- Blind-sysadmins - lists.hodgsonfamily.org

reactivating xp home
by David Mehler 02 Oct '12

02 Oct '12

Hello, I've got a machine here that had it's copy of xp home reinstalled. Let me emphasize this is a legally purchased valid disk and with a key. Now it's screaming about activation. It's been activated before once. When I try to activate it now it's saying that xp home is no longer available. This is not going to be welcome to the system's owner, who does not want to go 7 at this time. Is there a painless way I can get this system activated so I can use windows update? I'm needing to get MSE on it. Thanks. Dave.

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Helpdesk tracking
by Barry Toner 02 Oct '12

02 Oct '12

Hi folks, I'm due to start a IT Support role in a couple of weeks. The company is yet to go through ITIL v3 or a similar best practice solution. ERGO, there's no SLA's *screams, laughs*. We've also currently no Heldesk software. * miss-spelt on purpose* Would any of you have suggestions how I can track my own jobs until such time? I thought of a simple Spreadsheet, but I'd really like alerts. Is there an online solution I can use or something else you think you might do if in a similar position? Currently it appears whoever shouts the loudest and longest gets there job done. BTW. I will be helping to implement ITIL, but until such time I need something to help me and ultimately the rest of the team out. Cheers, Barry.

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Remote support solutions
by Barry Toner 01 Oct '12

01 Oct '12

Hi, I've just accepted a job that will require me to do some RS. I'd like some feedback on solutions people are using with screen readers. If you can give me a couple of paragraphs on what you're using and how (roughly), it's implemented. I'm talking high level, I'm not asking you to write me a tutorial. Also any pro's cons. The ones I've heard of but have no experience or any technicians views on them yet, are installing JFW/Win Eyes on a Citrix Server, the company has and owns their Citrix server so this may be an option. The other is Remote Incident Manager (RIM) http://t.co/6oLmlWqt I'm working in the UK, so our government Access To Work may be an option to help fund the latter solution, if it's cleaner, less performance issues, eg dicy audio than the Citrix stuff. Cheers, Barry.

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drivers help
by David Mehler 30 Sep '12

30 Sep '12

Hi, Do any of you have older or driver archives? I've just spent an hour looking for drivers for a motherboard and getting nowhere. It's an MSI board, the model number so far as I was told was RX480m4 or RX482m4 I think from the google results I've seen is it's an AMD 939 chipset. I need motherboard chipset, and onboard audio. If anyone has them I'd appreciate it, I'll keep trying google. Thanks. Dave.

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drivers help
by David Mehler 30 Sep '12

30 Sep '12

Hi, Do any of you have older or driver archives? I've just spent an hour looking for drivers for a motherboard and getting nowhere. It's an MSI board, the model number so far as I was told was RX480m4 or RX482m4 I think from the google results I've seen is it's an AMD 939 chipset. I need motherboard chipset, and onboard audio. If anyone has them I'd appreciate it, I'll keep trying google. Thanks. Dave.

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Remote support solutions
by Barry Toner 29 Sep '12

29 Sep '12

Hi, I've just accepted a job that will require me to do some RS. I'd like some feedback on solutions people are using with screen readers. If you can give me a couple of paragraphs on what you're using and how (roughly), it's implemented. I'm talking high level, I'm not asking you to write me a tutorial. Also any pro's cons. The ones I've heard of but have no experience or any technicians views on them yet, are installing JFW/Win Eyes on a Citrix Server, the company has and owns their Citrix server so this may be an option. The other is Remote Incident Manager (RIM) http://t.co/6oLmlWqt I'm working in the UK, so our government Access To Work may be an option to help fund the latter solution, if it's cleaner, less performance issues, eg dicy audio than the Citrix stuff. Cheers, Barry.

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boot a 64 bit machine with a 32 bit iso?
by David Mehler 29 Sep '12

29 Sep '12

Hello, Does anyone know what would happen, if I'll have a ploom of smoke, if I try to boot a 64 bit machine with a 32 bit iso? I've got a machine that came in and can't remember if it's a 32 bit or 64 bit system. It's running xp home and it does have an Athlon64 processor in it single core. I need to back it up prior to reinstalling it, and was wanting to use grml for that, without knowing if it's 32 or 64 bit I didn't want it to have issues. Thanks. Dave.

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boot a 64 bit machine with a 32 bit iso?
by David Mehler 28 Sep '12

28 Sep '12

Hello, Does anyone know what would happen, if I'll have a ploom of smoke, if I try to boot a 64 bit machine with a 32 bit iso? I've got a machine that came in and can't remember if it's a 32 bit or 64 bit system. It's running xp home and it does have an Athlon64 processor in it single core. I need to back it up prior to reinstalling it, and was wanting to use grml for that, without knowing if it's 32 or 64 bit I didn't want it to have issues. Thanks. Dave.

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out of hours notifications?
by Ryan Shugart 28 Sep '12

28 Sep '12

Hi: I was wondering what procedures you all used for out of hours critical monitoring alerts? For example, say a server you're responsible for goes down at 2:30 Sunday morning, how do you get notified? My company currently has a rotating company phone that goes around the department and gets text messages for every down system. The person on call is then responsible for finding the responsible person and waking them up to inform them of the problem. The system we're going to will involve pages going direct to our phones for systems we're responsible for. I'm personally thinking that will be better because right now being on call is far from a fun experience, and its rare you get a good night's sleep. In otherwords, our environment is just getting too big for one person to manage after hours alerts, and with pages going to each of us, its felt we can handle them better since we'll know our own systems. Thoughts, does anyone use a different approach? Thanks. Ryan

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out of hours notifications?
by Ryan Shugart 28 Sep '12

28 Sep '12

Hi: I was wondering what procedures you all used for out of hours critical monitoring alerts? For example, say a server you're responsible for goes down at 2:30 Sunday morning, how do you get notified? My company currently has a rotating company phone that goes around the department and gets text messages for every down system. The person on call is then responsible for finding the responsible person and waking them up to inform them of the problem. The system we're going to will involve pages going direct to our phones for systems we're responsible for. I'm personally thinking that will be better because right now being on call is far from a fun experience, and its rare you get a good night's sleep. In otherwords, our environment is just getting too big for one person to manage after hours alerts, and with pages going to each of us, its felt we can handle them better since we'll know our own systems. Thoughts, does anyone use a different approach? Thanks. Ryan

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