@wirestyle22 said in Gaming - What's everyone playing / hosting / looking to play:

@scottalanmiller terraria just seemed like a better game

I agree. I've also never tried minecraft, but I have played a little Terraria.

Do you have a spare computer/old laptop or something laying around? Just plug into the HDMI port there and play whatever content you have available?

@scottalanmiller said in What Are You Doing Right Now:

@black3dynamite said in What Are You Doing Right Now:

@scottalanmiller said in What Are You Doing Right Now:

Two of our closest bars just closed, forever.

That's sad even though I don't drink.

Going to lose a lot more now that we are closing up again. Texas is in for quite a battering.

Give people an inch and they take a mile... In MI we got a new executive order from the Gov. that they're closing restaurants indoor areas again.

Is buying another QNAP box out of the question?

I know with Synology you can move the drives to a new Synology box and restore everything from the drives. Assuming it's the box that went bad and the drives are still good, of course.

@scottalanmiller said in What Are You Doing Right Now:

@bnrstnr said in What Are You Doing Right Now:

@JaredBusch said in What Are You Doing Right Now:

@brandon220 said in What Are You Doing Right Now:

Looking at installing FreePBX in Vultr for some testing. I had a local install in my lab but never connected any trunks to it. May even use the server after it is all set up for "production" for my family.

Why? Does everyone not already have a cell phone?

For personal service, I never recommend VoIP.

I haven't thought about it much yet because my kids are 5 and 2, but eventually I feel like I'm going to have to get a home phone? Maybe? Not sure what people are doing these days. If I can get away with having just a home phone for the kids for a few years, I'll take it.

By five my kids have cell phones. Works for far more than them just being home. Its just so broadly useful for safety.

The company provides home service for employees. So we have that too.

lol I just can't see giving my son a cell phone right now. It doesn't even feel like an option. Maybe one of the GPS/Phone watches? Definitely not a phone. Even if it only had one button to call us...

@JaredBusch said in What Are You Doing Right Now:

@brandon220 said in What Are You Doing Right Now:

Looking at installing FreePBX in Vultr for some testing. I had a local install in my lab but never connected any trunks to it. May even use the server after it is all set up for "production" for my family.

Why? Does everyone not already have a cell phone?

For personal service, I never recommend VoIP.

I haven't thought about it much yet because my kids are 5 and 2, but eventually I feel like I'm going to have to get a home phone? Maybe? Not sure what people are doing these days. If I can get away with having just a home phone for the kids for a few years, I'll take it.

@Dashrender said in What Are You Doing Right Now:

@brandon220 said in What Are You Doing Right Now:

Looking at installing FreePBX in Vultr for some testing. I had a local install in my lab but never connected any trunks to it. May even use the server after it is all set up for "production" for my family.

The problem is the cost of the phones. would love a no frill VOIP phone for say $30 - OK entry level Yealink SIP-T19p E2 https://www.amazon.com/Yealink-YEA-SIP-T19P-E2-Entry-level-phone-Lines/dp/B013GUGP7M $40.

Now to find a portable where the base and 1 handset is $99 or less.

Have you considered purchasing used phones? Looks like ebay has some decent deals. $40 doesn't seem unreasonable for a device that's going to last you 10 years, but I understand that everybody has their circumstances.

The $140 for a portable phone is a little harder pill to swallow. If you already have a cordless phone, maybe just get a $40 ATA?

@scottalanmiller said in What Are You Doing Right Now:

@bnrstnr said in What Are You Doing Right Now:

@dbeato said in What Are You Doing Right Now:

Then there are others that actually only email and submit a ticket and you need to go through every single question in the world to get to the answer which they don't provide until like the 10th email and by then your time has been wasted.

Yes, this too! I usually cant diagnose a problem via email. I believe Scott has even said something to the effect that users have no clue what they're talking about 99% of the time. So why all of a sudden is a single email the most efficient way to help somebody? I just don't think that's realistic at all.

Sometimes after 9 emails and 2 hours of going back and forth, it's just way faster to call somebody and figure it out.

Calling someone back is different when it's already an established priority than using a phone call to determine what that priority is and to do so with the tech.

We use phones, but only call center picks them up. They do triage. So if you have an emergency and, say, email is down you need that. But the call is guaranteed not to interrupt something critical already in motion and any conversation about additional details can be done, and written down, prior to the engineers being interrupted.

Gotcha. I guess we'll just get a call center then lol...

We also have this thing called voicemail. Similar to email, it also comes to my phone, and my phone magically converts it to text so I can read it if I'm doing something else. It's crazy. Usually I get voicemails immediately too, unless I have no service, in which case I'm not getting emails either. So pick your poison.

Like I said before, we aren't in the business of supporting people. It's a minor task that we do sporadically.

@dbeato said in What Are You Doing Right Now:

Then there are others that actually only email and submit a ticket and you need to go through every single question in the world to get to the answer which they don't provide until like the 10th email and by then your time has been wasted.

Yes, this too! I usually cant diagnose a problem via email. I believe Scott has even said something to the effect that users have no clue what they're talking about 99% of the time. So why all of a sudden is a single email the most efficient way to help somebody? I just don't think that's realistic at all.

Sometimes after 9 emails and 2 hours of going back and forth, it's just way faster to call somebody and figure it out.

@scottalanmiller said in What Are You Doing Right Now:

@bnrstnr said in What Are You Doing Right Now:

@scottalanmiller said in What Are You Doing Right Now:

@bnrstnr said in What Are You Doing Right Now:

I'm much more likely to notice the ringing. I believe it's pretty standard in manufacturing that email is the least urgent form of communication.

But would it go to just one person? Isn't going to a single person alone a mark of "not a priority?" Because if you're busy, in either case, or sick, or out, etc. what do you do?

We're a small company, I'm their contact for the project. If I don't answer, they usually call the office immediately after. If it's an emergency they always call. Sure, that might be bad, or our own doing, but it works...

We aren't a support company with an entire staff dedicated to doing just that. I'm rarely supporting customers, but when I do, they call me with urgent problems.

So when you are out sick, at lunch, not on the clock, or already dealing with a fire, in a meeting.... all calls pre-empt all those things?

Not all, and not always, but usually yes. I'm not so overworked that I can't take a call every now and then, even if it takes 4 hours of my day. If it ever became enough of a burden to require a full time position to deal with support, then we would consider it. But it just isn't necessary at this point.

Sometimes I only do the triage then pass it off to somebody else. Sometimes when I'm not available they call the office and somebody else handles it. Sometimes we have to tell people that they're just going to have to wait. We aren't under any strict support contracts.

I was at a funeral on Monday and got a call from a customer. I reached back out to him a few hours later when I was available.

Also, I totally get what you're saying about how we chose to make calls have higher priority over email, and it probably was a bad decision. I don't know. Similar to @WrCombs said, if I'm having a heart attack I would hope that my wife doesn't email my doctor, and instead call 911... Obviously the things we deal with usually aren't life and death, but I think people get comfort in knowing that somebody is on it, and that they're not lost in a sea of spam emails.