Re: SBS 2008 NAT/Firewall Requirements, please

Easy enough points to address, inline.

-Cliff

"jaseinatl" <jaseinatl@xxxxxxxxx> wrote in message news:4c117cff-a672-4056-93dc-a13a6ca976c2@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Cliff, sorry to hear about the chip on your shoulder. Perhaps it
would be a good thing for you to take a break from all this generosity
and public service you offer; it appears to be taking it's toll on
you.

No chip on my shoulder. I provided an evaluation and interpretation of a trend I've seen you following. My post was neither personal nor overly hostile in nature. Your actions do not "take a toll" on me. I want to provide you with feedback to make YOUR experience in this newsgroup more useful. You can choose to accept that advice. Or not.

> As I am sure you are aware, usenet is a public resource and everyone
is at liberty to post whatever they like.

Patently false. Usenet is distributed, but not necessarily public. The MS newsgroups are hosted by MS servers and then distributed to other servers if the ISP, business, or entity chooses to replicate that data. Nor can you post "anything you want." MS monitors this group in an attempt to minimize spam, for example. And I'm sure you'd be frowned upon for posting binaries of porn. I admire your dedication to free speech, but you aren't "at liberty to post whatever you like." Nor did I advocate your post's removal. I did advocate that you exercise some self discipline and try reading some documentation before asking for free handouts. I position I stand behind.

For myself, I use the
newsgroups for a couple of reasons, not the least of which is
accountability. I administer several small networks and often I find
that my users, some of whom know just enough to get themselves into
trouble, benefit from the discussions in these newsgroups as much, if
not more than I do. If I find that I lack the literary skills
necessary to explain the solution to a user's problem, or even if I
lack the ability to solve a user's problems, I can usually stir up a
conversation about the topic and generally find a better way to
describe the solution than had I just referenced some complicated
white paper that focuses 90% on medium to large format businesses and
neglects the needs of the small business user (or super small business
user).

None of this applies to the post in question. You made it clear you had documentation you didn't want to read. You didn't say "I need help explaining this firewall rule" or "I'm not sure why I need this port." You wanted a complete breakdown of a network plan. That is a paid-for service. If you are a consultant then you, of all people, should understand why others may get defensive. I doubt you'd be so open-minded if other newsgroup users started soliciting your customers.

If I am struggling to describe the solution to a customer, I often
post the user's question to usenet and supply the user with the link
to follow up on the conversation.This has the dual effect of showing
that I am committed to helping my user solve their problem while also
allowing me to learn something new at the same time. Although I try to
filter some of the frustration my users express by eliminating the
majority of the harsh language, I find that it is often a good idea to
preserve some of the tone of the original message when I post.

Again, your post wasn't a singular question. It was requesting an entire strategy. If you can't do that for your own users then perhaps you should consider alternatives.

Often, I post to usenet as a surrogate for my customers who would be
insulted by the self-righteous indignation of some arrogant geek
mocking them for asking for help in the first place. Out of respect, I
do try to filter some of the language used by my customers, and I
always encourage them to post to usenet on their own. But then again,
it just takes one flaming nasty comment like yours to ruin a new
user's day.

My comment was neither flaming nor nasty. It *was* harsh, and necessarily so. Your unwillingness to read "crap" to find your own answers showed quite clearly that a more direct answer was necessary.

I understand that I may not get a response to every question that I
post and I try to always post an update or solution when it comes
around. Because I believe that you get out what you input, I try to
balance my posts so that I offer my experience and any specific
support that I can offer in return for posting my user's questions.
Even when I post a question, I think you will find that I almost
always provide the solution or a clear path to the solution and then
ask for input. Perhaps I should be more specific when I ask for help.
It's not that I am looking for a technical reference, it's that I am
looking for personal experience.

If you think about it from that perspective, you might see that my
proclamations are written in a context that hopes to comiserate rather
than evaluate. In other words, if you have read the materials supplied
with SBS2008, you know that there are a lot of links to content that
hasn't been written yet. You also know that a great deal of the
existing reference materials deal with virtualization and migration,
neither of which concern my current client.

Not in SBS. There is one virtualization document. Two migration documents. And 30 implementation documents (at my last count.) Plenty of sBS documentation that does apply to all SBS implementers.

All of the information
about clustering, distributed file systems, etc. is useless to my
current client and though it is available for free, it doesn't help
the situation, it just adds layer upon layer of useless and
inappropriate complexity for his situation---"crap" you might say.

Clustering, multiple forests, domain trusts, DFS-R....none applies to SBS. You obfuscate the truth of the situation. I didn't tell you to download the entire technet library. MS has been *VERY* good about documenting specific scenarios and deployment schemes in discreet documents. You can wade through MINIMAL 'crap' to get the information you need. That isn't too much to ask of any sysadmin. I even provided an alternative....pick up a book. There are several great SBS books written by contributors in THIS newsgroup. Why would I take money out of their pocket by repeating information they have crafted into a chapter of a book. Your question, specifically as worded was "I want my users to be able to go home and login to their individual workstations at the office to access their files. I want them to be able to do this through the web-interface (RWW)." Bluntly? RWW deployments in SBS 2008 is CLEARLY documented in every SBS book I've browsed and also in SBS documentation already provided by Microsoft. This isn't a "I couldn't explain this well enough to my customers" scenario as you try to paint it above.

In fact, if you weren't being so sensitive and feeling so martyred,
you might be able to share a couple of stories where information
overload left you over-informed and unable to make a decision.

Normally I'd ignore this, but I figure you are so worked up that it bears repeating. I don't have a chip on my shoulder. I didn't take your post personally. And I don't feel martyred. I explained where your post was crossing a line from wanting help to an easy interpretation of being lazy, and I provided potential ways to amend such activity. It was harsh but constructive criticism.

Cliff,
I must also say that I am flattered that you took the time to look up
my other posts, which as you mention, run the gamut--not only in
content, but also in tone. And although it appears that you want to
take the content of my posts out of context to paint the picture of me
that justifies your rant, I am sure that upon re-reading my posts in
context, you will find that I tend to offer help and perspective as
often if not more often than I request help. Furthermore, I feel
fairly certain that you can see where I explicitly declare my respect
and appreciation for any input offered; even yours. I try to avoid
taking a personal tone when replying to posts on usenet and do my best
to ignore posts filled with spite or general ill-will.

I wanted to make sure I had my facts before I replied. No individual post of yours previously had triggered a red flag, so that is why you didn't read a post similar to my initial one here in any of those threads. But taken as a whole, and including this initial question, they do point to a pattern of abuse. Most psychologists will tell you that giving money to a homeless person directly will not help them. If you are feeling charitable, it is usually better served to donate to the March of Dimes or the Salvation Army, or another cause of your choosing. And yet I have homeless people ask me for spare change every day. Some of them are very polite about it. When I don't have change to give, they say "God Bless You" anyways. I've never said your posts were not polite or respectful. I simply said that I've observed a pattern, and the red flag was finally your insistence that you didn't want to read through "crap" and wanted a solution handed to you. I stand by my initial assertion that the meat of your post was inappropriate, regardless of how politely it was presented.

Fortunately, being nearly 40 years old and having been in IT since I
was a kid, I understand how easy it is to mistakes a user's
frustration for a personal attack. Furthermore, I can see where you
might feel as though someone making multiple posts to the newsgroup is
taking advantage of the generosity you provide.Let me assure you that
this is not the case. But then again, you are not obligated to read my
posts and I never asked for your help in the first place. I will be
glad to run some figures for you about the efficacy of your other
posts and the number of times you have gone out of your way to help me
specifically so that anyone petty enough to read this thread in its
entirety can see just how unfounded your claims are.

I just have to wonder if "enough is enough", Cliff? It seems that if
you didn't want to read my posts, you could just filter my content and
let it be enough. Although I can see where you feel as though you were
somehow being generous or thoughtful in your attempt to explain why no
one had replied to my post, I'd like to point out that the post was
only 4 hours old. I will run some other figures if you'd like, but I
think a mean response time of more than four hours hardly justifies
your need to explain how horrible I am and what terrible grief I have
caused.

I never claimed you caused grief or denigrated you as a person. I have no doubt that such a portrait of my post lets you feel better about the personal attacks you lodge below, but I assure you that I rarely let a temper tantrum get under my skin. Yes, I could filter your posts, but that doesn't help *you* or others who may be new to the group learn from certain behavioral mistakes. My post was as much for their benefit as yours.

Actually, if you were really trying to be thoughtful in your warning,
you would have used the "reply to author" option and addressed me
directly like a man.

I see a new person come in here....oh...I'd say once a month, and become 'addicted' to asking for help well beyond the norm. Some new users also come in and lurk. So if a relatively new user comes in and reads this post...maybe they'll think "hey, I see his point." They don't abuse the system. If that happens then I consider my post a success. THAT is why I don't reply privately. I notice you didn't bother to reply privately either. You obviously felt the need to vindicate yourself publicly. It is the nature of the back and forth of usenet. I accept that, and I accept that you'll probably never agree with me.

Because of the nature of usenet, the amount of traffic this group sees, and other factors, this reply will be lost in the noise in a matter of days. So next month I'll be posting a similar explanation again in a month, and again, if I convince one person to go out and buy a book so Charlie, or Cris gets money, or they end up contracting with Russ or Susan or myself, I'll consider it a victory. We all do our part here, we all pitch in, and we all have bills to pay.

Instead, you chose to publicly declare your
intolerance and underscore just how petty, pedantic, sensitive,
manipulative, and downright foolish one is allowed to be in a public
forum.

Oh...these would be the personal insults I referenced above. But hey, each person handles constructive criticism in their own way, right? :)



Long live usenet.

Oh, and in case anyone cares, my client was able to configure his
firewall with very little help from me

Proving that the question was unnecessary, overzealous at best, and that you didn't post for the customer's benefit. I've taken the liberty of snipping the last sentence as it was just as snarky as the rest of the personal attacks and doesn't really help prove your point here.

==

With all of that said, it does sadden me to realize that if you treat your customers with the same level of disregard that you have shown here that you will continue to struggle in the IT realm. I genuinely want everyone to succeed at something they love doing...and a person usually doesn't get into IT unless they have a love of computers. I have no illusion that you'll be compelled to respond to my counterpoints, and if you choose to do so, I obviously can't (nor would I if I could) stop you. But as far as I'm concerned, this conversation is done. I tend to take a "debate" style approach. I made an initial case. I provided one rebuttal reply. All of which I feel I've done professionally, if not necessarily succinctly. Continuing to reply to your personal anger, feelings of betrayal, and sense of entitlement won't help end this thread, make you feel better, or make it any harder or easier for me to sleep at night. So do with this reply as you deem necessary and appropriate.

Peace.

-Cliff (again)


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