Episode 267: The Altispeed Origin Story

The team from Altispeed Technologies join Noah this episode to tell the story of how Altispeed Technologies was born, where it is today, and where the team is headed! 01:15 Altispeed Today Help Desk - Issac Installation and Support - Kenny & Peter Backend R&D - Richard & Simon Administration - Sarah & Jess 02:28 Epoch 1 02:30 Origins of Altispeed 02:40 Why Open Source 05:50 Professional Development Program 07:50 RHEL 5.0 & Red Hat 11:15 Dec 2009 Altispeed is Born 12:25 Noah does everything 13:50 Altispeed Mission Statement 14:55 Philippians 2-4 15:08 Matthew 20-28 17:00 Epoch 2 17:20 Altispeed's First Hire 18:38 The 3 Hiring Questions Do they get what we are trying to do? Do they want to do what we are trying to do? Do they have the capacity to do it? Value People and Relationships above all else 19:40 Buck Stops with Me 20:00 Employees are a mixed blessing 21:42 Epoch 3 Remote Services & Support Podcast Starts A Complete Disaster Success is standing on a pile of failures 26:18 Epoch 4 Covid 19 Hits 28:50 Going forward decisions 30:15 How to serve better 30:46 Peter & Kenny Join the Disscusion 31:00 Kenny's Take 34:30 RpiSurv (https://github.com/SvenVD/rpisurv) 37:15 FOSS Polish 39:02 ANS Outreach & Service 41:55 Noah can work "on" not "for" Altispeed 43:43 Noah's dedication to ANS & the community 44:50 Ask Noah Show Studio 48:30 Epoch 5 The Future of Altispeed 49:28 People stay when they can directly impact the work they do 50:22 How to serve clients going forward 52:32 More than a show tag line 58:16 Tony from Jitsi Asks How do you control what you support? Virtualize Define things up front Altispeed rejects "monkey hands jobs" One place to call has value Being the "middle man" allows you to introduce FOSS alternatives 1:14:36 Today people ask "what can technology do for me" not "what can I do with technology" 1:16:40 How Altispeed does cloud better 1:19:35 Radio likes to be self sufficient 1:20:22 Build Modular Solutions 1:22:55 Plans for 2022 1:24:05 Software is more than a tool 1:24:44 Learn from others Dave Ramsey - Podcast (https://www.ramseysolutions.com/shows/the-ramsey-show/) Franklin Covey - 7 Habits of Highly Effective People Book (https://www.franklincovey.com/the-7-habits/) Rabbi Daniel Lapin - Thou Shalt Prosper Book (https://rabbidaniellapin.com/product/thou-shall-prosper-hardcover-book/) 1:27:48 Reducing friction and setting boundaries Altispeed Tools 1:29:52 Element/Matrix Channels Reply Chains Reactions Federation Spaces 1:40:02 SeaFile (https://www.seafile.com/) Beautiful UI Able to be White Labeled 1:42:24 Nextcloud (https://nextcloud.com/) Deck Gets better over time 1:44:30 OSTicket (https://osticket.com/) Lacking Solid Mobile App Open API 1:48:08 Simple Help (https://simple-help.com/) Proprietary Intuitive UI Unstable on Macs Self Hosted Extra tools that reduce friction Audience Questions 1:50:52 Kpovoc Asks I’d be curious to know how often your clients have problems that might be easier solved by a custom written software vs finding an applicable existing FOSS solution? Many times combining/modifying open source solutions works best 1:54:30 Tony Asks I'd be interested in knowing if you charge customers extra if they want to make changes to an already working solution. Would that be a charge to not have them abuse your time/technician time? Managed Service Contracts Hourly Service What is your most popular service? Access Controls and Cameras Networking 1:57:42 AtypicalKernel Asks How do you deal with clients who don't communicate their needs clearly? Discovery Process R&D Phase Presentation Execute Circle back to Discovery Project Planning recommendations Follow up How do you deal with a client who blames the solution rather than acknowledging their own mistakes and/or short comings? Teach the user Help them understand the limitations of their technology 2:09:30 Tony Asks Are you able to share how you price a solution/support contract? Price hourly Contract Services are locked down What access control systems do you typically deploy? Axis A1001 Door Controller (https://www.axis.com/products/axis-a1001) Powerful integrations HID Readers (https://www.hidglobal.com/products/readers) Proxy III (https://www.hidglobal.com/products/cards-and-credentials/hid-proximity/1346) Adams Rite door strikes (https://www.adamsrite.com/en/products/electric-strikes/) Completely Modular Understand your threat vector HID SEOS (https://www.hidglobal.com/products/cards-and-credentials/seos) Why Noah like HID products 2:19:50 Kpovoc Asks Do clients pay for the discovery process? No, never Discovery benefits Altispeed not the client 2:21:25 Tony Asks How do you deal with a customer who comes to you asking you if you can provide a solution for something you've never done? Do you tackle it even if it is a one of? We love learning new technology Noah loves getting to see behind the scenes Altispeed specializes in this Tony clarifies his previous question We try to move to a open source solution We still take on proprietary software to reduce friction and server the customer well 2:25:14 jutana Asks You mentioned virtualization desktops , are you then using thin clients to access or low end PCs, also how do you deal with multimonitor support (SPICE?) and or USB peripherals? How are you dealing with standardizations on physical machines, imaging or other? RDP in lightweight Windows 10 Moving away from this Thinlinx (https://thinlinx.com/) Continuing to explore Focus is more on the back end VM 2:29:15 Tony Asks Do you guys host email yourselves? Not currently Mail in a Box (https://mailinabox.email/) 2:30:31 toadrocksboat Asked Do you provide critical 24/7 after hours support? How do you balance that with such a lean team? Absolutely Open Source Tooling helps us do that Mentioned in the show Cable Comb (http://www.amazon.com/dp/B01BTUI1TQ/?tag=minddripmedia-20) Volumio (https://volumio.com/) Rivindale (http://rivendellaudio.org/) Axia LiveWire (https://www.telosalliance.com/livewire-aes67-aoip-networking) Ink Scape (https://inkscape.org/) Kden Live (https://kdenlive.org/) Gourmet (https://github.com/thinkle/gourmet) Virsh (https://www.libvirt.org/manpages/virsh.html) Cockpit (https://cockpit-project.org/) -- The Extra Credit Section -- For links to the articles and material referenced in this week's episode check out this week's page from our podcast dashboard! This Episode's Podcast Dashboard (http://podcast.asknoahshow.com/267) Phone Systems for Ask Noah provided by Voxtelesys (http://www.voxtelesys.com/asknoah) Join us in our dedicated chatroom #GeekLab:linuxdelta.com on Matrix (https://element.linuxdelta.com/#/room/#geeklab:linuxdelta.com) -- Stay In Touch -- Find all the resources for this show on the Ask Noah Dashboard Ask Noah Dashboard (http://www.asknoahshow.com) Need more help than a radio show can offer? Altispeed provides commercial IT services and they’re excited to offer you a great deal for listening to the Ask Noah Show. Call today and ask about the discount for listeners of the Ask Noah Show! Altispeed Technologies (http://www.altispeed.com/) Contact Noah live [at] asknoahshow.com -- Twitter -- Noah - Kernellinux (https://twitter.com/kernellinux) Ask Noah Show (https://twitter.com/asknoahshow) Altispeed Technologies (https://twitter.com/altispeed)