Yep, SCT, or whatever they are calling it, is definately the way to go. Then issue or suggest the users acquire USB thumbdrives (1GB models are almost free nowadays, and I still use a 64MB daily). SCT really is perfect for this setup. Users can make all of the changes they want, but the changes don't stick past a reboot. You can still log in as an admin, and do updates, install software, etc, but the limited users will not be able to do damage.
Then you can take advantage of Policies for controlling most things. Best part is, once you get the policies the way you want them, you can save out the template, and apply it to other computers (for if you need more than one). If it were to grow to several machines, you could even put a cheap Domain Controller in place (think Small Business Server) for deploying such policies across multiple machines, etc. And SBS would bring with it ISA (Proxy), and a shared website where folks could use it to share docs/photos/coupons or make simple websites with Frontpage (yeah, ewww) if so inclined. You could give them mail access through Outlook Web Access if you wanted, so their mail would be server based, and thus fairly well protected from other uses screwing up stuff.
Yeah, the server could be a Linux box if you are more comfortable with it. It would certainly save money. But I am a big fan of Group Policy for management, so it's where I tend to lean. Like I stated, it's not like you even need any kind of server, it's just a logical extension if you were to have more than 1 or 2 computers.
The small business environment is an area where the Microsoft offerings really work out well, and are fairly easy to maintain, if you just set it up right to begin with.
Now where's those flame-retardent boxers I got for my birthday?
Despite all the 'pest' comments here, I am glad someone is actually doing this. I wish I had the time to do the same. The booby-trap is just freakin great. IMHO, the judge not reading the brief should be grounds for immediate reprimand. I mean, we trust out judicial system to (interpret then) carry out the laws that are passed. I don't care if they consider it being a pest, it's the law, and it's what they were hired for. I mean, the reality is that if they (the judges) are pestered by it, they are getting a slight taste of why the law was passed! The point to be made is that if every single spam resulted in a court case, the judicial system would be suffering from the same Denial-of-Service attack that our mail servers and inboxes are. That's why SPAM is a problem!
Fun Stat:
I admin a small ISP. We received about 80k emails per day, of which about 97% are rejected by our various antispam technologies (RBL, Bayesian, etc). To reject one message as spam, it takes as many as dozens of DNS queries and such (since many anti-spam technologies rely on the DNS infrastructure to propagate the Block List). So that 1KB spam can generate 10x or more in traffic to kill it. So those who try to trivialize spam as just a nuisance have no idea what it takes to deliver your email, relatively screened-out. And guess what, next week, if another major spammer enters the biz, these numbers could double or more, just on the whim of some spammer.
You must be *huge*, then. The average geek is already more than a little roly-poly, you know.
Let's just say that Jinx doesn't have shirts for me, and airline travel isn't my idea of a relaxing experience. But, I did recently determine (through the reporting function in Quicken) that I have personally kept the daughter of my local pizza shop owner in private school. So I guess I am contributing to education!
2nd Ammendment"... I'd like to see you use your 'balls' (read: Glock) for some civil disobedience as was intended by the "2nd Ammendment", instead of only brandishing it when 1. you didn't need it and 2. there was no risk to yourself.
Ok, but first I need you to run for an elected office, work your way up through the ranks of Washington, and along the way, try and abolish any of the first 10. I bet I won't be the only one ready to hand you a little 'Civil Disobedience'.
Oh, and why can't you hippie-liberal-douchebag types taking a fucking joke, ehh? Yes, the story is real, yes, we all owned firearms, no we didn't point them at anyone. Just imagine the startled fuckhead getting snatched out of his seat, laugh about it, and fucking move along! If I would have left the last part out, what would you have bitched about then?
I eat meat too. That makes me the spawn of satan, right?
Where I work we have security. They deal with unwelcome visitors... it's a job I'm happy to leave to the folks trained and paid for it.
If your company didn't hire janitorial staff, would you clean the toilets too? Seriously, if you're a qualified admin why would you do security work?
Actually, we didn't hire janitorial staff. We did clean the toilets. The reason has nothing to do with delusions. The reason is that we were getting a local ISP started, with no investors. Just the handful of us. During the dot.com bubble, we were the only ones WITHOUT our hands out. We managed to get quite a successful thing going, on a shoestring budget. Yeah, we had to wear multiple hats, but who doesn't?
If it's because you have some hollywood delusions about how sexy guns are, you really shouldn't carry one.
Guns are sexy. No delusion needed. If you disagree with that, hey no problem. That's why the 1st ammendment was first. But, I firmly believe that #1 & #2 are complementary, cooperative rights. Exercise #1 so you can ensure your right to continue to exercise #2, and vice versa. Think about it. And just because you may not want to exercise #2, that's ok, because a whole lot of the rest of us will. It's cool like that.
So, is Commufornia making people register to buy ammunition yet? (directed to the general readership)
We had that, it didn't make a difference. These people were so cracked out of their heads, I was surprised anything worked. I guess a 6'2" Admin looks even scarier when you are bleary-eyed?
So you wouldn't point your gun at someone stealing your equipment? If so, great. If not, well...
Physical (Human) force is enough to stop someone from stealing my equipment. Unless they are armed, in which case 'I fear for my life or grave bodily injury', and will use lethal force to defend it. The amount of force used should be only as much as is necessary and justified.
Besides, Glocks aren't that expensive, really. Buddy just got his 19 a month ago for about $489. Show me a semiauto for much less than that, or atleast enough to make it worth the extra weight. Plus, there IS something to be said for having a common model. And since many law enforcement agencies used them (until recently) it meant that parts, specifically mags, were readily available. Now that the Hicap mag ban has sunset, there is so many on the market (factory, not knock-off) that they are incredibly cheap. I picked up 5 more 15 rounders for under $20 each at the last gun show here in Vegas. Makes going to the range much more fun when you can preload 1000 rounds the night before. Now I am just waiting for the Glock factory Party Mags to become available again.
Granted, but like I said, we worked for an ISP. We weren't made of money. If I had that kind of money, why not carry two? O wait, when you dual wield, you lose the ability to throw grenades.:0
Exercising lethal force, and being capable of exercising lethal force are two entireley different things.
If I had to chase crackheads off of our steps everyday, what's the chance that one of them might take offense to that, and decided to stick me with something, or worse? At first, when I was carrying concealed all the time, about once a week I would get some uppity (sp?) dealer that would decide that I was infringing on his urban pharmacuetical business, and give me some lip, get up in my face, as if he was going to start shit. So we put in some video cameras, and started open carrying. Very rarely did anyone give us a hard time after that. I did have one guy who tried to break into one of our cars, and I caught him and arrested him on the spot. Turned out he was a 3-time loser from CA. I actually performed a public service!
Nothing wrong with being prepared, right? It's the same reason I carry a rollover cable in my laptop bag, you just never know when you will need to reconfigure a Cisco router.:)
Then you misunderstood. In Nevada, lethal force is only allowed when you fear for your life or grave bodily injury.
I guess I could have been more clear. By having that equipment, and those type of customers, and that location, we had multiple reasons to be concerned for our lives. Just like any other time, being armed serves two purposes:
To act as a deterrent
To defend one's life, should someone disregard #1.
I absolutely repsect the sanctity of life. I just respect the sanctity of my life slightly higher than everyone elses. (except for my kids, of course)
Maybe like many libertarian(small l) type, Pro civil rights, geek/hacker types he believes in practicing his civil rights. And living in Nevada he associates with others who do that.. and they happen to be coworkers.
Actually, you hit it right on the head, that is exactly how we got together. Although, it occurs to me I lied about one thing. One of the chicks had a S&W Airweight Revolver. She didn't like the Semi-Auto's.
There is nothing hotter than a web developer chick with a hammerless revolver.
We were later tossed in jail for threatening with a weapon
Actually, In Nevada, it's called "brandishing".
Take a fucking joke people, jeez. Yes, the story is true. Yes, we all carry Glocks. No, we didn't point them at anyone. Just snatching the fucker out of his perceived anonymity was enough. (hint to the AC's?)
When asked why we carried, our stock response was "We take Network Security VERY seriously." And follow it up with (in my best Monty Python) "I don't like SPAM!".
Yes, that's what my Fairbairn-Applegate Covert folder is for. But my daddy always told me, never bring a knife to a gun fight. Well, I choose to improve upon his wisdom by having both.
In actual fact, my Batman utility belt is getting kinda crowded. Ipaq 5500, Nokia 6620, Motorola HS850, Knife, and Gun. I think I need a pair of suspenders. (Does Jinx sell geek-spenders?) Fortunately for me, I have a larger circumference than the average geek, which gives me more belt real-estate. I don't know how you twiggy types carry all of your gadgets..:)
THe reason we carried, aside from the stock "Because we can" answer, is simple. We were in a building with a few hundred thousand dollars in routers, and customers such as banks and medical facilities. We were downtown on Fremont and 7th St in Las Vegas. For those who aren't familiar with the area, it's the hood. I regularly had to chase crackheads, as well as hookers with their Johns off of our back steps. We would regularly find people sleeping in our dumpster in the morning.
And to answer the obvious question, our office WAS there for a reason, we were a block from the ILEC's main CO. This made quite a difference in the cost and time to install of new circuits.
Nope, never needed to. Hope I don't ever need to, that's the point. Sometimes having the option is all that is needed. But, if I ever need to, I am prepared to do so. This is the same reason I recently purchased my Lasermax. It conveys a certain impending doom that may cause an attacker to think twice before continuing their attack. While I do relish the idea of taking a bad guy off of the street, I don't relish the idea of taking life needlessly. That's the responsibility that comes with gun ownership.
I have however made my very own citizens arrest before. See my other replies in this thread for details.
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Ahh, you beat me to it.
Yep, SCT, or whatever they are calling it, is definately the way to go. Then issue or suggest the users acquire USB thumbdrives (1GB models are almost free nowadays, and I still use a 64MB daily). SCT really is perfect for this setup. Users can make all of the changes they want, but the changes don't stick past a reboot. You can still log in as an admin, and do updates, install software, etc, but the limited users will not be able to do damage.
Then you can take advantage of Policies for controlling most things. Best part is, once you get the policies the way you want them, you can save out the template, and apply it to other computers (for if you need more than one). If it were to grow to several machines, you could even put a cheap Domain Controller in place (think Small Business Server) for deploying such policies across multiple machines, etc. And SBS would bring with it ISA (Proxy), and a shared website where folks could use it to share docs/photos/coupons or make simple websites with Frontpage (yeah, ewww) if so inclined. You could give them mail access through Outlook Web Access if you wanted, so their mail would be server based, and thus fairly well protected from other uses screwing up stuff.
Yeah, the server could be a Linux box if you are more comfortable with it. It would certainly save money. But I am a big fan of Group Policy for management, so it's where I tend to lean. Like I stated, it's not like you even need any kind of server, it's just a logical extension if you were to have more than 1 or 2 computers.
The small business environment is an area where the Microsoft offerings really work out well, and are fairly easy to maintain, if you just set it up right to begin with.
Now where's those flame-retardent boxers I got for my birthday?
Despite all the 'pest' comments here, I am glad someone is actually doing this. I wish I had the time to do the same. The booby-trap is just freakin great. IMHO, the judge not reading the brief should be grounds for immediate reprimand. I mean, we trust out judicial system to (interpret then) carry out the laws that are passed. I don't care if they consider it being a pest, it's the law, and it's what they were hired for. I mean, the reality is that if they (the judges) are pestered by it, they are getting a slight taste of why the law was passed! The point to be made is that if every single spam resulted in a court case, the judicial system would be suffering from the same Denial-of-Service attack that our mail servers and inboxes are. That's why SPAM is a problem!
Fun Stat:
I admin a small ISP. We received about 80k emails per day, of which about 97% are rejected by our various antispam technologies (RBL, Bayesian, etc). To reject one message as spam, it takes as many as dozens of DNS queries and such (since many anti-spam technologies rely on the DNS infrastructure to propagate the Block List). So that 1KB spam can generate 10x or more in traffic to kill it. So those who try to trivialize spam as just a nuisance have no idea what it takes to deliver your email, relatively screened-out. And guess what, next week, if another major spammer enters the biz, these numbers could double or more, just on the whim of some spammer.
You must be *huge*, then. The average geek is already more than a little roly-poly, you know.
Let's just say that Jinx doesn't have shirts for me, and airline travel isn't my idea of a relaxing experience. But, I did recently determine (through the reporting function in Quicken) that I have personally kept the daughter of my local pizza shop owner in private school. So I guess I am contributing to education!
No, the question I gotta ask myself is CAN I get lucky......Mmmm... MILF.
2nd Ammendment"... I'd like to see you use your 'balls' (read: Glock) for some civil disobedience as was intended by the "2nd Ammendment", instead of only brandishing it when 1. you didn't need it and 2. there was no risk to yourself.
Ok, but first I need you to run for an elected office, work your way up through the ranks of Washington, and along the way, try and abolish any of the first 10. I bet I won't be the only one ready to hand you a little 'Civil Disobedience'.
Oh, and why can't you hippie-liberal-douchebag types taking a fucking joke, ehh? Yes, the story is real, yes, we all owned firearms, no we didn't point them at anyone. Just imagine the startled fuckhead getting snatched out of his seat, laugh about it, and fucking move along! If I would have left the last part out, what would you have bitched about then?
I eat meat too. That makes me the spawn of satan, right?
Where I work we have security. They deal with unwelcome visitors... it's a job I'm happy to leave to the folks trained and paid for it. If your company didn't hire janitorial staff, would you clean the toilets too? Seriously, if you're a qualified admin why would you do security work?
Actually, we didn't hire janitorial staff. We did clean the toilets. The reason has nothing to do with delusions. The reason is that we were getting a local ISP started, with no investors. Just the handful of us. During the dot.com bubble, we were the only ones WITHOUT our hands out. We managed to get quite a successful thing going, on a shoestring budget. Yeah, we had to wear multiple hats, but who doesn't?
If it's because you have some hollywood delusions about how sexy guns are, you really shouldn't carry one.
Guns are sexy. No delusion needed. If you disagree with that, hey no problem. That's why the 1st ammendment was first. But, I firmly believe that #1 & #2 are complementary, cooperative rights. Exercise #1 so you can ensure your right to continue to exercise #2, and vice versa. Think about it. And just because you may not want to exercise #2, that's ok, because a whole lot of the rest of us will. It's cool like that.
So, is Commufornia making people register to buy ammunition yet? (directed to the general readership)
May I suggest some large, bright floodlights?
We had that, it didn't make a difference. These people were so cracked out of their heads, I was surprised anything worked. I guess a 6'2" Admin looks even scarier when you are bleary-eyed?
Besides, Glocks aren't that expensive, really. Buddy just got his 19 a month ago for about $489. Show me a semiauto for much less than that, or atleast enough to make it worth the extra weight. Plus, there IS something to be said for having a common model. And since many law enforcement agencies used them (until recently) it meant that parts, specifically mags, were readily available. Now that the Hicap mag ban has sunset, there is so many on the market (factory, not knock-off) that they are incredibly cheap. I picked up 5 more 15 rounders for under $20 each at the last gun show here in Vegas. Makes going to the range much more fun when you can preload 1000 rounds the night before. Now I am just waiting for the Glock factory Party Mags to become available again.
Yeah, I know, I took it that way, I just didn't convey it well.
Yeah, I wish. You got a few for sale? I got the 19 because I couldn't get the 18 legally.
Nah, too heavy. After getting used to my Glock, I can't imagine carrying anything else, except for maybe another one. Or five.
Granted, but like I said, we worked for an ISP. We weren't made of money. If I had that kind of money, why not carry two? O wait, when you dual wield, you lose the ability to throw grenades. :0
Nah, no factory party mags available for the 21. Nothing like reloading with 30 rounds at a time.
RTF Parent please..
Mmm.. Taser, that's what my laptop bag is missing. Never know when I'll need to "source-Quench" some spammers PC. :)
Exercising lethal force, and being capable of exercising lethal force are two entireley different things.
:)
If I had to chase crackheads off of our steps everyday, what's the chance that one of them might take offense to that, and decided to stick me with something, or worse? At first, when I was carrying concealed all the time, about once a week I would get some uppity (sp?) dealer that would decide that I was infringing on his urban pharmacuetical business, and give me some lip, get up in my face, as if he was going to start shit. So we put in some video cameras, and started open carrying. Very rarely did anyone give us a hard time after that. I did have one guy who tried to break into one of our cars, and I caught him and arrested him on the spot. Turned out he was a 3-time loser from CA. I actually performed a public service!
Nothing wrong with being prepared, right? It's the same reason I carry a rollover cable in my laptop bag, you just never know when you will need to reconfigure a Cisco router.
I guess I could have been more clear. By having that equipment, and those type of customers, and that location, we had multiple reasons to be concerned for our lives. Just like any other time, being armed serves two purposes:
- To act as a deterrent
- To defend one's life, should someone disregard #1.
I absolutely repsect the sanctity of life. I just respect the sanctity of my life slightly higher than everyone elses. (except for my kids, of course)Well, that depends. You work for a label?
Hell yeah, dogg. MC Rootenboxen in da hizzouse!
Actually, you hit it right on the head, that is exactly how we got together. Although, it occurs to me I lied about one thing. One of the chicks had a S&W Airweight Revolver. She didn't like the Semi-Auto's.
There is nothing hotter than a web developer chick with a hammerless revolver.
We were later tossed in jail for threatening with a weapon
Actually, In Nevada, it's called "brandishing".
Take a fucking joke people, jeez. Yes, the story is true. Yes, we all carry Glocks. No, we didn't point them at anyone. Just snatching the fucker out of his perceived anonymity was enough. (hint to the AC's?)
When asked why we carried, our stock response was "We take Network Security VERY seriously." And follow it up with (in my best Monty Python) "I don't like SPAM!".
Yes, that's what my Fairbairn-Applegate Covert folder is for. But my daddy always told me, never bring a knife to a gun fight. Well, I choose to improve upon his wisdom by having both.
:)
In actual fact, my Batman utility belt is getting kinda crowded. Ipaq 5500, Nokia 6620, Motorola HS850, Knife, and Gun. I think I need a pair of suspenders. (Does Jinx sell geek-spenders?) Fortunately for me, I have a larger circumference than the average geek, which gives me more belt real-estate. I don't know how you twiggy types carry all of your gadgets..
I didn't back then, but I do now. Well, it's not jacked up yet, but it will be when the Kelderman 13" air lift becomes available.
Oh, and it's not to compensate for a small penis, that's what a fat paycheck is for.
Why is it jerk-off responses such as this guy always seem to be AC's?
THe reason we carried, aside from the stock "Because we can" answer, is simple. We were in a building with a few hundred thousand dollars in routers, and customers such as banks and medical facilities. We were downtown on Fremont and 7th St in Las Vegas. For those who aren't familiar with the area, it's the hood. I regularly had to chase crackheads, as well as hookers with their Johns off of our back steps. We would regularly find people sleeping in our dumpster in the morning.
And to answer the obvious question, our office WAS there for a reason, we were a block from the ILEC's main CO. This made quite a difference in the cost and time to install of new circuits.
Nope, never needed to. Hope I don't ever need to, that's the point. Sometimes having the option is all that is needed. But, if I ever need to, I am prepared to do so. This is the same reason I recently purchased my Lasermax. It conveys a certain impending doom that may cause an attacker to think twice before continuing their attack. While I do relish the idea of taking a bad guy off of the street, I don't relish the idea of taking life needlessly. That's the responsibility that comes with gun ownership.
I have however made my very own citizens arrest before. See my other replies in this thread for details.