Recently, I taught my very first hands-on two-day virtual lab. It seemed a natural outgrowth of my speaking at TechMentor and Live360 conferences; the same company sponsored it. The topic was one I knew in some depth, and the pay was good, so why not? The problems started with the timing and how things change…
The road from conference attendee to speaker
I have long been an advocate of technology conferences for IT professionals. A little background is needed. For the first half of my career, my manager didn’t allow me to go to conferences as they were, in his eyes, a waste of time and money. In fairness, his experience was at a large IBM-centric conference…
On the hunt again!
Less than three years ago, I wrote about Reflections & Ch-Ch- Changes, in which I left my long-time position at Swiff-Train to work at Strike. Now, I’m on the cusp of a new change. This one is more stressful than those because, for the first time since May 1992, I’m unemployed. There are all the…
TP-Link ER7206 Review: The Ultimate Multi-WAN Gateway
I recently began rebuilding a home computing lab, and as a part of it, I needed to isolate the lab network from our home network. For this, I needed a router that met some pretty narrow criteria. First, it had to support a VPN to allow me to access the lab environment from outside the…
To MSP or not to MSP?
IT departments are once again looking at outsourcing some or all of their work to Managed Service Providers or Managed Security Service Providers. Aside from the obvious concern for the people working in our organizations that this decision would impact, we also have a responsibility to the company to make the best decision. So what…
Always ask why!
Times are tough in IT these days. While technology flourishes, budgets are being cut. IT leadership is asked to deliver more, deliver it faster, while keeping everyone’s data safe and, oh yeah, keeping that old legacy software running, too. Yes, CxOs will say that’s what you are paid for, and they are right. Of course,…
Coming off of a slump
I’ve had this blog for several years, and it’s no secret that I have been “inconsistent,” to put it gently. At first, it was Imposter Syndrome—no one wanted to hear what I had to say. I got over that as much as most people do. Then, it was a schedule that crammed my weeks so full…
Migrating to Exchange Online
Migrating from an on-premises Exchange 2016 server to Exchange Online can seem overwhelming, but doing it in ‘chunks’ makes it easier to plan and execute. Having done this a few times, I’ll show you how to overcome the tricky parts and avoid some ‘gotchas.’ Key Steps Prepare your environment Before beginning any migration, ensuring that…
Migrating to Intune – Mobile devices
Here we go on the next step on the M365 journey, and probably the first item to be done. Intune. Intune may seem like a small item, right? Certainly not as big as email or SharePoint right? Not so fast. Intune, is not just a Mobile device Manager, but rather a Modern Device Manager. This…
M365 Migration – Preparation
If you’ve been following along, you know we talked about planning your migration last time. Now let’s talk about the preparation that should happen before you start migrating things. A lot of the “how” of this depends on the size of your environment, the tools that you have available, or the budget to buy tools….
