Steven Datt

Author: Steven

  • Azure – Storage Account website vs App Service

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    Steven
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    Before going on annual leave a couple of weeks ago, I dealt with migrating a static website from a 2008 IIS VM on VMWare to Azure for a customer. Initially, after scoping and a call with the stakeholders, Storage Account was the best choice to fulfil the following criteria: Low cost Low footprint Easy for…

  • Sync WSUS with Windows Update via Powershell

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    This is a post I’ve been meaning to write for a while, and here I’ll explain some of the basic methods and commands to manage WSUS solely through Powershell. No one really wants to be logging onto machines unecessarily with RDP, and these have been personally useful to me when customers have had insane hoops…

  • Detroit: Become Human’s recent media impact

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    Tonight, I have finished probably one of the best games that I’ve played in the past two years, Detroit: Become Human. The story is well layered and follows 3 protagonists on their journey to achieve freedom. Markus, coming from a home of a wealthy artist in Lance Henriksen’s Carl Manfred. Markus and Carl have a…

  • Installing Inspec for RubyGems on Windows

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    I came across this as I was trying to install inspec to run against some Packer builds. The Github documentation only covers how to install inspec, and not the pre-requisites. You likely experienced an error such as “[…] requires installed build tools” and you may try to run gem install buildtools However, What you need to do…

  • Disable the Windows 10 notification sound

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    Something that’s been driving me crazy recently is the excessive amount of notifications that pop up (and play a sound repeatedly) when I log in to my home PC. Somehow, turning down the system volume does nothing to stop the obnoxiousness of the alert. Luckily, there’s an easy, no fuss way to disable this! Right click…

  • What I’ve been up to since…

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    It’ s been a long, long time since I last posted on here. There’s a good reason for that. I’ve started a new job working in DevOps. A lot of my friends will know that’s the direction I was aiming for, though I was quite a way away from having the necessary experience to make…

  • Windows 10 – Settings can’t be opened using the Built-in Administrator account

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    The Windows 10 rollouts from Microsoft has finally picked up traction. My opinion of Windows 10 has greatly improved due to the cross-platform availability of XBOX One games. However, due to the adoption of an app-like structure, this has posed it’s own problems. You may find that you’re not able to open built-in programs that…

  • Why automation is the best remedy for your overworked helpdesk

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    It’s a known fact that helpdesks are overwhelmed and the retention rate of helpdesk staff can be as low as 50%. Good managers will identify why this is and take steps to correct it – providing benefits, better salaries, or training opportunities. There is also another big – and preventable – cause of helpdesk turnover,…

  • Exporting AD group members using Powershell

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    We had a client who was experiencing high usage on one of their TS servers last week, and I was asked to compile and export a list of users on each TS to send to the client so we could move people around. I found a handy Powershell cmdlet that let me do this really…

  • Disabling Windows Defender

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    I had an issue recently where Windows updates installed Windows Defender automatically, on top of Microsoft Security Essentials on my TS3 server. This caused MSE to disable itself, and Windows Defender didn’t enable itself, causing my TS3 server to be exposed for longer than I would have liked. Obviously this was a huge problem, and…