The Geek Crew - Forum Stuff

b0b

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Re: Forum Stuff
Reply #75 - Mar 14^th, 2008 at 3:12pm

In case you were wondering why the forum has been down all morning, the problem was (believe it or not) Comcast.

I called them this morning to get them to set up the public IP again, which they did. Of course, they decided to reset the router at the same time, which wiped out the port forwarding I have setup for the web server and VPN access. This prevented us from being able to get to the forum, and prevented me from fixing the problem remotely.

The Comcast tech today verified that none of the equipment in my apartment was causing the Internet issue (duh!). The main cable line that runs into the apartment building needs to be repaired, so this may take a couple more days.

-b0b
(...has all but given up at this point.)

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« Last Edit: Mar 17^th, 2008 at 8:58am by b0b »

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spanky Post Whore FTP Server Offline Posts: 1540 Detroit-ish Gender:	Re: Forum Stuff Reply #76 - Mar 17^th, 2008 at 8:39am So you are still blaming concast, huh? Suuuure, it is the computers fault... (Nick Burns!)
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b0b GeekCrew Administrator FTP Server Offline The revolution will not be televised. Posts: 7464 Battle Creek, Michigan Gender:	Re: Forum Stuff Reply #77 - Mar 17^th, 2008 at 8:58am MOVE! Comcast finally got their crap fixed on Friday night. Let's hope it stays that way! -b0b (...still needs to throw that memory into the server.)
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computerjuvenile GeekCrew Luser Offline Posts: 154 Houghton, Michigan Gender:	Re: Forum Stuff Reply #78 - Apr 23^rd, 2008 at 3:25pm Are you moving to Server 2008 anytime soon?
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b0b GeekCrew Administrator FTP Server Offline The revolution will not be televised. Posts: 7464 Battle Creek, Michigan Gender:	Re: Forum Stuff Reply #79 - Apr 23^rd, 2008 at 4:02pm As soon as the cheap licenses start showing up, I'll snag one. I've played with the Release Candidate and I love it. The EasyPrint feature alone has sold me on 2008 for all future terminal servers. What a godsend... -b0b (...would love to buy a copy.)
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computerjuvenile GeekCrew Luser Offline Posts: 154 Houghton, Michigan Gender:	Re: Forum Stuff Reply #80 - Apr 23^rd, 2008 at 9:27pm Too bad you aren't good enough of a friend. I indirectly have 1500 licences of it. (legally too). I love the remote desktop programs protocal. We're implementing it next year at work.
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spanky Post Whore FTP Server Offline Posts: 1540 Detroit-ish Gender:	Re: Forum Stuff Reply #81 - Apr 24^th, 2008 at 7:54am Quote: Too bad you aren't good enough of a friend. Holy ouch batman! ...only one thing left to do, fight to the death in a ring of fire!
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b0b

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The revolution will not
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Re: Forum Stuff
Reply #82 - Apr 24^th, 2008 at 8:39am

The only problem with the new RDP software is that the client SUCKS. Not "kinda" sucks, not "sorta" sucks, but "CAPS LOCK to max" SUCKS.

I don't know what Microsoft was smoking when they release the XP/2003 update of the TS6 client, but it was one of the shoddiest production releases I've seen out of them since NT4 SP6.

First, they shipped it as a Critical Update. I'm sorry, but a variation in RDP is not a "critical" update by any stretch of the imagination. Since they labeled it as critical, anybody running a WSUS server (like me) pushed it straight into production. What a frickin' mess...

The first release (6.0) completely destroyed the RDP client on about 35% of the machines it was installed on. Every time it ran, the client would somehow trigger the NX bit XP SP2 and would fire off a Data Execution Prevention message. This would happen even on 32-bit machines that didn't have an NX-capable processor. How the heck did they pull that one off? Thanks for the QA, Microsoft.

I found an unsupported workaround to get past the NX errors, which would allow the RDP 6.0 client to run, but it would crash with a page fault error every time it made a connection to a terminal server or RDP server. Again, this was on ~35% of my machines, which represents a wide variety of hardware, software, and manufacturers. Suffice it to say that I had to roll those machines back to RDP 5.0, which was a complete pain in the butt.

Of course, Microsoft didn't enable roll back functionality through WSUS, which meant that I couldn't uninstall the client through WSUS. I had a choice between writing a script to uninstall the stupid program or removing it manually at either machine. Scripting to the rescue...

For the machines that didn't have a problem with the new client (and I never did find what the heck caused the problem), the radically different interface confused the heck out of the end users. I understand 6.0 has a lot of nifty features when used in conjunction with 2008 servers and Vista RDP endpoints, but the basic functionality of the client is identical. Why change the interface? What purpose does that serve but to confuse the heck out of the users? I work with factory employees, for crying out loud, not rocket scientists!

Finally, my last rant about the client is the requirement for pre-authentication. Instead of just connecting you to the terminal/RDP server and allowing you to authenticate through the logon screen, you're forced to provide your credentials up front before even connecting to the server. That's not just retarded, it's powerfully retarded. What is the point of that, outside of (once again) confusing the heck out of your user base? Do you know how many phone calls I got about that? It completely screws up the domain authentication factor because it doesn't read Active Directory trusts. If your users don't understand the concept of domains (and I'm guessing 99.5% don't), God help them because the RDP client certainly won't.

-b0b
(.../rant.)

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computerjuvenile GeekCrew Luser Offline Posts: 154 Houghton, Michigan Gender:	Re: Forum Stuff Reply #83 - Apr 25^th, 2008 at 1:06pm Doesn't it pre-authenticate because it's piped through https now. Isn't that worth the hassle. A secured connection is always a plus.
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MediaMaster GeekCrew Administrator FTP Server Offline Holy Xenu! Posts: 1884 Detroit Gender:	Re: Forum Stuff Reply #84 - Apr 25^th, 2008 at 1:33pm You guys are nerds!
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spanky Post Whore FTP Server Offline Posts: 1540 Detroit-ish Gender:	Re: Forum Stuff Reply #85 - Apr 25^th, 2008 at 2:47pm Nah I wouldn't say nerd. Ever since bob could remember UPC codes to different items in Kmart I think the proper term is FREAK!
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b0b

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Re: Forum Stuff
Reply #86 - Apr 25^th, 2008 at 4:14pm

computerjuvenile wrote on Apr 25^th, 2008 at 1:06pm:

Doesn't it pre-authenticate because it's piped through https now. Isn't that worth the hassle. A secured connection is always a plus.

Pre-authentication is great - when the server supports it. Unless you're running Windows Server 2008 or have an ISA Server 2006 box sitting around, pre-authentication is pointless. We've got an ISA server here, but it's sitting between the network and the WAN connections, not the users and the servers - just like 90% of ISA deployments.

Why didn't Microsoft include a pre-authentication check box to enable the option, instead of forcing it on everyone as a compulsory "feature." If it had a check box, Microsoft could even add a Group Policy option to allow administrators to control the feature over the entire domain or forest.

It's a great feature when it's supported, but it's poorly implemented.

-b0b
(...suck on that!)

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b0b

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The revolution will not
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Re: Forum Stuff
Reply #87 - May 9^th, 2008 at 5:01pm

Sorry about the downtime. Some retarded Comcast technician came to the apartment complex yesterday to install an ingress filter. If you've got crappy equipment that is backfeeding to the cable company, they'll put a filter on your line that keeps your stuff from screwing up cable service for all of your neighbors.

Of course, this dumbass technician didn't put the filter on the cable leading to the apartment with the faulty equipment. He put it on the primary cable that feeds the entire building. As such, any digital equipment (digital cable, cable Internet, etc.) didn't work, including my Internet gateway.

It took five phone calls, a lunch-hour trip from Sturgis to TR and back, and 32 hours to finally get a technician out to my apartment, even though my commercial business contract states a maximum 4-hour repair time. You do the math.

I have to take a picture of the conglomeration of cabling that makes up the "lock box" at the apartment complex. It's a freakin' joke.

-b0b
(...had to put on his angry pants today.)

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b0b GeekCrew Administrator FTP Server Offline The revolution will not be televised. Posts: 7464 Battle Creek, Michigan Gender:	Re: Forum Stuff Reply #88 - Jun 16^th, 2008 at 10:12pm The forum will be going down for a few minutes tonight so I can finally get around to adding that gigabyte of RAM I bought in February. -b0b (...is kinda lazy.)
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b0b GeekCrew Administrator FTP Server Offline The revolution will not be televised. Posts: 7464 Battle Creek, Michigan Gender:	Re: Forum Stuff Reply #89 - Jun 16^th, 2008 at 10:42pm Done! -b0b (...always gets around to doing something sooner or later.)
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