After The Conference: ASCII Edge Orlando 2025 (EP 796)

Hello, friends, Uncle Marv here with another episode of the IT Business Podcast. We're back after a tiny little hiatus. Last week, I was in Orlando, Florida, at the ASCII Edge 2025 Orlando edition.

And folks, let me just say this. I went up for that. I also had a client in the Orlando area that was moving.

So I ended up going up Tuesday before the event to help install an internet circuit. Then I was at the ASCII event Wednesday and Thursday, then back to the client on Friday, back on Saturday, back on Sunday. And yes, Monday morning, I had to check in and make sure that everything was working.

If you follow me on the Facebook, you would have seen some of the joy that I had when the client found out Saturday morning that they were not getting the cubicles that they were supposed to be getting. They were actually coming from Tampa. They had an office there that they were doing some stuff with.

They had 10 cubicles that they were going to get picked up Saturday morning, trucked over to Orlando Saturday afternoon. And the workers showed up and said, no, we're not moving those. After the company came out, saw the cubicles, quoted the cubicles, got a deposit for the cubicles, but apparently did not check with the workers to see if they could take the cubicles apart and put them back together.

So we scrambled. There were four cubicles locally that a company was able to go and get done for us. And some of you commented thinking that I was putting together those cubicles.

No, that is not the type of work that I do. So I was not the one doing the work on the cubicles. I was helping to supervise and helping to find other options where we could get computers set up so that they could work on Monday.

So what ended up happening is we have nine of the 13 computers up and running. They have four more cubicles on the way. That will be another story.

Some of you, I believe, are here because you saw the word condom in the program description for tonight, thinking it was clickbait. It is not. It is a part of the swag segment, and that will be coming up a little bit later.

Yes, that is not clickbait. That is real. Let's see here.

I talked about my six days away. Well, you know what? I didn't even say this. So six days.

I told you I left on Tuesday, left Tuesday around lunchtime, came back Monday around lunchtime. Six days straight is the longest that I have been away from my house or where I was living, where I could sleep in my own bed since, I don't remember the year, it's going to be in the 90s when I went to go see my future wife in Ohio between Christmas and New Year's and actually decided to stay. So that is the longest amount of time that I have been away, and it was not fun being in a hotel for all of that time.

Now, granted, I had the ASCII event. I had people there keeping me company, and it was fantastic. And she did come up and join me for the client move.

She actually helped and assisted disassembling and reassembling computers there. So she was there for part of the time, and then she came back on Sunday. I came home on Monday.

So it wasn't like I was away from her, but I was away from home, and that was not fun. So we'll talk a little bit about that. I should say that, let's see, oh, let's do this.

So our show tonight, as per usual, presented by NetAlly, and NetAlly, as most of you know, is a great tool in the sense of helping you simplify, secure, and troubleshoot your networks with the number one ally in network testing. Some of you are waiting for some videos that I'm going to do with that but let me actually show you this. Because yesterday, I was out at a client site, and I'm going to move this to try to show you as much of this as possible.

I think that's the best I can do. Nope, I think I can do this. So when you go out on site, and you have one of the network tools, and you are signed up for Link Live, when you need to test a network connection, you can have it email you the success or failures of those tests.

Of course, if it fails, it's going to stay in the queue and will only send you that email the next time there is a successful connection. But I had a client, one of my two clients, that ended up getting bought and purchased. This was my medical office, and this was the company where the new IT department literally said, come take all of your stuff and get it out.

We're replacing everything. So we're talking, well, they kept the server, but that was a whole other story, because the backup was just... Okay, let me at least tell you this much. They were trying to copy over stuff from the server, and it failed.

But I had already handed it off to them. They were working on it, and that was their problem. But everything else, we got computers, phones, switches, access points, whatever else.

I mean, tons of stuff. However, we left the camera system there, and there were two separate camera systems. One was the Lumu camera system that was actually purchased back in the aisle eight days, and the other was a legacy camera system that a previous camera person put in.

It was an old NVR BOSS system, and it failed, and they didn't want to use that person anymore. I put in a Synology surveillance station for them. I didn't do the full Synology NVR recommended devices.

We had a 918 plus that we just simply added, matched down on memory. We put in solid-state drives, ordered the correct number of license. They had 16 cameras, and that was running their camera system.

So when they got purchased, the old company said, well, we don't want to support them. And we said, why not? Well, I didn't say why not. The doctor in charge said, why not? And they said, well, they're not HIPAA compliant, and we don't support them.

And the doctor says we're keeping cameras. So they kept the Synology and Lumu camera system. However, they haven't done anything with them in two years.

So two of the cameras are out, and the customer called me back and said, hey, they won't support our cameras. Can you? And I said, yeah, we'll see. So I went out, and one of the things that I had to do was figure out what they had done.

I had not seen the network, because this was done after we removed all of our stuff. But I knew that we had segmented the cameras to be on a separate VLAN, and I needed to see if they had done the same. So all I had to do was find one of the cameras that I wasn't working.

I plugged in my EtherScope, and I got this email that confirmed to me that the connection was still VLAN. They had renamed it to a VLAN 5. And so at least I knew what I was working with there. So it just took me a few minutes to get the camera, pull the cable, plug it in there.

And this is an example of what you can do when you go on site and into an environment that you don't know. You can kind of plug in stuff and see where you are. So that is what happened with this client.

And luckily, I sold them three cameras. I replaced the two that had failed, and I sold them a spare and was able to do that. I had to manually set the IP address for the cameras, even though they were set up for DHCP.

The way that the system was set up, it was easier just to put them back to the IP address that they were to match the two cameras that were missing. I did not have access to the DHCP server so that I could, you know, put in a registry setting and assign them through that. They did not want to call the IT department because they didn't want to get in trouble.

I don't know what the deal was, but this was one of those things that we kind of had to do under the radar. They would pay for it, but they didn't want to have to deal with it. So if I had called them and said, hey, I need for you to set the IP addresses in your system to this, they probably would have pitched a fit.

So I used the EtherScope, got everything I needed, and that was that. So that is your NetAlly story and my client story for the week here, and it'll be great. So now let's go ahead and get to the ASCII Edge.

So as many of you know, I've already done a couple of episodes about ASCII Edge. I did a preview with Diana Giles, who was giving a session there on stress management. And right before this last one, I did a quick interview with Jesse Tuttle, also known as Hackah Jak, and his keynote speech, The Mindset of a Hacker.

And I will say this. Yes, Jesse wowed at the session, but I kind of felt that Jesse was holding back because I couldn't tell if he was winded because he was busy that day or if he was stressing because he wanted to say stuff but didn't feel like he could say stuff. I don't know.

It felt like the statute of limitations was up, but it was almost like if he said something, he was afraid federal agents would come busting through the door or something like that. So he kind of he left us hanging. So when I return for some other ASCIIs and definitely the ASCII Cup, we'll see if he starts to let some of the cats out of the bag and see what that was.

So that is something where if you are in the area for the remaining ASCII Edge events, you need to get to them. If at the very least, the last day to see Jesse Tuttle's keynote speak. So there's more events coming.

Newark is in April, Chicago in June, Columbus, Ohio in July, Toronto in August, Dallas in September, and Philadelphia is the ASCII Cup, the last event of the year. And we'll see if Pax 8 and Rhythms do get out. Rob and Steve have a little thing going there.

I won't out them here. You need to go to an event to actually see what that is. But for the most part, you know, the ASCII Edge events, they're not like some of the other events.

Now, you have the big Pax 8, you have the IT Nations, great events, lots of vendors, lots of sessions. But the ASCII Edge events are a little bit more intimate where you get to see and hang out with people there. Everything's in one room.

All the speakers are in the same place. The vendor hall is right down the way. You see everybody multiple times in the day.

You have lots of time to hang out and network and have chats. Some of the chats I did have on the podcast. And shout out to Kristen Pittman for telling me all the mistakes I did in my SharePoint migration, which I thought I had a pretty healthy checklist.

But she just reminded me that, no, if you're going to do real SharePoint migrations, you've got to use much more suited SharePoint checklist. So we talked about that. That episode, in case you're wondering, was already released.

That was the last episode. No, I think there's another one since then. But I'm going to have a link in the show notes.

It's episode 793, SharePoint wins and woes, or woes and wins. Kristen Pittman from CyLutions. We talked about that.

There is another episode also out already from ASCII. Jerry Koutavas, president of ASCII, was the first episode that we did there live in Orlando. I've got several more coming out.

They're going to be fantastic. Steve Copeland, of course, Rhythms. They are my internet sponsor while I am out on the road.

So he was there. Had a nice chat with him. Herman Poole, Laura Kasper, Dave Geiger, Allie Johnston, and fan favorite.

Lisa Johnson, John McCarrick, James Abercrombie. And no, it is not pronounced Amber Crombie and Fitch. It is Abercrombie.

And David Steele, Entrada out of Pennsylvania. Another ASCII member there. So what else happens at these events? Well, there are member meetings.

So if you're an ASCII member and you want to know who all of the other local folks are around where you're at, ASCII has a separate member meeting where we hang out, we chat. The partner dinners. We did have one of those.

Actually, there were a few. I was at one, not all of them. But these are off-site.

Nice place. I don't know if they're all steakhouses, but this one was. And this was put on by Rhythms, Super Ops, and Channel Hunters.

These dinners, so they were tagged as non-pitch events. And I will say that they did stay true to their word. They were not pitched, but it is definitely story time.

So if you go out with Steve Copeland and Rhythms, it's going to be story time. You just have to accept that. And you know what? I can't remember the guy's name from Channel Hunters.

He's got good stories too. Lots of them. I can't share those either.

Oh, but I will say this. If Steve ever orders a drink, flaming onion, old-fashioned, or something like that, and if you're not a bourbon drinker, just say no. This drink, so a little bit of personal information.

I'm not a big drinker. Well, I'm not a little drinker either. Let's just say that if I drink one drink a month, that's a lot.

And usually I will cap my limit at two, but it's not a full two. I'm never going to finish a drink. Let's just put it that way.

And I ordered just a very safe, was it a rum and Coke or a Captain and Coke? Whatever it was. I tried to order that. Steve said, no, no, no, you're going to have a real drink.

And so he was in cahoots with our waitress, and she brought me this flaming thing, which I know there's bourbon in it because it basically smelled as soon as it came through the door. And there was some other stuff in it. There was a, let's see, there was an orange peel in it.

There was something for garnish. They said there was syrup in it. I don't know.

All I know is that it smelled nasty. It tasted nasty. If you're not a bourbon drinker, don't get that.

And as a matter of fact, I've been thinking about this. I have these bourbon drinks that were given to me that they said on my shelf. They're nice as decorations, but I'm considering giving them away.

So that will be something that I can have you all reach out to me. If you are a bourbon drinker and you want these, I'm not just going to give them to you. We're going to figure out a way for me to give these away.

That's in a nice, respectable manner. And they can get the attention that they deserve because I hear, you know, the Buffalo Trace and I forget, Four Roses. I hear the very great bourbons or whiskies or whatever they are.

No need for them to sit here. They were nice. I probably need to change the decorations here a little bit.

So that's what that is. So flaming, I don't, I call it the flaming onion. Old fashioned.

I don't know what the real name is. It sounds close enough. Steve ever listens to this or if anybody around him can correct me.

That's fine. Let's see. Actually, you know what? I also have some pictures.

Let me bring those up. And bear with me here as I pull these up. And we will go through the pictures if I can find them.

I put them here. There we go. That's not it.

Where's my picture? Here we go. Invalid file type. Of course.

Let's try this. That's better. All right.

So here are some pictures. This is the Hyatt Regency Airport Hotel. That's a nice view from up front.

And yes, when they said it is at the airport. Literally, you can walk downstairs and go through checkout. There are some of us there.

For some reason, Lynn said we had to take a picture in front of the ASCII sign. So we did. And there was us having a late night picture.

Well, like eight o'clock or so. Again, I don't know why we do. And this is us on the way to one of those partner dinners with Steve and his crew.

I will never sit in a van like that again. Laura Casper. A person who was shy and thought that, you know, she shouldn't do a podcast with me.

She did. She's a winner. David Steele, another person who did a podcast with me.

And he won stuff. So the thing is, and there's me getting an award. The thing is, come be on my podcast and you win stuff.

Good luck happens. And Doug Young, after 32 years, retiring from ASCII. We wish him the best.

So that's all I put up there, folks. Nothing major. There's a ton of other pictures out there.

And what else happened? Oh, Rookie from Central Florida. Works with Sea Solutions. Went to Florida Man Games.

Said she saw me there but didn't come over and say hello. Rookie, I'm sorry about that. Jerry Koutavas was upset he could not make Florida Man.

But will go next year. So there's going to be lots of stuff happening next year at Florida Man. Okay, so let's get to swag because that's why some of you are here.

I will say, first of all, I'm not quite sure about this from Monger. And I did see Rob Scott there, but we didn't get to chat to find out if this was supposed to be a bee or a wasp or a hornet. We'll find out from him soon.

So that will go up on the shelf. The wings aren't even right. They're just, I don't know, whatever that was.

Of course, some fan favorites there. SonicWall has some new hat colors. I don't know.

It's not as bright orange as it used to be, but that's there. I have two podcasts coming up with the Kronos Fellows. So they were there, had some nice travel mugs there.

Oh, and updated rhythms. Stanley fake mug that came with a Red Bull inside. I did not drink it.

I do not drink the Red Bull. I'm not sure if it's good or healthy or not. Somebody can let me know that.

And then there was this. And let me just say, folks, that when I go to conferences, it's usually a good sign when somebody runs up to me as a vendor and says, Marv, you got to swing by our booth. We have some swag that I think you're going to love.

It's another thing when a vendor comes up and says, Marv, please don't make fun of our swag because it looks like a condom. But it does. And not the kind that is, I don't even know if I can say this properly, but non-ribbed or ribbed for your non, I don't know, let's just say.

I'm not going to call out the vendor's name. It's going to be easy enough for you to figure that out. But hopefully they'll get this fixed.

What this is supposed to be, folks, is a balloon. So you're supposed to blow it up. And then it's supposed to be the little boppity bop balloon from the 80s when you would.

Listen, that's all you need to know. Um, so there is, I'm not going to name a swag winner for this ASCII event, but I'm definitely going to name a swag loser. And that is the condom on a string from this vendor.

So, um, but they called it out themselves. They knew they, they, they knew. Hopefully they'll get that fixed.

So, uh, let's just say that these vendors did not lose, uh, the vendors that actually helped me, uh, participate at the events there. Of course, I mentioned NetAlly already. And of course, Rhythms was my internet provider while on site.

The internet in a box, uh, worked out really well. You can revitalize, revolutionize connectivity with portable, reliable 5G and satellite solutions. So that was fantastic.

Um, let me see if I fixed this. LionGuard. They are my gear sponsor for 2025.

Automate, protect, and empower your IT services with Liongard’s attack surface management. Uh, Bvoip. And yeah, I still haven't fixed that because I wasn't here.

Cloud communications built for MSPs. Streamline operations and enhance client engagement. And I'm sorry, I'm looking to see, and I didn't do this either.

I need to put a thing in here for TrueGuard or TruGrid. Um, they don't listen, so they won't know that. Uh, TruGrid.

Secure RDP connections without VPNs. Eliminate vulnerabilities and ensure compliance. So, uh, the easiest way for you to support the show, besides using my Amazon link, is to go to itbusinesspodcast.com slash sponsors and, uh, support these sponsors.

I do use most of them. And, uh, even if I don't, they're still good. These are great people doing great things in the industry.

And I thank them for, uh, sponsoring me while I was out on the road and helping me with this show. All right. Let's move along to some of your favorite parts.

Our Florida man story tonight is not that guy. What is up with things here? Our Florida man story tonight is a man that was accused of DUI after falling asleep in a Taco Bell drive-thru. And this is in honor of Florida man.

I will be attending. I will be attending the Florida man games in 2026 and, uh, hope to see you all there. So, the arrest of James Christopher Powell in Brooksville, Florida, on April 1st, 2025, following an incident at a Taco Bell drive-thru.

So, according to the Hernando County Sheriff's Office, Powell fell asleep in his vehicle while awaiting his order, awoke to retrieve his food, and subsequently struck a parked car while trying to exit the premises. Now, why were the Hernando County Sheriff's Office following him? Well, basically, a concerned citizen had contacted HCSO to report a reckless driver, reckless, a reckless driver traveling eastbound on Cortez Boulevard in Brooksville. The caller followed the vehicle to a Taco Bell, where the driver, later identified as James Christopher Powell, fell asleep in the drive-thru lane.

And he fell asleep so long that deputies arrived to find his vehicle stationary, butt-running, with his foot on the brake, and the transmission in drive. After waking him, officers observed slurred speech, dilated pupils, and delayed motor responses consistent with central nervous system depressant use. In other words, dude was on some drugs.

So, he woke up and basically tried to go on about his deal, grabbed the food, tried to leave, and then while maneuvering out of the parking lot, he struck a parked Chevrolet Malibu. No injuries were reported, though the Malibu's rear bumper sustained moderate damage. Deputies conducted a field sobriety test, which Powell failed, leading to his arrest for DUI under Florida Statute 316.193. A subsequent search of his vehicle revealed no controlled substances, but blood drawn via a warrant later tested positive for benzodiazepines. 

And no, I don't know what those are, but I assume that they're really good drugs. So, he got all of that stuff and his mugshot database listed an additional charge for grand theft auto. So, I guess he stole the car that he drove drunk in to a Taco Bell drive-through and fell asleep. 

So, that is your Florida man story for today. And as you can see, I have no guests because as I'm trying to do on a regular basis is when I attend a conference, I leave the next live show open for an after-the-conference recap, and that's all this was. So, that's going to do it for tonight.

As I mentioned earlier, all of the people that I listed that I did live show podcast on site with, those are going to be coming out probably at the pace of one per day. The next one out is Steve Copeland with Rhythms. And down the road, all of these will come out. 

They're going to be fantastic. Again, Kristen Pittman was released yesterday, episode 793, Jerry Koutavas, 792. I'll have a link to those. 

I'll also have a link to the ASCII EDGE website where you can go and sign up for any of the remaining ASCII EDGE events throughout the year, events.ascii.com. And if you're not a member of ASCII, consider it. Great discounts, great fun. And as we told the people at the partner dinner, come for the discounts, stay for the people.

That's going to do it, folks, for this episode. We're going to have tons and tons of episodes here over the next couple of weeks, both audio and video. Subscribe to us on any of the social media channels, YouTube, LinkedIn, and the Facebook, or head over to the website, click on the follow button, find your favorite pod catcher, and catch the audio shows whenever they are released. 

Hope you all had a good night. We'll see you soon. And until next time, holla.