IT Pro Tuesday #222

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Welcome back to IT Pro Tuesday!

We’re looking for your favorite tips and tools we can share with the community... those that help you do your job better and more easily. Please reply or leave a comment with your suggestions, and we'll be featuring them in the coming weeks.

As always, we’re updating the full list on our website here. Enjoy.

A Free Tool

OpenTelemetry allows you to instrument, generate, collect and export telemetry metrics, logs and traces so you can analyze software performance and behavior. This open-source observability framework can export data to a variety of back-ends and offers vendor-neutral APIs, software development kits (SDKs) and other tools for collecting data from cloud-native applications and their supporting infrastructure. Our thanks for this one go to AZGhost.

Tutorials

Practical Networking YouTube Channel shares clear, thorough video tutorials that explain complex topics in the networking field. Content is in-depth, but does not go so far down the rabbit hole that you get lost in details that aren't relevant to practical issues. erh_ recommends their NAT playlist, "if you're looking for content to truly understand Network Address Translation."

A Cheatsheet

The GAM Cheat Sheet lists a summary of commands for G Suite's domain management tool GAM. Keep it handy for the proper command format and save the time you'd otherwise spend digging through documentation. sm-raj says, "If you’re a Google Workspace shop, you can’t go wrong with GAM and its cheat sheet."

Another Free Tool

Espanso is an open-source text-substitution tool designed to save you some unnecessary keystrokes. ced_ghart explains, "For those not on Windows that want to take advantage of text expanders/substitution software, try Espanso. It is available on most platforms."

Training Resource

VIM Adventures is an educational game that teaches you all the VIM keyboard shortcuts in a more-fun-than-usual way… and who couldn't use a little more fun on their mission to gain useful skills? Our appreciation for this suggestion goes to starmizzle.

P.S. Bonus Free Tools

DaVinci Resolve is a powerful option for video editing that integrates functions for color, VFX, motion graphics and audio. The free version is fully capable of helping you create amazing videos for your next presentation or training. Sparcrypt explains, "I’ve used this, it’s fantastic. If you’re not a professional who needs adobe then it’s the way to go… and plenty of professional editors use resolve as well."

Adalanche instantly shows what permissions users and groups have in Active Directory. Collects and analyzes information from AD or from local Windows machines. Allows you to find misconfigurations and see who can take over accounts, machines or the entire domain. Kindly recommended by dcdiagfix.

Have a fantastic week and as usual, let us know any comments.

IT Pro title: 
Telemetry Collection, Networking Tutorials, G Suite Cheatsheet & More