You've been hired in a small web dev company... ... you begin your new job full of misguided excitement, soon realizing something is off >most software is pirated >a lonely windows server (2008 not R2) >Windows 10 home editions >server runs IIS for asp and an older php sites, mostly for their maintenance >the boss usually undersells the products because muh friends >all good devs have long left the company >newb replacements were hired because "we invest in youth!" (costs less) >boss son who is supposed to handle the commercial side of things is an idiot >only staying afloat thanks to the boss extensive connections and divine providence >Peter, the oldest employee, says they've been on the brink of collapse since the tech bubble burst >No organization, despite your efforts to promote tools like asana, bandcamp or freedcamp >boss overloading evry employee with impossible deadlines, because no organization >The company uses a shitty web management software made by another small company. You could probably do better if only you had time >boss and his son just can't comprehend interfaces beyond a basic spreadsheet >Unfortunately this is the only job in the area and you're stuck with it >You have very low budget and must keep the company and services afloat To your colleagues you are the messiah and saviour. How would Jow Forums save the company?
Challenges: - Stop the crippling disorganization - Revamp the office software and infrastructure (Linux/Windows/Macs? Server VMs, open source alternatives, backups, necessary evils) - Min-max hosting related services at the minimum cost (eg: cloudflare and caching + crappy hosting) - Keep your colleagues happy (no suggesting GIMP to graphic designers) - Prevent the boss son from bringing down the company - 100$ monthly budget, could be more if it's for something mandatory
Move in a different city. Even if you plan everything , judging by how things are going now they won't accept any change.
Henry Hill
>How would Jow Forums save the company? I wouldn't. I'd run. If I'm supposed to build everything with a shitty budget and get pennies for my work I might as well create a company of my own with much reasonable budget. Or just find a better job.
Cameron Watson
Scrum baby
Asher Reyes
>implying you would miss the chance to enjoy this trainwreck chockful of memes and drama
You are asking Jow Forums how to save a company? Half of the people here don't even use computers
Isaac Perez
sounds like a people issue, so good luck fixing it with technology or $100 a month best bet is to start making 'friends' and allies, make sure you're well liked somehow subtly shill whatever changes you want to make slowly implement them, while making sure not to piss anybody off better yet get some colleagues to help you implement them, it's hard to push huge changes alone or just leave, this sounds like a huge pain
Sebastian Reed
How did you start? Got any tips for someone looking to do the same?
Brandon Martin
>suggest GIMP to the graphic designers this but unironically >bandcamp why are you suggesting them a website to buy music albums when they ask you for project management tools?
Joshua Myers
>Thanks to your sociopathic insight and clever wordplay you quickly estabilish yourself as a born-again messiah >Everyone in the office loves you, including the boss and his son >You re not sure what to push first, though. >There's also the chance that you overdid it, now everyone looks up to you for every tech issue.
place needs proper project management first fancy tools can help, but you'll also need people to come up with a process and enforce it stuff like agile is a pain, but i've seen it be pretty effective in turning shit teams into productive teams we needed a good scrum master to make it happen though
Caleb Fisher
>implying you're not planning to use this company as an expendable stepping stone to learn the tricks of the trade >implying you're not going to steal away all the clients when everything inevitably falls apart
>You remember fondly of the times as a corporate slave >Proper structure, proper handling of demands, changes and releases >Impossibly complex hierarchies slowing everything down >Everything a sociopath like you could dream about >Scrum meetings seemed a effective way of organizing teamwork
This thread is pretty good, where is everyone? Does threads like these only work on /v/?
Elijah Stewart
I have been there before. Job got me into the country I am. For a year, then I moved to better pastures. Left the company much better than I found it. Here's what to do. Get an AWS account. Set up some minimal internal-facing services. Particularly important: A wiki. Dig around the infrastructure, both internal (use nmap as a start) and public-facing. Document everything. Emphasis on listing servers and other networking equipment, and what services are in each. Dig further: What vhosts are served by what server. What backups are setup where. At this point, you'll have enough information to make further decisions. Here's some recommendations: - Fix the backups: Ensure everything is backed up. - Ensure nothing unnecessary is publicly accessible. - Ensure no two passwords are the same, and no password is non-randomgenerated. Adopt keepassxc or a similar tool. - Ensure software is patched to current stable versions for whatever branches. Note: Start with minor upgrades, no major upgrades which might break things. - Basic tuning, e.g. for php, ensure no mod_php, ensure number of workers is limited according to available ram assuming maximum (php's configured limit) used per each worker. - Set up modern internal IM based on open source/standards. Matrix, mattermost, rocket.chat are options to consider today. It *must* be accessible with just a web browser.
replace the aspie.net server with a real server, preferably one with gentoo installed. install gentoo on all work computers.
Xavier Morales
>You install gentoo on all work computers >Your colleagues surrounds you clearly agitated by something >"We can't open our PSDs!" "Where's the management software?!" "How do we open Word and Excel!?!?" >You wear your smug grin and start explaining the benefits of free software >Unbeknownst to you, your colleagues were already edging massmurdering levels of stress >Suddenly, everyone's jumping at you, screaming madly, mauling and stabbing your puny vessel of flesh Bad End.
>windows users all fired for throwing tantrums at work >proprietary formats such as PSD, word, excel banned from the office >no nonfree software is ever allowed in again good end
Josiah Cruz
Outsource entire company to India, collect shekels
Justin Lopez
>You take notes from the user who made it before you >After a couple of months you've finally mapped all the local and remote resources >All accounts are at your fingertips >You've almost convinced your boss that buying a few hard disk for backups might be a good idea >Unfortunately you get swamped by the GDPR fad before you can finish organizing a wiki, the password manager and pushing updates >You observe sadly as the system you were building to monitor websites with prometheus keeps beying delayed and grows outdated >Collagues end up writing all the passwords on google sheets >You count your blessings and hope for the next chance AWS is not cheap for hosting services, but using SES for mass mailing or transactional services is very cheap compared to competitors. I also wanted to try install Bitwarden locally, stripping out the home-calling code, since it's opensource. Keepass is cool, but not being able to set group access is kind of a turn off when you have different types of accounts and you'd like to give the right permission to the right people. We use slack at the moment, but I'll look into the other options.
While you can make do with LibreOffice and GIMP, it all goes to shit if you have to interface and cowork on designs with your clients. You *need* photoshop and illustrator Besides licenses for windows and office can be gotten for dirt cheap on amazon, and if you're not american they're usually legal to use. Too bad I can't say the same about Adobe's products.
Jaxson Cox
That said, I agree that Linux is actually viable for web developers. The only problem is opening the damn PSDs from the gfx designers so they can turn the designs into html. Paint.net and gimp don't always open them right. I guess there's WINE, but then doesn't things start getting burdensome
Joseph Ortiz
> small web dev company. > >a lonely windows server (2008 not R2) Legacy. > >server runs IIS for asp and an older php sites, mostly for their maintenance Legacy. > >boss son who is supposed to handle the commercial side of things is an idiot This is why legacy is piling up. > >No organization Business processed can be fixed, but it takes some willpower, which nobody possesses, given the state of affairs. > >Unfortunately this is the only job in the area and you're stuck with it > How would Jow Forums save the company? I'd move, to be honest. Moved once, will do it again. This company is only afloat because it monopolized the local market, despite being a Leviathan. > - Stop the crippling disorganization > - Prevent the boss son from bringing down the company > Revamp the office software and infrastructure There's actually THREE jobs you listed, all require some prodigious people.
A short rundown on the tech side: - keep Windows on workstations - But ensure every pirated soft is centralized, so employees won't kill PCs with cryptolockers installing their own software. - Does office has a public IP? If yes, I'd refrain from using any hosting for now and just keep thing locally. - Linux servers is a must, I'd probably go with Debian. Set up one server as a router/Nginx proxy/firewall, set up iptables rules to close public ports > Server VMs, Containers give less overhead, but containers are fine too. Proxmox is probably the first thing that comes to mind, can be installed on the same server if the budget is tight. K8s should be good too, but you'll still need some KVM VMs for Windows. > backups Rsync what you need or snapshot it, Proxmox has the tools. > mail and DNS hosting Use Yandex, it'll do for now and is free.
The rest isn't my job, I'm not competent.
Brandon Richardson
>Keepass Use 1Password here - using Active Directory logins
Nicholas Carter
is this some rp/g/ shit?
Julian Bailey
Crash the company's primary product, with no survivors. All boomers must die
