SysAdmin Weekly #4
This week’s fixes brought to you by curiosity, caffeine, and industrial-grade duct tape
Welcome to your weekly dose of IT sanity, served piping hot! New here? All newsletter and podcast links are live and tracked at www.sysadminweekly.com
🧠 This Week’s Insight(s)
This week is all about clarity. Whether it’s finally understanding GitHub Copilot’s strengths (and limits), wrangling Windows Admin Center cert errors, or sorting out which Copilot you’re actually supposed to care about, we’re deep in a world where SysAdmins have to be translators, troubleshooters, and teachers all at once.
That brings us to this week’s core message: curiosity is one of the most underrated traits a sysadmin can have.
Without it, we stop learning. we stop building better architectures. we stop following bizarre ticket trails that end in, “Huh… never seen that before.”
Most importantly, without curiosity, we stop dreaming big.
Some of the best solutions in this field started as half-baked “what ifs” that seemed totally unhinged at first. But with enough curiosity to chase the weird idea, solve the next problem, and (sometimes) duct-tape it into something functional — we keep the digital world spinning smoothly….. Mostly.
Now on to our regularly scheduled programming!
🎙️ Latest on the SysAdmin Weekly Podcast
🎧 Getting Started with GitHub Copilot
This week on the podcast Andy and Eric provide a primer on GitHub Copilot. This includes what it is, how SysAdmins can use it, and why it’s not JUST a developer’s toy but a potentially game-changing tool in the SysAdmin toolbox. Scripting, automation help, config file generation; there’s a lot here, and the guys break it down by focusing on the relevant bits needed by SysAdmins.
🎙️ ICYMI on the SysAdmin Weekly Podcast
Still one of the most misunderstood tech narratives out there. This episode aims to set the record straight by pointing out that Hyper-V isn’t going anywhere and why it’s a critical piece of Microsoft’s go-to-market strategy. On top of that, the guys cover why that matters for your virtualization stack.
🔍 From Andy On Tech and Project Runspace
🛑 Windows Admin Center v2 Certificate Issue
Eric Siron breaks down a common issue that’s been popping up for months now — WAC v2 sites refusing to load due to certificate problems. Great fix, clear steps.
🔐 Shhhh… It’s a Secret: How to Handle Secrets in Automated Processes
In this PowerShell Summit 2024 session, I dig into how to handle secrets safely in automated processes……because hardcoding creds into scripts died in 2012 and should stay dead.
🧵 Helpful Community Content
🏆 How to Become a Microsoft MVP – by Betsy Weber
Microsoft MVPs are community leaders that take the extra step to share their knowledge with the IT Community. In this post Betsy Weber shares advice and insight into the Microsoft MVP program along with a GREAT list of existing Microsoft MVPs to follow on LinkedIn. Whether you’re interested in applying or just curious how you could get started as a Microsoft MVP, this is a must-read.
🧠 So You Wanna Work in Cybersecurity – by Grant Collins
We’ve been told again and again that there is a skills shortage in cybersecurity, so where are these mythical jobs? in this video Grant offers a brutally honest look at what it takes to break into cybersecurity. Spoiler: it’s not as easy as LinkedIn influencers make it sound.
🤖 Copilots Explained – by Amy Babinchak
Microsoft has a lot of “Copilot” products now. Amy breaks them down in a quick, no-nonsense way so you know what you’re looking at, and what’s actually useful.
🎟️ SysAdmin Content from Official Sources
💼 Pax8 Beyond 2025 – Day 1 Recap
Yes, this is MSP-focused — but several trends crossover into broader IT ops: AI-powered automation, centralized SaaS orchestration, and integrations that could impact vendors your org already relies on. Worth a skim even if you’re not on the MSP side of the house.
📰 Security Headlines for SysAdmins
Apple Patches Zero-Click Flaw in iMessage
Apple patched a critical vulnerability affecting iMessage — no user interaction required. If you manage any iOS/iPadOS devices in your org, make sure they’re updated now.46,000+ Grafana Instances Vulnerable to Account Takeover
Grafana instances exposed to the internet could be hijacked due to an open redirect bug. If you’re self-hosting dashboards, check your version and lock it down immediately.
🛠️ Tool of the Week
Vale – A syntax-aware linting tool for docs, Markdown, and prose.
Vale helps you enforce style guides and consistent formatting across written content and it works great inside VS Code as well! I use it personally for Markdown linting before shipping blog posts and other written docs. You can even create your own style rules, or adopt existing ones.
“Because broken formatting in tech docs is the new rage-quit trigger.”
🧠 Fun Retro SysAdmin Fact
Fun Fact:
In the early ’90s, Sun Microsystems used the slogan “The network is the computer.” Decades later, we call it the cloud and pretend it’s new.
Sun had the right idea, I suppose. We just had to wait for gigabit speeds and people to stop fearing thin clients and cloud services along the way.
☕ Wrap-Up
This week’s vibe? Untangling the mess. Whether it’s navigating Copilot chaos, fixing cert errors that shouldn’t exist, or realizing the cybersecurity job market isn’t quite the utopia we were promised. It’s all part of the game.
Stay curious, stay salty, and keep forwarding this to that one coworker who thinks “just restart it” is a long-term strategy.
See you next week,
— Andy