AB_IT

Hey All, Long time no speak but I've got a bit of a dilemma and it's currently keeping me up at night. We have a member of staff here who has spoken with their son who is a developer and has advised her that she can utilise Claude to code applications from scratch, host this application on our SharePoint and use it in production. I'm no developer however I know a small amount of fundamentals to get me by. The issue is the first app that's been created Claude wants us to register it as an app in Entra so that it can use our Office 365 logins as authentication to who can access the application. This member of staff to my knowledge has no past experience in development and so I raised concerns mainly around security and integrity of the app as though it's been developed, I'm uncomfortable giving it access to services without knowing if the app is secure, an example off the top of my head is Claude could potentially hallucinate or similar due to the long conversations and prompts and as a result mess up the code sending data to who knows where or what it's doing with it so I wanted to get it checked by a developer which we're in the process of doing. It also needs a Database which it wants to use Power Automate and SharePoint lists to log the data. It's basically a HTML form which is filled out by members of staff and then that information is sent to a dashboard. It uses .json files and HTML files hosted on SharePoint. That first app is still undergoing checks and is yet to be put in production, I've had to get an external IT support company to check it over and help support their implementation of the app, however this weekend I recently received another email saying this same member of staff has created another application. It wants similar; where an app registration in Entra would need to be created and then it would utilise our O365 logins in order to allow certain staff members to authorise a request for certain kit and then also recording an invoice. This seems like real serious stuff and the member of staff is speaking about having an audit trail. The additional problem I seem to have is that the CEO is working alongside this member of staff and wants these things to go into production. I just feel quite uncomfortable around the fact the software developed by Claude has no support attached to it, requires permissions from our current systems and users, I don't have the expertise or questioning ability in order to support these applications if something goes wrong or to ensure Claude is doing the right thing and is doing what it says. It all just seems a bit hard to navigate and is worrying me as more and more of these apps are being developed. I don't want to be the IT Manager who just says no for the sake of it or pushes back, I want to enable users to use this new technology but I'm concerned about quite a lot here. The external IT support company said they are getting requests from other companies with the same kind of thing and where positive about it, so I presume it's more common than I think? What are your guys suggestions, should I be more open and happy to approve these apps or am I right in pushing back a bit here? Also what are you guys doing in this scenario? Any help would be most appreciated, thanks all

It's a home users VPN connection that goes through their home ISP and connects into our network. We have re-imaged and it fixed it for a few months but then the same problem is back. It can't be her ISP as other devices are connecting fine through the same VPN connection.

Hey All, Ripping my hair out over this one. We have a member of staff who is using a desktop PC at her home to connect into our network over an OpenVPN connection. For some strange reason DNS keeps falling over and no DNS names will work when connecting to servers. However we can use IP's but this messes up Group Policy as it's all DNS based especially things for like her redirected profile folders. She has a laptop and I've even been to her house and these work perfectly fine including connecting my own laptop, it's just this desktop which is setup in the exact same way. We tried all the usual steps such as a DNS flush and DNS register, I've checked all the settings and done an nslookup and it's correct. In the end we reimaged it and rejoined it to the domain. This worked perfectly fine for the last 2 months or so and now it's done the exact same thing again. It can ping our DNS server and is sending requests to it. It's able to access public DNS because browsing to websites work fine it's just on our network. It's very strange, has anyone come across this kind of problem before? If anyone can help point me where to look I'd really appreciate it, our team has wasted so much time on this.

Thanks All! So a proper electrician it is. Just a pain we'll be spending extra money out of my budget, was hoping I could save some cash lol.

Hey All, Just wanted to check if it would be a problem, basically bought this big UPS that's going to help power some of the servers. It requires however a hardwired connection into the back so Positive, Ground, Neutral wires to be stripped and the screwed into the back. Is there anything wrong with me using a Kettle Lead, stripping it and just wiring it in myself, plugging it into a UK 3 Pin Socket or is this a fire hazard etc...? Maybe I'm being dumb but thought it was worth the ask Thanks All

Thanks all for your help The dealership has now said they will pay for the full repair.

Hi All, I purchased a 2022 Kia Stonic for £14,250 3 weeks ago, £750 of that was a part exchange bringing it down to £13,500 which I paid in full cash. It was from an official Kia dealer. I cleaned it for the first time on Tuesday and noticed that on the roof there was a rusy stone chip about 8mm x 4mm. I didn't think it'd be a big deal so took it to a stone chip place to get it repaired. I also took it to the local Kia dealer which I didn't buy the car from to get their opinion. Both said that because it's been neglected for so long the rust has spread underneath the cars paint, they would need to respray the entire roof to ensure the paint didn't bubble in the future. One quoted £750 the other was £350. Quite a difference in price. However they both said to contact the dealership I bought it from because they should be fixing it since I've only had the car 3 weeks. I've tried to call the Kia dealership but was put through to their switchboard who said they were busy and couldn't answer the phone so they will call me back instead. Nothing. So I've sent an email with pictures and full explanation to the sales chap I purchased it from but haven't received a reply yet. This was a lot of money to spend and to say I'm gutted is an understatement. I can't afford to pay out the £350 repair cost currently after spending so much on the car itself. Does anyone know what my legal position here? Could they just bluff and say I caused the stone chip even though due to level of rust this is incredibly unlikely? Do they have to fully fix the roof since I've now raised it within 30 days of me owning the vehicle? I'm really worried, not sure what to do. I hope you guys will be able to give some advice 🙂

Thanks all for your help and input. We've discovered that for some reason our reseller have removed all our licenses from our Tenant. Working with them to try and get something sorted.

Thanks! So it's not effecting everyone then. So strange. A colleague of mine has also found the following Reddit thread I'm getting the following error message when trying to browse to outlook.office.com/mail UTC Date: 2025-03-28T09:59:27.339Z Client Id: 45C3DC7AD12B48E2A9CD6A93BCFF949E Session Id: cfc05766-12ec-4d7d-a95f-8e27bc25cba4 Client Version: 20250307002.17 BootResult: configuration Back Filled Errors: Unhandled Rejection: SyntaxError: JSON.parse: unexpected character at line 1 column 1 of the JSON data:undefined|Unhandled Rejection: SyntaxError: JSON.parse: unexpected character at line 1 column 1 of the JSON data:undefined|Unhandled Rejection: Error: 500:undefined|Unhandled Rejection: SyntaxError: JSON.parse: unexpected character at line 1 column 1 of the JSON data:undefined|undefined:undefined|undefined:undefined|undefined:undefined|undefined:undefined err: Microsoft.Exchange.Data.Storage.TenantAccessBlockedException esrc: StartupData et: ServerError estack: s@https://res.public.onecdn.static.microsoft/owamail/hashed-v1/scripts/owa.mailindex.8b53afd4.js:1:142760 y/</<@https://res.public.onecdn.static.microsoft/owamail/hashed-v1/scripts/owa.mailindex.8b53afd4.js:1:155397 st: 500 ehk: X-OWA-Error efe: LO4P265CA0289 emsg: TenantAccessBlockedError

Hi All, This morning been battling with some staff as O365 seems to be down for us. Just wanted to double check and make sure it's not only us, can't seem to find any thread on any forum saying there is issues. Has anyone found out a way around this as of yet? On the admin 'Service Health' page it says they're having problems with eDiscovery however they're only expecting a new update at 4pm today so this would essentially mean we have no email services all working day! Thanks Everyone

I don't understand why car manufactures can't just cover the underside in plastic trim to prevent a lot of the rust issues. My Civic for example has a very large plastic undertray with a little middle hole to easily service the engine. I rarely clean her and a lot of the metal thats underneath the plastic looks almost new, no rust or concerns. The bit they didn't cover in plastic trim is the exhaust and rear axle. I bet if they did it would be fine. Plastic is also incredibly cheap so I'm unsure as to the reasoning behind not covering these components? Maybe someone with more understanding could tell me why. Also why are cars still using cambelts? I had one on my Clio years back and it was an expensive job getting it changed out and things. My Civic has a cam chain and though I know some are noisy mine certainly isn't and runs really quiet. Why aren't cars fitted with chains instead? My one other concern at the moment is the V-Belt that drives the alternator, water pump etc.. this has never been replaced or changed in it's life however it's probably due one. I'm just hoping my girl keeps going, cars don't excite me like they used to when I was a kid. I actually purchased an 2020 Aprilia SR50 scooter about 3 years back and rebuilt the entire engine. The whole engine was great fun to build in my spare time and the cost came to around £700 with branded good quality parts, considering my rear axle on my car has cost £750 it seems like a steal. It's so much fun and takes me back to being young again, also the 80+ mpg is a win especially when I get paid 45p per mile at work. It's one of the last scooters which was a 2 stroke engine so it can go pretty fast, I know they're bad for the environment but since it's engine is 0.05L I can't imagine how bad it really is in comparison to a car, the EU made it to difficult with Euro 5 emissions for manufacturers to still produce 2 strokes and so that time has ended which is a shame. When it does go wrong parts are so cheap for it that I hardly flinch recently purchased a new carb for it at the expensive cost of £11.99 new, I mean that's a Large Costa Coffee. I don't drive it in the rain/winter however so this is probably what's keeping it in good nick!

Thanks everyone I'm going to keep saving and investing my money whilst keeping my car on the road, replacing things and maintaining it myself where I can and hope that it lasts me another couple of years. I'll nurse the clutch until it starts to really play up and then just take each day at a time. Maybe the silly thing to do here is to buy a brand new car. Especially since no one knows how the cost of cars will change in the future and what will happen to mortgage interest rates. Playing the waiting game with my car might just mean that used car prices drop to a more reasonable level later on and in the meantime I've paid off a good chunk of my mortgage with my savings

Thanks all for your comments. I wasnt expecting this much help. It's interesting to hear all your takes on this and I'm considering everything you're telling me so please keep the comments coming in @3s-gtech - The clutch I think needs replacing, sometimes it can be awkward to get into first/second gear, most of the time it's okay but it's becoming more frequent and there have been times at traffic lights where I've needed to put it in first and drive but it won't go in. I have also on 2 occassions now felt some slippage when accelerating hard onto a motorway or similar. I've also found that my car especially in colder weather will slowly judder whilst it's in gear like the clutch is released, I'm in gear and it feels like the car is rocking forwards and backwards until I change to a higher gear. I'm presuming this all point at the clutch especially since as a result of this I tried changing the gearbox oil but smoother changes thinking it needed this but it hasn't made a difference. I don't mind changing the clutch if I could have a mystical ball to tell me that nothing else major will go wrong on it for at least the next couple of years, however if it all comes at once then I'll be screwed as with the rear axle and clutch it'll likely be more than the car is worth. I'm comfortable doing most work but huge jobs like the clutch I don't want to do myself so labour costs are silly. I don't think having a car on lease is something I want to consider, I don't like the idea of renting something, I'd rather own and have an asset that I can pay off immediately than rent or pay any kind of interest on a purchase. Thanks for your reccomendations though

Hey All I'm hoping you lovely sensible folk will be able to help me make up my mind with regards to my car. My car is a 2011 Honda Civic and I purchased it with around 30k miles back in 2013. It has never really ever let me down except for standard things like brakes, servicing once a year and the odd minor repair. It's now got 125k miles on it and recently 'slowly' more and more things have started to go wrong. Nothing that I couldn't fix myself so I've been fixing it to save money. Suspension things and stuff. Recently I took it in for an MOT and it failed on the rear axle, it had corroded and needed full replacement. I couldn't do this job and it would have been too big of a job so I was quoted £750 all in and it needed new rear brakes so I supplied the part and they said they'd fit for an extra £50 since they where working on rear axle. I've reguarly looked after my car, I could wash it more but I'm always on time with maintenance schedules and recently did a bunch of work changing Gearbox Oil, Brake Fluid, Anti freeze etc... It runs and sounds lovely and as it owes me nothing I now don't really worry about silly things like parking it somewhere. For a long while now I've been saving money and have a bit of a financial plan. My mortgage renewal will be up in 2026 and when the fixed term expires I'm going to look at what the rates are but also put about 30-40k that I've saved into the mortgage to pay off a large portion of my house leaving me with less than a 50% LTV and also take off 5 years from my mortgage. If I keep doing this in the next 10 years (I'm 30 currently) I'll be mortgage free. Then the plan is to hopefully rent the house out and move into a bigger home. However realistically my car now needs a new clutch, it's old and this will cost around £1,500 with flywheel bearing etc... Then what if the alternator, water pump a bearing goes etc... It starts to cost more and more. Which I'm worried about investing another £1500 into my car for something else to go like a head gasket or something. I've looked at used cars and thought I'd be able to find another used car at 6-8k, 2 years old with little to no mileage, how wrong was I! The cost of new cars is ridiculous, mine by WhatCar valuation is worth around 2k it's a knacker by this point, I was thinking I'd be lucky if I get a grand back for it. As I look for used cars around 2-4 years old with no more than 30k miles on the clock it's starting to creep up to the price of buying a brand new Dacia which my dad has had for 5 years now and hasn't had any problems with. Dacia have just released the Dacia Spring which is fully electric but can go 130ish miles on a single charge, more than enough for me plus no engine for services, tax etc... Sounds good and it's £12,995 if you shop around a bit literally brand new. A Honda Civic 4 years old with 35k miles is averaging around 9k. WHAT!? So my question is this, what would you guys do. I don't like spending money on cars or on anything for that matter my main goal is to pay my house off as it isn't dead money at least. I treat my finances very seriously and I'm careful. Do I invest in my current car with a new clutch, flywheel and hope that in the next 3-5 years nothing else goes wrong or do I buy a used car at inflated prices for around 9k or do I buy the Dacia new electric vehicle and hope that the electric over petrol cost including maintenance fees more than offsets the use for a petrol car. Any advice/help is really appreciated as I know if I don't make a decision I will do nothing and regret it later. Thanks everyone

Sent you a DM. Yes it is me.