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Hope This Helps - A Tech Podcast

Hope This Helps - A Tech Podcast

By Hope This Helps

Tiff and Steve’s magical sysadmin adventures. You can expect fun banter about “the cloud,” Microsoft tech (Office 365, Azure, Defender, Exchange, etc), InfoSec, PowerShell, Docker, Zune (yes, Zune), existential thoughts on enterprise IT, and so much more.
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HTH0011 - Half Of You Aren't Wearing Pants

Hope This Helps - A Tech PodcastMar 28, 2020

00:00
01:21:09
HTH0043: Microsoft Viva Las Vegas

HTH0043: Microsoft Viva Las Vegas

The STiffs return to podcasting after a very long week. The cloud has changed, Loop still isn't a thing, Viva and Entra are around, and Linux Mint vs Windows 11!


Extended show notes available at https://hthpc.com


Boot-up (AKA, "LAST WEEK, ON HOPE THIS HELPS")

Windows 11

  • Thoughts on Windows 11
  • Zune Software in Windows 11
  • Linux Mint
  • What the heck is up with the TPM requirements?
  • Skip_TPM_Check_on_Dynamic_Update.cmd
  • Feature updates called “moments”

Co-Pilots

  • Windows Co-Pilot, GitHub Co-Pilot, etc.
  • GitHub Co-Pilot's tendencies to suggest other people's code without credit or licensing
  • Remember Cortana?

The end of Windows?

The Year(s) of Linux

  • In January 2022, Steve moved to Linux on his main desktop - Linux Mint
  • So far, nearly every app, feature, and core experience made the jump without much fuss
  • Linux Mint is very Windows-like
  • OneNote on the web just isn't there yet. I have a VM to run the Windows version (it doesn't work in Wine)
  • Mini-state of the Zunion: It’s capable of browsing files on a connected Zune device, USB passthru to VirtualBox works
  • Teams on Linux needs work
  • Asks for a login every time
  • Input/output sound devices get confused during calls - unusable
  • Just use teams.microsoft.com in a browser
  • Steam/Proton is fantastic for gaming
  • Should you do it?
  • If you're willing to put up with learning fast and researching community fixes
  • Most Microsoft-based stuff will work on Linux, with the exception of OneNote which is stuck being web-based (or use a VM)

Outro - "Plus Delta"

  • We help you, you help us: Rate us on iTunes
Jul 01, 202335:34
HTH0042: You had me at Graph, You lost me at API

HTH0042: You had me at Graph, You lost me at API

Error messages, meeting etiquette, MFA improvements and concerns, PowerShell with MS Graph, PowerShell Crescendo, random PowerShell things, in a short-but-packed episode!

Extended show notes available at https://hthpc.com

=====Boot-up=====

BSoDs and error messages

Phrases I don't wanna hear anymore: "Thank you for your time."

Microsoft Teams - Send praise to people

Better meeting etiquette

The stigma against accepting a meeting as "tentative"

Accepting and not sending a response

Shower thought: There should be a "Mute Mic AND Turn Webcam Off" button in Teams

Parasocial relationships

Real-time followup: There's a PowerToy for it! Go check it out.

Microsoft Authenticator improvements

Suspected Russian Activity Targeting Government and Business Entities Around the Globe



=====PowerShell Drunk Jawer (it's like a Junk Drawer shut up)=====

Microsoft Graph PowerShell got way easier + Azure AD Temporary Access Pass

Tiff asks: Why are Enterprise Apps and App Registrations in two different places?

Azure AD security attributes

Microsoft Graph API: The dangerous line between script writer and developer. It's a high barrier of entry to a non-developer.

Graph PowerShell Module

The Ups and Downs of Connecting to the Microsoft Graph Using the PowerShell SDK

Installing modules in PowerShell 7 vs Windows PowerShell (admin level vs user)

PowerShell Crescendo Release Candidate - But why JSON? What's wrong with advanced functions?

PowerShellGet 3.0 Preview 12 - More useful for developers developers developers?

Global variables in PowerShell 7 are funky if you use -UseWindowsPowerShell with import-module

Make test accounts with this one simple trick! 1..300|%{$_}

Correction: This technically isn't an array

Range Operators in PowerShell

Always make your functions return psobjects containing data. It's better for you, the environment, and your pets.


=====“Unplanned Outage” (Sponsor section - “Hope this Helps is helped by…‘)=====

The rewind button. Be sure to rewind this podcast when done listening so the next person doesn't have to



=====Outro - "Plus Delta"=====

Montero (Call Me by Your Name)

We help you, you help us: Rate us on iTunes

Dec 13, 202146:10
HTH0041: This is Commander Bezos' Land

HTH0041: This is Commander Bezos' Land

Microsoft Ignite 2021 hot takes! Multi-Cloud MultiBall, Loop, Teams, Viva, PowerShell install variations, and Zune on macOS!

Extended show notes available at https://hthpc.com


===Boot-up===

We help this hopes


===Microsoft Ignite 21H2===

Defender madness - so many confusing name changes!

Multi-Cloud MultiBall

"Now, native support for multicloud environments is available through the extension of Cloud Security Posture Management (CSPM) and Cloud Workload Protection capabilities to Amazon Web Services (AWS)."…Do other clouds actually want Microsoft to butt in?

Actual quote from someone (Mary Jo Foley?) at Microsoft: "It's like a Big Mac: Have it Your Way"

Tiff's experience working at Wendy's

LOOP THERE IT IS

Does it replace OneNote?? (No)

Does it replace Whiteboard? (Maybe?)

Clarification: Loop is an Office app.

The feature imparity between Windows and Mac versions of certain Office apps

MS Roadmap updated and has moved MS Teams connect to March 2022, I just want shared channels.

Speed/ease of use - When people choose illogical/unexpected solutions

Remember Viva?

PowerShell's store version versus the standalone MSI version

Frustrating differences between them

VS Code integration for Store version is off

Running as a different user can get hairy

Just install the MSI version, the Store version is annoying

Installing PowerShell on macOS via HomeBrew is fantastic


===This is the way===

Microsoft presents for a long time about why passwords suck

Types of Passwordless auth

Unlock your Mac with your Apple Watch

iOS Security Guide - Page 8 - Passcode supersedes biometrics at first boot

Are passwords and policies truly worthless?

Counterpoint: They have their place in the correct use cases.


===State of the Zunion===

Steve's attempts to get Zune working on macOS Big Sur

Nov 05, 202101:04:58
HTH0040: Don't Fork Your Parent

HTH0040: Don't Fork Your Parent

The Apple Event, Windows 11 features, Defender for Endpoint updates, Docker, Terraform, and fingers!


Extended show notes available at https://hthpc.com


Note: Our apologies for wavering audio quality, we had some technical difficulties again!


The Fork-Up

-Don't Fork your Parent

-Finger


Boot-up

-Apple Creates the World's Best Computer...of 2009? New Macbook pro has real ports

-The Surface event


Win 11

-Vista 2.0? Not really

-Windows 11 WSL 2 is almost as quick as running Linux natively

-Installing Wine using Homebrew on macOS


Player One DFEated

-Defending Windows Server 2012 R2 and 2016

-"The solution does not use or require the installation of the Microsoft Monitoring Agent (MMA)."

-There's an installer now!

-So what about Server 2012 support?


More Apple things

-Apple Music "Voice Plan" - Bad for accessibility. What about those who are mute? Inconvenience for a lower price?

-Pumpkin HomePod


Hope This Helps Tip of the Something

-Don't sudo rm -rf your docker storage folder

-Things that may happen:

-Images gone

-Errors trying to update containers

-If a container is restarted it will not come back

-Portainer will explode

-You'll have to rebuild all your docker-compose stacks in Portainer (hope you had a backup)


Terraform

-Tiff's experience with WSL + Linux + Docker + Terraform

-Enabling Virtualization in AMD BIOS is oddly esoteric

-F7 for Advanced Mode - CPU Configuration - SVM Mode - Enabled - Guide

Oct 23, 202151:04
HTH0039: Crotch-Punching Security Vulnerabilities

HTH0039: Crotch-Punching Security Vulnerabilities

Microsoft Exams, Passwordless login, Identity and Access Management, Microsoft 365 landmines, and more!

Extended show notes available at https://hthpc.com

Note: Our apologies for wavering audio quality, we had some technical difficulties!


Boot-up


    Delilah

    Human Robots + Cyborgs

    Remember on-premise? There's a cert for that

    Microsoft exams are hard!

    Passwordless login

    New identity partnerships and integrations to accelerate your Zero Trust journey

    Metroid: Other M and Privileged Identity Management

    DEFCON Patch Alerts It's like the French Toast Alert System for patches

    Apple zero-day vulnerability

    Update/correction: Snow Leopard was last updated in early 2016 just so you could jump to a newer version of OS X in the Mac App Store.

    Update/correction: Steve meant the 2010 Macbook Air's ability to run Catalina, not the 2011 one.

    Bo Burnham's "Inside"



Various M365 landmines to be aware of


    Via Joe Stocker (@ITguySoCal)

    We go over almost everything listed here: https://twitter.com/ITguySoCal/status/1431734989792563201



M365 vs O365 vs Azure


    Some things are the same between the two

    Where do they link/not link?

    Two user portals

    Things change and documentation isn't always updated

    Exchange Online's dual portals

    Exchange scripts/Documentation still referencing Skype for Business


That is Accurate


    SSH and Secure Shell have the same amount of syllables

Sep 19, 202101:17:40
HTH0038: Complain-O-Meter

HTH0038: Complain-O-Meter

Outlook Web Access, Scrum, Windows Admin Center complaints, Defender for Endpoint complaints, and the world of InfoSec, among other things!

Extended show notes available at https://hthpc.com


Boot-up

    OWA Suggested Pre-reads on meeting reminders, interesting idea

    Not mad, just disappointed: Cloud shell kinda sucks, I'm complaining about it

    Set-MSOLUserLicense is going away

    The importance of learning programming/scripting/CLI/DevOps, Infrastructure-As-Code, etc.

    Steve figures out git branching

    Scrum, orgs adapting to agile, etc


Windows Admin Center annoys me immensely, but it does work I guess

    Ongoing follow-up from HTH episode 20 and 24 regarding WAC

    Stupid little things, some complaints from HTH0020 are still in play

    Remote PowerShell feature is really picky (and buggy)?

    Must specify credentials in a certain way

    UserVoice pages are 404'd in documentation

    Speed/efficiency issues

    Can't do advanced things like take ownership of registry keys or values, still need regedit to do that

    Semi-related: Manage Active Directory Objects with the New Windows AD Provider for HashiCorp Terraform


Defender for Endpoint device inventory/search/dashboards/reports could be better

    I wish it would support wildcard searches

    Is really picky about exact matches

    Duplicate/misleading entries: Workgroup vs domain

    Removing a device other than waiting for it to age out?

    Fix unhealthy sensors in Microsoft DFE

    Reordering columns isn't possible

    Have to stretch out the browser window across multiple monitors to get full width

    Entire interface is inefficient, sort of like WAC


InfoSec - The new Sysadmin

    CISO MindMap 2021: What do InfoSec Professionals Actually Do?

    How To Get A Job in Cybersecurity

    Look at all this stuff!

    Are they actually sysadmins?

    What IS a sysadmin?


The OWA Experience

    Missing UI elements

    Flagged items in a sidebar

    Has a "To Do" panel but it doesn’t include flagged items

    Calendar flyout is not expanded by default

    Categories (already discussed at length in our blog)

    [old man complaint] Forward as Attachment is different

    GMU.edu guide on how to do it in OWA

    Meeting notifications aren't prominent/obnoxious enough

    No unread "group by folder" view

    Can't add an Office 365 Group as a favorite like you can in Outlook

    Table management in OWA email composition is bugged

    Can't set specific to-do dates for flagged items?

Sep 09, 202159:08
HTH0037 - East from Weast

HTH0037 - East from Weast

Windows 11 is a thing, Solarwinds is still a thing, Zune is still a thing, PowerBI regional migrations, and Windows 10 learns a new trick. Hope This Helps is back!


Extended show notes available at https://hthpc.com


Pre-Boot

    Windows 11 and the TPM

    Golf is boring, unless it's mini-golf

    LinkedIn is like the golf course of the internet


Boot Up

    Tiff and Steve's desktop computers, Macs

    Proof of Work vs Proof of Stake

    Solarwinds hacks + version number madness

        Get them on the payroll!

        Remember LulzSec? / LulzSec Leader 'Sabu' Flips on Friends for FBI

        Orion web console tells you one thing in the web console, Database Manager tells you something different

        Version number schemes don't line up…Product Upgrade Advisor uses YYYY.MM based versions while the database still uses legacy 12.x version schemes

    What the heck is Bonjour?

        Bonjour chat

        Barrier uses Bonjour to find other Barrier nodes

    Windows 11 phone integration

        Android apps

    Gripes about macOS Catalyst/"Project Marzipan" apps being half-baked

    macOS uses Home/End keys wrong

    More Windows 11 thoughts

        Windows 11 will require TPM 2.0, UEFI, and Secure Boot

        Surface Studio 2 can't run Windows 11

        People is Removed

    Brief tangent on disconnecting from social media/cloud services/Windows


State of the Zunion

    Elon Musk's tweet

    Steve's Zune-to-M3U-to-AirSonic PowerShell script for playlists


PowerBI data migrations + general cloud frustrations

    Configure Multi-Geo support for Power BI Premium

    Originally you could only pick one region, but more options expanded over time

    Egress costs are expensive - On-prem datacenters wouldn't see these OpEx costs

    It's a headache when moving regions

    MS can sometimes even lose your data during a regional migration?


Out-GridView is temporarily (?) dead (on Mac/Linux)

    No more work is being done on Avalonia-based Out-GridView until we move to .NET MAUI

    Let's talk about how great Out-GridView is on Windows and how nobody knows about it


Windows 10 News (literally)

    The new Windows 10 taskbar "News and interests" widget

    Why exactly was this shoved into a cumulative update? This is a new feature.

    Disabling "News and Interests" causes entire notification area to go blank

    The actual content is low quality


Jun 30, 202101:10:52
HTH0036 - Just Shovel That Into My Face

HTH0036 - Just Shovel That Into My Face

Microsoft service disruptions, Exchange Plus Addressing, UserVoice, Ignite 2021 Recap, Defender for Endpoint, Zune, Outlook Signatures, and more!


Extended show notes available at https://hthpc.com


Boot Up

    What even are NFTs, anyway? Nobody knows.

    Blog post about PSWindowsUpdate and Outlook Categories

    Outages + Microsoft lying about service issues

    Exchange Plus Addressing

    An SMTP email address uses the basic syntax: @. For example, sean@contoso.com. Plus addressing uses the syntax: +@. For example, sean+newsletter@contoso.com. Use case: newsletters, junk email, alternate smtps that users can handle on their own

    Replying to individual messages in any chat coming to Teams

    Microsoft breaks Win10 thrice in one month

    No more UserVoice - A Loss For Words


Ignite Recap

    Mesh and bubbles

    Inna-Gadda-Da-Viva Baby

    MARKETING


“Unplanned Outage” (Sponsor section - "Hope this Helps is helped by…")

    "No Hello"


Defender for Endpoint "Deef"

    The portal changed to https://security.microsoft.com/machines from https://securitycenter.windows.com/machines

    Bug in a Defender/SCEP GPO

    Server 2012 is in extended support till 2023, so why is it excluded from DFE while 2008 R2 is still supported?

    Correction: The PowerEdge 2850 can run 2012 but not 2012 R2. Steve got the model number wrong.


State of the Zunion

    Fix Zune software native video conversion! Swap out wmvcore.dll with the 1511 version. 


Outlook Signatures are still a nightmare

    Organization-wide message disclaimers, signatures, footers, or headers in Exchange Online


Parting Words / “Unplanned Outage” (Sponsor section - "Hope this Helps is helped by…")

    "Consider your environment before printing this podcast"


Outro - "Plus Delta"

    We help you, you help us: Rate us on iTunes

Apr 16, 202101:10:50
HTH0035 - Where Is My Year Of Yammer?

HTH0035 - Where Is My Year Of Yammer?

Yammer and Defender for Endpoint Rants in a quick Midlife Crisis episode of Hope This Helps!

Extended show notes available at https://hthpc.com

Boot Up
Yammer
  • Where is my #YearOfYammer?
MS Defender for Sanity's Endpoint
  • Defender for Endpoint (Formerly ATP) Onboarding documentation
  • Let's start with the good: Microsoft Monitoring Agent (MMA) documentation is actually pretty good/straightforward.
  • But after that, the info on antivirus becomes much less clear
  • Why is there little to mention of the SCEP setup?
  • Configure Endpoint Protection on a standalone client
  • So I need SCCM no matter what? Even though I  can install SCEP with no policies? What if I don't have/want/need SCCM?  I thought the web console was the central management!
  • "Configure the SCEP client Cloud Protection  Service membership to the Advanced setting" but the SCEP client has no  such settings. There's "send file samples automatically when further  analysis is required" and advanced Microsoft Active Protection Service  (MAPS) membership options. Are these the same…??
  • MS MVP Joe Stocker explains it better than MS in terms of what OS needs what in fewer words and links
  • January 2017 anti-malware platform update for Endpoint Protection clients
  • Why do I need to view the source code to see the KB number? (KB3209361)
  • Why is the KB not available on the Update catalog?
  • Why do I need to use freakin PSWindowsUpdate to install this?
That is Accurate
  • PSWindowsUpdate lets you pick and choose which updates to install on Windows 10, Server 2016/2019.


Feb 26, 202135:44
HTH0034 - The Hill I Like to Die On

HTH0034 - The Hill I Like to Die On

Cloud service talk, modern workplace thoughts, DevOps versus ITIL, Docker Container of the Week, and a bunch more!

Extended show notes available at https://hthpc.com


Boot Up


    [Semi-off topic variety section] What kind of alcoholic beverage is each cloud service?

    Azure=Tequila, the more you drink it, the more things change

    The VibrationSensorHub Azure IoT lab

    Zune Squirting - 3 Plays or 3 Days

    Pronouncing Azure

    WarHammer / Your state of being at work

    AWS=Jim Beam?

    Google=Bud Light

    Our review of Super Bowl LV

    The first 5G Super Bowl

    iCloud=Heineken

    The 5 minute rule prevails

    Along with rubber duck debugging

    No more old Edge - "Spartan Down"

    CORRECTION: Brave is based on Chromium, and yes there are privacy concerns

    Microsoft meddling with the hosts file

    Viva las Dashboards

    Workspace 365

    Various grumblings about the whole idea


Modern Workplace


    Microsoft and the workplace of the future: How AI can help you build more productive relationships with your colleagues

    Talking (mostly grumbling) about Yammer, Teams distractions

    How far is too far?

    Microsoft patented a chatbot that would let you talk to dead people. It was too disturbing for production


Magsafe is back I guess, what are your thoughts?


    Pacemaker compatibility issues


DevOps versus ITIL


    How to Win the Battle Over Change Management

    "ING found it was able to modify ITIL to work within its new DevOps appr oach. “Don’t do everything the ITIL book says,” advised Jan-Joost Bouwman, ITSM process owner at ING. And yet, following ITIL for practices such as incident management are “still the best way to do it, because everybody knows what to do and you don’t get confused about the rules.”"


Look at all this licensing


    Get your fresh licensing maps at m365maps.com


Docker Container of the Week


    Plex vs Jellyfin

    Plex's Privacy Policy (see the data collection sections) https://www.plex.tv/about/privacy-legal/

    Recent Plex DDOS issue via SSDP https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2021/02/ddosers-are-abusing-the-plex-media-server-to-make-attacks-more-potent/

    Slight correction: Plex started out as freeware


Outro - "Plus Delta"


    Lock the Taskbar https://youtu.be/WEWG6kSYqlY

    We help you, you help us: Rate us on iTunes


Feb 12, 202101:08:52
HTH0033 - Don't Let AI Be Yourself For Yourself

HTH0033 - Don't Let AI Be Yourself For Yourself

HTH Turns 1 year old! We catch up on cloud happenings, productivity score ethical debates, bad naming schemes, Solarwinds, M365 deathwatch, and more!

Extended Show Notes available at https://hthpc.com


===Boot Up===

• HTH Turns 1 year old

• M365 email forwarding dashboards aren't great

• Productivity Score - Remember the human (stop being creepy)

○ Microsoft says no to Productivity Score for individual users

○ Concerns remain about Microsoft Teams employee analytics

○ Microsoft responded to the criticisms by anonymizing the data, and making other changes, but the truth is that the data is still being collected – it is simply no longer being packaged up as neatly for the use of managers.

○ Methods of focusing differ from person to person

○ Read Only Friday: Let’s not mess with people‘s eyes with webcam AI

• Worst name - "Tasks By Planner and To-Do"

○ Xbox naming is awful

• Flash is dead

○ HTML5 is not a replacement

○ Recent MacOS bugginess/nagging prompts

• One More Outlook

○ The OneNote fiasco

○ Talking about email in general

• Solarwinds/Solorigate

• FiOS outage

• 2021 IT predictions

○ DevOps/SysOps merge

○ More Hybrid


===M365 things dying in 2021===

• 2021 End-of-Support Milestone in Microsoft 365


===Teams===

• Native notifications are coming


===State of the Zunion===

• Article from The Verge Zune's afterlife


===That is Accurate===

• You can float on air


===Ask the Stiffs: Question of the Week===

○ What is the current hot tech you should learn as a sysadmin?

○ Kubernetes, basically


===Outro - "Plus Delta"===

• We help you, you help us: Rate us on iTunes

• We applied to be Ignite speaker moderators!

Feb 04, 202101:21:38
HTH0032 - Dangling DNS Domains

HTH0032 - Dangling DNS Domains

Control Panel is going away, SMS based MFA is bad, Project Management is good, SCCM/MEMCM payload tips, MS product name frustrations, and more!

Extended Show Notes available at https://hthpc.com


Boot Up


    How are you?

    Life Cereal

    Giving up Control (Control Panel going away)

        Alternate UWP Control Panel

        GodMode: Make a new folder named GodMode.{ED7BA470-8E54-465E-825C-99712043E01C}

    Administrative Tools???

    Tiff's Outlook for Mac New Experience Rant

    AskWoody changing hands

    Microsoft sez: No more SMS-based 2FA

        NIST said this in 2016

    Hope this helps! Bookmark this: Microsoft Portals https://msportals.xyz/

    Dangling Domains


PROJECT MANAGEMENT


    PMO IS GOOD

    Don't be afraid of failing projects


When A Problem Comes Along, 7-zip it


    Deploy SCCM/MEMCM/SMS Payloads better: Large applications with large size & many files? 7-zip it!

    Include the 7-zip executable and DLL, and include a script to locally extract and THEN install.


Microsoft's product names are annoying


    Defender ATP is called what now?

    Moffice 365?

    Sharepoint Syntex? WTF is this


Some new Teams Features


    Timed statuses

    Statuses from Skype for Business/Outlook (OOO/Invisible)


That is Accurate


    Tiff and Steve are Advanced Glasses Users


Ask the Stiffs: Question of the Week


    What is the dumbest acquisition you can think of?

    Microsoft buys OnlyFans and makes it a social network merged with Yammer


Outro - "Plus Delta"


    12/8/20 4pm Australian time - Tiff and Adam Fowler - How to Keep Up with Microsoft https://youtu.be/LqeNXx3cxTI

    We help you, you help us: Rate us on iTunes

    Send us a Tweet, or a Yam, follow us on OnlyFans


Dec 05, 202001:06:20
HTH0031 - It Went Live and No One Died

HTH0031 - It Went Live and No One Died

Long-winded rants about cybersecurity, Teams Updates, Google Play Music, and the future of IT. Other stuff too!

Extended show notes available at https://hthpc.com


Boot Up


    How are you?

    Linode and OpenVPN connection attempts

    Youtube-DL RIAA DMCA

    YouTube Rolling Cypher

    National Cybersecurity Awareness Month

    ArnoldC - Get to the Chopper - "Program with your favorite Terminator"

    October Teams Updates and other things

    Where are break out rooms?

    Why isn't Teams a Docker container or a PWA?

    Office PWA Installs Caused by Microsoft Edge Bug

    Still not 100% functional in Firefox

    Outlook for Mac Preview features

    OWA Light mode: Start on https://outlook.office365.com/owa/?path=/classic and Go to the cog in the top right and scroll down to "Mail" under "Your app settings." Expand "General" and select "Light Version," checking off "Use the light version of Outlook" and click "Save." Sign out, then sign back in, Light Mode should work. If you ever need to get out of Light mode, go to Options->Outlook Version, uncheck "Use the light version" and sign out/back in.

    115 Million Users daily

    MS Office Mouse and Trackpad support iPad


Cybersecurity Awareness Month Fail: Nintendo


    Nintendo Sez: Open up all your ports

    "Within the port range, enter the starting port and the ending port to forward. For the Nintendo Switch console, this is port 1 through 65535."


The IT DEEP STATE / State of the Zunion Combo Segment: RIP Google Play Music


    2011-2020

    Self-Host your music using LMS


ITIL - Org Structure's and Ops


    What do future IT orgs look like, and how should traditional Infrastructure and operations teams be shifting?

    The relationship between infrastructure/ops/cloud/devops

    Gartner Research: Evolve Your Infrastructure and Operations Organization to Remain Relevant in the Cloud Era

    Saying yes to new ideas

    Be the department of "yes"


Ask the Stiffs: Question of the Week


    What should a truly accurate sysadmin job description be?

Nov 03, 202001:29:08
HTH0030 - Moo With Me

HTH0030 - Moo With Me

iPhone Event feelings, Microsoft 365 Outage feelings, Help Desk feelings, Therapy feelings, M365 Audit feelings…all kinds of feelings!


Extended show notes available at https://hthpc.com


Boot Up

    iPhone event

    RIP Office 2010 and Exchange 2010 - Tombstone

    Brief eulogy

    Microsoft 365 won't support TLS 1.0 as of October 15 2020

    Patch review for October 2020

    Clarification: The 32-bit .msg Preview Pane issue is only for File Explorer:

    "The Windows preview host requires a 32-bit application previewer. When 32-bit Outlook is installed, it acts as the previewer. Without 32-bit Outlook installed, there is no previewer available for .msg files."


Microsoft 365-hours-of-downtime

    (365 hours=15 days)

    Speaking of dead: M365 goes down once again 10/7/20

    Admin portal down again 10/14/20 for 4 hours

    EX223890: Admins intermittently can't create or migrate mailboxes in Exchange Online

    Happened AGAIN EX224151 (Started 10/13/20, ended 10/14/20, MS appeared to merge info with EX223890)

    AGAIN! EX224497 - Admins are unable to migrate mailboxes to the Exchange Online service 10/19/20

    EX224266 - Some users may be unable to send email messages

    MO222734 (10/14/20) and MO224234 (10/14/20) - admin center down

    MO224463 Admin Center health status down 10/18

    Improve your change management ASAP!

    What's their SLA, anyway?

    Teams/Exchange Online SLA

    Azure services SLA: Broken down by service (too many)

    Biased towards Azure (measured against ALL Azure services)

    "Multiply SLAs to determine overall SLA of the solution"


What makes a good help desk?

    If a customer says "The tier 1 people don't know anything" it's not a good help desk

    "If I need something done, I know [which Tier 3 people] to ask"

    Foster confidence in the customer by having a great tier 1 that can actually do things

    Is the best support person a Tier 2/3 employee?

    Common sense and technical skill and customer service ability

    ITIL and shift-left

    Great documentation for self-service

    Empower Tier 1 to get the customer to the answer


The Therapy Angle

    Feelings

    Moo With Me


Advanced Audit in Microsoft 365

    Coming 2021

    Now requires an additional license if you have 10 years or more of data


Ask the Stiffs: Question of the Week

    Should Microsoft rebase Windows to Linux?

    Linux Apps Coming to Windows

    Correction: Linux apps are planned for the future but probably isn't a lock for the 20H2 update.

Oct 24, 202055:22
HTH0029 - I Am A Single Core Brain

HTH0029 - I Am A Single Core Brain

Outages, Microsoft Ignite reactions and feelings, Excel Vlookup is cool, a story about wifi, a new "That is Accurate," and Question of the Week!


Extended show notes available at https://hthpc.com


Boot Up

• SLACK OUTAGE

• M365 outage

○ MO222965 - What is the point of posting this to a portal nobody can get to?

○ Root Cause Analysis posted

• Ignite post-game show

○ Thoughts overall

○ NO SWAG!

○ Also the Vmware VMWorld post-game show within a show

○ Physical Ignite is so much better

○ Azure VMware Solution

○ Microsoft Announces Ignite, Part 2, is Happening in March

○ Exchange – Here, There and Everywhere - External Forwarding Command Center and Certificate-Based Authentication (CBA). On-prem Exchange now subscription only

○ PowerShell Unplugged - Challenge Edition

○ Taking your automation to the next level with PowerShell 7

○ Microsoft Mechanics 2020

○ RIP Defender ATP, new name Microsoft Defender for Endpoint

○ Video Hub

• Random bug of the day

○ When using multiple Container tabs/accounts for the same website, Twitter/Anchor in Firefox seems to require a cached reload (CTRL F5) for likes/retweets/notification counts to clear. Anchor needs it for certain settings to save.

ALL HAIL VLOOKUP

• Why Vlookup

○ Say your master server inventory is inconsistent with your VMWare inventory, how do you find out what's missing? Vlookup

• How Vlookup

○ Syntax: Source cell, Range to look up, column index, exact match (false most of the time)

• Who Vlookup

○ People in a hurry

• Where Vlookup

○ Say you are trying to merge multiple lists of data. How do you link them? Vlookup + copy + "Paste values"


Declassified Sysadmin Stories: The impossible wifi project

• (What happens when a sysadmin attempts a wifi project by himself)

• Project was in 2016

• Replace ancient HP Procurve wireless infrastructure with Cisco infrastructure

○ ProCurve 420 and 530 WAPs

○ Rebootable via PoE, they frequently died

• Perform tests all over campus, run scans, tests, learn a lot of about radios

○ Test with lights on, lights off, doors open/closed, microwaves, bathrooms, water, etc

• Vistumbler, Airport Utility, RSSI

• Carts with long cables

• Limited number of Cisco APs (30 Aironet CAP1602i), not enough to cover the campus

• MAC-Daddy registration for all standard wifi devices, ancient Linux box, student project from years past that became production

• Learned all about RADIUS (NPS)

• MAC registration for non-802.1x compliant devices

○ Test things like Zune HD, Wii U, Wii U in Wii Mode, PS3, PS4, Xbox 360, Xbox One, 3DS, Android Tablets, TVs, etc

○ Visual Studio .NET app called MacDaddyJr - Form to CSV - PS Scheduled Task to create AD Users for MACs, add to group, change primary group

• Manually build out two Cisco WLC 2500s for the APs to talk to + interface with parent company controller

• Summer of wiring

• Impossible fiber line repair: Line going from campus to building we didn't own with difficult owner to athletics building/hangar that was rarely used in the first place


That is Accurate

• Azure has the most Global regions than any other cloud provider 

Ask the Stiffs: Question of the Week

• What is your favorite current piece of tech [wrong answers only]?


Outro - "Plus Delta"

• We help you, you help us: Rate us on iTunes


Oct 08, 202059:54
HTH0028 - Monetizable Rage

HTH0028 - Monetizable Rage

Microsoft Ignite 2020 hype! iOS 14 Mail changes, software KVMs, Zerologon exploits, SSU/LCU follow-ups, Teams/Exchange Online Issues, stories about imaging computers, and a variety of other topics!


Extended show notes available at https://hthpc.com


Boot Up

• #MSIgnite 2020!

• Steve hates sticky monitor edges

○ NSFW: Arm workout: The Denny's Grand Slam

• Software KVMs: Synergy versus Input Director versus Mouse Without Borders

○ CORRECTION: Input Director still exists.

• Denny's at 3am isn't THAT exciting but Ignite at Denny's is an option

• iOS 14 Mail changes - "admin approval" needed

• Enterprise application name (same ID) and permissions appear to have changed with iOS 14

• Supposed solution: update permissions to "re-approve" app or grant permissions for

• Or just use Outlook for iOS, it lets you accept calendar invites without sending a response!

• Terrible places to put physical conference rooms (directly adjacent to bathrooms)

• Changing app icons in iOS 14 via Shortcuts

• Quick follow-up from HTH0025: CVE-2020-1472 has a proof of concept. Patch sooner rather than later.

• Follow-up from HTH0027: SSU/LCU merge is not for Server OSes

• Monetizable rage: Apple Watch AppleCare rant

○ Why do I have to send it in and wait for shipping? Why can't an Apple Store do it?

○ Had to wipe it before they would even ship the return box

○ 5 days of no watch for nothing

• Losing the Exchange Online Lottery: "A very limited number of users may intermittently be unable to access Exchange Online via any connection method ID" - EX220974

• Delayed Teams messages

• Phishing issues

• DigiCert emails fail SPF?

• MICROSOFT IGNITE final thoughts

• The Bud Light Showtime Cam - feature people with better cameras/internet please

• The LG VX8100 and Tiff's first phone


Declassified Sysadmin Stories

• Steve was hired for SCCM imaging

• That one time Steve had to build an SCCM server from spare parts (PowerEdge 1950)

• Imaging labs and classrooms with WDS/SCCM - Network congestion, Before and After

• Image cleanup and optimization

§ What do you mean pushing out a 100GB+ image is insane?

• Tiff went from imaging mac labs to an exchange admin


That is Accurate

• MAC is not the same as Mac

• MAC Filtering and MAC randomization

• Side note: Game Boy is two words, not one.

• Lego versus Legos

• An insane way to pronounce Symantec 


Ask the Stiffs: Question of the Week

• What are some of your favorite free tools/utilities you use as a sysadmin?

○ Steve likes: VS Code, Windows Terminal, Everything, ShareX, RoboCopy, WinDirStat

○ My work computer -Tiff


Outro - "Plus Delta"

• We help you, you help us: Rate us on iTunes

• We're on Amazon Music

• Check out Steve's solo podcast (coming in October 2020 hopefully): Things Learned

Sep 24, 202001:04:22
HTH0027 - Don't Helicopter Daddy Me

HTH0027 - Don't Helicopter Daddy Me

Ignored Windows bugs, Apple vs Epic, updates and incidents across the Microsoft ecosystem, and Microsoft 365 E3 trials.


Extended show notes available at https://hthpc.com


Boot Up

    It's conference season! Register for VMWorld/Ignite/anything! They're all online!

    A modest list of bugs in Windows 10 that Steve submitted in the Feedback Hub that got ignored/no upvotes

    Slow finger touch response time on Surface Pro 6 vs pen/mouse

    Most files called "hosts" are removed by Windows Defender

    System tray context menus pop up under the taskbar in Task View

    Run box randomly won't remember history

    Action Center cannot intake large quantities of notifications

    Thoughts on Apple vs Epic Games


HTH Update Corner

    Ready the Bud Light Showtime Cam (not sponsored) - Teams NFL experiences

    Linux file systems accessible in Win10 Insider Build 20211

    Simplifying SSUs

    Grab a copy of 2004, before the next big FU!

    Touch-enabled File Explorer

    Exchange Security Updates Sep 2020

    CVE-2020-16875 for Exchange 2016/2019

    Teams "new conversation" button so that one coworker can stop making a new thread any time they want to reply


What did Microsoft hose this week?

    EX221227 - "Admins may be unable to migrate some mailboxes"

    Start time: 8/26/2020 7am UTC

    End time: 9/8/2020 5:27pm UTC

    Official Issue not posted until 5 days later…"Start time: August 31, 2020 6:38 PM"

    "Root cause: A recent service update to Exchange Online caused issues with migration requests."

    "We're reviewing our validation and update procedures to prevent issues like this from occurring in the future."

    "Approximately 1.6 percent of migrations encountered this issue, and admins can now resume their migrations or restart those that encountered a failure."

    TM221283 Users who are given control by a presenter during a Microsoft Teams meeting are unable to control the screen

    "Depending on how impact is presenting itself for your organization, there are workarounds available. If no mouse or keyboard actions are working, users may click on one of the side rail items (such as Chat, Teams or Calendar) and then return to the meeting screen to mitigate impact. If a user has issues controlling the top of the screen, the sharer needs to move the shared app (such as a web browser or the Outlook client) down 40 pixels to mitigate the impact."

    "We've determined that a recent service update is causing the problem."

    "Our telemetry suggests that approximately three percent of meetings may experience impact."


Setting up a Disposable O365 Training environment

    30 Day O365 E3 Trials

    Use cases: Demos, classes, need Office in a pinch

    Be sure to clean up PII afterwards


Outro - "Plus Delta"

    We help you, you help us: Rate us on iTunes


Sep 14, 202001:00:08
HTH0026 - Happy Monday On A Tuesday

HTH0026 - Happy Monday On A Tuesday

Teams August updates, EXOL external forwarding changes, Patch survey results, M365 E5/A5 licensing, SYDI, separating work data from personal data, squeaky lobster, and more!


Extended show notes available at https://hthpc.com

We had a few audio glitches, apologies for the quality variance.


Boot Up


    Ever want to feel better about your day? IT blunder permanently erases 145,000 users' personal chats in KPMG's Microsoft Teams deployment

    The name "KPMG" stands for "Klynveld Peat Marwick Goerdeler". It was chosen when KMG (Klynveld Main Goerdeler) merged with Peat Marwick in 1987.

    Original goal: remove one user from the retention policy

    What actually happened: "In the execution of this change, a human error was made and the policy was applied to the entire KPMG Teams deployment instead of the specific account"

    Patch survey results

    RE: Wine/Running Windows applications/games on non-Windows: Valve's Wine implementation on Linux is called Proton

    Teams August Updates


Forward March


    M365 External Email Forwarding changes

    Basically a follow-up HTH0010 and this

    Transport rule vs. anti-spam policies

    We are also moving to disable external forwarding by default so organizations are secure by default.



The World of E5


    So many new changes to the Security and Compliance Center

    Defender for Android (it's also coming to iOS)

    Best Practices



We Built this SYDI on Rock and Rollllll


    Use SYDI to document servers

    GitHub page

    Usage:

    cscript.exe 'C:\sydi\sydi-server-2.4\sydi-server.vbs'

    

    Also honorable mention to the AD Topology Diagrammer



Separating work from twerk

    Keeping work from personal endpoints

    When it's okay to use a personal machine

    Cloud-based stuff

    Non-VPN resources

    Keep internal network/on-prem to work-issued hardware

    If using a personal system: Don't download; Use web portals when able!

    The OneDrive debacle (syncing things to non-work systems)

    When does your personal system become a work asset?


That Is Accurate

    Squeaky lobster is the name of a toy lobster in an MS Exchange love story, and would forever change MS influence MS product development.


Ask the Stiffs: Question of the Week

    What is something you suck at as a sysadmin?

    Steve's perpetually bad at subnetting

    Tiff - anything networking (squee)


Outro - "Plus Delta"

We help you, you help us: Rate us on iTunes

    We do weddings, we do funerals, first communions, post-incident reviews

Sep 03, 202055:40
HTH0025 - Do The Roll-Up

HTH0025 - Do The Roll-Up

August Patch Tuesday review, Mozilla problems, Server 2012 Update issues/fixes, IE11 EoL, Teams bugs, Portable Exchange Servers, and a bevy of other topics!


Extended show notes available at https://hthpc.com


Boot up

○ Post-mortem on why HTH0024 was a bit shorter than other episodes (YouTube Music)

○ Dark clouds at Mozilla

○ Threat management team laid off

○ Mozilla to refocus on its own commercial products

○ Google contract extended

○ CORRECTION: Thunderbird isn't exactly a community-only project. Some things have also changed, Thunderbird was transferred to MZLA Technologies Corporation from the Mozilla Foundation.

○ CORRECTION/MINI THAT IS ACCURATE: Gmail Launched 4/1/2004.

○ August Patch Tuesday plop

○ Circle the wagons: CVE-2020-1472 | Netlogon Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability…especially bad if you have 2008 R2 as a DC. Extended support needed for the patch, otherwise you need to mitigate.

○ "It’s rare to see a Critical-rated elevation of privilege bug, but this one deserves it," said ZDI’S Dustin Childs. "What’s worse is that there is not a full fix available."

○ Win10 2004 no longer searches online for Drivers by default

○ Server 2012 update checking/service being bonkers lately

○ Bye-E11 - M365 no longer supports IE 8/17/21 HOPE YOU'RE READY!

○ Will MS have ported over IE-exclusive SharePoint features (WebDAV "Open in File Explorer" links?)

○ Teams in the browser / Teams rant

○ Inconsistent/buggy notifications in Firefox

○ Photos not showing - UserVoice

○ Tiff returns to the land of Macs.

○ macOS Catalina didn't learn from Vista


Exchange errors: Real or Fake?

○ Microsoft.Exchange.Data.Directory.SystemConfiguration.UnsupportedBrowser

○ Microsoft.Exchange.Data.Directory.SystemConfiguration.OverBudgetException

○ Microsoft.Exchange.Data.Directory.SystemConfiguration.OutOfMoneyException

○ Exchange 2019 System Requirements


Declassified Sysadmin Stories: Pocket Exchange

○ That time Steve built a portable Exchange 2010 server

○ Purpose: Teach people Outlook in a pre-cloud era at onsite trainings

○ Dell Latitude D630 running 2008 R2…4GB(?) RAM Core 2 Duo

○ (A later version was a newer Precision M4700 laptop and/or Thinkpad X201 running 2012 R2)

○ Server 2008 R2 Hyper-V VM running Exchange 2010

○ Exchange built according to a guide

○ Pre populate AD, users/mailboxes, and make fake sample content (e-mail, calendar events, etc) built to a Microsoft guideline

○ Server connected to a router, classroom laptops connect wirelessly (no internet access), static DNS manually set on laptops to point to router

○ Outlook configured on each laptop for a specific user

○ OOO wouldn’t work without massaging DNS/autodiscover, which needed manual fixing after restoring the snapshot every time (delete and re-add the autodiscover A record in DNS then bounce the DNS services)

○ A brief discussion on SPF, DKIM, and DMARC


That Is Accurate

○ The Netscape ISP home page is still up.

○ Various internet nostalgia


Ask the Stiffs: Question of the Week

○ What was the worst password you ever created

○ What was your first password? ;)

○ Various computer nostalgia


Outro - "Plus Delta"

We help you, you help us: Rate us on iTunes

Aug 23, 202053:06
HTH0024 - By Accidentally Good Enough

HTH0024 - By Accidentally Good Enough

Windows Admin Center corrections, Win7 being actively exploited, Robocopy is amazing, ITSM/ITIL escalation tips and tricks for Tier 1/2/3, and more!

Extended show notes available at https://hthpc.com/shownotes/HTH0024.html



Boot up


    WAC Corrections from HTH0020:

    You can successfully add a group to the local administrators now it seems. When adding a user, enter the group in the syntax of "domainname\groupname"

    Shared Connections pane now loads in Firefox it seems.

    Salty Teams Logs

    Patch KeePassRPC again - for additional protections (not as urgent)

    FBI: Get off Windows 7 - Exploits being used in the wild

    ...But who cares because there's Vulnerabilities Inside ™

    Maybe Apple knew this in advance and that's why they're moving to ARM…

    Discussion: Intel has really fallen behind in terms of progress

    MS has had enough of the App Store rules - xCloud has been denied


I


    Differentials

    Retries

    Works over spotty VPNs

    Logging

    Multithread options

    The /mir switch

    robocopy "C:\myfolder\thingtocopy" "D:\destfolder\thingtocopy" /mir /eta

    Why isn't this just default in the GUI? PowerToys?

    The Color Picker tool was recently added, so why not this too?


ITSM Escalation Do's and Don'ts:


    Don't:

    Escalate with no details

    Leave Illegible notes

    Leave too many useless notes (verbosity/extracurriculars/chat logs)

    Promise impossible things to the customer

    Escalate to a more expensive team if you can help it - "Minimize overall cost of support by resolving most issues with less costly resources and automation and filtering only the more complex issues to more expensive, less available support resources"

    Tie up Tier 3 IT and prevent them from working on capital projects/etc.

    Do:

    Ask the dumb questions, no matter how dumb

    Do the dumb things: Check the network, ping things

    Take screenshots

    Google it

    If you think it might need approval, seek it out

    Look good for promotion opportunities

    Check AD (you probably have read access), pull logs


That Is Accurate


    "ALASKA" is the only geographical state whose name can be typed on the keyboard using only one row. Not accurate for AZERTY or DVORAK though.


Ask the Stiffs: Question of the Week


    How do you organize your piles and piles of emails?

    CORRECTION: Exchange Rules Quota range is 32KB to 256KB

    Gmail labels vs Outlook categories vs Folders

    It's too bad Microsoft doesn't consistently support categories

Aug 12, 202043:48
HTH0023 - MMMMMMMBasic Authentication

HTH0023 - MMMMMMMBasic Authentication

Happy Sysadmin Appreciation Day (at the time of recording at least)! Chicago PowerShell conference recap, KeePass vulnerability, M365 Basic Auth options, iCloud Drive gets roasted, WFH eating habits, Windows Patching heart-to-heart, and lots more!


Extended show notes available at https://hthpc.com


Boot up

○ Risky Linux Google Search: "killall man"

○ Chicago PowerShell Conference reactions

○ "PowerShell 7 works with everything" wellllll kinda sorta….

○ Jeff Snover forgets to share his screen

○ VS Code PowerShell Notebook View - Sort of like JavaDoc?

○ PowerShellGet 3.0 / improvements to shell / "The rocket that is Visual Studio Code"

○ Function session

○ Should HTH do a conference?

○ Is there an easier way to tell who is presently in a Teams meeting?

○ Patch your KeePassRPC file now

○ M365/EXO: You can now easily enable/disable your crappy legacy auth!

• Windows 10 is Windows 5

○ Correction: Windows 7 was released 10/22/09, mainstream support indeed ended 1/14/20

• Let's rank the cloud providers - OneDrive/Dropbox/Google Drive/Box Sync/iCloud

○ iCloud Drive sucks, I gave it a chance and it flunked when I needed it most

§ Steve's KeePass database got messed up multiple times

§ Versioning is only really semi-there if you have a Mac

§ Web interface is unacceptable

§ Worse than every other cloud service, including Box Sync

§ Comparison: OneDrive treats you like a first class citizen on macOS, while iCloud Drive treats you with contempt on Windows.


Hope This Helps Your Diet

• Things to eat/drink while sysadmin-ing


Windows Updates are a headache

• What's your model for patching?

• Staying back one cycle seems to be a good practice

• Steve's experience in past jobs vs now (pre and post cumulative updates)

• The Case Against Knee-Jerk Patching

• Who is Susan Bradley? She keeps MS honest, and is the pulse of the patch community

○ RunAsRadio episode with Susan Bradley on Microsoft patch quality

○ Susan's open letter to MS in 2018 - Previous RunAs podcast about the same thing

○ Current example: Windows 10 2004 is a bit of a mess right now with 14 issues in "investigating" status. Compare it to 1909. Also reportedly causing issues with Office.

○ MS had to block Surfaces from getting 1803 (Source: above RunAs Radio episode), and now it's happening again with 2004

• Proper risk assessment is a sensible approach

○ If we don't patch, what is at risk? Can we mitigate? Do we need this patch?

○ If we do patch, what is at risk? Do we (+MS) know what could break?

○ Identifying undisclosed vulnerabilities by examining release notes/documentation


That Is Accurate

• The Firefox Logo is in fact not a fox. It is a Red Panda.


Ask the Stiffs: Question of the Week

• Do you prefer boring/informative server names or custom ones?

○ The case against names with spaces in them

○ "Macintosh HD" is a bad name for a hard drive


Outro - "Plus Delta"

• We help you, you help us: Rate us on iTunes

Aug 03, 202001:05:54
HTH0022 - After-Meeting Therapy

HTH0022 - After-Meeting Therapy

M365 Endpoint DLP, ransomware and data breaches, Teams UI complaints, MS Inspire highlights, tips to remember a coworker's name, Teams Jerk Mode, PowerShell break/exit discussion, and that time Steve had to perform an email migration OUT of the cloud.


Extended show notes available at https://hthpc.com


Boot up

○ Microsoft 365 Updated with New Security, Risk, Compliance Tools

○ Endpoint DLP and discussions on governance and legal

○ Writing scripts during the work day when working from home - who owns it?

○ Breaches

○ Garmin ransomwared by Evil Corp

○ Possibly unrelated, but NHPR and various universities using Blackbaud were also hit: "The security incident was far-reaching and involved a number of Blackbaud clients, including, universities, nonprofits, and other public media organizations."

○ Emo..what?

○ Remember LulzSec?

○ *Editor's note: For this topic, we were researching some of the facts live, a few awkward edits were made to cut out a few wrong assumptions

○ Why doesn't Teams just have a tabbed UI? Why does something I click take over the entire screen?

○ I feel inspired

○ A quick update on what happened this week at Microsoft Inspire

○ Azure Lighthouse is back from the dead?

○ The "After Meeting Experience" - this sounds dangerous




Hope This Helps Tip Of The Something

○ When you are a new sysadmin: Tricks to remember someone's name

○ Clarification: Yes you could check their Outlook, but what if they didn't have it? Also ethically questionable. You could also open Command Prompt and type "whoami" to get the username, or user PowerShell to run  get-aduser on that username to get the first/last name.

○ Make a typo in Teams in your chat? Hit the up arrow twice to fix your mistake

○ Teams Drunk/Jerk Mode

○ Microsoft AI could correct your mean Teams messages?




Steve Does PowerShell - Don't Go Breakin' My Heart

• The break (and exit) statement versus proceed flags (Booleans)

○ Correction: Break does not always kill a function; it may just quit out of a loop. It depends on the situation. Refer to MS Docs for details.




Declassified Sysadmin Stories: Cloud to Ground

• That one time Steve had to move an org out of O365

○ No O365 admin, all Outlook PST exports were manual

• AND build an Exchange 2013 Server from nothing within a month (eep)

○ Clear remnants of former decommissioned Exchange 2007 from environment first

○ Manipulate DNS to stop routing through O365

○ Use the same domain (how did this even work??)

○ Clear out a VMWare host to run the VM (15GB RAM free, ~1TB space)

○ DATABASE HOSTED ON EXTERNAL HARD DRIVE CONNECTED TO VMWARE HOST

• Spam and spoofing problems

○ Had basically no tools to stop this

○ Blocking certain types of attachments via transport rules

○ Built in Exchange malware scanning did almost nothing

○ Trial anti-spam software (Sophos PureMessage kind of worked, GFI MailEssentials sucked, GFY)




That Is Accurate

• Domain naming was free until 1995

○ https://mashable.com/2014/03/10/domain-names-history/




Ask the Stiffs: Question of the Week

• What would you include in a musical about sysadmins?

○ Numbers: "Please Advise," "Submit a Ticket," "We've Always Done It This Way"




Outro - "Plus Delta"

• We help you, you help us: Rate us on iTunes

• Website: https://hthpc.com

Jul 26, 202050:02
HTH0021 - Your DNS Is Showing

HTH0021 - Your DNS Is Showing

DNS CVE, how to avoid being a jerk of a sysadmin, anecdotes of PowerShell in Teams and Exchange, HP ProCurve nostalgia, and other random topics.

Extended show notes available at https://hthpc.com


Boot up (Random Topics)

    Teams notifications don’t adhere to Focus Assist

    Your DNS is showing, patch now

    Can be easily mitigated until patches can be applied. - PowerShell

    "The workaround is compatible with the security update. However, the registry modification will no longer be needed after the update is applied. Best practices dictate that registry modifications be removed when they are no longer needed to prevent potential future impact that could result from running a nonstandard configuration."

    Modern Auth and Unattended Scripts in Exchange Online PowerShell V2

    Dark Web Creds - Enable MFA

    The big Twitter breach of July 2020

    Outlook Outage

    Microsoft 365 Click-to-Run Current Channel – dating back to June 30’s Version 2006 Build 13001.2026

    Patch Management Mailing List

    CORRECTION: The mailing list is presently a Google Group

    Office 2013 Support EOL for M365

    Office Configuration Support Matrix



Don't be "that" Sysadmin

    Cool your jets at work

    Steve's patented "five minute reply rule"

        Inbox rules delaying sent messages

        In Outlook: "Apply this rule after I send the message: Defer delivery by 2 minutes"

        Wait before replying to IMs..you'll be amazed at how people solve their own problems

    Grammar and spelling is important. Do not skimp on this.

    Don't be a Dingus - DBaD

    Be objective

    Misc tips



Tiff breaks PowerShell

    Installing the Teams Preview Module…

    If the older version is installed, you may not be able to run any Teams CMDlet



“Unplanned Outage” (Sponsor section - "Hope this Helps is helped by…")

    Teams Smells - Smell your coworkers remotely


Off Topic

    People claiming to invent things

    People who ACTUALLY invent things

    A brief tangent about FIRST Robotics


USELESS OBSOLETE KNOWLEDGE YOU DIDN'T ASK FOR

    HP Procurve Switches - 2824 and 5406zl

    Lifetime warranties

    Random quirks - core switch needs reset after a while for random reasons

    2824 Web UI is Java only (with certain security settings disabled), password limit for 2824s is 15 characters max

    show tech all will output a ton of configuration information for HPE support.

    Connect via PuTTY with logging enabled to save it to a file.

    HP ProCurve is now known as HP Networking.


That Is Accurate

    PowerShell's original name was Monad. Exchange 2007 was one of the first products to really take advantage of it.


Ask the Stiffs: Question of the Week

    Do you listen to music while working? With lyrics or without?

Jul 18, 202051:58
HTH0020 - Attention Deficit ATP

HTH0020 - Attention Deficit ATP

Defender ATP web content filtering, HEVC codec security issues, critical F5 vulnerability, Newly announced Teams features, WTF is Docker Compose, Logic Apps, Windows Admin Center frustrations, PowerShell fixes, and more.

Extended show notes available at https://hthpc.com

Boot-Up (Random topics)

○ Web content filtering with Microsoft Defender ATP now in public preview

○ What the HEVC?

○ CVE-2020-1425 | Microsoft Windows Codecs Library Remote Code Execution Vulnerability

○ CLARIFICATION: HEVC is not related to the iOS file format HEIC.

○ What The F5? No seriously if you have an F5 device you need to stop reading this and patch

○ US considering banning TikTok

    ○ https://venturebeat.com/2020/07/07/u-s-is-probing-allegations-tiktok-violated-childrens-privacy/


Teams!

○ Teams Announcements - Together Mode!

○ Examining network issues with Teams at the client side - MS Docs - Pulling Logs

○ Complaints about notifications, pop-out, etc.


Dock it and Pull It

• Docker Compose

• Examples: Plex, QBitTorrent, FileBrowser, Minecraft, httpd

• Why do we care? IaC / Azure / etc

• Docker and Kubernetes comparisons


What the P-P-P-PowerApp?

• PowerShell vs Power Automate vs Logic Apps

• https://powerofpowerplatform.com/power-automate-vs-azure-logic-apps/


That's WAC

• Gripe about Windows Admin Center for a bit

• "Never RDP into a server again"

• Firefox support is iffy

• FOLLOW-UP : Shared Connections seems to work in Firefox as of WAC 1910.2.

• Slow load times

• Can't connect to servers in batches

• Credential management is annoying: "To perform a single sign-in using your Windows account, you might need to set up Kerberos constrained delegation."

• Tabbed UI when?

• Local groups management not possible?

• Scheduled tasks (no import options?) etc

• CORRECTION: WAC updates more then semi-annually



Steve Does PowerShell

• What to do if you can't update modules

• Unable to resolve package source 'https://www.powershellgallery.com/api/v2'

• TLS 1.0 could be the culprit. You can run this per-user command to fix it:

• [Net.ServicePointManager]::SecurityProtocol = [Net.SecurityProtocolType]::Tls12

• Source


That Is Accurate

• Email existed before the world wide web


Ask the Stiffs: Question of the Week

• If you could bring one technology back what would it be?


Outro - "Plus Delta"

• We help you, you help us: Rate us on iTunes


Jul 11, 202055:54
HTH0019 - I Can't Promise That I Care

HTH0019 - I Can't Promise That I Care

Jul 04, 202049:23
HTH0018 - Don't Go JSON Waterfalls

HTH0018 - Don't Go JSON Waterfalls

Windows Clipboard bugs, EXO cmdlets go GA, facial recognition, MFA, Zune stuff, JSON in Windows Terminal, Sarbanes Oxley Audits, and some AD permission tricks. Extended show notes available at https://hthpc.com/

*Apologies in advance, in this episode there may be minor audio desyncing*


Boot-Up (Intro…random topics)

It's-a me, MFArio!
State of the Zunion
  • Follow-up on Zune video converter - Anvsoft Any Video Converter has presets for converting to the correct video formats for Zune. Was  also able to get a working MediaCoder preset for the Zune 80 and Zune HD  at least.

Don't Go JSON Waterfalls - Running Windows Terminal as another user
  • GitHub Issue
  • I found a workaround for this by running the application as-is,  and then just modifying the JSON config file to include entries to spawn  PowerShell sessions as another user. Note that this will not get the  new session to run a new tab, rather, it will launch a new window. It  DOES work however as available drop-down options. Would be nice to see  this baked into the application where instead of opening a new window,  it will just open in-place as a new tab instead.

“Unplanned Outage” (Sponsor section - "Hope this Helps is helped by…")
  • Next Generation IoT
  • Google Home with Poop Mode
  • Apple's new outdoor expansion: GnomePod
  • Amazon Home Fire

Don't forget to wash your sox
Configuring multiple managers of a single AD group
  • "Managed by" only lets you configure a single user as a manager, no groups.
  • Workaround via "write member" ACLs or Add-ADPermission
  • On the ACL, configure the principal, set it to "Allow" "This object only," ensuring only "write members" is checked.


Jun 16, 202053:48
HTH0017 - Party Like It's 2004

HTH0017 - Party Like It's 2004

WinGet, Win10 2004, Teams Only Mode, MS Stream, PowerShell variety hour, PowerToys is awesome, Randomware and FSRM lecture, and rejected Azure product ideas. Extended show notes available at https://hthpc.com/


Boot-Up (Intro…random topics)

The Isle of Teams
  • Microsoft Migrating Tenants      to Teams Only Mode
  • Microsoft Video being retired      in favor of Microsoft Stream
  • The difference between Island      Mode and Teams Only Mode

Steve does PowerShell
  • Large amounts of data in an      array
  • Out-GridView
  • Clip
  • VS Code Regex
    • Blank Lines
    • Finding Email addresses
    • Character sequences
    • Quickly converting a list       into a PowerShell Array

PowerToys Spotlight
  • Power Rename
  • Windows Key Shortcut Guide
  • PowerToys Run

Ransomware Protection: Controlled Folder Access and FSRM
  • CFA is best for client-side      protection (Win10 1709 and up)
  • CFA can be overly annoying at      first, whitelisting is recommended
  • CFA hooks into Defender ATP
  • CFA has PowerShell      whitelisting and enabling/disabling (or via GPO)

Computer configuration -> Administrative templates> Windows components. Next click Windows Defender Antivirus > Windows Defender Exploit Guard > Controlled folder access. There are 3 settings available.

  • More info on CFA
  • FSRM is best for server-side      file share protection
  • More info on FSRM
  • FSRM setup script tailored      towards blocking ransomware - Link

Ask the Stiffs: Question of the Week
  • What do you think are      rejected Azure product ideas?

Azure Scoreboard

Azure Beach Sand Counter AI

Azure Lego piece color distribution

Azure ARM Template for Hannah Montana Linux


Outro - "Plus Delta"
Jun 01, 202057:16
HTH0016 - Pile o' Dongles

HTH0016 - Pile o' Dongles

Governance of Teams meeting wallpaper, Exchange Online PowerShell connection timeouts, M365 sensitivity labels, VS Code updates, M365 reliability, Azure DevOps, Stream, and far more things than a synopsis can do justice.

Extended show notes available at https://hthpc.com/

Boot-Up (Intro…random topics)

• Minecraft in the Enterprise

○ Correction: Microsoft bought Mojang in 2014, not 2016/2017.

• Johnny Gilbert and game shows

• Searched "zoom jpeg mouth" on F***F***Go - Steve got inappropriate page results

○ The thing we were actually trying to find was Avatarify

• Teams Background Governance

• https://microsoftteams.uservoice.com/forums/555103-public/suggestions/35000044-introduce-breakout-room-functionality  - Vote for breakout rooms

• What the Auth: EXOPM v2 reconnects via Basic Auth after a timeout? Steve is asking MS for clarification.

• Things Teams does better than Zoom and vice versa

• The Sony WH-1000X M3 headset

• Let's get sensitive: https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/t5/security-privacy-and-compliance/announcing-general-availability-of-sensitivity-labels-with/ba-p/1356224

• Weathering the Reply-All storm: https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/t5/exchange-team-blog/reply-all-storm-protection-in-exchange-online/ba-p/1369811

• VS Code 1.45 Update: https://code.visualstudio.com/updates/v1_45

• Why is Exchange Online/M365 breaking so much? https://www.reddit.com/r/Office365/comments/gj3pm8/exchange_online_outage_ex212990/


Azure DevOps

• Transferring in from GitHub

• Structuring projects/repos

• Permissions and Governance


Screaming Over Stream

• Why does Microsoft make the recording functionality so unbearably complicated https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoftteams/cloud-recording


Doublespeak in Tech 

• Phrasing that tech companies use that really could mean just about anything and confuse the heck out of everyone


They rearranged the deck chairs in Outlook and I don't like it

• Search bar moved to title bar area, dropdown for filters hidden until clicked

• Inline reply: Pop Out / Discard buttons swapped

• Ribbon has been condensed / Some items have been relocated to inline reply only (Forward as attachment/Call/Reply with IM/Meeting)


Ask the Stiffs: Question of the Week

• What is your favorite dongle?


Outro - "Plus Delta"

• We help you, you help us: Rate us on iTunes

• Website: https://hthpc.com

May 17, 202057:59
HTH0015 - Your Box Is Your Business

HTH0015 - Your Box Is Your Business

Zune video conversion in 2020, Azure ARM templates, Kubernetes, Windows Terminal, Mozilla Firefox security, SMTP authentication, Exchange Online PowerShell Module v2 stuff, and more!

Extended show notes available at https://hthpc.com/


Boot-Up (Intro…random topics)

• Clarification about Docker, it is not owned by Microsoft (yet?), they are just in a partnership. 

○ https://www.docker.com/partners/microsoft

○ https://www.techrepublic.com/article/why-suggesting-that-microsoft-buy-docker-is-crazy-talk/

○ However, Microsoft DID buy Deis: https://techcrunch.com/2017/04/10/microsoft-acquires-container-platform-deis/

• Zoom, using Oracle - https://www.zdnet.com/article/zoom-deploys-its-core-videoconferencing-service-on-oracle-cloud

• Y’know what annoys me? Sites with lax password complexity requirements

• Annoying Windows Bug of the Week: Run box randomly won't remember history

• Skype for Business to Teams calendar bugs / Dual meeting room bugs

• Grappling with Zune HD Handbrake conversion settings. Possible alternatives (untested): http://www.mediacoderhq.com/dlfull.htm or https://nodadev.wordpress.com/pc-projects/ipodme/

• I mean half of the services broke this week, so it makes sense to me!

○ https://www.theverge.com/2020/4/29/21241972/microsoft-teams-75-million-daily-active-users-stats


The Long ARM of the Cloud / I Can Hardly Contain My Excitement

• Azure ARM templates, deploying via PowerShell or Azure CLI

• Steve thinks the CLI is simpler than the Web UI

• AKS (Kubernetes) in Azure

• Docker in Azure

• Blob Storage


This Guy Terminals

• Windows Terminal

• Extendibility

• JSON settings - C:\Users\person\AppData\Local\Packages\Microsoft.WindowsTerminal_8wekyb3d8bbwe\LocalState\settings.json

• Critical missing features:

○ Run as different user

○ CTRL Shift Scroll for transparency

How to Secure Your Mozzarella FoxFire

• Why do this?

• Firefox Container Tabs - https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/questions/1201060

• Firefox Multi-Account Containers - https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/multi-account-containers/

• Temporary Containers - https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/temporary-containers/

○ Enable "Automatic Mode" for best results

• Cookie Auto-Delete - https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/cookie-autodelete/

○ "Enable Support for Firefox's Container Tabs" for best results

• uBlock Origin - https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/ublock-origin/

• NoScript only if you're really paranoid - https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/noscript/?src=search

• Disable Homograph: network.IDN_show_punycode = true

○ Or you can use the No Homo-Graph extension: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/no-homo/

Shut your... Box (Inbox that is)

• The option now exists to disable SMTP Auth inside of tenants

○ https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/t5/exchange-team-blog/securing-authenticated-smtp-in-exchange-online/ba-p/1293154

• It seems like the Exchange Online PowerShell Module V2 times out very quickly and requires you to fully close/relaunch PowerShell if you want to reload it.

• Email security is now more important than ever!

○ https://www.infosecurity-magazine.com/opinions/re-thinking-email-security/

Ask the Stiffs: Question of the Week

• Are you using ARM Templates? What cool things are you doing with them in your deployments?

Outro - "Plus Delta"

• We help you, you help us: Rate us on iTunes

May 02, 202001:07:28
HTH0014 - Back That aaS Up

HTH0014 - Back That aaS Up

MFA (again), PowerShell folding@home support, using a Zune 80 without a working screen, Minecraft on Raspberry Pi, probing your network with TCPDump, Teams (again??), and firewalling with iptables.

Extended show notes available at https://hthpc.com/

Boot-Up (Intro…random topics) 00:17

• Combined MFA and Password Reset Registration Now Available: https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/t5/azure-active-directory-identity/combined-mfa-and-password-reset-registration-is-now-generally/ba-p/1257355

• PowerShell Folding: https://www.zdnet.com/article/microsoft-this-windows-10-powershell-script-lets-you-securely-fight-coronavirus-with-foldinghome/

• Dumb Windows bug of the week: If you have too many notifications, you'll stop getting notifications

• State of the Zunion: Steve reviews two Zune AV docks

• Zune 80 Menu Tree if you have a broken screen and need to use it blind:

○ Music

○ Videos

○ Pictures

○ Social

○ Radio

○ Podcasts

○ Settings

§ Wireless

□ Wireless: on

□ sync now

□ Information

□ presence: basic

§ Display

□ backlight: 15 seconds

□  brightness: medium

□ tv out: off

□ Background

§ Music

§ Pictures

§ Sounds: on

§ Touch: off

§ Radio

§ Language

§ about

• O365 Groups to M365 Groups: https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/t5/microsoft-365-blog/office-365-groups-will-become-microsoft-365-groups/ba-p/1303601


Pinecraft 24:07

• Docker Minecraft Server

• Correction: The best Raspberry Pi 4B has 4GB RAM, not 2GB.

• Porting in worlds and swapping them out

• The guide Steve used to set it up: https://dbtechreviews.com/2020/03/how-to-install-a-minecraft-server-on-openmediavault-5/

• docker start minecraft

• docker stop minecraft


Taking a Huge TCPDump 31:43

• Bandwidth issues with CSGO/meetings, but CSGO is the bigger issue

• Ran TCPDump on the router to find the largest packets and try to figure out what is going on

• tcpdump -n -i eth1 -t greater 1000 -c 200 | cut -f 1,2,3,4 -d '.' | sort | uniq -c | sort -nr | head -n 20

• QoS in DD-WRT to play traffic cop


Team up with Teams 35:38

• Breakout Rooms

• Private Channels create new Site Collections

• Raise hands in Teams meetings https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-365/roadmap?filters=Microsoft%20Teams

• Closed Captioning

• Live Translation

• SLAs for changes

○ Policies taking up to 48 hours


I Pee Tables 45:20

• Identifying/Blocking IPs with iptables on DD-WRT

• DD-WRT iptables: temporary vs permanent based on NVRAM

• Check if an IP is blacklisted: https://mxtoolbox.com/SuperTool.aspx

• Found a GitHub for automatic blocking, compatible with iptables: https://github.com/stamparm/ipsum

• for ip in $(curl --compressed https://raw.githubusercontent.com/stamparm/ipsum/master/ipsum.txt 2>/dev/null | grep -v "#" | grep -v -E "\s[1-2]$" | cut -f 1); do iptables -I INPUT -s $ip -j -n DROP; done


Ask the Stiffs: Question of the Week 51:16

• What is something new you want to learn?


Outro - "Plus Delta" 53:02

• We help you, you help us: Rate us on iTunes

• Website: https://hthpc.com

Apr 22, 202054:28
HTH0013 - Thanks Chad

HTH0013 - Thanks Chad

MFA and PowerShell, MSOL goes down, Microsoft Graph in PowerShell, COBOL sysadmins are in demand, Raspberry Pi stuff, Teams (again! I know!), and a whole lot more.

Extended show notes available at https://hthpc.com/

Boot-Up (Intro…random topics) 00:18 

• Correction: The Ascension happens on the 40th day of Easter, not the 12th.

• Join Team SNHU (ID 209894) for folding@home

• Steve installed Wine on Peppermint OS 10 Respin (based on Ubuntu 18.04 LTS), which required extra legwork to resolve dependency errors

• MFA is tricky for some Powershell cmdlets

• MSOL aka Microsoft SOL

○ "On the first day, when the impact was most severe, we didn’t acknowledge the incident for approximately five hours, which is substantially worse than our target of 10 minutes. This lack of acknowledgement leads to frustration and confusion, and we apologize for that as well." --Chad

• MS Graph PowerShell, I wish I could test it more

• Why does iOS come up with a "$appname has been using your location x times in the background, do you want to allow this?" and then it immediately disappears?

• Twitter went off the deep end regarding privacy

• Firefox makes a controversial change to its address bar

• COBOL --- but why?


Raspberry 3.141592654 26:56

• Updating Plex container

• Remote access: OpenVPN - container vs plugin?

○ Container requires DDNS

○ Plugin isn't a container and who knows how long it'll be supported

• Backup strategies - Rsync, SyncBack, robocopy, OMV backup plugin for OS


"Unplanned Outage" (Sponsor section - "Hope this Helps is helped by…") 33:13

• Snow Cloud... only we can make cloud migrations a downhill event


Teams Facelift 34:10

• New Features in Teams

• PSA: Evict Skype


Other Stuff 50:28

• Exchange FindTime

• (Editor's note - this feature is available in Google Calendar, it might be why they're pushing it)


Ask the Stiffs: Question of the Week 56:10

• What is the best Zoom or Teams custom background to date?


Outro - "Plus Delta" 59:12

• We help you, you help us: Rate us on iTunes

Apr 15, 202059:59
HTH0012 - I Now Fit Into Society

HTH0012 - I Now Fit Into Society

COVID changes the tech world, macOS Catalina is awful, Zoom has miserable security issues, O365 is now M365, Teams updates (again), and a whole lot more! Extended show notes available at https://hthpc.com/

Boot-Up (Intro…random topics) 00:18

• WFH killed Steve's router, got a new one (NetGear r7800 with DD-WRT custom firmware)

• Wear a green shirt in video meetings and use the background feature to change your shirt color

• Bing for a cure: https://www.bing.com/give/dashboard

• Ignite be digital: https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/ignite

• New PowerShell thing that isn't fully baked yet: https://devblogs.microsoft.com/powershell/introducing-consoleguitools-preview/

• Microsoft Extends the EOL date for Basic Authentication: https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/t5/exchange-team-blog/basic-authentication-and-exchange-online-april-2020-update/ba-p/1275508


Catalina Sucks 21:38

• It seems MacOS Catalina (older versions seem fine..) has issues with WPA3.

• Acceptable auth (DD-WRT settings): WPA2 Personal with CCMP-128 (AES), CCMP-256, GCMP, or GCMP-256.

• Selecting "WPA2 with SHA256" or "WPA3 Personal / SAE" = No wifi for you (on Catalina)

• Scorched Earth: Steve filed Feedback and a bug report to Apple


OK Zoomer 26:15

• So many security flaws and shady behavior: https://tidbits.com/2020/04/03/every-zoom-security-and-privacy-flaw-so-far-and-what-you-can-do-to-protect-yourself/

○ Professional Zoom-bombers

○ 2 new macOS vulnerabilities…patched now: https://threatpost.com/two-zoom-zero-day-flaws-uncovered/154337/

○ Encryption "not suited for secrets" https://citizenlab.ca/2020/04/move-fast-roll-your-own-crypto-a-quick-look-at-the-confidentiality-of-zoom-meetings/

○ Zoom calls went through China: https://techcrunch.com/2020/04/03/zoom-calls-routed-china/

• Trust not earned: Elon Musk bans Zoom: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-spacex-zoom-video-commn/elon-musks-spacex-bans-zoom-over-privacy-concerns-memo-idUSKBN21J71H "Please use email, text or phone as alternate means of communication."


“Unplanned Outage” (Sponsor section - "Hope this Helps is helped by…") 34:25

• Bowel MoVeMenT

• Answering conference calls in the bathroom


M is the new O 36:48

• Teams updates

• Office 365 is now Microsoft 365 after April 21: https://news.yahoo.com/microsoft-365-teams-consumers-160745338.html

• "Don't worry-you don't need to do a thing. Your product services, apps, and features will stay the same, along with the price. Your subscription name will update automatically in the admin center and your monthly billing statements on or after April 21, 2020."

• Office 365 ProPlus is now Microsoft 365 Apps for enterprise: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/deployoffice/name-change

• Follow-up: Before O365, it was known as Microsoft Business Productivity Online Suite (BPOS)


Ask the Stiffs: Question of the Week 40:28

• What are some of the last minute changes that are being implemented to improve security to protect your environment?


Outro - "Plus Delta"

• We help you, you help us: Rate us on iTunes

• Reddit: https://reddit.com/r/hopethishelpspodcast

Apr 06, 202048:56
HTH0011 - Half Of You Aren't Wearing Pants

HTH0011 - Half Of You Aren't Wearing Pants

iPad tries to catch up to Surface, Adobe security flaws, Azure can't handle COVID, HTH gets a website, PowerShell modules, remote meeting madness, and the worst places to have a server closet.

Extended show notes available at https://hthpc.com/

Producer: Jen Abis

Boot-Up (Intro…random topics) 00:18
No Sleep / HTH Website Launch 27:38 Steve Does PowerShell 37:02
  • Making PowerShell Modules
“Unplanned Outage” (Sponsor section - "Hope this Helps is helped by…") 41:49
  • SwearSpace
Worst places to have a server/wiring closet 42:38
  • Women's bathroom
  • Laundry Chute
  • Asbestos-Laden Closet
  • Dorm Basement Laundry room
Video Ga Ga - Remote Meeting Shenanigans 48:34
  • Teams video chat sucks with      >4 people
  • RingCentral Meetings (Zoom)      is great…when it works
  • ASMR meetings
  • Other solutions?
  • Crazy outfits
  • Intro videos like Gronk's
  • Out-mic your coworkers
  • Video chat happy hour
  • If you don't want to clog the      audio waves in a meeting: Gestures
  • Work Minecraft server
Ask the Stiffs: Question of the Week 1:00:16
  • How are you coping with the      loss of listening to podcasts in the car?
Outro - "Plus Delta” 1:00:19
  • Twitter: @HTHThePodcast
  • We help you, you help us:      Rate us on iTunes
  • https://hthpc.com ---> IT'S HERE
Mar 28, 202001:21:09
HTH0010 - I Need More Wipes

HTH0010 - I Need More Wipes

Bill Gates is gone from MS, Folding@Home, blocking external email forwarding, SMBv3, working from home, and Power Automate isn't Power AutoGreat. Also Raspberry Pi things.

Extended show notes available at https://hthpc.com/


Boot-Up (Intro…random topics) 00:16

• Bye Bye Bill: https://news.microsoft.com/2020/03/13/microsoft-announces-change-to-its-board-of-directors/

• Hue Make Me Wanna SHOUT (End of Life!)…. https://www.techhive.com/article/3531510/first-gen-philips-hue-bridges-will-lose-support-next-month.html#tk.rss_all

• Fold at home for Covid research: https://www.gamesradar.com/nvidias-calling-on-gaming-pc-owners-to-put-their-systems-to-work-fighting-covid-19/ and https://foldingathome.org/start-folding/


In this case don't move forward 15:49

• Great ways to protect tenant

• https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/t5/exchange-team-blog/the-many-ways-to-block-automatic-email-forwarding-in-exchange/ba-p/607579


Dancing a Samba 19:50

• SMBv3 security patch for certain Server OSes: https://portal.msrc.microsoft.com/en-US/security-guidance/advisory/ADV200005 1903 and 1909


WFH WTF 24:38

• Working from home is not a bad thing

• Work from Car

• Ways to WFH like a champ


Power Autohate 37:54

• What was wrong with PowerShell?


Let's get NASty / Happy Pi Day 43:30

• Steve bakes a Raspberry Pi NAS or two


Outro - "Plus Delta” 51:17

• Twitter: @HTHThePodcast

• We help you, you help us: Rate us on iTunes

• HTHPC.COM ---> COMING SOON

• Facebook Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/268339020812998/

• You can watch the raw/unedited feed of the podcast at https://www.twitch.tv/hopethishelps

Mar 16, 202054:02
HTH0009 - We Went to BurgerTown Today

HTH0009 - We Went to BurgerTown Today

PowerShell 7 is out, we love Out-GridView, Microsoft DNS had a gaping security hole, Exchange Online PowerShell, Microsoft Graph, and a whole lot more.

Extended show notes available at https://hthpc.com/

Boot-Up (Intro…random topics) 00:16 

• Raccoons and wildlife 

• Various podcast housekeeping items 

• Facebook, Twitter, Bathroom Magazines 

• Ways to remove blue light from your life 

• PowerShell 7 is officially out: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/powershell/scripting/whats-new/what-s-new-in-powershell-70?view=powershell-7 

• Out-GridView is the best 

• You can now update your user info, change your password, and more in the authenticator app https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/t5/azure-active-directory-identity/update-to-the-microsoft-authenticator-app-now-rolling-out/ba-p/1169863 

• The Coronation ceremony: Microsoft Teams Giving Away Paid Features for Six Months Due to Coronavirus https://www.thurrott.com/microsoft/231376/microsoft-teams-giving-away-paid-features-for-six-months-due-to-coronavirus 

• Wash your hands, work from home, be sensible about COVID-19 please! PPE! 

• Free Microsoft domains (patched now): https://www.darkreading.com/vulnerabilities---threats/researchers-find-670+-microsoft-subdomains-vulnerable-to-takeover/d/d-id/1337246?_mc=rss_x_drr_edt_aud_dr_x_x-rss-simple • Writing documentation: Mostly screenshots or purely text? 

• VSCode ISE Experience: https://devblogs.microsoft.com/powershell/visual-studio-code-for-powershell-7/ 

• Copying and pasting code from ISE/the internet is dangerous due to quotes/character encoding

Exchange Online PowerShell Module V2 (EXOPMv2) 28:20 

• FOLLOW-UP FROM LAST WEEK: Connect-ExchangeOnline DOES support prefixing, there is a command switch. It was just not documented on the official page: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/powershell/module/exchange/powershell-v2-module/connect-exchangeonline?view=exchange-ps • However, note that the new get-EXO commands are NOT prefixed, regardless. 

• Doesn't work in PowerShell 6 or 7, only 5.1 and below: https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/t5/exchange-team-blog/faster-and-more-reliable-exchange-online-management-using/ba-p/1198604 

• https://www.petri.com/exchange-online-powershell-goes-restful

Help needs Help 38:10 

• https://old.reddit.com/r/PowerShell/comments/fcjkip/multiple_years_of_microsofts_broken_powershell/ 

• Correct syntax: "powershell Update-Help -Verbose -Force -ErrorAction SilentlyContinue"

Graph: Where do I draw the line? 39:40 

• Graph PowerShell SDK Preview: https://github.com/microsoftgraph/msgraph-sdk-powershell/tree/dev/samples

Variety Hour 42:20 

• Unsecured LDAP calls 

• The Basic Authpocalypse: MFA/Modern Auth/End of Basic Auth = no more Office 2010 or ActiveSync for you 

• ActiveSync on Palm OS, it was a thing once: https://kb.iu.edu/d/atjx 

• Microsoft Endpoint Manager and SCCM: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q9Bc2_eJozM 

• If you have Intune licensing, you have SCCM licensing: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/intune/fundamentals/licenses 

An update on Steve's Pentium 4 Linux adventures 49:26 

• Swapped to Peppermint OS for one system with the dual monitor bug 

• Raspberry Pi NAS project starting soon

More Variety Hour 56:18 

• Yu-Gi-Oh 

• Anime 

• 90s Nickelodeon 

• Rumble Pak 

• Forwarding topic being deferred to HTH0010

Ask the Stiffs: Question of the Week 01:03:12 • Do you have any funny "war stories" from jobs' past?

Outro - "Plus Delta" 01:07:10

Mar 10, 202001:10:02
HTH0008 - A Replacement Rug

HTH0008 - A Replacement Rug

GitHub Desktop isn't multi-user, Cortana is being slowly dismantled, Microsoft certifications are changing, Basic Auth extravaganza, new Teams features, PowerShell advanced functions, and SCCM for dummies. #teamGIF

Extended show notes available at https://hthpc.com/

Boot-Up (Intro…random topics) 00:18

• DNS over HTTPS live in Firefox: https://blog.mozilla.org/blog/2020/02/25/firefox-continues-push-to-bring-dns-over-https-by-default-for-us-users/

• GitHub Desktop does not support multiple accounts, but you CAN run multiple instances of it with "run as different user" in Windows!

• CortanaVirus: "We've tightened access to Cortana so that you must be securely logged in with your work or school account or your Microsoft account before using Cortana, and some consumer skills including music, connected home and third-party skills will no longer be available in the updated Cortana experience in Windows 10."  https://blogs.windows.com/windowsexperience/2020/02/28/cortana-in-the-upcoming-windows-10-release-focused-on-your-productivity-with-enhanced-security-and-privacy/

• Some MS Certs are going away: https://www.petri.com/microsoft-is-retiring-several-popular-certifications?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=microsoft-is-retiring-several-popular-certifications

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/learn/

Into the (Basic) Authknowwwwwwwwn (UGH GOD WHY) 13:36

• Basic Auth Going Bye-Bye, along with the old PowerShell method of connecting to EXOL 🙁 

• Basic Auth ruined my life.. Because in order to get all of the devices I have to learn something new

• https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/t5/exchange-team-blog/basic-auth-and-exchange-online-february-2020-update/ba-p/1191282#

• "We’re still working hard on the code, have some customers working on this with us already, and will have more to say on this in the next couple of months. Please be patient, we know many of you are desperate to get your hands on something that works, we’re working really hard to deliver that to you."

• New Module: Install-Module -Name ExchangeOnlineManagement

• No PSSession aliasing support in the new module…EXOP/EXOL sessions might not be easily possible without having to alias on-premise session instead?


Let's be TEAMSmates 27:19

• New Team's Features, such as Outlook Integration 

• Oh, and you know an Org wide Team being created for any org smaller than 5k

• https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/t5/microsoft-teams-blog/what-s-new-in-microsoft-teams-february-2020/ba-p/1199785

Play that Function Music White Boy 35:49 

• Let's discuss PowerShell Advanced Functions!


Steve SCCMs You A New One 43:10

• Let's lightly discuss SCCM (MemCM) Applications, detection methods, deploying, updating, etc.


Ask the Stiffs: Question of the Week 49:42 

• Are you Team gif or Team Jiff? Team Jpeg or Team Gheypeg? Pee Enn Gee or Pee En Ghee?


Outro - "Plus Delta”52:42

• Twitter: @HTHThePodcast

• We help you, you help us: Rate us on iTunes

• Facebook Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/268339020812998/

• You can watch the raw/unedited feed of the podcast at https://www.twitch.tv/hopethishelps

Mar 03, 202053:54
HTH0007 - Gartner Satanic Pentagram

HTH0007 - Gartner Satanic Pentagram

We talk about Defender ATP's expansion, Exchange retention policies, O365 licensing and compromised accounts, O365 Exchange recipient limits, and more.

Extended show notes available at https://hthpc.com/

Boot-Up (Intro…random topics)  00:12

• Ring 2FA: https://www.engadget.com/2020/02/18/ring-requires-two-factor-authentication/

• Microsoft is bringing Defender ATP to Linux, iOS and Android

https://www.theverge.com/2020/2/20/21145388/microsoft-antivirus-ios-android-apps-software-defender-security-malware

• A brief tangent about Wine on Linux


Retention Intervention 9:23

-Exchange MRM VS. Retention Tag Vs. Retention

-Global Retention and retention tagging

-Why do I need this?


Mailboxes:

Suggests using Litigation hold or retention polices

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-365/compliance/inactive-mailboxes-in-office-365

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-365/compliance/create-and-manage-inactive-mailboxes


OneDrive:

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/onedrive/retention-and-deletion


O365:

Retention Policies and Retention Tags

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-365/compliance/retention-policies.


Teams and Sharepoint


Limitations to Retention Policies


O365 License Recycling and Management 24:30

• https://github.com/AaronDinnage/Licensing


O365 Compromised Accounts 31:30

• https://www.reddit.com/r/Office365/comments/f2jkzv/office_365_hack_what_they_did_and_how_to_stop_them/

• Enable 2FA!

○ Do not use SMS based 2FA, listen to this story: https://gimletmedia.com/shows/reply-all/v4he6k/

○ CORRECTION: The episode was from Reply All, not This Is Uncomfortable (still worth listening to though)

• Separate on prem admin accounts


“Unplanned Outage” (Sponsor section - "Hope this Helps is helped by…") 39:38

• The Cutting Edge - Bleeding Where It Doesn't Matter


O365 Exchange Recipient Limits 40:45

• They have finally come to Exchange Online after a strange absence

• https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/t5/exchange-team-blog/customizable-recipient-limits-in-office-365/ba-p/1183228#.Xk2tqMyqnPU.twitter


Ask the Stiffs: Question of the Week 43:35

• What kind of IT Instagram Influencer are you?


Outro - "Plus Delta”48:04

• Twitter: @HTHThePodcast

• We help you, you help us: Rate us on iTunes

• Facebook Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/268339020812998/

• You can watch the raw/unedited feed of the podcast at https://www.twitch.tv/hopethishelps

Feb 26, 202049:18
HTH0006 - Don't Put The Egg Back In The Chicken

HTH0006 - Don't Put The Egg Back In The Chicken

Update on the "Bing in Chrome" controversy, Yammer is still a thing, Phillips Hue patching, Teams growing pains, Windows 10's start menu bites the big one, Apple grievances, PowerShell learning, and more.

Extended show notes available at https://hthpc.com/

Boot-Up (Intro…random topics) 00:15

• Some guy thinks Steve's Gmail is his and orders things on costco.com

• Steve gets the receipts and notifications.

• Patch your Philips Hue

• https://www.darkreading.com/iot/researchers-reveal-how-smart-lightbulbs-can-be-hacked-to-attack/d/d-id/1336993

• https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2020-6007

• Bug in the Zigbee protocol via the Philips Hue Bridge

• Microsoft caves on Bing in Chrome: https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/t5/office-365-blog/update-to-microsoft-search-in-bing-through-office-365-proplus/ba-p/1161030

• Tiff got into a Twitter “argument” with Tony Redmond

• You can now Yammer via OWA (Yammer still exists?)

• Teams multi channel posting and OWA integration

• Teams growing pains

• Teams Outage – Forgotten renewed cert https://twitter.com/MSFT365Status/status/1224336575036870656

• O365 portal outage https://old.reddit.com/r/sysadmin/comments/f3b6qz/365_admin_portal_down/


The Windows 10 Start Menu Search breaks 19:18

• https://old.reddit.com/r/sysadmin/comments/ez92x0/windows_10_no_results_in_search_window/

• https://twitter.com/MSFT365Status/status/1225095567153352704?s=20

• Reg fix available, no reboot needed in most cases


If Steve could reinvent Apple 23:25

• Put touch screens on Macbooks

• Combine iOS and macOS hardware/software. Like macOS Catalyst but expanded

• https://daringfireball.net/2020/02/my_2019_apple_report_card (See the iPad section)

• Get rid of the Touch Bar

• Stop dumbing down macOS, look back to Snow Leopard and go from there

• Get away from bad subscription models or combine them all into one

• Make iCloud a top tier cloud provider instead of the toy that it currently is

• Get back to making hardware that isn't flavor-of-the-week/artsy junk


Steve does PowerShell 41:13

• Error handling and null checks for cmdlets that do not properly react to try/catch

• O365 command throttling workarounds

• Microsoft Flow (Power Automate)


Ask the Stiffs: Question of the Week 53:30

• Things you do when your coworker's computer is unlocked

• David Hasselhoff - The "Hoff"


Outro - "Plus Delta” 57:00

• Twitter: @HTHThePodcast https://twitter.com/HTHTHEPODCAST

• We help you, you help us: Rate us on iTunes

• Facebook Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/268339020812998/

• You can watch the raw/unedited feed of the podcast at https://www.twitch.tv/hopethishelps

• From all of us here, "We hope this helps!"

Feb 17, 202001:02:30
HTH0005 - The Revolution Will Be Pushed Out Via Browser Extension

HTH0005 - The Revolution Will Be Pushed Out Via Browser Extension

HTH talks about old hardware preservation, crazy ways to get MBOX to O365, Windows patching, The IT Deep State (Bing), and more Pentium 4 fun with Linux. Boston accents as well.

Extended show notes available at https://hthpc.com/

Boot-Up (Intro…random topics) :15

• Boston accents

• Shoutout to iTunes and their Podcast directory glitch  https://twitter.com/libsyn/status/1221863935680401409?s=21

• Computer start-up sounds


AARPCs - Old hardware/Product Longevity Discussion 19:00

• Macs vs PCs - compare a 10 year old Mac to a 10 year old PC in terms of support

○ If both are taken care of, the PC wins

• Artificial Obsolescence via end of software support

○ Android is really bad with this

○ iOS and macOS also bad when looking long term (>5 years)

• Steve has several desktop/laptop PCs over a decade old that either are supported.

○ Oldest Macbook still supported is the 2013 MBP (Correction: it's the 2012)

○ 2007 iMac went until MacOS El Capitan (released 2015, final update was July 2018)

○ P4 Dell Dimension from 2004 is still capable of running a supported OS under Linux Mint

• Linux (Where available) can extend the life of hardware


MBOX to O365 25:10

• It's possible with Thunderbird

• IMAP your Exchange account + map the MBOX

• ImportExportTools-NG is the extension

• Don't use Mail.app with Exchange


Windows Patching and You 30:30

• https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/t5/core-infrastructure-and-security/ldap-channel-binding-and-ldap-signing-requirements-march-update/ba-p/921536/page/3#comments

• What is channel binding, and ldap signing and why do you care?

• What does this patch do, and what could it break?


The IT DEEP STATE: The Virus formally known as Bing 36:24

• https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/t5/office-365-blog/introducing-and-managing-microsoft-search-in-bing-through-office/ba-p/1110974

• https://github.com/microsoft/PowerToys/issues/490


“Unplanned Outage” (Sponsor section - "Hope this Helps is helped by…") 43:28

• Shooting smartphone video horizontally


A quick follow-up on the Pentium 4 Linux project from HTH0002 44:55

• Successful install that persists through a reboot

• Solution: Move IDE SD card adapter to a slot that contained a CD drive. Power issue?

• Now persists across reboots, GRUB works

• XFCE > Cinnamon for the P4, performance-wise

• Current challenge is overcoming a screen res issue, unplugging second monitor fixes it temporarily


Ask the Stiffs: Question of the Week 48:16

• What's your method of backing up your data?


Outro - "Plus Delta” 52:52

• Twitter: @HTHThePodcast https://twitter.com/HTHTHEPODCAST

• We help you, you help us: Rate us on iTunes

• Facebook Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/268339020812998/

• You can watch the raw/unedited feed of the podcast at https://www.twitch.tv/hopethishelps

• From all of us here, "We hope this helps!"

Jan 31, 202055:22
HTH0004 - We Say Daddy A Lot

HTH0004 - We Say Daddy A Lot

All about Outlook PSTs, PowerShell functions, Bing encroaching on other browsers, Windows Clipboard, GitHub, and things Microsoft will kill soon. Other things too.

Extended show notes available at https://hthpc.com/

Steve wrote a function to get item counts in PSTs 2:25

• Started with an unsatisfying script found online

• New script can drill into an indefinite amount of subfolders

• The solution is recursion

• Reminds Tiff of MFCMAPI https://github.com/stephenegriffin/mfcmapi

Uploading PSTs to Office 365 9:45

• https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-365/compliance/use-network-upload-to-import-pst-files

• https://protection.office.com

• Data Governance -> Import

• More Azure technologies being used to support O365 administration

• You can upload a PST to Azure Blob Storage and then import it into someone's mailbox

• Tiff discusses the new eDiscovery tool

Microsoft is forcing a Bing Extension onto Chrome users 15:30

• https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2020/01/microsofts-sneaky-plan-to-switch-chrome-searches-from-google-to-bing/

• "The change takes place beginning with Version 2002 of Office 365 Pro Plus, and it will affect both new installations and existing installations as they're automatically updated."

• https://odinsiders.uservoice.com/forums/920533-distribution-upgrades-servicing/suggestions/39494872-do-not-force-push-bing-as-the-default-search-engin

• We still

The New Windows Clipboard 19:43

• From 1809 onward

• Completely reinvents the way you handle moving of data

• Open Settings

• Click on System

• Click on Clipboard

• Turn on Clipboard history

• Enables a new shortcut: Windows + V

• Remembers multiple copied items and lets you select them on demand

• Has a few bugs in certain applications (Excel), and won't really pass through RDP.

Git It (What are some cool utilities on GitHub?) 23:30

• Tiff's picks:

○ https://github.com/microsoft/PowerToys

§ Highlight: PowerRename

• Steve's picks:

○ Caprine https://github.com/sindresorhus/caprine/

○ Spleeter https://github.com/deezer/spleeter

○ PowerShell https://github.com/PowerShell/powershell

○ Dolphin https://github.com/dolphin-emu/dolphin

○ StevenBlack Hosts https://github.com/StevenBlack/hosts

○ Google Play Music Desktop Player https://github.com/MarshallOfSound/Google-Play-Music-Desktop-Player-UNOFFICIAL-

What is Microsoft going to Thelma and Louise? 32:33

• O365 EOS roadmap

• https://blog.admindroid.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/Infographic-for-2020-End-of-Support-Milestone-in-Office-365.pdf

• Search-Mailbox cmdlet is going away, update your scripts!

• SharePoint Classic is being sunset? Microsoft has been historically unclear on its end-of-life timeline

• Office 2013 to O365 support is ending, as is Office for Mac 2016

• Basic authentication

Variety Hour 39:05

• A brief tangent about POP and IMAP

• A brief tangent about Doctor Who and House MD

• Another somewhat major vulnerability is discovered (this time with IE), no patch till February (CVE-2020-0674)

○ "Consider using Microsoft Edge or an alternate browser until patches are made available."

• Microsoft Edge, Chromium, WebKit, and the IE-ification of Google Chrome

Steve does PowerShell 46:57

• Custom objects

Ask the Stiffs? Question of the week! 50:15

• What is your favorite Windows Shortcut?

• A tangent about George Costanza and a wallet full of receipts

○ https://youtu.be/yoPf98i8A0g?t=28

Outro - "Plus Delta” 54:57

• We help you, you help us: Rate us on iTunes

Jan 25, 202058:25
HTH0003 - State of the Zunion

HTH0003 - State of the Zunion

We honor the newly dead Windows 7 and Server 2008 R2, teach you some PowerShell, hate on MyAnalytics, discuss the IT Deep State (Zune), and more. Taco Bell mobile ordering could be better.

Extended show notes available at https://hthpc.com/

Pre-Show 00:15

• Taco Bell Mobile Ordering is terrible

• Special guest this week: Cat



Intro 04:36

• RIP WINDOWS 7 and Server 2008 R2 – Oregon Trail dying music

○ Oct. 22 2009 – January 14, 2020

• Vulnerability from the NSA  - CVE-2020-0601

○ https://media.defense.gov/2020/Jan/14/2002234275/-1/-1/0/CSA-WINDOWS-10-CRYPT-LIB-20190114.PDF

○ https://krebsonsecurity.com/2020/01/cryptic-rumblings-ahead-of-first-2020-patch-tuesday/

○ Is it actually that big of a deal? Conflicting points of view



Steve does PowerShell 13:50

• Let’s talk about foreach loops

○ Two main ways to call foreach in PowerShell

○ $Psitem and $_

○ Serialization and minor changes between Exchange 2010 and Exchange 2016 regarding value output



MyAnalytics the most annoying piece of Microsoft Trash yet. 22:25

• What is MyAnalytics?

• On by default in O365 with a few minor exceptions

• Not great for GDPR or privacy

• How to disable it

• Other mildly related MS ethical/privacy blunders: Teams enabled read receipts by default



“Unplanned Outage” (Sponsor section - "Hope this Helps is helped by…") 30:00

• Please Advise

○ If someone needs help, please advise

○ If you want help, "please advise"

○ But be sure to never please advice

○ Start now with offer code advise to receive your first advice free



The IT DEEP STATE 33:33

• State of the Zune in 2020 (State of the Zunion)

• Microsoft is outsourcing Cortana and Skype audio to China

○ https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2020/jan/10/skype-audio-graded-by-workers-in-china-with-no-security-measures

• Apple is scanning iCloud Photos for abuse

• Windows 10 ignores certain names in the hosts file (not quite new news)

○ https://www.petri.com/windows-10-ignoring-hosts-file-specific-name-resolution



Ask the Stiffs? Question of the week! 43:47



Outro - "Plus Delta” 44:14

• What dnd character are you on your team?

• Parting words follow up?

○ Make a sentence using only autocorrect

• Podcast is available on all major platforms now

• Reddit/Twitter/etc all coming soon.

• From all of us here, "We hope this helps!"

Jan 19, 202054:52
HTH0002 - Denominoes

HTH0002 - Denominoes

iOS, Linux on Pentium 4 systems, and a good replacement for the Logitech G700s mouse. Random tech news as well. We are honestly just as surprised as you that we got to episode 2. 

Extended show notes available at https://hthpc.com/

Pre-Show - 00:00

• PowerShell/Command Prompt/scripting vs the GUI

• 02:03 Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter Intro - 02:56 

• 90s Nickelodeon and theme songs/music 

• 05:45 We made it to episode 2 

• We've Learned 

○ No phone on the charger next to the mic   

iOS makes Steve mad - 06:58 

• No PowerShell even via iSH 

• Automatic updates don’t work

• Reminders don’t work  

• Control Center motion inertia regression 

• Mail app sucks 

• (Not mentioned but still true: iOS 13 Files App and SMB Server support is awful) 

• Wifi is wonky / It's always just Apple that has wifi problems? 

• The iPhone 4 launch, choosing a Droid Charge over it, and Antennagate 

• I still prefer it over Android • The LG Ally and the evolution of the LG enV / Voyager / enV Touch 

• The Samsung Droid Charge and choosing it over the iPhone 4 

• Tiff's first phone 

• Steve's first phone

“Unplanned Outage” (Sponsor section - "Hope this Helps is helped by…") - 17:24 

• Don't Drink and Prime Pentium 4 Linux - 21:36 

• Windows 7 is End-of-Life in mid January 2020 

• Steve tried putting Linux on a P4 and all the problems he's encountered 

• IDE to SD adapter: Worked till post install reboot 

• SSD in Hyper-threaded P4: Mint Live refused to log in

 Tech News - 29:45 

• CES round-up 

○ Female-centric products 

○ CES is boring now 

○ Car Tech, and the need to standardize self-driving protocols 

○ A Windows XP netbook was at CES 2020 

○ Veeam has been acquired by Insight Partners 

§ Correction: BackupExec is owned by Veritas (formerly Symantec), not Samsung 

○ Delta released their vision of the future of flying, e.g. "magic mirror" screens 

• Other tech events during the first half of the year 

• Where/When will the next Microsoft Build/Ignite be? 

• 44:44 Microsoft has released new security defaults for Azure AD 

The Logitech G604 mouse, a worthy successor to the G700s? - 48:06 

• The G700s is discontinued and there's basically no equivalent/replacement 

• Various hardware faults/repairability of the G700s 

• The G604 is a comparable replacement: Lighter, but less sturdy 

• The Logitech Gaming Software wasn't great 

• The removeable cord of the G700s 

Ask the Stiffs? Question of the week! - 55:23 

• What should you use for editing PowerShell? Visual Studio Code 

• Following up on last week: What is the most ridiculous drawing you made in MS Paint and can you re create it? 

• Get-Lit.ps1 

• S***.txt 

• InnaGaddaDaVida.ps1

Outro - "Plus Delta” - 59:55 

• Parting words 

○ Make a sentence using only autocorrect Write-in topic: Send us your predictive goodbyes!

Jan 11, 202001:04:22
HTH0001 - You've Been Stiffed

HTH0001 - You've Been Stiffed

We talk SCCM, Hyper-V homelabs, Exchange, Linux, and more. Also ASMR. Welcome to Hope This Helps.

Extended show notes available at https://hthpc.com/

Intro 00:00 - 07:58 

• 00:00 Welcome

 • 04:36 ASMR 

• 06:15 Welcome to Hope this helps, a podcast about fighting injustice and indifference. 

○ But we don't actually really care 

• 06:27 0 Subscriber milestone hurray 

Steve's SCCM lab - 07:59 

• New HV builds with differencing disks 

• 2019 DC and RRAS didn't work 

• Had to fall back to ancient 2016 VM environment 

• In-place upgraded the SCCM box and client system 

• Kept 2016 DC as 2016, patching it up 

• SQL Upgrade broke everything (until it didn't) 

• Now it's all working barring a critical system status (lol) 

OneDrive and SharePoint permissions - 24:10 

Exchange GUI/Shell - 26:32 

Teams on Linux/Microsoft Apps on Linux/Wine - 32:14 

• 32:48 Wine 

• 34:23 Linux on older computers Halftime - 35:18 

Ask the Stiffs? Question of the week! - 36:48

 • 37:42 Symlink to a future podcast 

• 38:50 Rosebud !;!;!;!;!;!;!;!;!;!; 

“Unplanned Outage” (Sponsor section - "Hope this Helps is helped by…") -  41:17 

• Pete's Cloud Shack

Things we make work that shouldn't - 44:12 

• 44:12 PowerShell scripts that should be Microsoft Graph 

• 46:22 Almond Milk • 48:30 Exchange Cmdlets 

• 51:34 Using regex to pull data from the XML of an InfoPath What is Microsoft going to Thelma and Louise? - 54:26 

• 54:26 OneNote 

• 56:48 Zune 

• 1:02:12 Yammer/LinkedIn

Outro - "Plus Delta” - 1:08:06 • From all of us here, "We hope this helps!"

Dec 17, 201901:11:08