Tech Stories

2. I'm dying a little bit inside OpenDNS statistics for two of the networks I manage (both are high-speed lines in a sorority) showed that a house of 65 girls accessed the main homepage for Facebook (www.facebook.com) over 3000 times between midnight and 4pm (with noticable drops in traffic between 4 and 7am). Facebook and it's little subsidiary domains (fbcdn.net) accounted for the top 15 domain requests in that timeframe. Of the 12,000 some network requests in that time period, I would estimate Facebook at over 75% of those requests. So screw every single one of them that bitches about not being able to do homework when the network is down (which it is only .000003% of the time according to my stats). [By: YourLastHope] Comment on Story Comments You should post the stats next to your desk and when one of them whines ask them if they can understand it. -spectreoflife Should re-route all requests to those 2 sites to something else. See what happens! -Caboose447 Nahhh, save it for when they're bitching about the network being down, and they can't do their homework... THEN tell them you can make sure that the network is up and running for homework, and send Facebook to the toilet to make sure that more bandwidth is available. When they complain, justifying their complaint with the "homework" excuse, take them to the school site on their computer, and show them it works fine. Make them finally come out and say they can't get to Facebook. -Voz Set up a fake page explaining that the gubbamint has shut down FacePlant due to a number of complaints relating to remote activation of webcams showing young women in domitories. Make the claims more outrageous in each paragraph, maybe finish with aliens teleporting through their monitors and stealing their underwear. Divert facebook requests there and see what happens. -AussieFoot

3. I am supposed to be smarter than this It was a painful first 5 minutes of the call before I had realized that the LUser had reversed the left and right mouse buttons. Every time I asked her to right-click to bring up a menu, nothing would happen. After we got over that hurdle I spent most of the rest of the call looking for a blunt object to hit myself with and end this wretched misery of life. Having to repeat every one of my clear, concise instructions for no apparent reason is not on my list of awesome things to do. [By: YourLastHope] Comment on Story Comments We have an end user who does this all the time (she says right click something when she MEANS left click and vice versa). What's worse is she's a supervisor and trains people under her to do that, so the look of utter confusion when she tells them to left click on something and nothing happens, is both priceless and frustrating. -redfaery With the Amiga I used to refer to the "Menu" & "Action" buttons. -AussieFoot I think you're being too harsh on yourself. Anyone with enough brainpower to have a job/life/computer should know their right from left, barring a medical condition (ie: a lack of HANDS). -ThinTheHerd TTH - some dyslexics (such as my wife) have to THINK (and or look at something) t determine the direction associated with "left" or "right". As long as you don't use those WORDS (for instance pointing in the direction while in the car, etc.), you're fine. Over the phone, of course, you're screwed.... -Grue And on a list of fun things to do, this comes somewhere below sitting in a tub full of scissors.... (jeff foxworthy) -AdmiralLaurie Grue: I hear you. That's one of the conditions I was referring to, being mildly dyslexic myself (and getting worse daily). When I did driver training, I also held my hand just behind the steering wheel to indicate turns to make, while speaking the direction. -ThinTheHerd Follow up: I went to the customer site last night and was diagnosing a misbehaving wifi card. The left and right mouse buttons function normally. They are not reversed. It's actually her. -YourLastHope

4. Mother of God Judy Patch has a TV show: http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=f8a_1258220619 [By: YourLastHope] Comment on Story Comments hmm. ... already posted.... -beatmewithstick I thought that looked familiar. http://www.techcomedy.com/single/new_stories.php?content_number=81414 -Stryker One Oh my $diety$, I couldn't sit through ONE MINUTE of that bland drivel about "Mouse Balls"! (BTW, when was this video done, 1998?!) -udoshan Ok, where's OTIS? I deserve a beating for such an obvious duplication. I believe Stryker One gets the first swing. -YourLastHope LoL, reminds me of a customer that came in and asked for a neutered mouse. I felt my jaw bounce off the floor and went "Umm... WHAT?" She flushed a bit and said, "You know, the ones without any balls in the bottom." (This was near the start of the optical mice coming into the market) -spectreoflife

5. Self LART After wrestling for hours with a cranky 2003 SBS server that just didn't want to do anything, I finally get it pretty much functional and am disconnecting the monitor I directly connected for access. Guess which power cord I pulled out by mistake? [By: YourLastHope] Comment on Story Comments Oh, shit......... -Gromit And now Murphy is ROFL. -Stryker One Trust me, that's gonna happen a hundred more times... -Spyder19 This may be a little anal retentive but I use a label maker to tag the cords of my servers, monitors, keyboards and mice. (Power cords get one at both ends for reasons you have to experience) Haven't unplugged the wrong one yet. -ecoli Oops. Or should that be "UPS"... (sorry) -SoldierJedi Nah, it's an IPS, for obvious reasons. -VFox

6. Now the boss has it too....... So we've had complaints from a user saying her computer was slow. For the life of me, I couldn't figure out what it was. Everything checked out normal and I didn't see any problems. Today my boss gets this email from her:::: Subject: All better ---- The stupidest reason you may have ever heard for problems with a computer. The path to my cordless mouse was blocked. I thought my computer was slow because I had to click on everything 2 to 3 times to get it to do anything.----- My boss' reply to me: What kind of sea creature was sponge bob’s friend Patrick? [By: YourLastHope] Comment on Story Comments I like your boss. -unrenowned That is so awesome. -Slartarama So, will "Patrick" now be a euphemism for "Starfish"? -Stryker One I second that, and approve of it -NerfHerder approve and print it in the daily bugle, starfish may also appropriately be called "Patricks" -iamscoop

7. Just enough to be a pain in the........ So it looks like I have a new victim. She was just hired two weeks ago and joined the payroll department (two other people). Fortunately, she's not the payroll dept. that signs my checks. It started out with little things. First, she wanted her keyboard tray removed from her desk because she's an amazon and needed the leg space. Annoying, but understandable. You can't help your size (I should know). Nevertheless, I polite and humble request is always preferred over an "I need this done," statement. Especially to the IT guy you just met. Next, however, she decides to up the ante. We had created a new folder for the department and the only people that had access to it were those three, the manager and myself. I get an email from her the next day asking why everyone had access to it when only the 4 of them were supposed to. Turns out, she had misread the permissions on the folder and thought everyone had access. If she had tried to access it from someone else's account, she would have seen that they couldn't get in. But that's not the type of EU she's going to be apparently. Next up, he station was scheduled to be replaced. So I told her a couple of minutes beforehand, to shut down the system and I'll be down with her new computer. We use terminal sessions, so she wasn't going to lose any work or anything. I said I'd be back down in a minute with her new system. Something kept me upstairs for about 5 minutes instead. When I came down, I heard her say, "That was alot longer than a minute." To which I joked, "Hmm, it seems like all the computers here aren't working, I might have to take them all in for repairs." Obviously I was wrong in thinking she'd get the idea, because she responds with, "There are three of us, I think we could take you." She's obviously forgotten that there is one guy you don't screw with at any company: the IT guy. Therefore, I open the floor to LART suggestions. Ladies and Gentlemen (and I use those terms loosely). Do your worst (without getting me caught). [By: YourLastHope] Comment on Story Comments Without getting you caught? Well there goes explosives.I gotta tell ya I think that anything, whether you cause it or not, happens to her or her equipment while she's working ther, she'll want to blame you anyhow, just guessing that's the kind of person she is. No suggestions at the moment but no suggestions at the moment unfortunately, let my evil brian reboot a bit, it's using windows 98. -CallmeBob Why are you thinking that last one wasn't her attempt to joke with you? -maven Tone of voice indicated her disposition. -YourLastHope Proper response to the (L)user's comment: "ohhh yeah!" -CyBear apply a small piece of tape to the underside of the mouse? -McSmiley Patience, friend. An opportunity will present itself. -clockkingfl How much control over the network traffic do you have? If you can, start monitoring what sites she visits when not performing work related activities, then start blocking those sites from her machine as being in violation of the company's IT/Security policy. -MatrixMole Remote mouse block is always good. -Iren Disable USB sticks, set the maximum memory in the Boot.ini file to something just above what the PC can handle, use the taskkill command to remotely shutdown applications(especially media player typed apps)(use a local admin account or something that doesn't trace back to you), Set her login times to all sorts of weird times like cutting out 15 minute blocks here and there, I once wrote a script that would run on startup and randomly send keys to from the keyboard depending on a time interval- sent things like ALT F4, ENTER, CTRL ALT DEL, ESC- setting it for 6 seconds made the PC unusable and had to be powered down to stop it. Just a few. gpedit.msc is your friend. -Slartarama I'm not going to even say that I'm the devil's advocate, here, but unless the tone of voice used by the user for the drawer and folder issues was just horrible, I'd say that they are both non-issues. And as for your threat to take down the three-person department that signs the checks that keep the employees coming in to work? Yeah, that doesn't sound like a appropriate thing to joke about, so her response sounds entirely justified from this end of the internet. - Don't be Nick Burns: http://www.cnettv.com/9742-1_53-11125.html -LoTech Easy there. First, look after *yourself*. C_Y_A_ and wait for the right opportunity. Also, remember that anything she can possibly blame on you may well be delivered to your back via Express-O-Dagger, like so often happens. Opportunity. Impact. Deniability. Satisfaction. Save up and get the whole set. -32KofRAM Easy there. First, look after *yourself*. C_Y_A_ and wait for the right opportunity. Also, remember that anything she can possibly blame on you may well be delivered to your back via Express-O-Dagger, like so often happens. Opportunity. Impact. Deniability. Satisfaction. Save up and get the whole set. -32KofRAM Gee, two for the price of one! Who'd a thought it? Duh. -32KofRAM Set her screen saver to the blue screen of death. Turn on the "Content advisor" for her browsing, make it an extremely annoying password to enter, like 10763KaZaMMzor_Z. Also, Set the PC to power efficency mode, so that it goes to sleep after 5 minutes of inactivity. -PeterGibons If she's an amazon, fark with her chair's height adjustment, that's guaranteed to cheese her off. -NightSteel

8. Technology Test Most jobs these days that involve computers mention in the job advertisement the level of proficiency that they want in Word, Excel, etc. After reading r3tude's story about the zoo office, I had to wonder something. As the tech person for your office, if you could administer a short (10-12 min) technology proficiency exam for someone who wasn't going to be working in the tech dept. but was going to be using a computer, what would you include on it? I'm imagining that we're sitting the applicant down at the computer and saying, "Show me how to do this ________." What would you include in your test? [By: YourLastHope] Comment on Story Comments 1. Where is the monitor. -AngrySup 2. Where is the Computer? -AngrySup 3. Where is the keyboard? -AngrySup 4. Where is the mouse? -AngrySup 5. How are they connected? -AngrySup 6. Here is the mouse, show me how to left click, then show me how to right click. -AngrySup Leave them alone with the computer for 25 minutes, sit in other room, remotely watching computer. If they go to MySpace or facebook. Instant fail -deskmonkey print to 1 printer, then another. Set a printer as a default. Type a web site address into the address bar (using google toolbar to search for www.google.com would be an instant fail.) -boxcar oh, and another one. write down on a piece of paper the intranet site (if you have one.) Mine is server.domain.local if they try to go to www.server.domain.local.com - send them packin' -boxcar can you identify: 1. monitor 2. keyboard 3. functions keys on keyboard 4. right mouse button 5. capslock key 6. space bar 7. power button for computer 8. start button 9. can you decipher, by the splash screen, what version of windows you're running? 10. can you type, print and save a simple word document? 11. can you release and renew your ip without handholding? 12. can you wipe your @$$ without illustrations? -AdmiralLaurie 1) Point to the computer. 2) Point to the monitor. 3) Ask when is the "computer" ever the monitor? 4) Point to the "Dell" badge on the PC. Does it look like a power button? Will pressing it again get it to work if it didnt work the first time? 5) Is internet explorer the same thing as Outlook? 6) Does "stop clicking" ever mean "click faster you've almost got it"? 7) Am I going to have to kill you before your probation period is up? Thats all I need to know. -Darkridr Where is the power button for the computer? Bonus Question: True or False, the Monitor has a different power button than the computer. -duckhead The whole typing a web address into a search page is something I've had to refrain from commenting upon many times. These are the users that think the internet doesn't work because $ISP's launch page didn't come up when the browser opened. I still remember the user that would get to e-mail by opening IE and clicking the e-mail button to start OE. Again, easier to just keep my mouth shut on that one. -Xiphiplastron numlock -stiffarm It's really quite simple: sit them down at a powered off computer and powered off monitor. Ask them to turn on the computer. If they reach for the monitor, they don't get hired. If they succeed, tell them "the username is 'guest' and the password is 'password'" and tell them to log in. If they don't know how to enter the username, or enter each one in the other's field, not only are they not hired, they are escorted to the door. If they can get past these two basics of powering on and logging in without help, there is hope. -Captain Trips "here is the PC you will work on. Do you understand that it is completely locked down so that you can do your job and nothing but your job? Good. Do you understand that you are not to call me for any reason unless your computer no longer allows you to do your job? Good" -LazyLemming To test potential employees where I work, I'd test in at least the following two stages. Stage one: I'd hang a nice big poster on the wall showing a keyboard, a monitor, a mouse, the PC, a USB cable, a modem and an ethernet cable with all these items neatly and clearly labeled. I would then give applicants a copy of said image, without the labels and require them to label all items correctly. Doing so would get them to stage two: the instructions test. There's lots of ways of doing this, of course, but I favor a version with at least one impossible task in it -- sorts out the blind/stubborn type from the possibly teachable. Most of this test should be tasks for applicant to do, like Dial x for an outside line, then dial xxx-xxx-xxxx (my working cell phone, the pay phone down the hall, pretty much any non-business phone I could actually hear ring), let it ring 3 times, no more, and hang up. The impossible task should be sound simple enough, like "connect cable to port" but involve something like an ethernet cable and a USB port; the applicant who hasn't got the brains to tell you they either can't or don't know how should be immediately removed from the premises.... Alas, what HR around here tests for seems to be the ability to respond to a phone going bing-bing, and that's about it. Average class of 20 trainees only gets about 8 to the floor, and of those 8, we lose between 7.5 and 12 in the first week (if you work out the math, that's what the percentage statistics say, anyhow). Gotta love it when HR'd just about hire a bus and shanghai homeless folks out from under their bridges just to fill a hiring quota...and the only thing that seems to be preventing that is they don't have the budget for the bus. -lowlyte Don't ask them questions. Give them 15min training on the computer and policies with a written printout. IF they have no questions at that end. Their hired. If they have a question in the first month that is answered in the printout. Fired on the spot. -neuman1812 Neuman, if they have *no* questions, they didn't read it. I agree with the corollory though. -VFox It'd really just be a test on following written instructions and not arguing with the answers to your questions. That's all I really ask. -veaudaux 'what OS do you use at home' If the don't know it, or make up an answer, or are using windows ME they don't get hired. -drachen Turn on the Tower. Now the monitor. Now The modem. Now the speakers. Plug in the USB cable. Plug in the ethernet cable. Go to google.com. Check your email. Your home page didn't load, does this mean the internet is broken? If they answer yes, shoot on sight. -PeterGibons Type up a long text file in Notepad. Save it in a different folder than My Documents. Rename it. Open it in Word. Print only the first page. -concept14 ok not working tech.... so I would ask them to open an application (by asking them to open <name> where <name> is the text lable of the shortcut on the desktop) then I would walk them trough some simple task by naming the lable of the items I wish used. If the task is acomplished they know enuf for me to walk em through crap. If they argue, fail to find what is in front of them, etc etc etc; then they fail -cyberguru

9. New Laptop A customer of mine requested a new laptop recently and the only requirement given to me was "big screen." This customer is good about paying for quality technology but it has to be within his bounds of understanding. New things are tough to deal with sometimes. So I picked him up a 17" Lenovo Ideapad. A very sexy little machine if I do say so myself. The only downside of course being that I couldn't get it with XP. So I'm planning a reload with Vista Business to get rid of the preload crapware and then switch to classic theme/views. I pop open the laptop and boot up. It gets to the login screen and a small box opens up. Inside is a moving picture of me. I figured that like my Mac, it wanted to use the built-in webcam to take a picture of me as an avatar. The next thing I see weirds me out. Two white dots appear over my eyes and dots and lines start appearing and connecting on my face. Turns out, this computer comes with Veriface 2.5 which uses the webcam to scan your face and then uses facial recognition software to apply your username/password based on your face. Kind of cool (until I'm in some horrible disfiguring accident I'm sure) little add-on. Thankfully, the customer wasn't too put off by it. [By: YourLastHope] Comment on Story Comments I'm sure that new security device would crash the first time it scanned my face. Oh hey... could it scan my posterior instead???? -CyBear Wow. I've seen some MSI-brand laptops with fingerprint scanners but this is a big leap beyond that. -OgdenTechGuy Whether or not it had ass cheek recognition was one of my first thoughts too. -YourLastHope Well, that is nifty, but just like the fingerprint scanner, as a security device, heads and thumbs can be removed. I'd rather just tell the homicidal maniac my password. -Slartarama 17"? Big? try this: http://www.gearlog.com/2007/05/best_20inch_laptop_design_yet.php -Stryker One I tried a webcam-based security program called bananascreen. It was pretty neat, but it routinely picked up false positives from my BLACK LEATHER CHAIR. And I'm a pasty white boy. WTF? (to be fair, my webcam was sold when RealPlayer G2 was new, and even then, it was a $40 cheapo. -linuxmatt And the full scan has now been sent to the appropriate regulatory offices. Thank you. -AngrySup What do these programs do with someone who's got a full beard, sideburns and moustache? Mountain men need their computers too. -Parilla

10. The MySpace Generation Maybe it's just me, but this has been bothering me a lot lately. My roommate called me on Friday around 7pm. He was still at work and called to ask me about a program he found running on his work computer. After a little bit of research it was found to be a program used to monitor website views and keystrokes. It wasn't your usual run of malware, it was actually professional, paid-for software. And he was livid. He's absolutely amazed that his employer would invade his privacy (his words, not mine) and monitor his website views and chat conversations. He's so pissed off that he's organizing the other employees into some sort of mutiny/coup/protest. All of my comments about the computer not being his and how he is supposed to be working anyway fall on deaf (read: stupid) ears. The really great part is that he's been using MSN chat to trash talk his company which isn't doing so hot right now. I keep hearing complaints about an invasion of his privacy. I keep asking what expectation of privacy he was supposed to have on a work computer at the office. But it's like he's incapable of comprehending that the computer and the office belong to his employer and it was given to him to be used as a tool to assist him in performing his job. I can understand the occasional web surfing or chat during lunch or downtime, but I would never do something on my computer at work that I didn't want the boss to see. My biggest problem is that the majority of non-IT workers his age seem to have this mentality. A computer is expected to be provided and they seem to think that they can do whatever they like with them. In addition to the diatribe I could go on about how they lack any sense of honor and accountability, this particular behavior has really started to bother me. I'm always expected to clean up the junk that comes from them surfing MySpace all day instead of doing their damn job. I can get rough with them about it, but most of the time they just stare at me and cock their head like a dalmatian that can't comprehend you and wonders why you're not just throwing the tennis ball for him. I shouldn't have to install Barracuda web filters and lock down user permissions. People should just use common sense and good judgment to dictate their behaviour. [By: YourLastHope] Comment on Story Comments If they had common sense and/or integrity, there would be half as many of us... Reminds me of a few years ago I was on a food message board and someone complained how they installed a popup blocker and it disabled some of their work s/w. You'd have thought I had insulted their dying children when I suggested that the person had no business installing anythign on the work PC, the moral outrage I received from all posters in reply. -dude Have some fun...put a WatchGuard FireBox into the mix, and track all usage there. Then report the little pinheads! -CTYankee "People should just use common sense and good judgment to dictate their behavior." PEOPLE might...Lusers, entitlement-whores & Starfish never will. Sadly, we all know the ratio of "PEOPLE to lusers etc." don't we? -lineswine I'm pretty much resigned to the fact that we're living in a perpetual-adolescent- driven entitlement society. Gimme dat ding.... -vacuumtubes From my employer's "code of conduct for computer users":$Company reserves the right to monitor or filter your use of company resources to ensure compliance with policy or for other technical, legal, or business reasons. Company resources are intended for business use, and any information, including personal information, contained in, created on or traversing through company systems may be subject to such monitoring or filtering. You should have no expectation of privacy in any company resources. Electronic records of your use of computer resources are maintained and may be accessed or reviewed by technical staff in the course of system maintenance or investigation of possible misuse, or for other business reasons. Such records may be provided to other appropriate members of company management and their agents. The company may also provide such records to outside parties when legally required to do so (e.g., in response to a subpoena). -purplelinguist Meh. This attitude has been prevelant in every place I have worked. -CyBear i once had to tell a Colonel that the "Personal" in Personal Computer was a misnomer...and that Uncle Sam owned the box....so no, he couldn't install pirated software. Didn't sit well with him and when he complained to my chief he ended up getting an earful about how he's not allowed to do that sh*t on govt machines.....was fun to watch him leave the chief's office.... -MeatStick I worked at a place that was running websense and monitoring internet use. Employee morale was pretty low when the managers started bringing it up at review time. -Starfury Meat - A CHIEF (assuming Srgt) chewed out a COLONEL?! Holly HELL! THAT is POWER! -ShujinTribble My company was caught in a newsworthy data breach about 3 years ago. As such, they have dispensed with all the niceties... "your browsing habits are monitored, but personal browsing is allowed within reasonable limits." Company IM is non-standard, internally hosted server, conversations logged. Email for personal use allowed within reasonable limits. In other words - since I work from home, company laptop and personal PC sit right next to each other so I can do the searches I need to do without being out of line... {bfeg}. -virtualchoirboy My firm's actually fired people for less. ALL browsing is monitored by the poxy (sorry, "proxy") server and broken down by user accounts. It's also regularly checked. Email is always monitored since we had someone sending our corporate data to a rival firm. You have to confirm that you accept the usage policy before you're even allowed to log in each day and it basically says "Big brother is watching you!" This would be why the vast majority of my TSC browsing/posting is done from home. An audit of web access usage was done a few weeks ago, muggins covers around 80% of the traffic, over 75% of which is $webapp I support as I have to access via the web, same as everyone else. They stopped looking after that. CW who is continually on a bookie's site gets the grief as, while his usage is WAY lower than mine, at least I'm using it for work. There's no keylogger on my system but there would be if I abused the trust I've been given. Tell the muppet to deal with it and try doing some work for a change! -Loon As Admiral Bob put it so neatly, "Too bad common sense isn't." (Which makes a great quick-n-dirty test for distinguishing the teachable from the starfish, actually; them that has brains they can learn to use will puzzle the phrase out if you say it at them, usually in under 60 seconds.) -lowlyte Meat - It wasn't me, honest! -Colonel32 At $hitty programming limited, any search of your PC or work environment had to be carried out with approval from the GM _and_ HR, and also with the subject's knowledge, consent, and presence. I knew the admin staff were searching my computer for "evidence" to get me fired after hours. It was so blatant when they were looking busy after hours (the mandatory un-comped overtime did have a funny side) while waiting for me to leave. Once while running a large photocopy job, I saw "Miss Migraine" (who well get a Co-Worker entry soon) looking busy while waiting. I asked her "Would you like to search my computer now instead of waiting for me to go? I'll be a few more hours. And can you change the login afterwards?" The shocked expression from her was pure priceless. -Wraith556 It wasn't "our" Colonel...and ours actually had his head on straight and laid down the law about non-approved sw....the chief was just enforcing the rules...and yes, he was Chief Master Sgt which was what made it extra special...we enlisted peons don't get many 'wins' like that.... -MeatStick Seen on the monitor of the agent who used to sit in front of me: "You have violated $company's Terms of Use. Pack up your things and get out. You are terminated. Love, I.T. Dept.". I thought it was a joke - it wasn't. And still, the others surf.. -ThinTheHerd Problem is, keyloggers are of dubious legality in some parts of the world regardless of "business use". Same with the IT policy being on screen, it's as legally part of your employment contract as a EULA is 100% world wide enforcable... i.e. not really. It's always worth an IT department running such silly things past the legal team not just their dotty manager... otherwise an informed employee could well LART back. -fearmyroot

11. One of those big questions in life As a person who is actively looking for employment, I found this particularly funny this morning. Do I point out that a company I've applied at is consistently misspelling a fairly simple word in their company name? [By: YourLastHope] Comment on Story Comments Simple answer...No -BarmanVarn "Toys R Us" deliberately misspells the ungrammatical middle word in their name. I think you have to assume that if it is in the company name, it is deliberate. If it's in the company motto, it's not so certain... but if the motto is also trademarked, then it is deliberate. In any event, best not to mention it. -chazz The misspelling is an aggressive military word. It's an understandable misspelling. I'm not so sure it's one of those deliberate ones for effect. -YourLastHope Keep in mind that if it's an American company outside of USA (or a English:British company in the USA) it... might not be incorrect. -fearmyroot It may have to do with trademark laws as well. You cannot trademark a common word (e.g. Crispy Cream), but if you misspell it, you are allowed (e.g. Krispy Kreme). -virtualchoirboy You mean how we call our locations "centres?" Well, that's because the Fat Actress company started in Austrailia! They spell lots of things funny down there, comes from standing on your head all day long! <Note to our "down under" members -- I'm only kidding! No worries, right mates?> -Captain Trips Actually, centre is from the British origins, you Americans butchered it. *sidesteps to the LART shelter* -evolvedstarfish Nope, esf: we *improved* it. :p </joins esf in the LART shelter> -missourimule OTOH, my BIL, who imprints advertising slogans on stuff, distributed tons of pens to everyone in the family. They were spolied due to bad copy supplied by the client. Yes, the customer misspelled the name of their own company. -concept14

12. Incoming Epic LART Just as a bit of background, my small TS group has a number of clients around the city and for a while, there's been a small feud with the manager (2nd in command) at our 2nd biggest client. She's made unreasonable demands and killed our budget to the point that we're building computers out of rubber bands and straws. Alright, bringing us to today. There had been some scuttle that we were being assessed (read: replaced) by a consulting group. Friday we get word of who they are and they start asking questions. Specifically they wanted the passwords, Windows Server license keys and number of CALs on the six servers. I got the info to them last night and my partner found out today what they wanted them for. The 6 servers (running Win2003 Std) were all custom built by us and, consequently, we less expensive and easier to maintain. The news? The consulting group is going to replace all of the servers and just transfer the Win licenses over. Now the fun begins. First of all, the IT budget at the lab is non-existent. So where are they going to come up with the tens of thousands of dollars to replace them with Dell equipment. Secondly, the Win licenses are all OEM licenses, which means it's not legal to transfer them to another computer like that. Third (and this is my favorite), they think they're going to be able to replace all 6 complicated app servers seamlessly in one day. Even knowing the network like we do, we couldn't do it in three straight days. The result being that my partner and I get to sit back and watch the 36-megaton LART fall from orbit directly onto these people. It will undoubtedly end in a loss of tens of thousands of dollars and the firing of the manager we hate so much. And as we return on white horses, we'll most likely never be doubted again. Worst case scenario, we don't come back after the failure and we get to laugh at these morons. I can't wait for next week. [By: YourLastHope] Comment on Story Comments This is gonna be good! *Dons helmet, goggles, and LART-proof hazmat suit before diving into the bunker* -Frazzled Popcorn, peanuts! Getcher ice cold beer! -missourimule I would love to watch THAT! What you may not realize is that the money for this miraculous transformation will come out of some other account to which you have not been privy. THAT would suck. Worse, if they manage to spend goo gobs of money (that you COULD have used to good end), it blows up and you have to come back in with absolutely no funds to fix the cock up. Here comes a Keg-O-Karma your way, I feel you are going to need it. -ecoli One word: Webcast -RiffRaff If they do decide to violate the server licensing you can also alert the BSA and get them investigated too. -Starfury Up to a $1 million reward! -RiffRaff Bringing my lawn chair, pass the chips and beer! I'd be selling tickets to watch this one! -FormerSithLord Ahhh, someone will be dying in a fire soon....bring the marshmallows. -vacuumtubes I second the vote of the BSA after you are replaced. -Olorin Oh and please gives us the updates as the larts start flying. (bringing a couple of bottles to the party) -MarloVino Add MY vote for that one, also....B.S.A.! ALL! THE! WAY! -ShujinTribble Heh. Make sure you have good backups, so that when it all goes tits-up, you can hop in and make it all work again... -Grayhawk *sets out platter of hot wings* Here we go! -PTSTech been going through that myself for about a year now... I've lost count of the number of replacement servers that have been brought in by consultants to fix a slow database that actually have suprisingly low CPU use, but heavy network load and a 10Mb/s network connection... I have a spare gigabite switch sitting here with their name on it just waiting for them to ask me again... -garwain Wow, dinner and a show. That sounds like it could be very entertaining... I agree with the webcast, I'd pay to see that. -teivrann Hmmm... hot wings and beer, just the thing for watching a tragic comedy! Live action too, W007! -LeopardMadcat hope Nostradamus send her boss a little heads-up 'bout what their future holds? -stiffarm 36-megaton? Wouldn't 42 be more apropos here? -Stryker One Please update when the LART falls. -thx1138 As I always say in these cases <singing> "Just walk away Renae... la la la ...." -macbeth Awaiting the results of the impending LART. -PCChaos

13. You've got to be kidding..... To keep a long story short, my Dell Chat Session (still in it) started at 14:26 with me saying: "I had disabled my internal wired network card for a while from the Network Connections window and now that I am trying to re-enable it I get a message that says "Connection Failed" At 15:20 I HAD to say this: "I think there may be some confusion. Are you troubleshooting my internal wireless adapter or my internal wired adapter?" Including the significant delay involved with him responding to chat messages, we just wasted an hour worth of time because he couldn't tell the difference between wired and wireless. What did I do to deserve this? [By: YourLastHope] Comment on Story Comments Um, you bought a Dell.... -Stryker One Hehe... yeah, I'd say that was it. That, and you went in for Dell chat support. -Seamyst "And over the years, the phrase, 'Dude, you're gettin' a Dell!', has morphed through consumer-grade support into 'Dude, you are so screwed!'" -Voz Chuckles I was thinking. "Dude Welcome to Dell Hell support." -StarFishHearder I'd have to go with Stryker's post. -Grembo Fortunately, I don't have to deal with normal Dell technical support. I have this nice, unlisted number that gets me to the corporate technical support folks. Since I get to chat with them often enough when doing RMA requests, they have learned to a) recognize my sense of humor, and b) know that if I'm calling, it's a real problem. Nice to have 'em trained so well... even if I keep losing 'em every year. (Say hello to Debbie and Adam over in server support now.) -VoiceOfSanity You just gotta love dell tech support. NOT. -THETECHFROMHELL In my own defense, it most certainly wasn't my system. I was TSing for a client and I was just going through the spiel to get to the part where he RMAs the motherboard. -YourLastHope

14. What were you doing this whole time? One of the head muckymucks at my biggest client needed (read: wanted) a computer upgrade. The result was a new desktop with a high end processor, 4GB of RAM (he's running XP) and a graphics card that a gamer would drool over. All this so that he can run his "really big spreadsheets." Because he can't afford to have the hour of downtime required for me to transfer his data and settings over, I did as much as I could over the network and then left the rest to him. I connected a KVM and hooked both of his computers up. I left him some links so that he could go back and forth and transfer data easily. Then I gave him some time to do his thing, telling him specifically that we'd take out the old computer when he had transferred everything and was content. We gave him two weeks. Fast forward to yesterday. He says he's done and we can take his old computer, which we do, leaving him with his super new spiffy toy that he is supposed to have configured the way he likes it. Much to our surprise, my boss gets a call this morning about how files aren't on his new computer (files he had hidden deep in his file structure on his local computer) and that he's a very important man with deadlines and we should have done it right the first time. After being pissed off a bit, I decided that the best LART would be to give him access to his old computer. Of course, I "wasn't able to set it up on the network", so he has to walk up the stairs to my office every time he wants something. So far he's walked up and down an entire flight of stairs about 12 times. I'm loving every minute of this. [By: YourLastHope] Comment on Story Comments Very nicely done. :evil grin: -Seamus Wonder if it would be good to add in a "we need to reimage this system soon to assign it to someone else, please get your data off of it" LART -Belunar He was probably using the OLD PC this whole time without realizing it :P. -linuxmatt You are evil. I purr in your general direction. </Catbert> -TheGhost make him work for his pr0n! -stiffarm Why do I suspect that instead of transferring the files, he'd managed to create a shortcut to the drive on the old computer- computer goes bye-bye, files go bye-bye... -Voz Maybe you should ask him what directory he's looking for and just dump everything onto a Jazz Cart? (DOUBLE bonus points if the new comp doesn't have a SCSI-II card already... TRIPLE if he's maxed his PCI slots) -ShujinTribble shortcuts hate them, fileserver expansion we branched off so moving files then updting users hortcuts becasue they are too stupid, OMG my users shortcut /root then shortcut /root/reports /root/personal /root/users /root/stupidspreadsheet.xls -r3tude

15. Time to make life difficult for someone Ok, I haven't seen one of these postings in a while, but I always enjoy them. You may have seen the story I posted yesterday about my rude little starfish. Well, after a few more curt interactions, I've decided to put some pressure on her. Take her down a notch, if you will. I'd be glad to hear any suggestions from the Knights of the LART Table out there. The only rule is that I want to be able to do stuff that my coworker tech can't trace back to me. Any ideas? [By: YourLastHope] Comment on Story Comments Ex-Lax brownies. Then lock all the bathrooms. Some shit for a shit. -vacuumtubes Scotch tape on the optical mouse sensor? -TieDyedDinosaur If they leave their workstation unlocked, there is a range of pranks usable. -TieDyedDinosaur Purchase a small USB 'thumb-drive' and load it with a few choice items. Wipe carefully and drop it on the floor in their cubicle. -TieDyedDinosaur screen shot their desktop, replace the wallpaper with the screen shot, then remove their desktop icons -Belunar Clear nail polish on the contacts of the ethernet cable. Impossible to see lol. -SwizzleStix If you are running an NT based system, messaging is not turned off, and you can access someone else's system you can do "net send username You fool, you only think you know the power of the dark side" for more fun I can write a little batch script that will do that continuously. (Warning this could get you fired, not liable for any damages, real or imagined.) -Olorin simple little note with magazine cutout letters: "All is known" -neuman1812 What I usually do to those who forget to lock their workstation is flip the screen, Ctrl+Alt+^, screenshot, print screen button, flip back, Ctrl+Alt+(down), make screenshot wallpaper,Run: paint works very well for this, hide icons, move taskbar to the side and then shrink and lock it, flip it upside down again, walk away and watch as the fun begins. -adarklite As you wish for anonymity, beware any prank that is too technical, unless you have a LOT of techies there who 1), could pull it off, and 2), have an equal contempt for the person... too easy to trace otherwise! -Voz All of the above! -DrLecter Using Autohotkey (really easy scripting language), write a script that continuously clicks in random places (or seemingly random, in which case just use the recorder and fine-tune). Compile it into an EXE, and save it to the luser's Startup folder in the start menu (or all users), set it to hidden, and reboot. -linuxmatt BSOD screensaver...'nuff said. -lineswine NinjaITDirector set up the BSOD screensaver on his own system. The only reactions have come from the IT staff, including NITD himself... -VFox

16. Combo EUPOTD and Story One of our clients runs a pretty hefty construction account program that, needless to say, isn't easy to manage. For the past two days the server that runs the program for Terminal Services users has been a little twitchy. We've had our eye on it, but nothing seriously bad has happened. Well yesterday AVG started falsely identifying one of the program modules as a virus. During this time it disabled two of the modules and locked out one of the TS users we'll call her "The Fog" for obvious reasons. During the time we're on the phone to the tech support vendor she walks up to our office to say that the program has frozen up (this is after everyone has been notified that it's not working and that we're on the job). As she's about to walk away she says to us, "Why's your phone busy?" It took all I had not to stare her dead in the eyes and respond, "Gee, maybe because currently using it?" To top off the story, she's been bitching all morning that she can't get into one of the modules and we've been working hard on it all morning. I just finished fixing it and I turn to her and let he know that she's good to go. She just keeps staring down into her papers. No response, no acknowledgment. I figure maybe she didn't hear me, so I repeated myself. The person next to her looks at me, she doesn't. Fair enough. She's now on the bottom of my priority list right below dusting out the inside of the servers and cleaning up my desk. Have fun in tech purgatory! [By: YourLastHope] Comment on Story Comments You're placing her that high? I'd put her right under cleaning out the gunk under my toenails. -FixitWench She needs Re-booting? -TieDyedDinosaur Age of Starfish truism: "Why's your phone busy?" really means "Why's your phone busy when *I* try to call it and why isn't it free for me? You exist to serve me neep neep nop neep nop nop..." -teivrann Did someone say luser reboot? *BZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZITT* -Belunar my mroning was good, kerberos clock skew kncoked out a server freezing login scripts, ofc while im diagnosing the freeze everyone phones me all fro them same office "is the server donw, then then we get people invading my office "is the server down, when will it be fixed" ME "ITLL BE FIXED ABOUT 5 MINUTES AFTER EVERYONE FUCKS OFF AND DIES" -r3tude

17. No Yesterday I had gone to a new job site and set up a computer for a contractor's new assistant. Because it wasn't connected to the domain directly, I set up a local username and password. The schema was simple (or so I thought). The username was <jobsite>, the password was <jobsite>* (as in Shift-8). I tested it yesterday....twice. It worked just fine. I left and life was good (sort of, see my other story). So I was woken out of a peaceful slumber this morning at 7am by said contractor. The couldn't log in. I confirmed with them (at length) that they were typing in the password right. After 10 min, we were making no progress. Then she said the magic words, "I'd hate to have to make you come down here just for this." Me too. The site is more than an hour away and I just wasn't going down there at this time of day. The final solution was logging her in as the local admin (I wasn't worried about her remembering the password, it took her 4 times to even type it in), and changing the password on the account I set up to the number 1. That's right, a single digit. That was the extent of my confidence in their abilities. Now so long as they spell the username right (all 9 letters of it), they should be able to avoid fat-fingering the password. [By: YourLastHope] Comment on Story Comments Hopefully they won't lock out the local admin id with random geuesses to THAT PASSWORD! -TieDyedDinosaur my admin password has extended characters öÈì etc then you can tell users the password they still can't type it. -r3tude Just a guess...but they would push a key, see the "*" appear as the last character in the password field, and assume it was right. so basically, they figured since every key would show a *, when it came time to hit shift+8, any key would do because a *popped up. -beerman

18. Hmm, that's not what's written here..... Had a client that was freaking out because they had to submit a document today and the email was being bounced back. Now we've had problems with bouncebacks before because AOL has decided to blacklist us so I figured it would be as simple as sending from a different domain. Turns out the error message was claiming "invalid recipient" despite that fact that both the client and I had copied the email address meticulously from the documents we were given. After numerous unanswered calls to the recipient, I finally get through to him. His response? "Seems like you're missing the last three letters in the email address. It should be "abcXYZ.net", not "abc.net." I really had to hold back when I told him that it appeared he mistyped his own email address when sending us contact info and he might want to check on that. [By: YourLastHope] Comment on Story Comments Tell him to email tink@otis.com. He might get a clue then.. ;) -TheMacOne

19. I don't deserve this So I have a customer that seemed like she could be semi-competent when I first got her. I did a reload of XP on her computer when it got a virus and all of the sudden she's a resident of moron city. First we set her up with Yahoo mail Plus so that she can get mail in Thunderbird (managed to get her away from Outlook Express) and then she calls me a week later to say that it's asking for her password (which we'd saved). Turns out that a week after we went through the painstaking process of buying the $20/year service, she sees it on her CC bill and has no idea what it is so she calls the CC company and has them cancel it. I finally just managed to install a remote desktop program so that I don't have to go over there (40 min drive) for every one of these 5 minute jobs. But today takes the cake. She bought a wireless keyboard and mouse and can't get them connected because she insists there's no connect button on the bottom of the keyboard. I'm staring right at the diagram while I'm on the phone with her telling her where to look and she keeps saying it's not there. I know that this is going to end with me going over there, hitting the button and then absolutely flipping my shit because she has the observational powers of a hamster. Forget me, this woman is going to need the karma when I'm done with this job. [By: YourLastHope] Comment on Story Comments Sorry, its against tech policy to send Kharma to starfish, if you with she can be sent some educational material thru the SMBP server (skull meets bat protocal) -SpitefulTech "wish" i mean, damn typo gremlins are everwhere today. -SpitefulTech If that was the case, Dante (Otis + spikes) would have words written all over it. -YourLastHope I feel your pain. My Co. sells wireless keyboards and mice, and 99.9999% involve some f'nugget not knowing where the button is. Granted, the buttons are small, recessed, and the same color as the keyboard, but they never seem to find it, even when I send them a diagram. One guy sent one back saying there was no button, and we sent it back with a big yellow arrow pointing to the button. I'm always dumbfounded, though, when they can't see the big silver button on the black receiver. -beerman <da> They probably think its an optical illusion. </da> -adarklite Update: I go over there find the button in less than 3 seconds. The monitor is on, the computer is on, but there's no picture. Windows won't display anything but black after the start up progress bar. Safe mode works fine, but no regular mode. This will be the second full reload in two months unless anyone has a better idea of what's going on. -YourLastHope Get into safe mode and set the video drivers to standard VGA, or something to that effect, then grab the latest drivers for the video card from the web and install them. -TechnoVampire and double-check the resolution/refresh rates- she might have cranked the settings too far... -ThinTheHerd Double check also - If it's VISTA, the DRM-Happy Digital Signature System for drivers might be pooched... which WOULD be a speed record between OS-Rev release and driver use problems, I'd think. -ShujinTribble Wow. Final answer: She decided not to go with the wireless keyboard/mouse and went back to her old keyboard. The PS/2 keyboard was preventing Windows XP from fully loading..... Guess how many parts I switched out before the keyboard. -YourLastHope Charge her a stupidity tax of 300% your regular rate, for your grief and travel time/gas. -ThatDevilTech Future reference: Drop remote desktop and check out VNC clients. I have one installed on my sons computer. Its set as a startup service so I can connect at will as long as the PC is powered on. The client and server I picked are free but the tradeoff is that it doesnt encrypt the signal past the password. Search out TightVNC. -Darkridr

20. Phone Punching We've been asking for it for years and it's finally here. Thank $deity. http://hardware.slashdot.org/hardware/07/03/30/1540202.shtml Happy AF everyone! [By: YourLastHope] Comment on Story Comments That's awesome, but not quite as good as the PTB (Push-to-Bitchslap) phone that Rich was showing over on Phonescoop a couple years ago. -missourimule Too bad its a April Fool's joke. -adarklite I'm still waiting for a Motorola Tazr--the one that combines a cell phone and a stun device. -vacuumtubes *wishes these existed & remembering how many fish called with cells when he was working @ 'the con'* -EtherRabbit

21. An Apology of sorts So I had a Dell Axim x51 which was exhibiting some unusual behavior. If the USB cradle was plugged in when the computer booted, the computer would not boot all the way to Windows (black screen after load progress bar). After reading some forums and worrying that it was a power issue with the cradle, I contacted Dell support via chat. The person on the other end didn't speak English well and I made my assumptions based on that and a logical troubleshooting method. When they recommended that I do a soft reset and then a hard reset of the handheld, I thought I was being led through the motions by a script monkey and that my time was being wasted before being passed to a qualified tech to diagnose the problem. I was wrong. I don't know why the hard reset worked, but it did. And if you read this forum V******* (names blocked to protect the innocent) then you have a tip of my hat and an apology of sorts for doubting. [By: YourLastHope] Comment on Story Comments Most Dell's have power issues with their USB ports, causes them to lock on reboot. If you have nothing plugged into the USB port on the PC then no issue. Very small peripherals like mouse/keyboard/card reader with nothing installed - no problems. Plug a printer or camera or IPOD in and presto, black screens!! Solution? External powered USB hub. I love telling people who spent 3 grand on a pc and another 15 hundred on a printer that they need a $20 accessory for it to work reliably. Oh and the hard reset of your handheld will work for awhile but don't be surprised if you start having to do that more and more frequently. Our initial fix for the problem was to restore defaults on the printers and that would work until the lusers started reconfiguring them. It's amazing how engineers only ever seem to test things in original formats even if they are so out of whack with what's going to happen to the product in real life. -frprinterwiz I experience the same issue with my Dell laptop. If I leave a USB thumbdrive plugged in, no problems. If I leave the USB receiver for my wireless mouse plugged in, black screen. -RamenMcTavish In this case we were using a Dell Axim x51 on an HP desktop. It appeared to be the Dell handheld interfering with the HP power control mechanisms via USB. And then there was the story on slashdot today about Dell laptops throwing down between 19 and 139 volts of AC through chassis screws. -YourLastHope

22. Necessary software SF complains that he's getting a message about not being able to connect to the server. Sure enough, his NIC isn't pulling an IP. In fact, it's not even trying. After messing with the TCP/IP stack to no avail, I decide to cut bait and reimage. I did decide, however, that because I have to do this, he doesn't get his computer back for the rest of the day. When asked what caused the problem, I told him it was spyware from the numerous screensavers he decided to install (might as well put the fear in him when I have the chance). Give him the machine back at the end of the day clean as a whistle. Anyone want to guess what I found on the machine when I checked it the next morning? [By: YourLastHope] Comment on Story Comments And btw, good morning east coast. I'm going to bed now. -YourLastHope Screen savers, Bonzi Buddy, WeatherBug, Kazaa, Limewire, EZSearch, EliteBar, etc. -Calydor Microsoft Windows? -Gerund Pr0n? -AmazingKreskin I did a full reinstall on my sisters, because of virii picked up from p2p sharing. Before I left the house, her kids had got another virus. No support for you! -ThinTheHerd Microsoft Vista? -Crispy06 Several versions of MyWebSearch crapware? -Seamus All of the above! -ralphp1024 AVG, Spybot S&D, and a limited user profile? <EG> -MacDaddy C:\> or Windows 98. ;) -TheMacOne All is known. -SalParadise

23. Wait, who? So I was checking our inventory program today. It keeps track of all of the computers on the network, etc. I was checking the "Installed Software" section to see if I could find any spyware/adware/bad programs. Guess who had the most of any employee? Oh yeah......it was definitely their IT guy. I'm just the contractor they hired to alleviate the pain. He's the one they actually hired. 12 programs that should NOT be on computers in a healthcare company. But I digress...... [By: YourLastHope] Comment on Story Comments LalalalalaLawsuit? -Seamus No, of course the Zango toolbar is ok. We didn't need that pesky HIPAA compliance. -YourLastHope Medical? HIPAA? 25k per incident...not cheap to have infected machines. -Starfury Our developers have wide open internet access for "development" purposes. They always end up with the most spam, viruses, etc. -Bobsentme Nothing says 'get anti-spyware' like a heavy monetary fine. -Veinor

Customer Misconceptions

2. Actually a Misconception on my part: When I go to download the drivers for my on-board ethernet card/port/whatever, they'll be a reasonable size. I'm sorry, but why am I downloading 88Mb of data for a freaking ethernet driver?!! [2007-08-08]

3. When you open a web browser and it opens a window 2" x 2" big that is clearly the same as "it does nothing when I click on firefox." [2007-04-07]

4. That if I leave a jobsite one day and it works, return to the site the next day because you say it doesn't, and the equipment is all shifted around, I'm not going to look suspiciously in your direction. [2007-02-01]

Tech Rules

Customer Types

EUPOTD (End User Phrase of the Day)

2. "new Dell issues must be caused by Obama" -- I kid you not. This user just received a new Dell laptop and is obviously getting used to the new setup. He sent me an email with this as the subject. His list of issues were all ID10t/PEBKAC errors. [2009-10-14]

3. MEPOTD - "I'm not allowed to drink on the job, so you're not allowed to annoy me. [2007-05-21]

4. Now don't yell at me, but..... [2007-04-11]

5. Heard in line at CompUSA: "I've got your solution. Get a Mac." [2007-02-13]

6. "It must be the server." My favorite response to this statement is always, "Really? Do you know what a server is/does?" The look on their face as they realize they got caught buzzwording is priceless. [2007-02-09]