The day that Facebook died

We live in an interconnected world, where I, as one guy, can simultaneously exist in many places. But I can’t possibly be everywhere at once. So I rely on the amazing inter-connectivity of technology.

In August, Facebook made a big mistake. They cut off Twitter from cross posting thanks to changes to their API that are meant to make Facebook more secure against groups like Cambridge Analytica. They made changes that broke Hootsuite. But what I think the decision makers there don’t realize is that Facebook essentially isolated themselves as a desolate island that you must travel to in order to visit its dwindling population.

Neah, just come visit me on the mainland.

With Facebook no longer receiving my posts, my wall has quickly become a wasteland. That means people aren’t responding to my posts on their platform, which means I don’t get any relevant notifications, which means I never open the app. As if I’m going to login to Facebook, having posted on every other platform with two clicks, to then copy and paste my same post to their platform. As if!

I don’t use Messenger anymore (XMPP discontinuation: another bonehead move on Facebook’s part), have moved our chat to Discord (who have a wonderful API and webhooks, I might add), and haven’t checked my wall in two months … and growing.

Facebook thinks they’re too big to fail. I remember when MySpace was huge. I think I still have a MySpace account somewhere. I think my Facebook account will inevitably fall into that same forgotten realm of useless services that I no longer use.

So… follow me on Twitter… @RobbieFerguson

Fix: ESET Security Management Center Virtual Appliance Operating System is Not Up To Date

In some previous iterations of the ESET management virtual appliance (ie., ESET Remote Administrator) the operating system would update itself. However, with the new ESET Security Management Center virtual appliance, there is no such task scheduled.

After some time, this will result in the ESMC Security Notification:

Operating system is not up to date

In today’s ESMC exercise, we’ll achieve:

  1. Learn to create a client task,
  2. Learn to schedule a client task to run on a schedule,
  3. Learn to initiate a client task immediately.
  4. And of course, we’ll update our virtual appliance’s OS and get rid of that nasty warning!

Here are the steps to follow. Pay attention along the way so you understand what’s happening. I don’t need to explain it here, since it will be clear on screen as you follow the steps. But by doing this, you will better understand how ESMC’s client tasks operate, and will resolve this issue immediately.

TIP: Note that in the second section (where we run the task immediately) we do not have to create a new client task. Once a client task is created once, you can re-use it (run on) as many times as you like. Similarly, if you create say, a task to install ESET Endpoint Security on Windows Workstations, you can later “Run on” the new laptop you got, without having to create a new Client Task (resulting in redundant client tasks in your list).

Here are the steps to fixing the ESET Security Management Center Operating System is Not Up To Date issue:

  1. Click Client Tasks
  2. Click New at the bottom.
  3. Name the task something like “Update Operating System”
  4. Set Task Category to “Operating System”
  5. Choose task “Operating System Update”.
  6. Press Continue (not Finish)
  7. Check all 3 boxes.
  8. Click Finish.
  9. Click Create Trigger.
  10. Name the trigger “Weekly Update ESMC” or something to that effect.
  11. Click Continue (not Finish).
  12. Click Add Computer and put a checkbox next to emsc.local, and press OK
  13. Press Continue (not Finish).
  14. Change “Scheduled” to “Weekly” and set which day/time you’d like it to occur. Make it during off hours since it might require a reboot.
  15. Hit Finish.

NEXT we’ll run the task now.

  1. Single-click the new “Update Operating System” task (or whatever you called it in Step 3 above).
  2. Click Run On.
  3. Click Target at left.
  4. Add computer->esmc.local->ok
  5. Hit Finish.
  6. Computers->click the esmc.local system and press Send wake-up call.

Give it some time to complete, and then….

– Robbie