, and that the constitutional amendments don't mean that much to me. they apologised and stopped.I do hope that in future people read the code of conduct. it is there for us all, which is why I haven't named the vendor or its brand, the person or anything to identify them.
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12 July-
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Peter created an article titled Remember me? Probably not...
what happens when a geek is introduced to amateur photography, gets a divorce, sells one house and buys another and starts working from home?Hell in a handbasket time. With an extra helping of devils.
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01 May-
| Peter commented on Bring Your Own Disaster waiting to happen? - AuTechHeads Blogs
if you limit a BYOD to access via an ICA client, with print privileges and access the net only from the citrix environment, using perhaps a two factor authentication method as well as the standard U/N Pass system, it effectively means that:1. data cannot be saved locally to the BYOD device2. if the device is not logged into the citrix environment, it has no access to the corporate data or devices3. users can run both a private system and a business system from the one BYOD, similarly to a defence secret and restricted network.4. management is provided to the profile not the device. If the device fails, it is not the IT Department's issue.5. Licensing remains the property of the company, not the individual.I wrote a BYOD plan for a prior company. They have implemented most of the suggestions, and their fleet has been reduced from 300 systems to 30 spare wyse terminals. (for those who forget their devices or lose them)The server farm is virtualised, but it has access only via a citrix server, so it could be hardware - it does not have any limitations.I also have had dealing with several education clients who have also gone to citrix solutions, with wyse terminals and HP terminals, no plans for BYOD complete rollouts, but they do have notebook programs currently running in their environments.As for internet / wifi access, the company I worked for provided free net via an allowance for home, and wifi connectivity in the office.
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05 April-
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Peter created an article titled Data....
Data. We save it, store it, back it up and access it as we need to. We grow larger and larger storage capabilities to fit it in, we implement backup regimes with SAN / NAS and Virtual Tape Libraries to avoid "slow" transfers to tape. We end up using tape anyway. Security is often overlooked as the clients are complacent, but now is the time to at least educate them of alternative options. There is no such thing as too much security, each vendor has a role to play in an environment, and they are only too happy to assist.
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30 January-
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Peter created an article titled Backup Part Two
So the last post I wrote was 3 months ago. A lot changes in 3-months. The products I was advocating at the old company (they retrenched me for commercial reasons) are still there, and are great, I am just not selling them anymore.One of the comments on my old post about backup hit a chord. It was about small users, backups and tapes.I am a mac user. I have been for several years, even when I was only using a PC, I would skin it up to look like a mac. (sad, right?) Anyway.Apple gives all apple users a product called time machine. Smart mac salespeople convince you to buy an external hard drive. So I back up once a day, all my data is duplicated and goes into the drive. PC users have similar options, home users back up so as to save valuable photos & documents.The basics of backup are there. What happens when a small to medium business has lots of data? Do they:a) Back up every day?b) Backup once a week?c) Backup every day to the same tape / drive option?d) Backup to the same individual Tape or drive?The answer, unfortunately, is mostly d). The theory is that the tape or disk isn't full, so it must be ok, right?I have seen first hand over the years the damage that a de-aligned head can have on a tape, making it unreadable.So... what can a business do? How can they backup and be safe? Some companies tell end users that Hard drives are safer than tape, then proceed to sell them the mass produced hard drives, you know, the cheap ones, cheaper than the server or desktop drives the client already uses. they also trot out the old line that Tape is slower than disk. DAT Tapes, certainly. Not LTO4 or 5. They are a different breed entirely.The best option I have seen to date is a Virtual Tape Library (VTL) created on a hyper-v system, storing the VMs on a SAN, backed up by a physical Tape library, storing multiple datasets. This allowed the provider to run multiple VTL instances for several clients, but back them up as VMs to the physical library. VMs backup faster than individual files, reducing delays, and a VM rebuild and restore is easier when the server goes foom.It is a cloud solution, sort of, more an offsite management solution, and with an investment by most resellers, an easy to implement and run solution.It is likely that my next job won't be client facing. This idea is used around the country to a lesser extent, and there are companies who can provide you with the VMs if you are a reseller, or the whole solution if you are an end user. Why did I mention that I am not client facing? so if this idea seems plausible, you won't be fighting with me to make take it to the market...
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05 December-
07 October-
22 September-
| Peter commented on A prediction: Personal Cloud Desktops in the next 5 years. - AuTechHeads Blogs
personal cloud desktops? already there. citrix allows people to connect to their profiles anywhere. it bypasses the system's hard drive and all your data is cloud based. out there, on a distant server. when smart TV systems become equipped with keyboards, trackpads or mice, the pc will be dead at a home level. everything will run via the web, via connections to cloud based sites and the corporate space, the slower adopter, will follow suit...
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| Peter commented on SMS Dead in 5 years, Email Dead in 10?! - AuTechHeads Blogs
I think we have less chance for Social media replacing email and SMS every single day. with the advent of GMail, email has proven to still be of benefit to organisations. G cannot replace encrypted exchange set emails, or emails that have keys that open and allow the reading of the content. Internal use will never take off if there is a ghost of a chance that the data has some level of security requirement.
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Peter created an article titled Why is it that some of the IT Journalists sensationalise mundane things?
Every day, I get information in my inbox on this new release, that new company on the market. this is interesting to me. I will avidly read about new technology, new companies and news in general. What I have a problem with is the recent spate of IT articles about things that the government is doing, spending money here, making mistakes with tenders, etc, etc.
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16 September-
| Peter commented on Death of a Power User - AuTechHeads Blogs
I think that the fundamental change that we will see with win8 is how close to the wind microsoft has gone. Here is a product that looks like an apple ipad, a linux distro and a macOS Lion box. Have they got the right combination? will this mean that the consumer fires it up and it does what they want? No. we have to remember that over the years, many people have slowly been trained from the dark days of dos to expect the unexpected. they are looking for the next big thing, all the time. Windows 8 may give the power users the ability to do this. By definition, a power user is someone who knows how to get the nth degree out of the operating environment - being able to make the environment bend to their requirements. When the release of vista heralded the change of technology driven OS's, software manufacturers started to drive technology, not the other way around. this was an impact for the computing community. If you couldn't afford a system that could run the newer versions of windows, you started to search for viable alternatives. I remember looking at my perfectly good duron box and realising that it couldn't run windows vista. so I didn't buy or install it. I ran win xp. I also ran suse linux. both worked well, both met my needs & my perceived future needs. I had clients at the time who were running accounting systems on win NT. on pentium II systems.Windows 8 will drive technology again. if you want the cool new features, you will need to have cool new technology to do it with. this is the problem. most new users have old systems. their needs are met, they have no need to upgrade for pretty new interfaces and they won't.I have a mixed environment. I have a mac, I have a win box and I have a 2nd win box with wifi to drive my internet access for the kids in the living room. the only os upgrade that I have done was to get osx lion. the other 2 run xp.how do I know about win8? I ran a vm on parallels. I had to set the spec high to get it to work, and I will kill it off when my understanding of the system is complete.I don't agree that the power user will cease to exist, after all, they are the testers playing with win8 today. Their experience means that the os will yet again be shaped by their requirements.in 10 or 15 years time, I expect that my kids will be driving the requirements, and they will be making the manufacturers acquiesce to their simple demands. If the manufacturers don't, these are the drivers of change, and they will change the ICT landscape so that the manufacturers and their incompatible products will become obsolete.
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25 May-
18 May-
10 May-
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Name
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First Name:
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Peter
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Last Name:
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Holland
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by Peter by Peter by Peter by Peter by Peter by Peter by Peter by Peter by Peter by Peter
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