Category: IT Pro
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Women in IT
I have been in the IT field for most of my adult life… in addition to several years of my adolescence. I have seen trends come and go, and I have seen technology evolve exponentially. We have evolved from 8-bit computing to symmetric multiprocessing 64-bit CPUs that would blow the doors off of anything that…
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I Think… therefore, I am uncertain.
I spend a lot of time speaking with clients about their environments. From time to time, my job is to ‘interview’ them, so that I can properly document their environments. Recently I was speaking with a couple of admins at a private sector company who were very proud of their environments. They had hired a…
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The Perils of a Manual Environment
I am not going to lie to you and say that every environment that I manage or have managed is an optimized Secure, Well-Managed IT Environment. It’s just not true. In a secure, well-managed IT environment we monitor to make sure that things are working the way they are supposed to. When we spin up…
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Where’s My… <Fill in the blank Admin tool>?
If you are me you like that every few years we get a new version of Windows. Great new features, new tools, new this, new that… and new frustrations trying to figure out where the hell all of my tools are! Yeah yeah I know… this is the last version of Windows we are getting…
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Distinguished Names: How do I…
Yeah yeah, I know… A little while ago I talked about how to determine the Distinguished Name (DN) of an Active Directory Object, and I got a flurry of requests for doing it with PowerShell. Now, normally I do like to show you how to do things via the GUI, and then what the PowerShell…
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An Experienced Eye
There’s an old adage about a guy who takes his car to a mechanic. The car is coughing and banging and sounds like it is dying. The mechanic listens for a minute, then takes a hammer and takes a big whack at the engine, which then starts purring perfectly. That will be $200 please. ‘WHAT?…
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Surface Pro 3: Two weeks later
Are there problems with it? Yes. Do I absolutely love it? I love my kids and my dogs… but I suppose I do like it as much as I have ever liked a laptop or tablet… and I have had quite a few of them over the years! What are the problems? There is really only…
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Sad Times for an Industry
I used to say to my audiences that while the number of jobs in IT will go down, the best will always be in demand. I then spent several months essentially unemployed. The IT field has changed dramatically over the course of the last few years. I suppose it is natural for an industry as…
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Surface Pro 3 and Windows 8: Not everybody’s cup of tea
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again… I do like my Surface Pro 3. With that being said, I know everyone has different tastes, and some people are not going to like it. A couple of months ago my sister, a long time Mac user (and Apple Fanboi) told me that her new…
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This is getting interesting…
Last year I was asked to participate in the Canadian launch tour for Microsoft Office 365. At first I was hesitant, but I am really glad that I did. I got to meet and speak to a lot of interesting people across the country who do not usually come out to my sessions on Windows…
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What not to Learn… Revisited for 2013!
In October, 2011 I posted an article called vPTA: What NOT to take away from my 1-day virtualization training! It was only partly tongue-in-cheek on the environment that I have been using for several years to demonstrate server virtualization from a pair of laptops. A few months later Damir Bersinic took that list and made…
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Microsoft Canada Partner Summit: CATCH IT!
Hey folks! If you are a Microsoft Partner in Montreal, Toronto, or Vancouver then I’m happy to tell you that I am coming back to town! Of course, I won’t be alone… I am coming with the while Windows and Office Partner Summit! Windows 8, the new Office and Windows Server 2012 are coming soon…
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Windows 8: Why you should be excited!
This post was originally published on the Canadian IT Pros Connection. It is finally here. Microsoft’s most anticipated operating system in years is ready for prime time, and all around the world the enthusiasts are downloading bits, stores are putting out their new offerings with the new OS, and IT Pros around the world are…
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Windows Server IT Camps: Server 2012!
Although our events are usually quite well attended, few have ever been as well received as the IT Camps that we’ve been holding across the country since last January. To date we’ve held Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1 Virtualization Camps , Windows Server 2012 Install Camps , Private Cloud Camps with Windows Server 2008 R2…
The World According to Mitch 