
Show HN: IT Kit – curated tools for IT managers - benjlang
http://itkit.io/
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ocdtrekkie
I wouldn't trust... most of these... in an IT environment. There's a few gems
in there, but IT is such a wide field and the most key element is that you
need solutions that fit into your existing environment and existing workflow.

For example, two of the highest rated tools are for Macs. I don't have Macs in
my environment. Nor is outsourcing our networking or security to a cloud
service a good choice, and I've seen way too many issues with Google accounts
to ever consider G Suite viable. (I'd go with any number of alternatives to
Microsoft Office long before I'd even consider it.) Chat is a compliance
nightmare to add in, and it's outside the workflow of my environment, so
everything Slack, Teams, etc. is all useless.

How many of these are PCI compliant? HIPAA compliant? Insert X compliance
requirement compliant? (CJIS is a great one to bring up if you want whoever is
trying to sell you something on the phone to give up and leave you be.)

Which is to say: My feedback here is that you need to filter for people's
needs. We don't cargo cult in IT, I need more than a fancy brand logo.

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benjlang
Thanks, totally valid feedback. Any specific products you'd recommend adding?
Or just more advanced filtering?

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ocdtrekkie
Two tools I think are great that a lot of people don't know about are PDQ
Deploy/Inventory for software deployment too big to do manually but too small
to justify buying SCCM, and PRTG is a pretty robust modern network monitoring
system.

But yeah, mostly filtering.

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bradknowles
I’ve been in the industry for over thirty years, and I’ve never heard of these
tools.

I’m not saying that they’re not great at what they do for their segment, but I
do think they’re more specialized.

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ocdtrekkie
As I said, a lot of people don't know about them. ;) PDQ Deploy is a
remarkably affordable software deployment tool, they charge by the admin using
it, not by the PCs covered by it, and the yearly cost gets them automatically
building for you... most of the deployment packages for common Windows
software IT environments deploy. I've never used PDQ Inventory, but it ties in
pretty closely with Deploy if you use it as your auditing and asset management
tool.

PRTG is in the vein of Nagios and WhatsUpGold, but far more delightful to use.

I wouldn't call either specialized, except perhaps in terms of organization
size. If you're in Fortune 500s, probably not going to end up with these
tools.

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bradknowles
Ahh, right. Enterprisey Windows stuff. The stuff that I have spent my entire
career avoiding at all possible costs.

Yeah, you definitely have different answers for these spaces than I do.

For my deployments, it’s either Chef or any of various tools on AWS.

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benjlang
Here's what's coming next for IT Kit:

[http://people.itkit.io](http://people.itkit.io)
[http://jobs.itkit.io](http://jobs.itkit.io)

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bradknowles
So, this is a website that lets people submit the names of their favorite
software and then vote on them.

Anyone want to take any bets on how long it takes to turn this into the latest
clicker game?

What do I get if I manage to take my favorite software to a billion votes in
the next five minutes? Is there a prize for that? 1/2 ;) ?

Sadly, any time you have user submissions and voting on those submissions, you
also have to think very long and hard about all the abuse you’re going to have
to deal with.....

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blinger
Clean design. Making my way through the list, my only complaint about the site
is the inability to open each page in a new tab (middle click / right click ->
open in new tab). Makes browsing the site a pain.

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benjlang
Good feedback, thank you.

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jpwgarrison
I gotta admit, the very fist thing I noticed was the "This content is not
secure" cert warning in the URL bar.

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benjlang
Oops, need to fix this!

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benjlang
Fixed!

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bradknowles
So, where is the forum for discussing these tools and making suggestions?

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benjlang
No forum, but you can suggest products here
[https://askspoke.typeform.com/to/rvq3mY](https://askspoke.typeform.com/to/rvq3mY)
Adding a few each week.

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bradknowles
Yeah, I saw that.

After scrolling all the way to the bottom of the page.

Have you tested using this page on iOS?

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benjlang
Yeah, I've seen some scrolling issues which need to be fixed. Anything else
you saw?

