No more hiding in the server room

John McGrath Male Franklin, IN United States: Share; Share on Twitter; Share on Facebook

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Discussions (40)
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Photos (5)
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John McGrath's Discussions

Groupwise 5.5 DMS migration

Started Dec. 30, 2009

Firewall software/Hardware on the Cheap?
11 Replies

Started this discussion. Last reply by Yuri Sep. 11, 2009.

Open Source Helpdesk software?
14 Replies

Started this discussion. Last reply by Stuart Brown Jun. 4, 2009.

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John McGrath's Page

Latest Activity

John McGrath replied to Charlie Rudinger's discussion 'From /. Technology: New "Spear Phishing" Attacks Target IT Admins'

That's the lock code on my luggage! :-)

4 hours ago

John McGrath replied to Charlie Rudinger's discussion 'From /. Technology: New "Spear Phishing" Attacks Target IT Admins'

Hey! Don't be touching my Britney! :-P

4 hours ago

John McGrath replied to Richard Holloway's discussion 'Becoming Systems Administrator instantly'

All I have right now is some 2m rigs... Perhaps it is time to get into HF. :-)

yesterday

John McGrath replied to Richard Holloway's discussion 'Becoming Systems Administrator instantly'

My start in the IT world came from a different occupation entirely... Automotive repair. Actually, it was a confluence of hobbies, and wanting a change of occupations that started my journey. I was interested in electronics and Amatuer radio while…

on Tuesday

John McGrath replied to Charlie Rudinger's discussion 'From /. Technology: New "Spear Phishing" Attacks Target IT Admins'

Does this mean I need to change my password from "God"?!?

on Tuesday

John McGrath commented on Charlie Rudinger's photo 'This is my tattoo'

An identical one in red?

February 21

John McGrath replied to Graycat's discussion 'Deploying Desktops'

Ah.. But that's a feature, right? Besides, that is also improper use of equipment. Mechanical pencils will require retraining, and that means scheduling classes, the inevitable people that will not 'get it' and require hand-holding, requests to Fi…

February 7

John McGrath replied to Graycat's discussion 'Deploying Desktops'

Its a Global Corp, and there are 20+ sites. Yeah, don't let the word 'Team' mislead you... I believe it is just four people who directly work on the images. Would you mind if I brought up your deployment solution to my local IT group?

February 7

John McGrath replied to Graycat's discussion 'Deploying Desktops'

We deploy a 'Corporate' standard image to all of our desktops, and add software packages as required. The Corporate imaging team created the image with driver sets for the 6 different models that are deployed throughout our site, and since they val…

February 6

John McGrath replied to Graycat's discussion 'Deploying Desktops'

Wow! I think I might go to your deployment strategy! A few questions though... 1. What color pads? Do you change paper color by department? 2. How do you keep them from fighting over the crayons? :-)

February 6

Robert Chipperfield commented on John McGrath's blog post 'Why "Running IT As a Business" Is a Bad Idea'

Interesting indeed, as are some of the /. comments (I didn't read them all, I'm afraid, but a quick scan was interesting). It got me thinking about how our IS (Internal Systems) department is run at Red Gate (I'm a software engineer, so I'm a "cust…

January 20

John McGrath added a blog post

Why "Running IT As a Business" Is a Bad Idea

Slashdot had a an interesting article regarding the way IT departments are run... The slashdot article: http://it.slashdot.org/story/10/01/19/2029259/Why-Running-IT-As-a-Business-Is-a-Bad-Idea The article: Run IT as a business -- why that's a trai…

January 19

John McGrath added a discussion

Groupwise 5.5 DMS migration

We are looking to get rid of the Groupwise 5.5 DMS, but have not found a vendor that is willing to pull the Metadata and documents out of the old system, and garrantee that we could use it in a new DMS. One of the issues is that we are not sure whe…

December 30, 2009

John McGrath commented on John McGrath's photo 'IMG00008'

LOL. It sounds like we work for similar companies!

December 23, 2009

John McGrath commented on John McGrath's photo 'IMG00008'

We were in the midst of a having the switches redeployed at the time. The rest is a upgrade to newer machines (Yea!, Finally...) that is still ongoing. Last weekend we cleaned up this area, and when it s finished, I will post the newer look. :-)

December 23, 2009

Wesley "Nonapeptide" commented on John McGrath's photo 'IMG00008'

Neat-o. Are those brand catalysts being prepped for deployment or older fare being redeployed? Yay for HP desktop PCs.

December 23, 2009

Profile Information

Job title

Desktop Services Analyst

Tech Interests - e.g. Virtualisation? Cisco? Etc.

linux, windows,

Website

http://techwrench.org

John McGrath's Photos

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John McGrath's Blog

Why "Running IT As a Business" Is a Bad Idea

Slashdot had a an interesting article regarding the way IT departments are run...

The slashdot article:
http://it.slashdot.org/story/10/01/19/2029259/Why-Running-IT-As-a-Business-Is-a-Bad-Idea

The article: Run IT as a business -- why that's a train wreck waiting to happen
http://infoworld.com/print/108477

Food for thought.

Posted on January 19, 2010 at 10:08pm — 1 Comment

Knowledge Bases

It has been an interesting two weeks for me, and as I reflect on it, it reminds me of a posting that Matt of Standalone SysAdmin had made March 4th.

Gaining knowledge is imperative in our field. That is the best way to stay current. Technology changes so quickly, and we stay knowledgeable, because customers ask us about it. I had a friend suggest that IT workers are like the monks

… Continue

Posted on March 7, 2009 at 2:23am — 2 Comments

The Biggest Loser Contest

We have an annual Biggest Loser contest here at work, and I am going to represent the IT group this time around.
I have noticed that some of us do not handle the stresses of the job and/or are getting older (chronologically at least..), and need to shed some of the weight that we might have gained over the winter months.

When I am not at work, I am still thinking of work, or reading, studying, researching about topics related to work. Most of this is done reading a book, a blog, or hammering aw… Continue

Posted on March 3, 2009 at 3:04pm — 1 Comment