The Comms Room

Scott Pack

19:00

@MDMarra You're a bad person.

MDMarra

@ScottPack I know

voretaq7

@ChrisS for a cessna 150? I think that's to zero fuel

MDMarra

What, specifically, are you referring to, though.

voretaq7

oh 152, yeah that buys you a few more miles

but still no way that flight was legal, forget about safe

Chris S

Right; never should have started....

Scott Pack

19:03

@MDMarra You bringing up the thing with Kyle. hasn't checked out meta in a few days

voretaq7

@ScottPack now if we can't be mean to Kyle who can we be mean to?

Lucas Kauffman

@voretaq7 TomTom?

Scott Pack

Oh, I'm all on board with being mean to Kyle.

Kyle Brandt

I'm sorry, did someone say they wanted me to go into the database and remove rep?

Multitasking as the moment, but what is the user id?

Scott Pack

See, that's the kind of asshattery people hate you for.

voretaq7

19:05

@KyleBrandt hey, law of conservation of reputation! You have to transfer it to someone else.

Give it to... ummm... u4ik! :-)

Scott Pack

2561

Kyle Brandt

@voretaq7: Where do you think all my rep came from?

MDMarra

@ScottPack oh yeah. enjoy that

Lucas Kauffman

Who's nmber is 2561?

Kyle Brandt

<- 2561

Lucas Kauffman

19:06

where can u see the number?

voretaq7

@KyleBrandt being mean and snarky to the clueless. Oh no wait that's my rep...

Kyle Brandt

http://serverfault.com/users/<id_number>

MDMarra

10472 :(

i was late to the game

voretaq7

@MDMarra 32986, I was substantially later.

Lucas Kauffman

@KyleBrandt here it says 1865 o.O

MDMarra

19:08

@LucasKauffman thats the chat profile

look at his actual sf profile

Lucas Kauffman

@MDMarra aah now I see, thanks :)

MDMarra

Different profiles EVERYWHERE

Chris S

33417 <-- It's almost like I'm young. =]

I still think SF should give away UID 37 as a prize. The whole site's in a DB, it should only take a few update statements to do it.

Adrian

@ChrisS Nice link about the Gimli Glider. Highlight of today's lunchtime web-browsing. =D

WesleyDavid

DIEDIEDIE!

0

Q: Does this dedicated server enough for my website ? Social Networking

I developed this social networking project, I want to test it for our college. We have 5000 students in our newsletter that will join the site in the first 6 months of launching it. It doesn't offer fancy stuff like facebook, We developed it in Yii Framework, back-end DB as MySQL launching on Lin...

Scott Pack

19:11

@ChrisS Assuming the tables are indexed and linked. I've known too many developers to make that assumption.

Chris S

@ScottPack Good point...

Scott Pack

@WesleyDavid I feel like I've seen, and VtCed, that same question several times.

WesleyDavid

@ScottPack I feel like I've seen and VtCed your face several times...

Scott Pack

@WesleyDavid Clearly the community feels differently.

voretaq7

@ScottPack perhaps we need a canonical "Can you help me with my capacity planning question?

Lucas Kauffman

19:16

@voretaq7 Go for it!

voretaq7

0

Q: Can you help me with my capacity planning?

I have a question regarding capacity licensing. Can the Server Fault community please help with the following: What kind of server do I need to handle some number of users? How many users can a server with some specifications handle? Will some server configuration be fast enough for my use ca...

capacity-planning capacity-estimation

Go forth and canonize. Also add more generic questions to the list if I missed anything obvious.

Zoredache

Did you mean to mention licensing several times?

voretaq7

@Zoredache mrr? Thought I cleaned all that up

Zoredache

I have a question regarding capacity licensing.

voretaq7

fixed.

mumble*stupid licensing question as a template not changing itself to suit my needs and desires*mumble

mumble*fucking markdown*mumble

2

@Zoredache IBM Capacity On Demand FTW!

"Your server has 47 processors and 60TB of RAM. You're licensed for 1 processor and 512MB of RAM. We can turn more on if you want.... for a price"

Lucas Kauffman

19:26

@voretaq7 HP Unix does the same with the itaniums

voretaq7

@LucasKauffman Itanic.

WesleyDavid

@Zoredache

I have questions about how capacity licensing may have virus and I need lamp install for new facebook webapp which language should i use?

2

Iain

@WesleyDavid python on rails

Chris S

I think that's almost "HP Unix did the same with Itanic"... Aren't discontinuing Itanic and any related hardware?

Zoredache

Use brainfuck it is the new hotness.

voretaq7

19:30

@WesleyDavid ...and THAT'S why I protected the question.

:-D

WesleyDavid

@voretaq7 how to having the lamp server?

MikeyB

Since you bastards got into a low-uid DSW without me: 2101

voretaq7

@MikeyB cough*bastard*cough

::steals @MikeyB's marsupial hat::

wait... this isn't a marsupial at all is it?

:'( I can never have nice things!

MikeyB

Desmarest's Hutia

Desmarest's Hutia, Capromys pilorides, also known as the Cuban Hutia, is a species of rodent endemic to Cuba. Weighing up to , it is the largest of the extant species of hutia (the extinct giant hutias were far larger). It is common and the only hutia species that is listed as Least Concern by the IUCN. Physical characteristics Desmarest's Hutia has a head-and-body length of , a tail that is long, and weigh . It has thick, coarse fur which extends to the tip of the tail. The colour of the body fur varies from black to brown, with a light sand colour and red also seen. The body is stocky...

voretaq7

. . . you have a_giant_rat on your head?

MikeyB

19:38

@voretaq7 Yep, adorable isn't it?

Jeff Ferland

@voretaq7 No, I'm not surprised... but I am terrified.

voretaq7

@JeffFerland meh, it's safer than the drive to the airport.

stuck an answer on the capacity planning question. Go edit it to suck less.

MikeyB

:4411417 Hrmph. Ours looks different:

  PID USERNAME  THR PRI NICE   SIZE    RES STATE  C   TIME   WCPU COMMAND
 1496 root       10   8    0 82196K 63756K nanslp 0   1:39 100.00% ntop
  372 root        1  44    0  5944K  4872K select 1  12:47  0.00% openvpn

Jeff Ferland

Gimli glider... metric <-> imperial error. NASA?!

voretaq7

@JeffFerland hush. we learned our lesson after the first probe.

MikeyB

19:52

@voretaq7 That's what… he said.

voretaq7

@MikeyB killfrog.com/fuptoys/poknprobe.html

Scott Pack

That's why I do all my unit calculations in furlongs per fortnight.

MikeyB

@voretaq7 Ummm... yeah.

Adrian

@MDMarra Our little friend from the ext4 question seems to have problems with you too. He was on about the same kind of idiocy in the "Gentoo IS TOO great for businesses" thread

voretaq7

@MikeyB oh like Pikachu doesn't deserve it?

MikeyB

19:56

@voretaq7 Oh that was supposed to be Pikachu?

MDMarra

@Adrian Where is this?

voretaq7

@MikeyB I assume so

Adrian

@MDMarra here: serverfault.com/questions/384541/…

WesleyDavid

How to prevent employee taking too long in toilet using free product on windows 2000?

2

Adrian

He tore into me about not answering the OP's specific question. As if Gentoo were the optimal choice to build a small DevOps-based venture around.

MDMarra

20:01

@Adrian Oh yeah, I know that one. I meant the Gentoo question

WesleyDavid

@Adrian cflags, yo.

punches @Joel

Joel

@WesleyDavid I got an SSD

but I don't have a flash drive OR a USB DVD drive

WesleyDavid

@Joel Next time use protection.

Iain

@ScottPack microfortnight surely ?

MikeyB

@Iain I was just coming to that same conclusion

WesleyDavid

20:03

@Joel I got 99 problems but soft write errors ain't one.

MikeyB

You have: 1 furlongs per millifortnight
You want: m/s
	* 0.16630952
	/ 6.0128848

Now ^that is a sensible unit of measure.

WesleyDavid

We need to bring back the stadia.

Iain

@MikeyB outpost9.com/reference/jargon/jargon_28.html#TAG1143

Scott Pack

@Iain Nope.

MikeyB

@Iain I had no idea that it was actually used. Love it.

WesleyDavid

20:08

Iain

@ScottPack you're just weird

Scott Pack

@Iain How very imperialistic of you.

voretaq7

@ScottPack hush, colonist. :)

WesleyDavid

Someone edit the 'home' out of this. I'm too tired: serverfault.com/questions/384699/…

MDMarra

@WesleyDavid I took care of it

VTC > SU

That's what you meant, right?

WesleyDavid

20:20

We should have a stack exchange TF2 tournament.

SE vs SO vs SU

If anyone invites the bridge we sell their account information to ukranian spam gansters.

Actually, let's do that regardless of what happens.

wfaulk

@voretaq7 um, does "twink" mean something different in EQ than it does IRL?

MDMarra

@WesleyDavid I stopped playing about a year and a half ago

I'm not about to start again

I have a fiance and a cat. MY LIFE IS GOOD NOW. STOP TRYING TO RUIN IT

voretaq7

@wfaulk yes, though really it's a reference to someone who probably has a sugar daddy in either case :)

MDMarra

I used to be super-pro at Pyro. Puff & Sting

voretaq7

@MDMarra you have a cat. Your life sux. :P

MDMarra

20:24

:'(

Iain

@voretaq7 nooooo, no cat life sux

MDMarra

@Iain yaaaaaaaaaa

Zoredache

@MDMarra pro and pyro? Isn't that just a W+M1 for the whole game?

MDMarra

@Zoredache Nope

M1 + M2 + Q + M1

voretaq7

@Iain @MDMarra I has a lizard.

Zoredache

20:26

Almost all the Pyros I see are just W+M1 noobs...

MDMarra

ignite, puff straight up into the air, quick switch to axtinguisher, swing for crit before they hit the ground

heavy takes two swings, everyone else just one

and you can run under them after you puff them so that they have a really hard time finding you to shoot while you're in the air

Plus, I could regularly airblast rockets from the direct hit

now there's like 50 weapons per class and im sad

Zoredache

@MDMarra Ah, but can you reflect something from the Liberty Launcher?

MikeyB

20:41

@MDMarra It's a little crazy now that there's such a glut of weapons.

WesleyDavid

@MDMarra After they made it free to all, the quality of games kinda tanked.

@MikeyB I kinda got into hat collecting. It's so weird how addictive it can be.

Zoredache

Does anyone know offhand why ESXi500-201203209-UG is ~600mb, when all the other updates are typically ~300mb?

ewwhite

No clue...

Zoredache

20:56

Hrm... Well I am going to try skipping it and go straight from ESXi500-201112001 to ESXi500-201204001...

That should get everything updated right?

ewwhite

yep.

single host, or part of vcenter?

Zoredache

Single host. Right now I am just trying it on a test box.

Do you happen to know if there is a way to update the software images on both partitions?

ewwhite

Hmm, I'm not sure.

pauska

huh? partitions?

Zoredache

@pauska Have you ever looked at an ESXi system disk from Linux? It has two paritions with the system image. When you do an update, it changes the software on the partition not in use, and then switches the boot loader to that partition.

It gives you a fall back if the update fails.

pauska

21:02

I had no idea.. great info to know, thanks :)

When does it synchronize the two?

Zoredache

AFAIK It doesn't. One is the current release, and one is the previous release.

On each update, the non-active partition is updated.

Lucas Kauffman

66

A: How do you validate a URL with a regular expression in Python?

Here's the complete regexp to parse a URL. (?:http://(?:(?:(?:(?:(?:[a-zA-Z\d](?:(?:[a-zA-Z\d]|-)*[a-zA-Z\d])?)\. )*(?:[a-zA-Z](?:(?:[a-zA-Z\d]|-)*[a-zA-Z\d])?))|(?:(?:\d+)(?:\.(?:\d+) ){3}))(?::(?:\d+))?)(?:/(?:(?:(?:(?:[a-zA-Z\d$\-_.+!*'(),]|(?:%[a-fA-F \d]{2}))|[;:@&=])*)(?:/(?:(?:(?:[a-z...

epic

WesleyDavid

Wow, I feel like an idiot. Guy says "Having trouble adding an FTP user with special characters" and I'm all "what FTP daemon are you using?"
Forgot that `useradd` doesn't do special characters. `vipw` FTW

facepalm

And I'm leaving the markdown failure in tact.

This sounds scary a hell:

0

Q: Need to trigger an program when Active Directory replicates

I am a .net developer working on a project I inherited. I need execute a small program when AD replicates to keep our DB with user information up to date. Is there a way when AD replicates to include the program as part of a trigger or script ? Much Thanks

active-directory

Zoredache

@pauska BTW, the reason I asked, is because I do some of my ESXi testing in a VM, with a USB disk. I can't get VMware Workstation let me boot the VM off a USB disk, so I use a non-standard bootloader. Unfortunately the bootloader always boots to the first partition, so my updates never appear to get applied in the VM.

@WesleyDavid I dunno, wanting to know when things change in the AD doesn't sound that unusual. Wanting to link into the replication seems a bit odd though. I wonder if it has to be when replication happens, or if he just wants some event to be triggered whenever a DC is updated.

Joel

@Zoredache He wants to update a DB of users when his DB of users is updated.

WesleyDavid

21:09

@Zoredache Keeping a separate user database updated along side of AD sounds kludgey.

Zoredache

@WesleyDavid Why almost every product that links into the AD does that to a certain degree.

WesleyDavid

@Joel Yo dawg! I heard you like users so we put some users in a database next to your database of users so you can confuse the shit out of your users while you confuse the shit out of your users!!

@Zoredache I have never seen any product do that.

Zoredache

@WesleyDavid Really? Look at any web app. When they link to an AD user, the have a local user database, with one field that has the DN of the user in AD.

WesleyDavid

It's either users in AD or it's users out of AD, never the twain shall know of eachother.

Iain

@WesleyDavid ftpassswd is better for proftpd

Zoredache

21:10

When a user logs in, the users details are copied out of the AD into the local database.

WesleyDavid

@Zoredache I've only seen direct communication to a RADIUS server for web apps. Not a local user copy/paste two step.

Zoredache

Well another example would be Google Apps.

WesleyDavid

@Zoredache Ah, never used that in conjunction with a directory service. I feel I've been spared. =)

Zoredache

Google apps, when 'linked to the AD' using something like SAML, is really a sync'd database, with a authentication api, since passwords can't be sync'd.

Moodle, Wordpress, Drupal, Joomla, etc, all have an entry in the local database when linked into AD. I am sure I could come up with many more examples.

WesleyDavid

@Zoredache I looked into Wordpress and AD integration, but I was going to use a RADIUS plugin that looks up the username and passwords that way. At no time is there any parallel user database / read only lookup. That just scares the crap out of me and seems messy. Surprised to see it's apparently so common.

I might need to get Moodle to use AD authentication soon too. Now I'm all skerred.

MikeyB

21:16

@WesleyDavid So everything just pulls the info out of AD? the user entry isn't just a stub?

Zoredache

@WesleyDavid I find it difficult to believe that wordpress could work with Radius without creating a user record. Radius doesn't provide information the blog name, the , firstname, and lots of other information that Wordpress needs to associate with a user.

pauska

@WesleyDavid almost every product we use that has a optional link to AD populates a local database with AD logins, and then just redirects the authentication bit against AD

stuff like Jira, subversion, Confluence etc..

WesleyDavid

@MikeyB Right. Direct authentication against the directory using a RADIUS server

pauska

@WesleyDavid be careful about using radius, as you need to trust the link between the radius client and the radius server 100%..

WesleyDavid

@pauska Yes, definitely.

@pauska And fuck that.

pauska

21:19

@WesleyDavid Indeed, we're migrating to a new AD this weekend, going to LOVE getting that stuff sorted out.. I'm pretty confident we'll end up with duplicate users :<

WesleyDavid

@Zoredache ...and now that I want to find that plugin, I can't track it down. >_<

pauska

@Zoredache You run moodle against AD?

Zoredache

@pauska Yes, for staff accounts. We have it setup to use local accounts for students, and AD for staff.

pauska

@Zoredache You just described what I'm looking for.. I'll might pick your brain one day if thats ok

Zoredache

Well you can try, but I didn't actually do the setup for that.

Another guy here did it, but he since moved on. I will answer as best as I can though.

One of these days I probably will have to figure it out myself, just in case something breaks.

pauska

21:25

do you run moodle on windows?

with MSSQL?

Adrian

@WesleyDavid what about cflags?

tombull89

PXE Boot...all the things? - Even Printers...

2

Adrian

@Joel Yes. THIS, in fact, IS MY LIFE.

Zoredache

@pauska Linux with MySQL.

Stack Exchange

StoryInMemo: Tell me what I need to know RIGHT HERE AT THE TOP

posted on April 30, 2012 by Jeff

A user asks a question in 3 parts. The title, then two paragraphs. Title: Run compiled c program without ./ At this point I’ve already formulated an answer: “You can put “.” at the end of your path. There are risks …Read more »

Shane Madden

21:34

We need an HTTP server that can be abbreviated as "U". Then we'll have questions about LUMP servers.

"HOW DO I LUMP SERVER?"

Adrian

I'm looking forward to WUMP. But I have children who read Dr. Seuss too.

Shane Madden

And MUMP works well, too.

Ok, this needs to happen.

Adrian

@ShaneMadden What's the first M stand for? We also need PUMP for TomTom to run it on his phone.

We're Here. To PUMP. You UP.

MikeyB

So searching for 'performance hump' doesn't generate nearly the kind of useful results that you might hope it does.

Joel

@MikeyB I can only imagine one kind of result from that search string

MikeyB

21:40

@Joel On that note, best Q title goes to…

0

Q: site is grinding and I need some advice

Linux dedicated server. Tech support says: I am seeing a fairly consistently high load on the server, in particular with your Apache and MySQL processes. MySQL is using up to 100% of the CPU resources of the server, and there are 328 separate Apache processes running. I recommend revie...

linux mysql php

grind grind oh yeah baby just like that

TylerShads

HEY GAIS KAN U HALP ME WIF SRVR? KTHXBAI

Shane Madden

@Adrian Mac. MAMP is a thing, currently. In certain circles.

MikeyB

@ShaneMadden ITYM iMAMP

Adrian

@ShaneMadden Ah. Being surrounded by a sea of hipsters, it's difficult to think of a Mac as being anything but a prop used by effete little skim milk latte' drinking twats to attempt to look cool.

Shane Madden

@MikeyB That's better. We should edit the MAMP questions to iMAMP.

@Adrian Well, they DID kill the XServe off.

MikeyB

21:43

Here's another great question from my favourite end user:

Adrian

@ShaneMadden And I'm not happy about the mugging that CUPS is getting.

MikeyB

"I am trying to deploy PXE image on the blade not (IBM but HP J ) I have successfully deployed this on many IBM blades and 3850s with no issues , but when deploying this on HP blade is giving Input / output error on /dev/sda - sdi"
Hmm… how about "how the fuck would I know?"

Holy crap, I asked a question on SO 23 minutes ago and it hasn't even been answered yet.

Shane Madden

@Adrian Yeah, they're not interested in the server market these days. Backing off their promise for ZFS support is another nail in that coffin.

MikeyB

Yay! I finally have the FIO 3.1.1 drivers… let's see if there's any new secret sauce… tomorrow.

Shane Madden

@MikeyB You've got those new data formats for the output now, right?

MikeyB

21:47

@ShaneMadden That's one thing I'm looking forward to, yup.

Shane Madden

@MikeyB Nice. I remember hearing about some other new stuff, but not remembering anything specific at the moment.

ewwhite

I just swapped an ASA 5505 for a 5510...

and now my ESX servers can't get to the web...

ARP issue?

Shane Madden

@ewwhite Config converted over, or fresh?

ewwhite

Fresh.

MikeyB

@ewwhite I'd expect it to at least send out a gratuitous arp when it boots… but it shouldn't take that long to invalidate the arp cache.

@ewwhite flush arp on a VM and see if that helps.

Shane Madden

21:50

Yeah, shouldn't be ARP - check ping against the gateway to make sure.

ewwhite

can definitely see gateway...

Shane Madden

Was the 5510 set up to be a DNS server? The 5505 isn't by default I don't think.

ewwhite

no, internal DNS

I'm at the colo... my machine can get out with no issues.

Shane Madden

Hrm. Name resolution working?

ewwhite

yep

Shane Madden

21:52

Try a traceroute, if ICMP is allowed?

And maybe run a packet-tracer on the ASA just to make sure it's not actively blocking the traffic for some insane reason

ewwhite

yeah, the packet tracer passed the packet.

Shane Madden

What the hell, why would name resolution be working if HTTP isn't...

ewwhite

no idea.

I'm typing from the network...

Shane Madden

Any crazy firewalls at the colo?

ewwhite

naw, just what I've installed.

wfaulk

21:58

well, I'm no longer amongst the ranks of the employed

Shane Madden

@ewwhite Maybe try pinging a web server? Narrow it down to just the specific protocol..

@wfaulk Damn, what happened?

ewwhite

Uh oh...

wfaulk

got fired. in retrospect, my boss has had it in for me for a while

ewwhite

What was the cause?

wfaulk

ultimately, bad attitude

but it was a terrible job

I was already looking anyway

ConcernedOfTunbridgeWells

22:10

Question to those who care - I just wrote a tag blurb on dba.se for san which is a bit more in-depth than the one on serverfault. Want it?

ewwhite

@ShaneMadden seems to be arp related... had to reboot an ESX host...

Joel

22:22

0

Q: CentOS Opening FTP port?

I'm not a server guru, just about know how to edit php.ini and few other bits, however I've been given a VPS to work with and keep getting connection refused when trying to connect to FTP, Googled for a while but didn't find much about what to do, I tried running [root@s1 /]# rpm -q iptables...

centos ftp

I found this to be unreasonably amusing

Mark Henderson

22:37

@Joel Oh my. Someone buy the man a stick so he can get a clue

perferably a clue stick

And then make him beat himself with it

I suspect that some of the customers we provide our software to have sysadmins like that

Adrian

@MarkHenderson And how exactly do people that stupid get jobs?

Mark Henderson

By getting a job as something else and weasling their way into it

People are promoted to their level of incompetance in most organisations

Bart Silverstrim

@ScottPack nope, that school district is about four hours south of us near Harrisburg :-)

@wfaulk: they just handed you a pink slip out of the blue?

WesleyDavid

@ShaneMadden ♪ ♫ "She's lump, she's lump, she's lump... she's in my head!" ♫ ♪

Silly power outage.

@wfaulk Umm... wow?

Mark Henderson

22:56

@WesleyDavid I prefer the kitty song

pauska

wow, DPM is funny.. I migrated a 300GB DPM disk to a 1800GB DPM disk and got 750GB free afterwards..

Mark Henderson

♪ ♫ kitty at my foot and I wannnnna touch it ♪ ♫

@pauska I didn't like DPM. No support for rotating USB drives through its pool

Which means no simple support for off-site backups

Joel

Installing Windows 7 from USB3. Feels good man

Mark Henderson

Oh my, my question about DPM storage pools was so shit and un-loved that community deleted it!

serverfault.com/questions/206781/… (10k only)

Joel

@MarkHenderson You and your pretentious 10K ;_;

Zypher

23:04

OH LOOK more rep from the security auditor question

Mark Henderson

@Zypher god yes. That shit still filters through at about 1-2 upvotes a week

Zypher

yea someone bumped it today too

Mark Henderson

Im vain enough to still check where my rep comes from. If I see a boost I think "Oh yay, someone found me useful... oh, that shit again. sigh"

Man who approved that edit?

Zypher

actually

yea ... hrm

Mark Henderson

WITCH HUNT!

Zypher

23:08

@MarkHenderson it was @voretaq7 serverfault.com/suggested-edits/6728

Mark Henderson

Time for another UPS I think

@Zypher Haha I wasn't actually going to look it up, but ok!

wfaulk

@BartSilverstrim yeah, pretty much.

Zypher

@MarkHenderson oh man common can't give up on a good old witch hunt! common man

Mark Henderson

@Zypher Fine fine. You get your shotgun, I'll get a pitchfork

Zypher

EXCELLENT

Mark Henderson

23:20

@Zypher - I tell you what, getting a job at Fog Creek isn't simple

Did you get into SE before they implemented their policy of trial projects/contract work?

Adrian

Hot Damn. The new Junior is catching on already.

Mark Henderson

?

Adrian

New hire. Started today almost fresh out of tech school and seems pretty savvy so far.

Mark Henderson

@Adrian - how goes the job hunting/resume reviewing?

Aahh cool. Gotta love those ones. You can usually tell within a day or two whether they're going to be a natural or need coaching

We've had to fire I think two or three people within days of them starting because they somehow managed to fool us through our interview process

Adrian

@MarkHenderson That parts not so good. I'm going to do some more polishing to see if I can make it gleam and then fire off more applications.

@MarkHenderson We do some narrative questions where was ask them their understanding of how certain things work, such as DHCP.

Also ask them HOW they find out how to do things they don't currently know how to do.

Once we get them in the door we generally have very good luck from a technical standpoint.

Mark Henderson

23:31

Yeah we've started doing more in-depth things like that after our few failures. We use to do a thought exercise as in "This is what the customer wants. Draw a diagram of whatyou would do"

Adrian

Our pre-interview process of selecting candidates still blows though. Maybe 1 out of every 8 or 10 that we interview is worth a hoot.

Mark Henderson

Now we actually get them to do something, like write a small script. I feel that even a sysadmin should be able to pass FizzBuzz

codinghorror.com/blog/2007/02/why-cant-programmers-program.html

Adrian

@MarkHenderson Yeah, I need to get back into the habit of writing good scripting though. I'm spending so much time fixing crap that I don't have time to properly script the things that need to get done.

Mark Henderson

I feel your pain. I've set aside a whole day next week to finish our PowerShell deployment script for when we sell our SaaS to a new customer (which is happening frequently)

It takes about 2 hours to do by hand at the moment, mainly because I'm always making stupid trivial mistakes, like deploying to the wrong database server, etc

Can probably get it down to about 5 minutes if I can finish the script. 1 minute to start the script, and 4 minutes to format their company logo into suitable dimensions and file format

Adrian

@MarkHenderson Nice. Same thing with our user setups around here. A really basic thing to automate in most organizations, but ours is a little more retarded than most.

Joel

23:46

@Adrian Adrian, you really need to move to LA.

Adrian

@Joel Alas, too close to my parents and too far from my kids

0

Q: Create a Public SQL Server

I have a testing environment that I would like my team members to access just to develop on. It is not linked to any other server system or network, however it is open to the Internet. What I would like to know is it possible to make the SQL Server public so that my team members can connect to an...

windows-server-2008 sql-server

Joel

@Adrian Just got cold-called for $52/hr contract work in Burbank

Adrian

@Joel Not bad. I'd do that for a longer-term gig.

Joel

@Adrian 1 year. It's one of the less-appealing offers I've gotten this week.

WesleyDavid

@Joel How long of a contract? $52 an hour isn't speaking to me as an indie contractor.

Except to say "AWWW HELL NO"

Slightly above "HAW HAW. Try Craigslist."

Mark Henderson

23:50

@WesleyDavid I recently gave someone a mates rate of $75/hr. It's amazing how little is left after Johnny Tax Man takes his cut, and the Public Liability monkey takes his cut, and Payroll tax takes their cut

Joel

@MarkHenderson So is $52/hr for a year's contract just a joke then?

WesleyDavid

@MarkHenderson Yuh-huh.

@Joel A sick joke.

Mark Henderson

@Joel $75/hr is 50% of the usual rate

Irony is I'm doing some work at the moment for $US60/hr which is even less than mates rates, and once you factor in currency conversions to $AU I'm basically giving it away for free

But the tradeoff is possibly a new job, so I'll take it

WesleyDavid

@MarkHenderson D= Y 4?

@MarkHenderson Ohhh... misty river?

Mark Henderson

@WesleyDavid Haha thats the one

wfaulk

23:53

is there any notable weirdness with AWS Servers?

WesleyDavid

If it's really steady, long term contract, then I'll consider a significantly lower rate. Like, I've I'm pretty much guaranteed 40 hours a week or "all you can handle - just send the invoice."

Mark Henderson

wtf? Does Excel not support checkin/checkout of sharepoint files, or is it just being obtuse?

WesleyDavid

$75 is my rock bottom though.

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