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Here is all the content that linuxmatt has contributed
to Tech Support Comedy. Tech Stories
1.
Time for a wrong answer
Me: "Ok. We're going to connect to the network now. Are you using Windows or Mac?"
Cust: "Windows... 7 I think..."
Me: "Ok. Do you see the wireless icon in the corner of the screen? It should look like signal bars, like the kind you would see on a cell phone."
Cust: "Um... I don't know where to look."
Me: "It's probably going to be the lower-right corner." *pause* "It should be next to the time."
Cust: "6:35PM"
Well, now I know what time zone you're in, and that out clocks are synchronized.
[By: linuxmatt]
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Must be a relative of this idiot: http://notalwaysright.com/my-head-megahertz/15147
-unrenowned
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2.
Too stupid, too late
I overheard this story on break. I didn't get the email, and I may have some facts wrong, but the general strangeness and stupidity is in the right place.
Yesterday, a customer sends in an email, and it's basically just, "I sent in my $product a while back, where's my replacement?" After research, the email agent finds the call where the customer set up an RMA. The call was in 2007.
Further research evidently revealed that the customer never sent in the device for the already-authorized warranty replacement. In fact, he called back with a different issue at least six months later, still using the same device. We don't refurbish, so the product he got back would have been brand-new have a different serial number.
One of our team leads made some calls and found that recently, a package from the with the customer's name on the return address had shown up containing the old, no-longer-made device. There was no RMA number or any other information, just a note stating "I want a replacement". This is years after the warranty expired, and years after we had authorized the replacement.
Additionally, the package did not show up at our fulfillment center. It was shipped to the company's corporate headquarters!
I have no idea how this turned out, but it definitely got people talking, and produced quite a few WTF faces.
[By: linuxmatt]
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I got a "WTF?!" face on when I first read this. But, having lost all of my faith in humanity, at the tender age of 25, this really does not surprise me. -NetStormer
I am no longer surprised by what people do. Amazed? yes. Surprised? no. - ecoli
Don't forget "amused", my bacterial friend...allot of what people do, preferably to other people, can be quite chuckle-making. -ChildofCthulhu
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3.
Franken...modem?
Customer calls in having bought a cable modem online. He states he bought it because he heard it might be a little bit faster than his existing one. He wants to know if we can do anything about it not having a phone jack for his VoIP.
I state that the only way to use VoIP with the modem is with a separate device. This is where the cogs start turning in the customer's brain. He asks "I don't suppose my cable provider will let me connect them both?"
Not an unreasonable question, considering he really, really wanted to play with his new modem. But the mad scientist is just getting warmed up. "I doubt it. You would have to have a special arrangement with your provider, possibly involving two internet accounts, and I do not know how that would work with them, if they would do it at all."
"Well, what about if I splice them together somehow so they behave like one modem?"
I'm floored. What did he just ask? I ask if he meant using one modem as a router, but no, they each only have one ethernet port. He wanted to combine them into some sort of frankenmodem. (At least that's the best I can describe it... he managed to get the message across by inflection and tone.) I explain that as far as the information we have, that's impossible.
I begin to think that everything is straightened out when I hear another question that still has me wondering.
"Maybe I can figure it out myself. Do you have any electrical diagrams or schematics I can download?"
He seemed to be happy with the URL to the user's guides and FAQs, thankfully. Is there anything else I can help you with, yadayada, thank you for calling. I'm interested to see if he accomplishes what he set out to do...
[By: linuxmatt]
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Highly unlikely that he does, it seems that he knows just enough to be dangerous. -OldScratch
Used to get calls like that all the time at CV. I always told them I'd be happy to register the 2nd modem, but it would require a 2nd instance of the online service on the account, to the tune of an extra $45 a month. That usually shut them right up. -AmazingKreskin
"Well, first you need a power strip, to plug the cables into... then you need to do some technical stuff. Then, you have to be prepared to keep repeating yourself, as the techs won't be able to hear you over the sound of their laughter!" -Voz
Maybe there will be a big elecrocution, similar to what we've seen give Frankenstein life in all of those movies. -Park7
Sounds like an old-school tech. (Very old. Pre-computers TV tech type old-school.) This may have been possible in the days of resistors, capacitors, and transistors -- but that does nothing for the software side of the "Frankie." This guy needs more than schematics, he needs a few years back to school. -Captain Trips
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4.
OT-I want this shirt!
All I can find so far is more copies of this image. If this shirt is mass-produced, I can't find it.
http://puns.icanhascheezburger.com/2011/06/21/funny-puns-loving-you-is-rom/ (SFW)
[By: linuxmatt]
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Here's a couple options http://www.bluecotton.com/t-shirts/
http://yque.com/detprco.html -Stryker One
Kudos to whomever came up w/ that slogan, that was clever! -MadJack
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5.
NT/OT - Fishie drivers
Just as there are fish trying to flip the "turbo" switch on the back of their power supplies, there are fish trying to drive with their head between their knees. http://vimeo.com/24572222 (I'd embed, but I haven't found it on YT)
[By: linuxmatt]
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Not once in that video did an "almost crash" involve two parties driving/riding correctly. My eye saw more bicyclists screwing up than pedestrians or cars combinded. Especially the bikes going the wrong way - they should be free hits! -Divinar
bicyclyes are required to obey the same laws as cars. it is a free hit. -burrkiss
KNOW AND OBEY IOWA’S TRAFFIC LAWS "A person riding a bicycle on the street or highway has all the rights, and is required to know and obey all traffc
laws and rules of the road, applicable to the driver of a motor vehicle." IE When you bounce of my drivers side door when running a light, I do NOT pay your medical bills, and YOU fix my car. -burrkiss
In Georgia they just passed a law that motorists are REQUIRED to move over three feet when passing bicycles. On two lane roads that means waiting for traffic to open up so you can go halfway into the oncoming lanes because bike riders usually ride 1 - 1.5 feet from the side of the road. Makes for interesting drives to work. Oh did I mentioned cyclists are not allowed to ride on sidewalks where available? -CelticSkyhawk
In Indiana bicyclists have taken to riding against traffic, and I can't say that I really blame them for it, even though it is technically against the law. -RiffRaff
I never thought I'd be saying this, but Burkiss, I'd like to hear more about that. -charred
~10 years ago a numbnut on a bike tried to force me to yield by running a stop sign. I stepped on the gas to prevent my car from running him over. He bounced off my door instead. Cop explained that even though my attitude was not polite, bike rider was farked. The bike rider also got a ticket for FTYROW. -burrkiss
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6.
[OT] Looks like I'll have story material
I just accepted a job at a call center doing tech support for customers of a certain cable modem manufacturer (the company also makes phones that are fond of the word "Hello"). Looks like I'll have some stuff to post once again!
[By: linuxmatt]
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CZi8oBCeWAs -Stryker One
congrats on the job -Ramblin
I'll take a DOCSIS 3.0 modem, thanks! ;) -Caboose447
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9.
[NT/OT] Useful graph
Here is a line chart representing an observation I have noted in a recent post: http://cheezburger.com/View/4789764608
[By: linuxmatt]
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That graph is spot on. -CelticSkyhawk
And that is why I release a SBD every 10 minutes. Now I have my own office and nobody bothers me. *bfeg* -unrenowned
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11.
nt/ot Yay for karma!
I don't have the job yet, but it is looking great! I'm one of three finalists out of hundreds of resumés they received. I interviewed with both the CEO and the founder of the company, who flew in from out of state for the interview. Every time I answered a question they asked me, they both smiled like they had found a pot of gold and acknowledged me with some variant of "That's exactly what we were hoping to hear." Every word they spoke about my future with the company, they used very optimistic words (eg "will" vs. "would" or "could"). I could have a yes as soon as Friday, and start on paid training as soon as June 1. The best three things: I see this job as something I would love doing, it comes with generous benefits, and I could be pulling in a $30k salary right out of college! Fingers are crossed and karma bullseye painted! This just proves how powerful TSC karma is, even applied last-minute. Thank you guys!
[By: linuxmatt]
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I was about to send an F-16 with a 2000lb Karma warhead to drop on you but looks like you're doing alright.....Aw what the hell.....BOMBS AWAY! Hope you get the job dude! -0gr3
Ill send some of my extra Karma your way, Ive got it in spades it seems. -ZombieBear
Ill send some of my extra Karma your way, Ive got it in spades it seems. -ZombieBear
One Keg-O-Karma on its way. Good Luck! -ecoli
Good luck! -MadJack
Mekka Lekka Hi Mekka Hiney Ho! -SalParadise
I'm pulling 30k a year for something that needs NO COLLEGE. -HappyCrappy
HC- being a hit man for "Da mob" doesn't count. -lineswine
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12.
(NT/OT) Murphy's law of farts
You can sit working for hours on end, with no interruptions. Then no more than 15 seconds after farting, someone will come in to ask you something, and recoil in nasal horror.
*ticktickclack... compile... tick clack clack*pffft*tickclack "Hey Matt can I ask yo---WOAH I'll come back!"
[By: linuxmatt]
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Sounds like you have a built in "interruption limiter". -Stryker One
Pre-emptive strike? -ApolloSZ
Since sh1t comes out of the Starfishes mouth, I would hardly think that they could tell the difference between their own breath and that malodorous stench emanating from someones backside! -ecoli
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14.
A FedEx/HP comedy of errors
FedEx: Hm... Am I supposed to pick up this box that looks like it was put out for me to pick up, or this freshly-delivered UPS crate...
HP: Hm... This crate obviously wasn't meant for us... Let's destroy it!
http://www.reddit.com/r/pics/comments/fz8kq/what_kind_of_asshole_designs_this/c1jrw8v?context=2
[By: linuxmatt]
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Words fail me right now... -udoshan
As horrible as it must have been to go through this, I can only wonder what the poster's parents were thinking. Condoms, lube, dental dams... and hangers. LMAO. -Aelin236
This is quite possibly the most disturbingly amusing thing I have ever read regarding a technology company, in my life. Thank you for posting this. -MrsCheezil
Thanks! I needed another reason to hate HP! Though one thought comes to mine. How would you address Mr. Guru? Since he apparently was a guru, would he then be Guru Guru? This is one of those thoughts I probably shouldn't think about too long. -ravensentinel
But you have it wrong, Mrs Cheezil...it is not the technology company, it is the wage slaves on the loading docks. Knowing some of the fishies in our shipping and receiving departments, nothing shocks me anymore. Although this story had me laughing. -Griffin2020
What if the coat hangers & sexual supplies weren't from the parents? ...what if the loading dock workers, upon being told to box up the destroyed remains of someone's inherited dresser, sort of took up a collection of whatever they had on hand as an unspoken apology and it being a Friday....eh, still doesn't explain the coat hangers, so much for that theory. -Trillian
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16.
When love is in the air, WiFi won't be
Ok, technically the WiFi will still be there, but a good chunk of students at my University will be locked out on February 14. Given the stability problems the U was having with BlueSocket login for the campus WiFi, they removed it at the beginning of last semester. They are instead opting for MAC Address filtering. All students must enter the MAC addresses of all wireless devices they will be using on campus, and come St. Valentine's Day, anyone who hasn't entered their MAC address correctly will be locked out. The big problem here is that they are not getting the word out very effectively. They spam all of the students with meaningless crap, so 90% of students don't use their University email. On the University's website, the notice is buried three slides deep in an animated slideshow that normally just shows pictures of campus. As for fliers, I've only seen one total out of the four buildings I've been in recently. They had the notice out for several days before someone told me (the email notice came a few days after that), and none of my friends that I've told knew anything about it. I am looking forward to watching the UndergradFish smacking their laptops yelling "Y U NO CONNECT" the Monday after next.
[By: linuxmatt]
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Have you notice a sign saying "Beware of the jaguar!"? -AussieFoot
Ironic they chose this day to massacre the connection. -MisterCommon
Simon is your sysadmin? -RiffRaff
has anyone removed the staors to the ill - light basement where the notice could possibly be found? if not - may wanna get on that. -Harm
Was the notice first buried in peat moss for 3 months? -Stryker One
hmmm, sounds like a job for something like netreg. but then again, if they can't connect, I guess that wont work so well. -boxcar
s/jaguar/leopard/ -Chromatix
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17.
OK... turning off pipelining...
There's a feature in Firefox that can be accessed by either about:config or through an extension that allows Firefox to make a request for a page element while it's still wating for another one. It speeds things up a lot, but can cause some interesting glitches: http://img718.imageshack.us/img718/2430/capturecmk.png
[By: linuxmatt]
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Cuts my beloved TSC in half? Screw THAT... -udoshan
Is that where it is! I'm trying to fix up my da's compy, because it caught something that was precached. -LDFeral
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18.
Does MS not want us to get hotfixes?
Experiencing a problem with CHKDSK freezing on scheduled boot-time scans, I took to Google for the solution. I found a Microsoft KB article explaining that this happens a lot on computers with infared devices. My laptop has an IR sensor on it, so I figured, I'll install the hotfix. It used to be, if a hotfix was not deemed worthy of Windows Update, you'd go to the KB article, click the download link, then install it. NOW.... You find the KB article, read it to see if it applies, scroll to the top, click "Request hotfix"... Select the appropriate file, then fill in your email address and solve a captcha. Then, you have to wait for the email, then click the link at the bottom to download a password-protected self-extracting EXE, and put in the password in the Email. Act fast though, because the password is continuously changing, and they only give you the current and next password. Say it with me, WTFMS? Sigh... I hope this hotfix works.
[By: linuxmatt]
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I see a future populated by torrent sites with MS hotfixes. -AmazingKreskin
You mean a site like http://thehotfixshare.net/board/index.php?act=home -sjg1978
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19.
"Starfish" Sleepers (NT/OT)
Not worth bumping LOTD. http://preview.tinyurl.com/258s8hs
Spotted on the Yahoo front page: "'Starfish' sleepers are helpful". Link says that they are also good listeners. Pbbth!
[By: linuxmatt]
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I like starfish sleepers. I listen to them snoring for a few seconds then I get to log a ghost call. -Jack
"...good listeners, helpful, and are uncomfortable being the center of attention..." In their dreams! -stiffarm
TOTALLY would have been worth bumping LOTD -PoglaTheGrate
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20.
Not to bump the LOTD... (OT)
http://wcco.com/local/laptop.falls.helicopter.2.1640969.html <- Still easily identifiable as a laptop! Looks like a ToughBook. Given the story, I'd think the screen would be snapped in two. I wonder if it still boots?
[By: linuxmatt]
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Yep, it's a Toughbook CF-18. Surprised that it's in as good a condition as it's shown... then again, it did just fall off of the helicopter and not get shipped UPS.
-VoiceOfSanity
Glad the family sees that it was an accident and isn't trying to sue for emotional trauma. -ChasingPuck
Agreed. The aviator will get fined large though. -ThinTheHerd
And now someone will pass a law mandating that all helicopter owners spend $1000 on some sort of sensor and cockpit warning buzzer to guard against items being left on the skid. -rdwells
I'm just happy that the bird was still out around St. Cloud when the thing dropped off the skid. If LifeLink is in-bound to our local hospital where they base some of their operations, they're sometimes flying pretty much right overhead! -Voz
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21.
Corny Joke 1
Question: What do you call an aquatic creature that uses the command-line exclusively?
Answer: a shellfish É¥sıɟןןÇÉ¥s É :ɹÇÊsuÉ
[By: linuxmatt]
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sure as hell ain't a starfish -OgdenTechGuy
If they can use a command line, they're showing signs of intelligence. -VoiceOfSanity
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22.
Corny Joke 2
Question: What window manager is most popular in Alaska?
Answer: GNOME Çɯouƃ :ɹÇÊsuÉ
[By: linuxmatt]
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IceWM -DrAardvarkian
the line below the punchline, is that meant to be ascii art? Jaws deosn't know what to do with it, one of the chars is char 592. -AdmiralLaurie
The line below the punchline is the punchline, upside-down. What you "read" as the punchline is white text on a white background, so we don't see it. and yes, groan. -cyberblade3001
I had to copy&paste to see all of the characters because some fof them are not included in Verdana (or at least not in the version I have installed). -concept14
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23.
Styled posts?
I just did this without thinking on my corny jokes. I did the upside-down text for the answers to emulate the feel of those corny jokes on candy wrappers. Then I thought, you know, that would totally eff with screen readers, and being the considerate person I am, I put the answer in normal text as well, and hid it by setting the font color to white. I just realized that the style attribute works for star members... So I can do this.Hello from TuxRug Repost... undid the putting-it-in-the-bottom-right. That does not do good things it seems.
[By: linuxmatt]
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I once forgot to close a <ul> list and the comments all appeared as list items. Caveat Coder. -teivrann
I don't know how it would act with upside down text. never tried it! -AdmiralLaurie
I think its funny, that you even thought about screwing with screen readers. that means us blind folks get thought of more than what we think. -blindtech
Looks like someone else opened up another Pandora's box.... -unrenowned
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24.
Avast and Spybot go huh?
My fiancée's mom, whose computer I recently switched from OneCare to Microsoft Security Essentials, which then got a virus I spent about 3 hours cleaning, was then switched to Avast. All was good until today. She got a popup from Avast warning that SDhelper.dll was infected with a trojan. I thought odd, but hit move to chest to be safe. Then I did a scan of the directory Spybot was installed in.
This is where things started to look really weird. Every single .EXE, .DLL, and .ZIP in the folder tested positive for the same trojan! There were also a couple odd-looking .SCR files in the folder that tested positive. Also the scanner pointed out that that same trojan was active in memory. So I set a boot-time scan (PC is XP 32-bit, so scan can be done before Windows even finishes loading). Avast found, and deleted (though it said it was moving them to the chest, where I could not find them) every EXE, DLL, and ZIP in the Spybot folder, as well as finding the same trojan in a few files on the recovery partition that should be kosher, and a DLL in C:\Windows.
So, once it's back up, I'm thinking maybe a false-positive, so I bring up the browser and try to download Spybot to re-install it after Avast killed it. Spybot.info server didn't respond. Safer-networking.org server didn't respond. Checked Host file, neither was redirected. Tried to access from my computer, and my iPod. Same problem. I then pulled up bing on the computer and google on my iPod, and found a few other people who say that the latest Avast update went berzerk on Spybot and a few other programs. I also found links to the spybot forums, which of course, wouldn't load. Then I found a search result on forum.avast.com... which wouldn't load.
So the inaccessible sites list is up to: spybot.info, safer-networking.org, and forum.avast.com (www.avast.com still works).
So I decide, what the hell, I'll download Spybot from download.com. Avast aborts the connection at about 95% shouting "A virus has been detected!". Now I'm sure it's a false positive. The question is, why are all sites spybot broken, and why are the avast forums broken?
Next step, ping the affected sites. Spybot.info pings back normally, as do safer-networking.org and forum.avast.com. They also all tracert fine. Yet none of them are responding to IE, Chrome, Firefox, or mobileSafari. According to downforeveryoneorjustme.com, they all "look down from here" and it's not just me.
So first, Avast goes at Spybot's throat, and now I can't access official spybot site or the avast forums. Too weird. Anybody else having Avast go bonkers?
Sorry for any bad capitalization or grammar/spelling on this post. I know I'm usually good about it, but this has me really confused and so my brain is backfiring.
[By: linuxmatt]
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I also have false positive on spybot, but also on rthdcpl.exe which belongs to Realtek HD audio. I run Vista start menu and TerraCopy, both of which are flagged in .DLL components. I can get to Avast Web forum, but it is very very slow. Perhaps that is why you think it is down. I have sent a strongly worded email to Avast, but they might be overwhelmed. -Gerund
In the Avast forum it reports 1337 Guests, 33 users online. Numerous people reporting the false Win32:Delf-MZG report. -Gerund
Update Avast virus definitions and it is fixed. That was good, but should not have happened in the first place. -Gerund
After reading this, I tried running Spybot Search & Destroy and Avast! popped up a warning. Also have gotten several notices that Avast! has updated virus databases this evening. I hope that means they are onto the problem.
-Grembo
After the latest Avast! update, Spybot seems to be running normally. Have to give respect to Avast! for being on the ball, even to free users. -Grembo
My avast found 115 infections of the same virus. Got to the forums, found a huge shitstorm about false positives, had to repair install some programs. Went to AVG, (which I don't like) for a short period. -srteach
I've always used Avira. As far as free AV programs go I've never had a problem when using it. -AdeptusMechanis
Had an IRC user who was reporting the same thing. Looks like Avast dropped the ball on this one big time. I wonder how many bricked Windows installs there are because of this? -Caboose447
Info on cause & resolution from Avast! here: http://support.avast.com/index.php?_m=knowledgebase&_a=viewarticle&kbarticleid=377 -Grue
I swear by Avira. It's been the best anti-virus package I've seen in a long, long time... and I've had to deal with most all of the major packages at one time or another. -VoiceOfSanity
So VoS, would you say you've had to handle a lot of packages in your time? *Runs for the LART shelter* -AdeptusMechanis
I second the Avira love. However currently I'm running G-Data and it's also giving me shittons of false positives for the same virus. -LazyLemming
Pick your new AV using http://www.av-comparatives.org/images/stories/test/ondret/avc_report23.pdf and http://www.av-comparatives.org/images/stories/test/ondret/avc_report24.pdf I'm probably moving to Avira when my current subscription expires. -AussieFoot
Actually, I do just that Aussie, that's why I'm running G-Data at the moment. However it's making my PC do some weird things... -LazyLemming
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25.
Touchscreen keyboards are tricky
Maybe it's because I'm proficient with the keyboard on my iPod Touch, but I cannot get other touchscreen keyboards to do what I want them to do.
Example: I was playing with a Droid Eris at the Verizon store. I tried to search Youtube for "viva la vida". The first three or four tries, the keyboard typed some variation of "vulva la vuda".
[By: linuxmatt]
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Well va-va-voom! -AnneBWalsh
Isn't that some sort of Freudian slip? *EG* -rosemetal
Viva la Vulva? *Hey Ghost! Let me in man!* -unrenowned
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26.
More stupid ways to build a device
Inspired by AdeptusMechanis' similarly titled post:
- My old laptop had a WLAN toggle button (not switch) right on the front. Don't know how many times I bumped that during a large download.
- One of my previous (flip or clamshell type) cell phones had its power button on the side. Even with keyguard set to go on automatically, it still had a delay before doing so, so sometimes putting it in my pocket would turn it off.
- Another flip phone had a button on the side that changed the ringer volume. Because that phone had no keyguard function, sometimes sitting down would switch it from vibrate to loud or from loud to silent.
- I had a mouse at one time that I really liked, but the programmable button was so far out of the way that I never used it.
- Same laptop with the oddly-placed WLAN button, something about the heatsink required me to remove the fan and peel off a 2cm-thick pad of dust about once a month to prevent overheating. No other laptop I used in the same environment required this.
I'm sure I'll think of more later.
[By: linuxmatt]
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Kinda makes you wonder what the guys who engineered these products were thinking. Although I am willing to bet it was similar to "Hey, if we do X we'll save money." -AdeptusMechanis
No, more along the lines of <Eng> We can build the perfect computer but it will cost $XXXXXX <manglement> what can we get for 1/100th of that? <eng> a lot of pain <manglement>do it our way or you'll lose your jobs. -Olorin
"Welcome to the twentieth century, linuxmatt" </Trancers Paraphrase> -Necros
What about the headphone jacks in laptops being in the front where they will jab you in the stomach -Icelator
I remember in the "good ol'days" when the PCAT were popular, and the case had a lid that opened by pressing 2 buttons on the side of the cabinet. The only problem was that if you wanted to do something you had to remove 15 or so screws from the internal chassi to be able to add or replace anything... -Dr Jerkyl
"It's a miracle these people ever got out of the Twentieth Century" - McCoy -Biosynthetic
My current phone has the camera launch button on the side. Took a few weeks to learn how open my phone just right and not end up in camera mode. -Stryker One
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27.
Another stupid way to build a device
Here's one I forgot in my last post:
- My previous laptop had a volume control dial on the front. The slightest bump would unmute it. To top it off, it was touchy as hell, so one little tap on the dial could either turn the volume all the way up or all the way down. Adjusting the volume with the dial was impossible, because it jumped around like crazy.
[By: linuxmatt]
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Sounds like the dial on my BB 7100. Sometimes I'll turn the dial one way and the phone acts like I turned it the opposite way. Good thing I'm getting a replacement soon (BB Curve) -OgdenTechGuy
Oh, here's another one: a device meant to be a talking spanish dictionary, that doesn't bleeding talk, by design! -AdmiralLaurie
as for the laptop volume issue, my friend had a great solution, take an old pair of headphones clip off the connecter and just leave that in you headphone port, easy to remove when needed but guaranteed to block sound. -Icelator
Icelator, I don't know how good it is to be doing that -- generating the sound signal with no load on a regular sound system is a good way to blow the amplifier. -Captain Trips
CT - Actually more amplifiers are happy with NO LOAD than a short. From a matching viewpoint either is bad, but twice voltage at the output (open circuit VSWR) is usually better than twice current (short circuit VSWR). -MSimmons777
I used to have a monitor for my Commodore 64 which had the brightness, contrast and colour controls on the back of the monitor. I also have a cheap and nasty mp3 player that has a board that is secured by one screw. The whole board moves, so pressing buttons on the device can cause anything to happen. -PoglaTheGrate
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28.
Could this be my first job?
I just got a reply to an online job application I did a couple weeks ago. It looks promising; they want me to come in and take a typing test and fill out a more detailed application. It's not my first choice, but karma is appreciated, and if I get the job, it could bring in some more content from me. My fiancée works at the place I got my offer from, and I applied for the same position she started in, and basically the jist is I would be taking calls from people who didn't pay their mobile phone bill. I should share some stories my fiancée relayed to me, and continues to relay to me as her current position has her moving between working in finance (where I'd likely be) and care.
It sounds like a good source of material for me, because she's had a customer that wanted to pay their bill in cash by giving the serial numbers from the bills over the phone.
[By: linuxmatt]
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Comments
*casts job karma* -rosemetal
Fiancee? First Job? I could make all sorts of derogetory comments... but I won't. Job Karma on your way -PoglaTheGrate
Good luck man -DarkRookie
One Keg-O-Karma on its way. Good Luck! -ecoli
*casts karma* -compbrat
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29.
Odd BIOS behavior...
It doesn't worry me, since my laptop is working perfectly other than this one little glitch, but I figured you all might get a little kick out of it.
It POSTs twice. Every single boot. It plays the logo-bursting-out-of-flame animation, I hear the drive spin up and the cd drive check for a disc, and then... screen goes blank, lights go out, and it does it again.
It always does it exactly twice. No more, no less. I verified that it is indeed doing all the POST tests by disabling quiet boot and watching the screen. It does all the tests, and it passes all of them.
The only time it posts just once is when I boot into ExpressGate with the dedicated button. It uses an alternate BIOS splash, and then bounces right into insta-boot built-in linux.
There is a bios update available, but the only bugfix it mentions is "ODD not recognized under DOS - FIXED". I run Vista and Linux, so I shouldn't be affected, and my optical drive is indeed working under both. I don't want to risk it since I have no FDD and the only other option is WinPhlash, which fubar'd my Acer. And there's no loss of functionality, just an extra 5-10 seconds at boot. Very odd...
It's an Asus "Republic of Gamers" G50-Vt if anybody is curious.
[By: linuxmatt]
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http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=386040 -Stryker One
I know what you mean
-burrkiss
I know what you mean
-burrkiss
A friend of mine had the same problem and I couldn't fix it so he took the box into a local shop and they said it was a virus and installed and ran AVG and it fixed the problem or at least that is what they claim. -Olivaw
Burrkiss, when he said "POST twice" he meant something different. :D -TheGhost
Your BIOS has OCD..call Monk. -ChildofCthulhu
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31.
I know I'm bored when...
I find myself making an OEM-style XP install disc with the guest additions for the VM it will be in.
Previous incarnation: Installed, entered audit mode, installed guest additions for VirtualBox, sysprep -reseal, then attached external HDD to guest and made bootable Clonezilla recovery image. ~1.2GB.
Current try: System installs through unattended Hide Pages mode. Sysprep tool and guest addition installer copied using OEM Preinstall. After install, skips OOBE, autologin Administrator, script to install guest additions, sysprep -reseal -nosidgen -noreboot, delete sysprep and guestadditions install source from hdd, then reboots. OEM Eula on OOBE (though I have no plans to distribute... my form of role-playing). ~630MB
I'm using nLite as little as I can, I'm editing files like WinNT.sif manually, basically using nLite only as a quick way to rebuild the ISO. I've gone through a few attempts to get this one right. Yes... I am bored.
[By: linuxmatt]
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... I hope you're on the clock... -exzyle2k
Totally hope your on the clock. -SpitefulTech
No job, getting ready for college. So, this is at-home just for fun. I'm really screwed up, huh? -linuxmatt
Matt, you REALLY need to get out more. :-) -Gromit
I'm just chuckling on such a story coming from a guy named Linux. -LazyLemming
Ooh! VBOX! I would dearly love to have a copy of that .iso when you are done. I have been setting up a 'fista' machine to host VBOX for just such a purpose. -TieDyedDinosaur
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32.
Just went from Qwest to Qworst
Sunday, I was trying to find sufficient motivation to get off my ass and lady karma found it for me.
My phone rings. The three-letter word of tech-support doom is subtly displayed on the outer screen under a cheery, dancing headset icon while the T-Mobile jingle happily jingle-jangles unaware of the coming migraine. It's around 10:00AM, so I figure he's calling because he can't get to his conspiracy, porn, or conspiracy-porn websites. Like a fool, I answer anyway.
He calmly states that he cannot get online. I immediately begin to ponder what he could have changed to cause such a phenomenon. Before I can say "reboot", he continues that his desktop showed "something like network connected" and "you are not using open-DNS nameservers" on his desktop, but he doesn't see anything like that on his laptop.
Since he's indicated that neither his archaic plenty-fast-for-him 450Mhz-PIII-320MB-o'-RAM XP desktop nor his shiny new dual-core lappy can connect, I opt to jump straight to the modem lights.
Me: OK. Look at the lights on the modem. It's on the shelf under your monitor and it has the Qwest logo on it.
Dad: Hold on, let me get my glasses... Ok it says "Windows XP"...
Me: Ignore your computer. You know which box is the modem right? The one with a lot of lights and the Qwest logo.
Dad: The one labeled esther-something is blinking.
Me: Ethernet 1?
Dad: Something like that.
Me: Just give me a list of the lights that are lit.
Dad: Power is green. Esther is blinking, is that normal?
Me: Yes. Continue.
Dad: DSL is green.
Me: What about Internet?
Dad: Not lit.
Me: And Wireless?
Dad: Not lit.
No Internet on the modem. There goes my hopes of remoting in. He has trouble often enough with his desktop that I have DynDNS and a VNC server on it.
His box usually has wireless lit even when nothing's connected by wireless. This means his modem has either rebooted recently or wireless has been disabled. Since he's tried connecting with his laptop, I wager that WLAN is disabled or the settings have been reverted to factory defaults. Since his modem's model is only one number away from mine, and basically the same as mine except his has a power switch, I feel like I can talk him through this. I have him unplug the modem for 30 seconds and plug it back in. Even after I tell him what the lights are going to do during the reboot, he still tells me what each light is doing for a good minute before DSL goes solid. Another 30 seconds and Internet does not light up, or even blink. Since I have the same modem with the same interface, I do the steps with him as I tell him what to do, to help me visualize since I can't remote in.
Me: Pull up your internet browser.
Dad: So I hit the internet button then, right?
Me: Yes.
Dad: Ok. Now what?
Me: Click the box that you type your websites in, and I will give you a set of numbers to type in. Type in "192" --
Dad: Ok it has a bunch of numbers in the list, what do I click?
Me: Just keep typing. Put a dot, then "168", then a dot, then 0 dot 1. Then hit enter.
Dad: It says 192.168.0.1 not found.
Meanwhile, I have hit the enter key on my own computer and see something totally different from what I was expecting. My modem's browser interface has completely changed! This is like a Windows 3.1 to Windows Vista interface change... but shinier! This can't be a coincidence.
I tell him I'll be over after I take a shower and do a little recon. Evidently, other users of the same modem series have had a similar problem. Some were simply greeted by a new interface, while others had problems ranging from dropped packets to Basic Routines Incredibly and Completely Killed (BRICK) syndrome. All that weekend, all using 2WIRE modems, and only most of them in the US and/or using Qwest. That's right, according to several forums, some poor saps with AT&T DSL, and some people off in dark, distant corners of the globe that had never even heard of Qwest until recently now have a router configuration page with a lovely Qwest logo. Screenshots from chats with Qwest and transcripts of conversations with 2Wire acknowledge that "some older Qwest-branded 2Wire gateways have been updated with new features". Including "purchased" units, without any form of opt-out or notification.
And the Qshit hits the Qfan
I head over, and sure enough, 192.168.0.1 does not respond to pings. So why does XP claim a functional local connection is available? IPconfig reveals the default gateway's IP address has changed to 192.168.1.254. I point the web browser to the new IP and there's the new, unholy Vista-KDE-Crystal-Everything-Else-Shiny crap they call an interface. Now we're getting somewhere. And everything has been set to factory defaults, and PPPoE username and password are of course blank.
Time to call Qwest. After chatting with their voice-driven menus for five minutes, I hear, "All of our representatives are busy. Your estimated hold time is one minute." This is repeated every two minutes for about 15 minutes. I manage to get the PPPoE credentials from the Level 1 tech with minimum fuss, yet have to enter them twice because the quick setup page simply cleared the fields when I hit save. After ending the call, I spent 30 minutes trying to get it to save the WiFi settings, because I had to set a WEP key first before setting a WPA key, then when I tried to save, it just set the wireless to unsecured, taking a total five attempts to get WPA enabled. Then it says it's on Channel 1, but inSSIDer shows it on the heavily used channel 6. Another five minutes fighting with that.
Eventually, no thanks to the new bugtastic interface, I got the connection working again, and for once it wasn't my dad that screwed it up. Three cheers for Qworst!
[By: linuxmatt]
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Your dad is VERY lucky to have you! -ManyHats
I also had the hindsight to have him bring his laptop downstairs so I could plug it in directly to the modem rather than fighting with the molasses-tower. As an added bonus, since neither of us could remember the old WPA key, it saved a trip upstairs to reconfigure the laptop's wifi. -linuxmatt
Sounds like SonicWall bought 2Wire and rolled out their interface on all the routers (psuedo-modems). Had a SonicWall wifi device that was the same way. It would not remember any settings change unless you hard reset the unit to factory defaults and re-entered everything. -Griffin2020
i always hated the 2wire modems when i was working ISP helpdesk. probably because we only had one that was passed around the office so that we had some kind of general idea what to click on when helping customers configure the modems. i still keep my actiontec handy should i ever switch back to DSL -razmann
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33.
Wi-Fi Woes (OT)
When I set up the our Wi-Fi, inSSIDer found networks on channels 11 and 6. Therefore, I set the router to use channel 1. Recently, I've been having troubles with staying connected, on my laptop and iPod. I go onto inSSIDer again and find, besides our network on CH1, there is another network on CH1, a network on CH6, and three on CH11. So I have interference on the channel I'm using, and there's /NO/ channel available that will not overlap a neighbor's network. Since there's multiple signals centered on CH11, and a relatively strong signal on CH6, I'm currently using CH3, with a little interference with both ends. Why couldn't IEEE have gone with some sort of scheme with more than three overlapping channels?
[By: linuxmatt]
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You could switch to an A access point. Those frequencies are mostly unused in a home environment. -boxcar
Dual-band N. Gets 2.4G if you wish, and also does the 5G (A) band. Alas, I have the same problem, however, the interference is ... my wireless receiver for the rear speakers for my surround sound! -ralphp1024
Has N even been fully ratified yet? -chazz
In that kind of situation, you may actually be better sharing one of the channels. It's too early for me to coherently explain, but I'll try: networks sharing the same channel can negotiate in order to reduce interference (CSMA/DA?), whereas networks on overlapping channels can't. -smellystudent
NO, N has not been fully ratified, but Cisco, Intel, and the rest of the partners say that whatever happenswhat they are shipping will work with the ratified version. IE- they are done, and will do no more to the devices. -Griffin2020
My understanding is that they are saying that shipping devices will be able to match the final N standard with a firmware upgrade once it is ratified. Until that happens, though, it seems to me there may still be problems connecting between manufacturers, e.g. D-Link's pre-N hardware may not connect to Linksys' or Netgear's... it would be a bad business decision to do otherwise. -chazz
slap dd-wrt on the router and it'll give you access to channels above 14, I know its against the law in the US, but a man needs his wireless. -areatech
I recommend a simple parabolic reflector like a windsurfer. DIY with nearly anything conductive. http://www.freeantennas.com/projects/template2/index.html This lets you put your router at one end of an apartment and increase i/o signal strength for 'free'. -TieDyedDinosaur
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34.
Incredible news about Windows 7
Sorry, I lost my star temporarily, so no formatting. Instead, here is a link to my inside scoop on my blog: http://tinyurl.com/dzdj3v
[By: linuxmatt]
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That's awesome news! I'm even more excited than ever for Windows 7! -OgdenTechGuy
Microsoft Bob to be included? I suppose that goes with Microsoft Dave included already in Vista - the one that persistently says "I'm afraid I can't allow you to do that, Dave". -Gromit
I'm going to stockpile windows 98 cd's, and when a fish comes in with win7 on their fscking computer, I'm ffring it right off. -AdmiralLaurie
Aw, come on, AL. Win7 isn't anywhere near as bad as Vista was. At least it kept WinXP RAM requirements, which in-and-of-itself is a major improvement. -Seamus
Gromit, that would be M$ HAL and yes it's had one since NT ... I sorry Dave, you can't touch the hardware. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hardware_abstraction_layer -McSmiley
< Points at the date and runs > -Necros
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35.
Offsite Link - Hulu Undergoing Maintenan
As you guessed from the title, it's not that exciting, definitely not worth bumping Foamy, but it's just a bit cutely twisted. I don't know how long it will be up either. http://www.hulu.com/support/maintenance
[By: linuxmatt]
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I'm assuming it's the video we're supposed to see? Sorry, Hulu is very US-centric, so please explain it to all of us back on the original continent. -Calydor
I'm sorry, I completely forgot hulu blocked non-US viewing. The video is Big Bird and Elmo singing "Take A Break With Me". -linuxmatt
Calydor - Blocking takes place on that side of the Atlantic also. I can't watch videos on BBC's website. Hmmm. Maybe they should replace the generic blocked message with two characters from a children's show. -MisterCommon
Well, in a similar vein, it now is running a 404-error page with a video- "Simpsons- DOHs". -Voz
Which can only be watched in the USA... BAH! -Caboose447
Somebody should explain to them what the WW in WWW stands for. -robbor
yeah but... Hulu is at the mercy of the license holders, and have to negotiate separately with the license holders in each country. What most amazes me is that they know country by IP address... -chazz
Country specific sites are plainly stupid. If I do want to see the content, I can use a proxy, so the blocking is useless. However, this hulu site might as well go to hell-o. I did get it trough a proxy - and it froze my Firefox. Apparently, it requires Flash 10 or else, or it doesn't like Linux. -TheGhost
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36.
A geeky gift
I was helping my aunt set up her iPod Touch (secondhand from her hubby) on her iMac, and noticed a dusty package behind the computer. It was an unopened Palm Zire 21. I asked her if she knew that was there, she said she had forgotten where she put it, but she was going to throw it out anyway because nobody wanted it. She offered it to me, and after verifying she was not joking, I accepted.
I took it home, and plugged it in to charge. I left it a few hours as instructed in the booklet, and came back to a dead device. I unplugged it, hit the reset button, and nothing happened. After a lot of trial and error, including letting it charge overnight, it still does not charge. If I go though the setup with it plugged in, it does indicate it is charging, but the second I unplug it, it goes dead and loses all settings (back to OOB state). I cracked it open (since with its age, the warranty came and went in the box) and there is a battery in there and it is securely soldered in.
Overall, a fun toy, as long as it stays plugged in the whole time you're using it, and you don't mind going through the setup every time you use it.
[By: linuxmatt]
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Sounds like the Li-Ion battery has time-expired and shut down. They do that. If you can find a replacement battery and attach it, it should work fine. -Chromatix
I second looking for / building a new battery. -ShujinTribble
Tape some alkaline AA's on the back. But don't take through Airport Security.... -beatmewithstick
http://www.infinitybatteries.com $25 USD should sort you out. -lineswine
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37.
I'll be glad when voting is over (NTOT)
I'm tired of all the mudslinging. Including on ballot measures. Take Colorado amendment 48, for example. Here are the claims against it:
- 48 would ban all forms of female birth control
- 48 will ban all abortions, even when the lives of both mother and child are in extreme jeopardy, and the abortion could save the mother.
- 48 would make miscarriages and stillbirths criminal offences subject to criminal investigation.
- 48 would ban treatment for uterus and ovarian cancer for all sexually active women.
Some people even claim it would require embryos to be witnesses at a trial against their abortion-seeking mothers!
Here is the FULL TEXT of the amendment: http://tinyurl.com/coamend48
Personally, I am voting no on 48, but not because of the propaganda. I am voting no because I believe the law text is too ambiguous, and too strict. My understanding is that it would likely ban voluntary abortion ("I changed my mind, teehee") and MAYBE the morning-after pill. Sure, THE PILL doesn't prevent an egg from being fertilized, just prevents it from being implanted, but I doubt it would be banned. Just my two cents. You can go on to funny stuff now.
[By: linuxmatt]
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This is going to be a flame fest... I'm seething, but I don't live in Colorado, so I can't vote against it. Personally, I support Partial Birth Abortions for medical reasons, and voluntary up to the second trimester, FOR ANY REASON.
-Divinar
(OK, abortion just for sex-selection hits my squick button, but I wouldn't prohibit it.) -Divinar
Like a woman having a miscarriage wouldn't feel bad enough without making her feel like a criminal and telling me I have to die of cancer because I'm of "child-bearing age" is beyond stupid -SillyGirl
Will they also issue burka's to all adult women? -vacuumtubes
Bloody hell - I'm glad I'm not American. -Gromit
abortions for medical reason? fine. abortion because you can't be arsed taking care of your spawn? no no no no no no. and no. that's why there's birth control. the best form thereof? Keep. your. legs. shut! -AdmiralLaurie
The problem stems from the phrase "moment of fertilisation". I don't think it means what they think it means. -Chromatix
Sorry, but I don't have a uterus, therefore... I DON'T HAVE AN OPINION!!! -billybien
Ahh yes, PBA. The art of sticking a steel straw into the infant's skull and sucking out the brains, then taking a miniature buzz-saw and slicing off the limbs one by one and placing them into a Biohazard bag. Yeah, we're an evolved species. -Biosynthetic
This is not technical, nor is it comedy. Nor does it hold any interest for anyone not in north america. Let's try to keep on topic and put the other stuff in the break room, please. -Gerund
I think this webcomic pretty much says it all: http://www.somethingpositive.net/sp10282008.shtml -Starfury
Evil Step Daughter asked about contraception. I gave her a penny and told her that was the most effective measure. "?" "Just put it between your knees and keep it there" -Zoomer
There's a joke - A grandma goes to the doctor and asks for contraceptives to be prescribed to help her sleep. The doctor verifies she is well out of the game and tells her they wouldn't do a thing for her. She insists and the doctor relents. A couple of months later during a followup, the doctor asks how the contraceptives have been working out. The grandma says 'I just put one in my granddaughters orange juice in the morning and then I sleep like a baby all night long! -TieDyedDinosaur
Jeez, and we in California thought the fight over Proposition 8 (the preserve the sanctity of marriage vote) was bad!! Well, hopefully there are literally enough people with brains enough to vote CO 48 down with a resounding NO!! -MadJack
You probably should have posted this in the break room. I just moved to CO from AZ, and haven't changed registration so I can't vote in CO. Already mailed my ballot for AZ though. I'll post a couple of doozies in the break room for comments. -MSimmons777
Shit, on second thought, I'm gonna stay drunk all weekend; I'm fuckin' tired of all this divisive bullshit.
Don't bother checking on me until Tuesday, so I'm alive enough to vote.
Party Time!! -MadJack
Um, Gerund, didn't you see the "NTOT" warning? Yes, it's non-tech, and yes, it's off-topic, but haven't we all sometimes posted something with that heading? -Captain Trips
"Computer"! Now is it tech? Seriously folks, I've been maintaining that our economy faces a very real downturn in about a week- think about the spike in unemployment among the most lame advertising people when the political campaigns are over, and they're out of work! -Voz
I think they should allow retroactive abortion. You know up till you turn 18 your parents can off you as you are too stupid to live. Just my two cents lol -Crai
While that certainly is mudslinging there is some truth there. Consider the implications if it is a person: All methods of contraception that could block implantation would be banned as that would risk killing a person. Furthermore, if it's a person then it's death would be treated as any other death of a person--the third point is right on target. -Loren
If they banned birth control I wonder what my g/f would do considering she would literally DIE without birthcontrol(not to get gross but her period starts when she doesn't take it and won't stop till she is dead or takes it) -vrek
Is this because the Fundies are worried about "The Second coming" ending up in a bucket? I've a simple opinion on all this, namely "The God Squad they do piss me off, doo-dah, doo-dah." I'm FUCKING GLAD the UK got over all this religious mumbo-jumbo a couple of centuries ago & is pretty much secular. -lineswine
I'm a believer in post-natal abortion. Even 20+ years after the event. Especially for starfish customers. -Wraith556
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38.
Break from my drama
I got fed up with my touchpad (I hate those things), and my current mouse was cordless, but not portable (mile-long cord on receiver, mouse was huge). So....
I got a new MOOOUUUUUSSSEEEE!!!!
http://www.microsoft.com/hardware/mouseandkeyboard/ProductDetails.aspx?pid=112&active_tab=overview
My favorite (and most expensive) mouse ever! Receiver is a tad bit bigger than the Logitech micro receiver (based on photos), and mouse turns off automatically when I fold it. It even came with a nifty pouch to keep it in! Most responsive mouse I've ever used, and the most comfortable since my first optical mouse, the Intellimouse Explorer. And as a plus (this is in my laptop's touchpad driver), when I plug it in, it automatically turns off my touchpad (only Microsoft mice seem to work with that)!
[By: linuxmatt]
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Hmm...uses 2.4GHz. You having any problems with your wireless all of a sudden? -adarklite
On Linux? -billybien
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39.
Update on Karma Request (NT/OT)
The prognosis is in, and the doctors doubt my mother will live another week, and if she does, it'll be in constant pain. She has a massive, malignant, cancerous tumor on one ovary, severe cirrhosis, acute pneumonia, and a terrible blood-borne yeast infection. My sisters from Iowa and Germany have come, and my uncle is almost here from Seattle, to say their goodbyes, and help me take care of things. Thanks for all the karma. It didn't help in the way I hoped (making mom well again), but it is helping me get through this tough time. Love you guys.
[By: linuxmatt]
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(*Nods head*) BEST of luck... this is when you see just how much you really CAN handle.... I'm sorry for it. I wish you strength and peace. -ShujinTribble
I... I really have no words. Best wishes all round, man. -Seamus
I'm sooo sorry. ((hugs)) -K9Insanity
There's not much to say... except that we'll all be here for you. Good luck to you and your family. -cyberblade3001
matt, cancer killed my father a few years ago, and my feelings and thoughts are with you. treasure the time you have left. -caspian
Damn, I mean you were expectiong it to be one of those, but to find out it's *all* of them? I know it's not much consolation now, but it's probably for the best that she doesn't have much time left, given the circumstances. Sorry for your impending loss man. ((hug)) -flapjackboy
*re-reads original post* Correction, you already knew about the tumor and the cirrhosis, but still... The hugs still stand though. -flapjackboy
my sympathy for you and yours. hope all will feel comfert at this time of need. -compbrat
My grandmother died from full body cancer. Started in one of her organs then in the matter of one week spread throughtout her entire body. Even with today's technology they would not have been able to save her... Her death sent me into a chronic depression that lasted 6 years. My advice: talk to her as much as you can, tell her how much you love her, be with her, hold her hand, give her hugs/kisses, eat with her (if she's able), do all the things that I couldn't do with my grandma because you have the chance to do them and you'll regret it the rest of your life if you don't. She may be going, but make sure she has you by her side knowing that your going to get through it too. It will be one of the few things you can do to provide true comfort to her. One last thing, remember to grieve in your own way, don't let anybody else tell you how you should do so, only your hearts knows this. I give you my strength, support, compassion and love. Use it as you need it. My prayers go with you. -unrenowned
Fuck man i am sorry thats all i can say -starfishmagnet
I'm sorry that things aren't going as you hoped. Best of luck to you, your Mom, and yours in the time you have left with her and afterwards. -Grue
I lost my father to multiple cancers about a year and a half ago. I do know how you feel... If there's anything we can do, you have but to ask. -chazz
Sorry to hear all that, Matty. there aren't any words I can give to ease your pain, or your family's. All I can say, is I know where you are at all to well, and it WILL get better. -HappyCrappy
What they said. Remember the good, forget the crap. And make sure there's no regrets. -MadJack
I'm so sorry to hear that. I know there's nothing we can do or say to help you ease your pain, but we are here for you and you are in our thoughts. My deepest condolences. -TheGhost
For what it's worth, my thoughts are with you both. Be strong. -lineswine
All I can say is I'm terribly sorry to hear this, and you have all my good thoughts. -RandalGraves
You have my sympathies, kiddo. We're here for ya. -Tekkie
I am so sorry to hear this. My thoughts are with you and yours. -Zimmerit
I'm very sorry to hear this. Your family is in our thoughts and prayers. -FormerSithLord
I am sorry. Please take advantage of hospice,say goodbye and let her know it is OK to die. -Amicuspicarum
(hugs( you have my sympathies. My father isd in hospital weith terminal cancer, after a heart attack. Weve said goodyes and made our peace so here, ave all the kara everyone gave me *ugs and gets karma ll over* -Ara
So sorry to hear about all of this. Sending karma all the way to you and yours. -WalNut
Good thoughts and karma from Casa de Chef. -SwedishChef
Karma on the way. -Stryker One
Allow me to offer my sincerest condolences and prayers for your mother, so that whatever is going to happen does so quickly and with a minimum of pain, and for you and your family, so that your pain and loss may be eased. -Grayhawk
I wish you peace and the grace to deal with what is approaching. My best wishes to your family also, that everyone comes through with something positive when its over. -Darkridr
mat, I know this is a few days late, but gdammit I wish you the best. if ever you need anything... just give me a yell. -AdmiralLaurie
*hugs* :( -taieena
You have my full sympathy. Not much else I can say. -Ramblin
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40.
Karma Request NT/OT
I need some karma. Mom was taken to the ER Tuesday night and has been in the ICU since. They finally found many things wrong with her: Low blood pressure (so low they checked it more than five times in a row with different machines and a couple times manually, they couldn't believe she was conscious), anemia, dangerously low potassium, malnourished, and several infections due to a depleted immune system. Upon close inspection they discovered cirrhosis of the liver, and a large tumor in her abdomen. They threw a zillion tests, and all of them came back no-doubt positive for ovarian cancer (compared to which, the cirrhosis is practically moot). It appears to be relatively advanced, and none of the surgeons skilled enough for the operation she needs want to dirty their feet on our small-town soil, God forbid they be more than an hour drive from their glass mansions and golfing buddies. So, they gotta get her condition stable so they can send her to another county. On top of this, mom and my ex-father (I am NOT on speaking terms with him) are going through a messy and expensive divorce that he is dragging his feet on, we have no health insurance, by some dumb fuck-ass fluke my Mom is not eligible for Medicare (though she should be), and our "yellow card" for discount medical help expired two days before my mom was admitted. We have bills pouring in (and none of them from the hospital yet), which we haven't the money to afford. I'll be trying to get in contact with some charities that might be able to help, and see if we can break the huge-ass homeowners insurance bill for our crappy-ass, overappraised, ready-to-fall-down shithouse into smaller chunks, considering we will have to sell the house as soon as ex-father decides to get off his high-horse and sign the paperwork that our lawyer has been pushing on him for months (we've even had him served). I know that I am LUCKY compared to some of the people affected by Ike, but considering the way things are going, I'm going to be motherless, homeless, will have my greedy ex-father crawling over me for money. If mom dies or the surgery puts us in debt, at best I'll have to bunk with my future in-laws for god-knows how long. My fiancée's mom is great, her dad reminds me too much of my own. I don't know what to do, all I know is I'm in way over my head.
[By: linuxmatt]
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Comments
Damn, mate...that all sucks rancid monkey balls. All the Karma I have is on its' way to you. -lineswine
Wow... I don't even know what to say other than I hope things gets better. All the spare karma I have laying around will be arriving overnite delivery. -Grembo
You've got my spare Karma. And a big hug. -Tekkie
Any spare karma is headed your way! -Dreamstalker
Good Luck. -Icelator
I'm pulling for you and your mother! Don't forget, get your attorney in on this every step of the way! Until those papers are signed your father is still legally married to your mother and could possibly be held responsible for some of those bills!! Also, all hospitals will negotiate a payment plan as well for the bills. Just get her better first! Nuclear powered Karma kittens teleported to your location! -unrenowned
Karma incoming bud. Best wishes. -BarmanVarn
Here's my karma. We're here for you. -Evan
Thats a thought. What Unrenowned said, point out to Dad that he might be responsible for the bills for his still wife and he will possibly burn the paper he will sign so fast. Karma on its way. -Zoomer
*hugs and gets karma all over you and yours* -Ara
That really bites... I'll keep you all in my thoughts and prayers... -PCRaevyn
Pushing all the karma I have your way. -Seamyst
Good luck to you, friend. -Grue
Ohmy... don't know what to say, so I "just" send MAJOR TSC Karma on your way. It's know to work wonders, so just hang on, OK? -NordicPT
I just dunno, matty. I got nothing to say except hang in there, and my karma ain't worth shite, but its all yours.
-HappyCrappy
Aw, fuck, man. Talk about when it rains, it pours. All general good luck Karma weapons on the rails, coordinates, please... -MadJack
All my karma and prayers boss... -iamscoop
Awwww, that bites. :( Lots of hugs and happy thoughts coming your way for you and your mom! -taieena
Been saving every stray scrap of karma I could lay hands on for having to deal with Mr.Lowlyte's 93-yr-old diagnosed-with-dementia grandma the uber-fish technophobe when she has to go into the nursing home in the not-too-distant... but, dam, guy, you need it WAY more than we do... karma cooshies incoming in 3...2...1... -lowlyte
I dunno that I've ever responded to a karma post before since I mostly lurk, but all my hoarded karma stock is yours man. I would strongly suggest talking a nurse and seeing if the hospital runs or knows of any support groups for the families of cancer patients, they can be a big help to help you deal with things so you can be in a good frame of mind to help your mum. -miyako
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41.
New Lappy!
And I have dubbed it... TuxTop-II
I purchased and am setting up my new Toshiba Sattelite.
Pros:
- AMD Turion X2 Ultra @~2.2Ghz
- 4GB RAM
- ATI Radeon graphics with what seems to be (unless all my diagnostic apps are failing me) ~1GB dedicated RAM
- 250GB HDD with NO Recovery partition taking up >50% (I've seen computers where 80% HDD was factory-assigned recovery data) - CDs instead
- Runs very quiet and fast
Cons:
- Windows Vista Home Premium x64 (and even sadder, I like it!)
- Does not boot if my external drives are plugged in when NTLDR starts, until I unplug the drives. I could probably fix that by tweaking the boot config file (have to look up the new info, seems no more boot.ini)
Lowest Experience rating subscore is 3.8 on 3d gaming. All my 3d games are pre-2005 and low-demand for at-the-time systems, do the math :P.
I'm enjoying this new lappy of mine, and already seem to have Vista eating out of the palm of my hand. Of course I intend to put XP in a VM at minimum. Oh adding linux of course would be good :).
And THIS TIME I will not flash the bios at midnight while falling asleep at the keyboard and leaving antivirus and firewall on and selecting a blatantly wrong file that I had to freaking override file type in the file select box and force flash ignoring errors. WTF was I thinking?
[By: linuxmatt]
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Must have been the weekend for laptop purchases. My wife finally saw the light and we purchased an HP laptop. cost us $600 before rebate, the specs aren't bad for what we paid for it. -Phylok
Congrats on the new shiny! Re. booting from an external drive - check the BIOS. My ageing memory is telling me that there may be an option there to boot from a USB device which you can disable. 'Tis worth a look anyway. -Gromit
Bought 2 Dell Vosttro 1710 laptops. Paid $894ea for $1395ea as ordered list price machines. -srteach
received, not bought. Good weekend for lappys -srteach
So what distro you going to use? So far my fave is PCLOS. -billybien
congrats, and i'm with Gromit on checking the BIOS settings, my computer used to not boot when my ipode was connected to it, looked in the BIOS and disabled booting from a USB device, and i never had the issue again -razmann
Linuxmatt saying he likes vista. 0_0 What's next? Dogs and cats living together? -TheGhost
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42.
Found my bootup bug source...
According to my troubleshooting, it is one of my two external hard drives causing Vista to lock up on boot. Of course it's the larger one :/.
It appears that it doesn't actually lock up the boot, it just slows a particular driver loading to a crawl... after some speculation searching on google, it seems it may be something wrong with the filesystem on the drive, so since my backups are restored (and duplicated on another drive currently anyway), I am copying the other files off of the drive and will chkdsk it. Failing that, I'll write a new MBR to the external drive.
The affected drive is a Seagate FreeAgent Desktop 250GB. My 160GB Maxtor is unaffected.
[By: linuxmatt]
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well, now that i see this, feel free to ignore the email i just sent you :) -razmann
Geez, what's up with Seagate anyway? I just got my new hard drive at work this morning, so when I take it home and replace the dead one I'll send you the latter's number info on your wall. -Seamyst
My recent drives have been the 500g and 750g Samsungs. They are very fast and very quiet drives. And, they are cheaper than their competition. -Wraith556
All the better reason why I only let Western Digital attach to my PCs. Have a system with 3 WDC drives in it and a 120GB portable external drive that's almost near capacity. -cecil36
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43.
I seriously f***ed up! Please help!
I know this belongs in the message board, but I am in a huge bind as I am afraid I have bricked my laptop, which is the ONLY one in a single piece, except a 450mhz desktop that may not support the software I need for my classes which start on the 25th.
I screwed up and selected the wrong file (old version, possibly corrupted) in winphlash, and somehow it successfully flashed my BIOS at which point my system pretty much froze trying to reboot itself. USB mouse still moved, one app I forgot to close still was popping up status notifications, but explorer would not respond, and ctrl+alt+del and ctrl+shift+esc did nothing.
This is where I got really stupid. Rather than wait to see if it actually could soft reboot. I held down the power button for 30 seconds (usually takes 6) to force powerdown. This is where I should have smelled trouble. Instead I unplugged the battery and power cord. I waited a few seconds, popped in my battery, and the charging light came on green (plugged and charged). Same thing when took out the battery and plugged it in. If it had power, that light came on. I tried to turn it on, and nothing happened. No lights came on or turned off, fan didn't spin up, it was like I was pressing a physically disconnected power button. I tried every button on the laptop, still nothing happening. I left it unplugged and battery out for 30 minutes with no effect.
I am really f***ed if I can't get this working. I have all my install discs and my data backups are up-to-date plus the irreplacable ones are on a seperate external drive anyway, so if I need to send in my laptop for a factory reflash or new motherboard, or if I need to buy a new system, I still have my data and music. However, if anybody has any ideas whatsoever, even just guesses, please email or comment ASAP! The system is out of warranty and has upgraded aftermarket RAM and DVD+-RW, so obviously factory repair is going to be a pain. The system is an Acer Aspire 5004WLMi. Any ideas for getting up enough to flash the right bios image?
[By: linuxmatt]
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sorry I posted from my iPod and it posted three times. I'll try to clear that up.
-linuxmatt
I'm thinking that now might be a good time to accidentally drop it down the stairs and make a quick call to your insurance company... -Shaede
I suspect that a factory reflash is the only sensible option. Unless you know someone with the right equipment and smarts to do it for you. -Chromatix
first get the drive out and back up anything you really need before the bad bios starts mucking with it. -stiffarm
If the system is so FUBAR'd that it won't power up at all, the only thing you can do is replace the CPU. Don't know on this model if it's removable or soldered to the board, though. Personally, I'd look for a replacement on E-Bay that has a functional board, but a damaged screen or something, and just swap your drive and other good parts into it. -RiffRaff
Yea, I second the vote for ebay for a unit with a broken screen -Spyder19
Found via Google: http://www.wimsbios.com/phpBB2/topic8541.html -Grue
What makes no sense is that it won't even POWER ON. The BIOS flash should keep it from POSTing, but not from physically turning on. Try removing the RAM and hard drive and DVDRW and see if it powers on then.If so, you have what we call a "bad coincidence" tech wise. Now,it IS possible the BIOS flash caused over voltaging I guess to the CPU but try removing that as well and see if it powers on. It'll help narrow down the exact cause of the failure. -RA
Pull the keyboard and look for the CMOS battery. Pull that and all other power sources. Wait 30 seconds. Reconnect and try posting again. Should fix it. If not, you need a new motherboard. -SwedishChef
swed, on a laptop do you have to press the power button? cause on some Desktop Mb's you gotta press the power button with all power sources removed to drain the capacitors or something...just removing the battery doesn't seem to do it. -drachen
Don't know if this will help. I've got an HP Pavilion zv5000t that the power button now needs to be held down for several seconds for it to power on, it didn't do this when it was new. -Stryker One
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45.
DMV = STUPID NT/OT
Didn't want to bump the link, but this is just totally WRONG! Listen at the end too, for an additional WTF. WMV warning. Ad prior to news broadcast.
http://tinyurl.com/6o4vvx
[By: linuxmatt]
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Link without the ad: http://wm.wusa.gannett.edgestreams.net/news/040908_scbtickets_wusa.wmv -virtualchoirboy
(O_o) uhm.... This is a CLEAR case of someone NOT using db queries effectively... for WAY too long. GEEZE! -ShujinTribble
More proof that by-and-large it's the stupid that get elected. -Seamus
I had a similar, but much shorter lasting situation. Car was stolen, parked in a restricted zone, ticketed and then towed. The ticket had a website printed on it that included a means of requesting the ticket be cancelled and providing a type-in area for explanation. I got a phone response back later from someone wanting to verify things and then it was cancelled. Apparently some counties are a bit better computerized and than others. -TieDyedDinosaur
Sounds like it was abandoned outside a donut shop. That explains the reason for not noticing it was in the database...MMMMMMmm, donuts! -Griffin2020
what kind of society do we live in where the only justice we can get is when we sensationalize the events? The guy couldn't get any resolution UNTIL after he involved the media.... -drachen
My wife was in an accident, she had to go the hospital in an ambulance, she's OK now. A few days later we get a ticket in the mail, for, LEAVING THE SCENE OF AN ACCIDENT, WTF? -Stryker One
Stryker- send the bill to the ambulance company, and tell the police that since she was taken away from the scene by the ambulance, that either constitutes liability for the "leaving the scene..." offense by the ambulance company, or else some level of kidnapping charge needing to be filed! -Voz
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46.
Am I an idiot?
Recently I made the decision to move my entire iTunes folder onto the smaller (160GB) of my external drives (which already had some Anime),because with help from the 65 odd gigs in that folder, my laptop's hdd was occasionally choking on itself (with help from a couple of VMs, it sometimes would get down to only 65MB of free space, a couple times reporting 0B free - on a 93.1GB partition (all of a "100GB" drive).
So now I find myself with 74.2GB free space on the partition after moving my entire iTunes library and deleting all but one of my VMs (Windows 98, MS Virtual PC). What to do with all this free space?
- Good idea: I am considering resizing my XP partition and once again returning Linux to my laptop, thus balancing the evil out.
- Bad idea: I am also considering installing Vista Business into some of this free space, making a tri-boot.
Keep in mind, I already have a free copy of Vista through my University. Still, am I nucking futs?
[By: linuxmatt]
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Yes, yes you are. Friends don't let friends install Vista. -chazz
You install Vista, and we're kicking you out of chat -deskmonkey
its a good ssytem to learn, as its not going any where. -virusjtg
I would say do it as a VM session. That's the only safe way to use fista, IMO. -WolfPup
Go with (Resize - Install Linux ) + (Fista VM)... -ShujinTribble
If you install Fista as a VM session, as WolfPup suggests, then you're okay - more experience is good, after all. But if you actually install it as a tri-boot, then yeah, you're nucking futs. -Seamyst
Free Vista? great. Put it on a VM and learn it... I've finally realized that I should do that eventually as well... though I'm considering skipping Vista and waiting for the next MS OS before I move from XP. (anyone know how viable that is?) But don't use it for anything but testing... The EULA denies you any privacy-all your info belongs to MS. And that's on top of all the other bugs/features it has. Put it as a VM you can launch from Linux or XP (Linux with NTFS 3g) play with it, test it. If you like your computer or your sanity (whatever there is left after dealing with fishies) don't boot Vista. -cyberblade3001
Cyberblade: With Billyboy saying Win7 is expected by 2009, a lot of big shops are saying, "screw Vista, we'll wait until 7 comes out." So I'd say it's a pretty viable plan. -chazz
Now now, ease up. I have Vista 64 on my system (along with WinXP x64) as they are the two OSes I have to support at work. (Well, the 32-bit versions of each, but I like my home system overbuilt and overdesigned.) Vista is a pain, it is slower at some things... but then again every OS goes through that period. Until you get used to it. Grudgingly. -VoiceOfSanity
VISTA? are you insane..thats 74.2g you can fill with more porn! -neuman1812
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47.
Braindead hacker
This is WAAAAAAAAAY too long to post here, as it includes a full log of the fish's antics, so follow the yellow-brick-link to the message boards!
http://www.techcomedy.com/members/message_board/viewtopic.php?p=122024#122024
[By: linuxmatt]
Comment on Story
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48.
Malformed HTML or safari woes?
Something I have noticed in the past week:
TSC behaves oddly on my iPod's Safari browser.
When I'm listening to music and browsing at the same time, occasionally either Safari or the music app will crash. This occurs most often on TSC. Also, the keyboard is very laggy (I can type as fast as I want, but I have to wait a while for it to catch up) and sometimes the backspace key sticks until the form is cleared or the home button is pressed. Safari behaves normally on other sites (including a forum that I built a very complex CSS for that uses gazillions of semitransparent PNGs). It crashes once in a great while on other sites, but very rarely. It happens on both clean and jailbroken versions of the current firmware. Does anybody know what could be so different about this site?
[By: linuxmatt]
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I do see some malformed HTML on the site -- a lot of places where there is a <p> tag with no closing </p>, one place where there are two <b> tags and only one </b>... but nothing too serious. Safari should be able to deal with it no problem... -chazz
Y'know, I can't say that I have ever used a </p> tag in any html I've written. Does that make me a malformed web admin? ;~} -RiffRaff
Yes, quit <p>'ing on your HTML Riff... -VFox
Strictly speaking, every <p> should be matched by a </p>. An awful lot of web devs seem to be skimping on their close paragraph tags, though, possibly because they can get away with it -- I don't know of any browser that can't deal with missing </p> tags. So, "dude, you're doing it wrong..." </fark> but not in any way that matters. -chazz
Excuse me, but I have to go <p>. Done now. </p> -Starfury
Just chiming in to mention that code devoid of </p>'s will still pass W3C validation, which places said tags firmly in the 'optional' category. Any browser that has trouble with standards-compliant code needs to pack it in and sell itself to Microsoft - masters of all things non-compliant. -veaudaux
It's not <p>, <b>, or such... Tons of sites I visit have plenty of mismatched tags and they don't screw with my pod. I can't find a single thing different about this site from fully functional sites... Maybe Apple has a grudge? -linuxmatt
maybe it thinks you are being decadent? : P -supportrobot
LM, been using safari and a mac to visit here for coming up two years, never had an issue. Perhaps, random thought here, you've got some other apps on there that aren't 100% approved and thats causing the fuck up? -NightRain
To <p>, or not to </p>. That is the <?> :p <goto LART_shelter> -TheGhost
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50.
LART 201 -- Response
Here's the lart: http://www.techcomedy.com/single/new_stories.php?content_number=69753
Here's the victim's response:
Wow, I commend you on your organization and stating your point of view clearly! But seriously, if you are gonna threaten me, just go ahead and report it, please! Secondly, its obvious you have no life, evident in the effort you put in organizing such a well stated e-mail on a saturday (of all days)....try and relax guy! Have a great semester!
Nice to know that even the fishie is impressed.
[By: linuxmatt]
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Well, he asked you to report him, so do. -Calydor
Agreed. Since s/he obviously doesn't get it, time to drop the hammer... -PTSTech
"In eight years on Usenet, I have never seen someone so determinedly and so comprehensively shoot himself in the foot. One toe at a time." - Paul Harper -Seamus
I third the sentiment: Time for the B&-Hammer -ShujinTribble
You KNOW what you have to do now...& he actually condones it. There is nothing stopping you. -lineswine
Sigh...time to get the burlap hood. Orbitz should have a special rate for one-way to Gitmo.... -vacuumtubes
vt - Considering the previous stories, I say package him up in a cardboard box and ship via BROWN to Gitmo. -ShujinTribble
Problem is, the kid probably knows all he'll get is a slap on the wrist. -NightSteel
Then slap him on the wrist with a ball pene hammer -ShujinTribble
So report him, then use an off campus network to sign him up for all sorts of spam. Sounds like he spamed the entire school, so whos to know who signed him up for $spam. -Belunar
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51.
LART 201 -- Class Dismissed
from "#########, ####### #." (ME)
to "######, ##### #." (FISH)
cc ~university~ HelpDesk (LART_SET_MATCH)
date Sep 2, 2007 11:59 AM
subject RE: Textbook discounts
ATTN: Help Desk -- Please inspect the following correspondence and forward it to whomever appropriate.
Mr. ######, obviously you did not get the point of my email. I would have rather you turned yourself in, sending a copy of the original message to the helpdesk, and cc'd me so I could watch. Or you could at least provide an apology and promise to never spam again. But, since you insist, this entire thread has been forwarded to the helpdesk.
In response to your claim that I have no life, backed up by the fact that when I am annoyed, I like to make sure I get my point across: May I say the same you for producing possibly the most cleanly-written spam I've ever seen at 3:57 in the morning? Or for taking the time to reply to me in less than thirty minutes?
This is the end of my voluntary involvement in this matter. I will let the helpdesk decide what actions need to be taken next. Whatever the school administration decides to do with you... try and relax, guy, and have a great semester!
From: ######, ##### #. (FISH)
Sent: Saturday, September 01, 2007 9:11 PM
To: #########, ####### #. (ME)
Subject: RE: Textbook discounts
Wow, I commend you on your organization and stating your point of view clearly! But seriously, if you are gonna threaten me, just go ahead and report it, please! Secondly, its obvious you have no life, evident in the effort you put in organizing such a well stated e-mail on a saturday (of all days)....try and relax guy! Have a great semester!
From: #########, ####### #. (ME)
Sent: Saturday, September 01, 2007 8:43 PM
To: ######, ##### #. (FISH)
Subject: RE: Textbook discounts
Dear ##### #. ######,
Honestly, all the spam my fellow students are sending is ticking me off, but this one takes the cake. The other spams are from people who have books they no longer need and are selling at a loss. Here are some problems I have with this spam especially, however:
* Valorebooks.com has a poor reputation for customer satisfaction.
* Valorebooks.com has a reputation for selling customers' private information.
* https://www.valorebooks.com/ValoreAgents.Overview.do
This email can be reported as abuse of the school's email service. Learn to read. Start here: ~link_to_univ_email_TOS~
Or if you don't want to bother reading that, allow me to point out the rules right here, copied DIRECTLY from CSUP's Electronic Communications Policy:
Prohibited uses include but are not limited to:
1. Commercial purposes or other personal gain.
2. Use of electronic communications to send copies of documents in violation of copyright laws.
3. The transmission of information, access to which is restricted by laws or regulations.
4. Use of electronic communications to intimidate, threaten, or harass other individuals, or to interfere with the ability of others to conduct university business.
5. The forging of communication so it appears to be from someone else.
6. Obtaining or attempting to obtain access to data, files, other electronic communication, etc. other than that for which one has proper authorization. Any attempt to breach security measures to access or acquire any electronically stored information one is not authorized to obtain is prohibited. These acts are prohibited regardless of methods utilized.
The term "access" includes reading, deleting, moving, changing access privileges, or affecting files, data, etc. in any unauthorized manner.
7. Use of chain letters.
8. Electronic communications conduct is expected to meet the standards of conduct, laws, regulations, etc. published in official University, State or Federal documents including but not limited to the ~university~ catalog, the Faculty Handbook, ~state~ State Employees Handbook, etc.
As you can see, I have highlighted rule number 1. Read that. Memorize it.
If you have any questions, feel free to bug me, but do a little research on your own first. If I find your answer in under twenty minutes, I will not be nice.
By the way, you have foolishly provided every student with your email address and name. Though I currently have no desire to become known as a whistleblower, I expect somebody will report you. Also, saying "Sorry for spamming" is an admission of spamming, which is also against the rules, and you now have no plausable deniability of intent to spam.
Also, do not try to turn rule number 4 around on me. I am not threatening or harassing, this is one letter, one time, to tell you to stop. I am not intefering with anybody's ability to conduct university business, you are.
Sincerely,
####### #########
From: ######, ##### #. (FISH)
Sent: Saturday, September 01, 2007 3:57 AM
To: Students
Subject: Textbook discounts
Hey students,
Are you tired of paying outrageous prices at ~university~'s school bookstore, well your woes can be over. Checkout Valorebooks.com--all you need is the books ISBN# and you can search for the books you need at a super discount. This semester I paid $56.95 for the Educational Psychology book (ED. 342), which was over $100 new at the schools bookstore. My Geography 101 books were over $100 in the bookstore and I paid less than $50 for the two books combined at Valorebooks.com. All three books came within 3-5 days with expedited shipping. So if you want to hold onto more of your financial aid disbursement check go to Valorebooks.com. If you decide to buy use this code for an additional 5% savings -- "~univ_initials~save". If you have any questions please e-mail me back--and sorry for the spamming, but this is too good of an offer for anyone to pass up.
[By: linuxmatt]
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(Sits back and watches the skies for the mushroom clouds to start...) -ShujinTribble
:kicks back and enjoys a nice frosty can of Blue Demon, waiting for the klaxxons: Very nicely done. -Seamus
wait wait waitaminute! don't start pt3 until I return with a large margorita and a cup of coffee! -AdmiralLaurie
Helm, please take us to a safe distance from the planet. Should be quire a show... -PTSTech
Nice LART! However, I dread to think what some accept as email if that was thought to be unusually well organised - I understood that coherent usage of the English language was normally required and not just for special occasions? -Loon
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52.
LART 201 -- Teaching fellow students
From: ######, ##### #. (FISH)
Sent: Saturday, September 01, 2007 3:57 AM
To: Students
Subject: Textbook discounts
Hey students,
Are you tired of paying outrageous prices at ~school~'s school bookstore, well your woes can be over. Checkout Valorebooks.com--all you need is the books ISBN# and you can search for the books you need at a super discount. This semester I paid $56.95 for the Educational Psychology book (ED. 342), which was over $100 new at the schools bookstore. My Geography 101 books were over $100 in the bookstore and I paid less than $50 for the two books combined at Valorebooks.com. All three books came within 3-5 days with expedited shipping. So if you want to hold onto more of your financial aid disbursement check go to Valorebooks.com. If you decide to buy use this code for an additional 5% savings -- "~school_initials~save". If you have any questions please e-mail me back--and sorry for the spamming, but this is too good of an offer for anyone to pass up.
-------------------------------------------------------
FYI, this was sent by a student who should not have acess to the ALL-STUDENTS mailing list.
My Reply:
-------------------------------------------------------
From: #########, ####### #. (ME)
Sent: Saturday, September 01, 2007 8:43 PM
To: #####, ##### #. (FISH)
Subject: RE: Textbook discounts
Dear ##### #. ######,
Honestly, all the spam my fellow students are sending is ticking me off, but this one takes the cake. The other spams are from people who have books they no longer need and are selling at a loss. Here are some problems I have with this spam especially, however:
* Valorebooks.com has a poor reputation for customer satisfaction.
* Valorebooks.com has a reputation for selling customers' private information.
* https://www.valorebooks.com/ValoreAgents.Overview.do
This email can be reported as abuse of the school's email service. Learn to read. Start here: ~link_to_university's email TOS~
Or if you don't want to bother reading that, allow me to point out the rules right here, copied DIRECTLY from ~school~'s Electronic Communications Policy:
Prohibited uses include but are not limited to:
1. Commercial purposes or other personal gain.
2. Use of electronic communications to send copies of documents in violation of copyright laws.
3. The transmission of information, access to which is restricted by laws or regulations.
4. Use of electronic communications to intimidate, threaten, or harass other individuals, or to interfere with the ability of others to conduct university business.
5. The forging of communication so it appears to be from someone else.
6. Obtaining or attempting to obtain access to data, files, other electronic communication, etc. other than that for which one has proper authorization. Any attempt to breach security measures to access or acquire any electronically stored information one is not authorized to obtain is prohibited. These acts are prohibited regardless of methods utilized.
The term "access" includes reading, deleting, moving, changing access privileges, or affecting files, data, etc. in any unauthorized manner.
7. Use of chain letters.
8. Electronic communications conduct is expected to meet the standards of conduct, laws, regulations, etc. published in official University, State or Federal documents including but not limited to the ~school~ catalog, the Faculty Handbook, ~state~ State Employees Handbook, etc.
As you can see, I have highlighted rule number 1. Read that. Memorize it.
If you have any questions, feel free to bug me, but do a little research on your own first. If I find your answer in under twenty minutes, I will not be nice.
By the way, you have foolishly provided every student with your email address and name. Though I currently have no desire to become known as a whistleblower, I expect somebody will report you. Also, saying "Sorry for spamming" is an admission of spamming, which is also against the rules, and you now have no plausable deniability of intent to spam.
Also, do not try to turn rule number 4 around on me. I am not threatening or harassing, this is one letter, one time, to tell you to stop. I am not intefering with anybody's ability to conduct university business, you are.
Sincerely,
####### ######### (ME)
[By: linuxmatt]
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Niiiice. -Bobsentme
*wipes huge tears from fface* aaaaah! that's fuckin beautiful love, keep it up! -AdmiralLaurie
3:57AM?!?!?! GO TO BED!! -Stryker One
<mr. Burns>Excellent...</Mr. Burns> -PaseoGuy
No further training do you need. -RiffRaff
Flawless! -PTSTech
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53.
Forgot to brag here
Well, I bragged about all this stuff in IRC in multiple chat rooms, but I neglected to put the good news here! So here we go!
Got DSL! (had peep-holePC dialup, now 1.5mbps Qwest Choice w/ MSN)
Graduated High School!
Got a 160GB external HDD for backups (my 30GB iPod was getting full of music and videos and stuff)
But, the BEST thing that has happened is...
Meet the future Mrs. Linuxmatt! I proposed on June 21 (her birthday, a week ago today!), and without even a speck of hesitation, she said yes!
Here's the ring I gave her: http://tinyurl.com/2hpaz2 (coke bottle was the only way I could get a close-up angle sorry)
And somehow she knew that I'd propose on her birthday (maybe cuz iz cant keeping my mouf shutted?). After the yes and a bit of hugandkissing she gave ME a ring too! linkie here: http://tinyurl.com/2h3ecq (yes I know different image host, imageshack doesn't seem to be taking my uploads tonight)
The wedding isn't gonna be until we've both completed our college degrees (I'm going for 4-5 years, she's going for 2-4), and we're both starting college this fall (seperate schools, same city (we both still live@home because of dorm costs). Yah long engagement, but that's what we both want.
And I know as soon as burrkiss sees this post, he'll ask what seems to be an obvious question, but no, burrkiss, we have not done any crazy things with zombie goats, llamas or buttplugs.
And at the beginning of our relationship, we both promised each other abstinence (from sex, not goats and llamas and buttplugs [oh my], we'll pass on those) until marriage, to answer your likely second question. That means we won't see any TinyTuxes or MiniMatts for at least 5 years.
but anyway...
_***___***_____******__***___***_
__***_***____*** ***___*** ***__
___*****____***___***____*****___
____***_____*********_____*** ___
____***_____***___***_____***____
____***_____***___***_____***____
Now if it wasn't for variable-width fonts, that should read "YAY" in big block letters.
[By: linuxmatt]
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Congrats!!! :D -taieena
Many congrats on finding your soulmate. Sometimes that waiting period to formalize it isn't all that bad, especially when you know it's a matter of when, not if. Best wishes to you both. -teivrann
I'll miss you... but seriously congrats! -War1ock
Congratulations -r3tude
Congrats! -Bobsentme
Congrats, I'm kinda in the same position as you and I'm going to be officially proposing here in the next week. Won't get married though till both of us finish college. -falling
Congrats kid! I just got engaged about 2 months ago myself. We're waiting about a year and a half..and i thought that was a long time! We too had chose abstain..since we're both real involved in our church..the decision was kinda made for us. ha ha. Congrats again and good luck! -tdot
(*Crosses his arms and watches you both down his nose....*) You have chosen..... wisely.
-ShujinTribble
Very nice! I love hearing about stuff like this, even more then the funny LARTS and stories. Congrats! -beerman
Congrats.... so, when's the party???? -duckhead
Congratulations! -Gunpe
Mucho Congergitations! -MadJack
Congrats - But remember, prostitutes are cheaper than wives, and you don't have to pretend to be interested if they talk. -Learyban
Congrats you all of you soon-to-be-wedded peoples. (Soon in a vampire's perspective at least). -TechnoVampire
wikkid!! may the tux blessings rain down on you both;) well done mate:) -timelady
Congrats linuxmatt! raises a big glass of happiness karma for you two. -StarFishHearder
congrats -compbrat
Congratulations, guys! -56Kdaytrader
If you'll notice the male's ring. Pay special attention to the constricting nature of the object while being worn. That is marriage symbolism at its best. (Just kidding, congratz!) -unrenowned
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54.
McAfee Parental Controls Filter RANT
Two of the computers at school now use Comcast instead of the district for their internet access. Well the second one was protectionless, and Boss didn't wanna run out and buy another copy of Norton, so he installed the free McAfee security center that Comcast gives to subscribers. But the reasons for switching one of the computers to Comcast in the first place? Well, besides the reliability, the main purpose was so teachers and trusted students with teacher supervision wouldn't have to put up with the stupid web filter everyone (except the techs who put it in) hates. (Bess if anyone is wondering). Well, imagine Boss's and mine suprized looks when we attempt to get a quote on a Dell for the Journalism Video Editing lab? "McAffe has blocked this site because we know all, see all, and you suck." Ok paraphrased a little. So why the fsck is the Dell website blocked? Waitaminute.... isn't it right that Dell offers non-McAfee software? No... too easy... but time for a little test... Go to McAfee.com. Site comes up. Go to symantec.com. Site blocked. Go to trendmicro.com. Site blocked. Go to grisoft.com. Blocked. Zonealarm.com? Blocked! Clamwin.org? BLOCKED! Panda? Blocked!!!! AVAST? BLOCKED! comodo.com blocked! Microsoft.com blocked! Even google searches for any of these or the phrase "Antivirus" were blocked! Where the fsck do they get off??? Well, I have Boss log in as admin so I can look at the log to try to figure out what McCrapee's excuse was. Well, keyword filter was blocking any page containing the word "Virus" or "Malware"... And by pure cooincidence, McAfee's own front page did not have the word "Virus" anywhere on it, so the filter didn't object. But I looked at Dell's site and didn't see any words that I could figure would be blocked... So I take one more look at the log.. Dell was blocked because the source code contained the keyword "MDA". Had to search wikipedia to figure out if there was any reason at all for it to be blocked. Evidently, MDA is a very rarely used term for an unpopular illegal recreational drug similar to Ecstacy. Geez. McAfee has to be right! Dell is selling drugs to children!!! OMGZORZ!!!! </end rant... for now>
[By: linuxmatt]
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So, McAfee's blocking the Muscular Dystrophy Association now? Damn, those fargers'll blcok anything <g> -MadJack
Once, many years ago, McAfee was the only and the best virus checker. I used them. My customers used them. Then one day I tried to update a free installation. It took me 2 weeks to get an answer to my email query and by then they had lost me as a customer. Now I use avgfree. Guess who lost out of that transaction? (Hint - it wasn't me) -Gerund
Gerund, I'm the same way with Symantec products. Used them and recommended them for years. Was one of the few pieces of software I would actually pay for. Now it's nothing but AVG for me as well. -RiffRaff
*shocked* what happened to your but? it's all small, and flat-like! -EtherRabbit
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56.
There are things Cell Phones CANNOT do
Read this blog entry from an otherwise reputable site containing 5 simple cell phone tricks that can save your life: http://soundmoneytips.com/article/21457
This is my response, containing PROOF that these tips do not work or in the case of #4, unnecessary, and that wasting time with some of these can land you in deeper trouble, copied and pasted from the comment I submitted to the site:
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This is all wrong.
1: 112 does not work in the United States. Also, the only numbers that can be dialed from my RAZR while the keypad is locked are 911, *911, or #911 (although these can be changed with special programming codes). My old Nokia 252p does not accept ANY numbers when the keypad is locked.
2: Cell phones operate at a completely different radio frequency than remote keyless entry devices, and cannot pick up the signal from the keyfob. Nor can the phone at the other end duplicate it, as the circuitry in the phone limits the range of frequencies it can put off. Third, there are two fundamental types of connections that cell phones use: analog and digital. Analog cannot send digital signals unless they are modulated, and then they would have to be demodulated. Digital connections use a voice-optimized compression method in which quality loss for voices is inaudible, but any other signals you try to send will lose portions of their contents, unless the connection is in data mode, which is not used during calls.
3: There is no point to hiding battery power from users, as this could cause severe problems, including loss of life and limb should the battery run down to the hidden area during an emergency situation. Tried the code on my Nokia 252P, with no response.
4: The serial number is kept on file by the service provider. You do not need to provide it to disable a stolen phone. You just need to give the phone number or account number, and verify some confidential information on file to verify you are the owner of the account. Also, *#06# does nothing on my Nokia 252p or Motorola RAZR v3c. To get the serial number on the 252p, hold the # key for about 8 seconds. The serial number is in information menu on my RAZR. Also, the serial number is printed inside the battery area.
5: Microwaves are very different from cell phone frequencies in many ways. Microwaves have less energy than cell phone signals (the reason the cook the food is because they are calibrated to a certain frequency that causes water to heat. This only occurs from radio waves in certain ranges, cell phone signals not being one of them), and can be blocked much more easily than cell signals. Also, the shielding is designed to reduce microwave radiation escape to a negligible or harmless level, not block it completely. To do so would be very difficult and expensive. Also, to block all radio frequencies is impossible. A great deal of them can be blocked with a thick wall of lead, but not the entire possible spectrum. It would also be pointless and expensive to make a microwave oven block cell phone signals. Also, light is a form of electromagnetic radiation, as are radio waves. If the oven blocked all radio waves, it would also block visible light. You can see the light inside the oven and the food inside through the glass, because the light can pass through.
In summary, all of these are scientifically impossible. However, there are alternative methods that allow some of these to work on your cell phone.
1: Keep track of the emergency numbers for the areas you visit in the contact list, or write them on a piece of masking tape attached to the battery cover. This way, you can have the correct number to use.
2: Call a locksmith or roadside assistance. If you have text messaging, you can look up a phone number for a locksmith in the US by sending a text message to 46645 containing "locksmith" and your zip code. Google will send back a list of locksmiths in your area along with their phone numbers for free (except for the cost of the text messages). If you don't have text messaging, or live outside of the US, there is likely a similar service available, such as directory assistance by voice.
3: Carry an extra battery.
4: Remember the information you give your service provider. If needed keep it written down in a safe place.
5: Call an appliance repair company. Again, you can use google text messaging (46645) or directory assistance to obtain phone numbers for such services in your area. A qualified repairman will be able to verify your microwave oven is operating safely.
-----
Another reputable site that I have much respect for and visit daily fell for this: http://www.lifehacker.com/software/cell-phones/five-things-you-didnt-know-you-could-do-with-your-cell-phone-220614.php
[By: linuxmatt]
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I.C.E. is *supposed* to be meant for use by hospitals and emergency workers to reach family members or contact people in case of emergencies. Or at least I hope its becoming common, its a good idea. -evolvedstarfish
my husband is listed under both ice and his name. when i had my accident, they figured out who to call easily! -timelady
I know a bit about phones...
#1 - not sure, but you can make emergency calls without a sim in a phone (they are the only call you can make) - but the phone has to be unlocked - I'm in the UK and the number is 999... -Wonko The Sane
#2 - No way... Phones will only transmit sound (and then only in a limited range) - I have never come across a car that is locked by 'sound' most use IR or RF both of which will not be picked up by the phone... -Wonko The Sane
#3 - Never heared of this one before... I don't think its true... -Wonko The Sane
#4 - TRUE, on evrey phone I've had *#06# gives the IMEI, this should match the serial number on the label in the phone (under the battery normally) - if it does no - then the phone has been altered is some way... do not use it. -Wonko The Sane
#5 - Don't know, but you don't need lead to block RF, just a Faraday cage, and that is what a microwave case is... - also Mobile phone are in the same area of the RF spectrum - around 800Mhz to 2Ghz - Microwaves are around 3Ghz to 5 Ghz I think, Microwaves are chosen to heat up water, and use a LOT of power - usually a minimum of 500 Watts, a phone has a Maximum of 1W - but a different frequency... - perhaps an email to mythbusters... -Wonko The Sane
Wonko - close...the exact frequency the magnetron is tuned to is 2450MHz.
The shielding used in microwave oven should easily stop the frequencies thet mobile phones use...1800 & 1900 Mhz.
Linuxmatt...ever worked in a Faraday cage...as used in the calibration of readio receivers? I have...& yes they block enough RFI for the necessary work to be carried out. It wasn't made of lead, it was more a copper mesh.
As for the website on the supplied link? A load of bollocks. -lineswine
#1 Current Nokia phones allow the use of emergency numbers 112, 999, 911 while the phone keypad is locked, and the phone will redirect any 112 call to the local emergency number I believe, as the phone creates the call as an emergency call which is treated differently by the Network. -cjo
Story not found... some of the descriptions can't be determined by your answers.. care to share the details? -Jay911
The article isn't available because it got yanked...the story of what happened is on their headline page, currently at the upper left of it: http://soundmoneytips.com/ -Grue
lol....I work for a Cell phone company doing Tech support...Reading those made me go WTF?!?!! *#06# works, it shows the IMEI, which matches the IMEI under the batter not the serial number, they are two different numbers. theres also another one I cannot remember right now for unlock codes....yeah I know way too much about cell phones... -tixarah
The story was yanked, and replaced. The replacement they came up with... IS AN AD. Maybe not a flashy, graphic laden flyer, but it is clearly biased for T-mobile products. Its like a fricken infomercial that tries to come across as a talk show or something. If you need me, I'll be passed out in PondLife with an empty cup of cocoa dangling. -evolvedstarfish
It's all biased crap.
Points 1,3,4 and 5 any recent phone can do. Anyways, why do we always believe everthing we see in the internet, considering the Internet isn't all that "reputable"? -TheMacOne
A couple local DJ's picked up on the cell phone-key fob thing. I knew it wasn't going to work. They sent the producer in the parking lot with a phone and it worked! Finally they figured out the the car was close enough to the booth for the signal to go through even with the phone off. They looked really stupid. -edventure
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57.
R.I.P. Steve Irwin (N/T)
The famous crocodile hunter died yesterday.
Link: http://www.cnn.com/2006/SHOWBIZ/TV/09/04/australia.irwin/index.html
[By: linuxmatt]
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He truly was a great presentator and a knowing man. He made a lot to bring wildlife to people. May he rest in peade on the Great Plains ! -Dr Jerkyl
Killed by a stingray? I would've thought he would've died of blood loss from a ripped off arm or something. Krikey- RIP, mate. -billybien
Crikey indeed... wow.
-Mushroom
That just fu(king sucks. I liked Steve Irwin. That guy had cajones the size of coconuts. -VIPERsssss
Not to make light of the man's death (not too much,anyway), but... I'm glad he died the way he did. Steve Irwin being killed by a huge dangerous sea creature is fitting and appropriate. Him punching out in any other way would just suck... Admit it, wouldn't it feel lame if he had been killed in a bus accident, or while trying to do home wiring repair with the breakers on? -MeanDean
I understand what you're saying, MeanDean- it feels uncomfortable to say it, but I think that Steve Irwin going out any other way but with wildlife would just feel... odd, somehow. Like if he knew he would have to go, he'd want to go out doing his favorite things in working with wildlife. -Voz
Yes, it's almost poetic. He died doing what he loved -- promoting the cause of wildlife. But it's a bit surprising. From what I understand, sting rays are usually peaceful unless really disturbed. But a barb through the heart is at least quick. It's even possible he never felt a thing. I hope he does get a state funeral. He did more for both Australia and Wildlife Awareness than almost anyone in recent years. (In fact, one of our cats is named after him - Steve-o - and will help to maintain the memory.) -Captain Trips
:( He really did a lot for both conservation and for promoting acceptance of animals and reptiles that the majority of people consider scary and useless. He will be missed. *is very sad at the passing of someone who gave so much* On the other hand, it is fitting in a twisted and very awful way- it's said that he died doing what he loved and was at peace. -taieena
The best: cartoon on todays's "Australian:, whicg is our national rag: http://network.news.com.au/image/0,10114,5235189,00.jpg -macbeth
He should have used a stronger sunscreen to protect him from those rays. -SalParadise
At least he was doing something he loved. Someone on the news yesterday pointed out that if the stingray had been hassled by a shark shortly before, it might have "assumed" Irwin was another shark. I understand the video they were shooting shows Irwin pulling the barb out of his chest before he collapsed. -sassicatz
more like "Croakey!!" innit? -HappyCrappy
Thursday the stingrays were very friendly at 'stingray city' at Grand Cayman. Just like puppies nuzzling around for treats, of course in this case it was squid. I guess the ones in Australia weren't as mellowed out. -TieDyedDinosaur
Our youngest was totally devastated, as was I. He has wanted to be a zoo keeper half of his life (ok, since he was 4), and it's because of the passion that Steve Irwin had for his animals. Our son idolized the man. It was a shock. Now, more than before, he wants to go into conservation, but he did vow to stay away from stingrays (no kidding). -persephone
the crocs have to find a new toy... -cloudages
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58.
Dad and some music (NT/OT)
One Day, Dad is taking me home from school, with the radio on the oldies station. It's playing "I'm your venus". The following conversation ensues:
DAD - "I can't believe this song made it to the radio"
ME - "Why is that?"
DAD - "The censors should not have let it through!"
ME - "Why"
DAD - "Listen here's the chorus you'll see"
RADIO - "I'm your venus, I'm your fire, your desire..."
ME - "So?..."
DAD - "Well, how can they let a song that says that on public radio?"
ME - "A song that says what?"
DAD - "I'm your penis! I'm on fire! 'cuz you desire!"
ME - (Laughing) "That's not what they're singing!"
DAD - "Then what are they singing, wise guy?"
ME - "I'm your Venus. I'm your fire, your desire."
DAD - (Defensive) "Well what kind of sense does that make?"
ME - "It makes a hell of a lot more sense than a song about VD!!"
[By: linuxmatt]
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Ok the fact that it's on an "oldies" station just adds insult to injury here. -Gecko
Maybe you should show dear-ole-dad the video of Bananarama's remake -ShujinTribble
The only station we were allowed to listed to as kids was CBC (Canada Broadcasting Corp, I believe), which had some... interesting mid-day programs. One time the man was actually singing, "Oh, my penis!" etc... and my mother thought he was singing 'Venus'. Not until the line, "Looks like a sausage between two hard-boiled eggs..." did she realize. -namor
Song by a Kiwi group called The Feelers, titled Venus, had a similar affect on my mum.
Along the lines of "What /filth/ are you listening to???" -Mahal
<quietly hides his '45 vinyl of the original "Venus" by Shocking Blue and hopes no-one notices> -Gromit
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VIfUo91ZrFQ&mode=related&search= -Dr Jerkyl
I dare say Venus in blue jeans could be similarly misinterpreted... -Nazreel
"Venus in blue jeans" = "Camel toe"? -ShujinTribble
That's no toe. That's a whole foot! -LoTech
buh...buh...bleeeaaacchh. ahh...... -AngrySup
LOL! When I hear that song I substitute "I'm your penis, I'm your fire, your joy desire" -crazymactech
Hopefully, someday the DJ on that station will crack and play "Let's Fuck" by D.O.A. -MeanDean
Poetry in Motion! Mona Lisa with a pony tail! -TieDyedDinosaur
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59.
Electrical Dad (n/t)
A long long time ago, in a small town in the midwestern United States, a happy family of four (one father, one mother, one starfishy kid that thankfully grew out of his stupidity to become linuxmatt, and one very friendly poodle-terrier-who-knows-what mix) found themselves without proper ventilation in the bathroom. The great evil Darth Friction had struck, leaving the bathroom fan unable to move.
Our noble hero, the father, Tom Starfish, bravely treks out to the home depot to bring a new stench-removal device to the rebel base. It was a good deal, Jabba the Toolguy only wanted twenty-seven United States currency units.
Our young, lovable spawn of Tom Starfish and Lerlyn Technophobe, knowing his father's bad luck with electicity, was very reluctant to turn on the fan once Luke had installed it. Luke insisted to his son that he turn on the fan, that nothing could go wrong. It was the safest mission he had in years. The hero's son, Matt, would only respond with a simple nod to "Home Improvement", by saying, "I don't think so, Tom."
Growing agitated, Tom finally reached for the switch, exclaiming, "If you don't do it, then I'll do it myself, for the rebel cause!"
He flicked the switch to the on position.
The lights cut out.
We lost electricity for the entire rebel base.
A quick survey of the area around the rebel base revealed that electicity was unavailable to everyone within a five blocks west and east.
Tom Starfish grew a look of terror on his face, and could only say, "Did I do that?" It was not a nod to Steve Urkell, but a genuine concern.
Later that night, the family learned that the unfortunate event was not Tom's doing, but a well timed attack by Darth Misfortune's minion, Starfish Truckdriver. The truck driver, honestly believing he was taking a good shortcut back to the dark schwartz headquarters after a successful beer delivery to the Darth-E-Mart, drove his hover-18-wheeler down the alley behind the rebel base, knocking down the power line with his truck. A very *powerful* hit-and-run. The power was soon restored, however, and the happy family still jokes about Tom Starfish cutting off the electricity to an entire power sector to this day
[By: linuxmatt]
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That's priceless! Your dad will NEVER live that down...lmao -missourimule
Reminds me of the time I was tutoring a starfish in the ways of MSN (not my choice), and since the starfish had a habit of being late, I was about to run late for my blood donor clinic if I didnt get her out the door quick, and the library was closing. By this time, my mother had arrived to shuttle me to said clinic (mobile clinic at the local arena), and the starfish's daughter was there to check her mother's progress. She finally finishes the task she wanted advice on, and goes to close the window, and turn off the computer since we were closing. Just as she gets her mouse to the red X... *BEWM* Power goes out, my mom exclaims "WHAT DID YOU DO?!?!" and we all laugh our heads of, her daughter, between giggles says "Oh don't say that, you'll scar her for life!" Turns out it was The Great Power Fsckup of August 04... Took out Southern Ontario, parts of New York, Ohio, and Michigan, maybe more. Boy did she do a good job of it ;) -evolvedstarfish
ESF: sargeT says that she will likely be KILLED to say this, BUT ... she lives about 1 mile from the world headquarters of the OH company that fscked up the power that day.... She had zero power outage. The lights didn't even flicker. :P -Mysty
I have an uncle who (at the time) worked for the local power company. He was taking a shower and the power suddenly went out. We hear a voice from the bathroom suddenly shout, "Turn on the lights!" As if on command, the power came back on (and stayed on). We still joke about his authority over the power co. -Wolfshead
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61.
What did I do?
The story begins with a linux hobbyist and a generic tech enthusiast (this enthusiast just happens to be The Bragger). One day, at school, linux hobbyist decides to borrow some distric bandwidth during lunch to download cygwin. Linux Hobbyist (ok I'll just say "me" from now on) plugs in his USB flash memory device, copies the cygwin installer to my drive, then runs the setup program. I did not hit install. I hit "Download packages without installing." Set the download to path to my USB drive, because I had permission as long as I didn't leave anything on the hard drive (swap file is the exception). This was on one computer, and I double-checked to make sure nothing remained on the Hard Drive, unmounted my USB drive, unplugged it and went on my merry way.
That was Friday
I come back today to find the computer I used to download the packages, and the one I just browsed the cygwin website on, now have different passwords. I asked the Bragger about this. He said, "You installed Cygwin on both these computers, and it totaly fucked them up."
????????? I downloaded it directly to my USB drive and double checked. I said, "Couldn't have been me!"
"Well Cygwin was installed on both of these computers and you're the only one I know who is intrested in Cygwin"
"Well, how did it mess up the computers then?" I attempted to enable my bullshit detector.
"Yah I was doing a backup of these machines with Norton Ghost, and it kept giving me partition errors."
"Well what makes you think Cygwin did it?"
"In that nine-megabyte unpartitioned area that Windows setup reserves, there was a new partition, FAT32, named LN_CYG. Opened it up in a sector editor and it was malformed, but I found mentions of Cygwin everywhere."
Could someone else have done that?
"Dunno, but you're the prime suspect"
"are there any traces of cygwin left?"
"Yes, Matt, I saved an image on the windows partition as proof. I may have deleted it though accidentally, I was so pissed off."
Now he locates the "partition image" which is the folder C:\CYGWIN... Shows it to me, sure enough it looks like Cygwin was installed. Everything's there except the shortcuts. I go over to the other computer and ask if cygwin was still on it. He says yes, that one wasn't as messed up, and all he did so far was remove "LN_CYG" from the Boot.ini file.
I open the C:\Cygwin folder and locate the setup packages. I check the timestamps: all files were created roughly fifteen minutes after I had logged out and left.
However, he did manage to convice the boss, who gave me a lecture about being careful about downloading on school computers. I'm still allowed to download most things (iTunes updates and other things my bandwidth hates), just as long as it is not related to unix or linux, until further notice.
What the hell did I do? Did the Bragger LART me?
[By: linuxmatt]
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Just remember, what is sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander. -maciarc
hmm 15 minuts after you logged out these files were created? guessing the bragger may have set you up. -Harm
So show the boss the log files from the logins vs. the timestamps of the files. Or doesn't the system log the logins/outs? -Captain Trips
So, who logged in AFTER you? Bet it was 'administrator'. You have been larted. Improperly so. Now it is time for PAYBACK! -ecoli
Guess: Someone checking what you were doing, found the shortcuts/etc, and decided to see what it was. -namor
Some notes (in case you don't already know) cygwin installs one and only one dll (cygwin1.dll). Evrything else remains within cygwin's install and download directories. Unless you enable ssh/xinetd as services, which is post-install diy (and only goes to the one spot in the registry). Also, cygwin does not and cannot create partitions. You can probably call fdisk, but you'll get windows' fdisk. The only way to fark an installation is to cd to /cygdrive/c/Windows and do stuff there. or possibly write directly to the hdd device(s). Not even sure if it will let you. -Dj
Cygwin won't do that. Tis a stich up job. -fearmyroot
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62.
(*jawdrop*)
Yesterday was my birthday, and I got two $25 iTunes cards, a bag of gummi bears, some chocolate, some money, a framed poster of really cute dogs, and a wonderful new chair. So I was pretty happy so I decided to go online and brag about my (relatively large, considering my usual birthday gifts) haul.
Click connect
boooooop... beepboopboopbeepbeepboopbeep
Dee-boop... dookeeeekeeekeekekeeee...bobeeboop...ksssssshhhhh
You are now connected
log in to GMail Notifier
"1 of 1 TSC Message from Wolfprince TSC Member Wolfprince has left a message of you on your whi..."
open GMail inbox
click on TSC Message from Wolfprince
"TSC Member Wolfprince has left a message for you on your whiteboard: 'Welcome to the big butts club!'"
DROP JAW
What the heck!?!?!?! I turned around and sure enough I found my pants getting ready to give way. Wolfprince has already denied that he gifted me, so I shall say this:
Thank you, phantom gluteus maximizer!
I wanna spread a bit of the joy, and though I have no creditcard to use to pay it forward, i shall deliver slightly. Your comments on this shall, if I did this correctly, will have a bit of kick!
[By: linuxmatt]
Comment on Story
Comments
Congratulations, nothing better than a big butt for your birthday! -Mysty
Welcome to the BBC :) -CrystalMare
'Gratz - you now need more than one disc to distribute your ass!
-Grue
eBay the iTunes cards and Limewire/Kazaa/torrent/otherwise pirate your music like a normal geek :p -Mewtwo
Heyyyy nice ASS...*pats your butt deftly while walking past* -TranceGemini
happy birthday big butt! -timelady
Happy Belated Burp Day! -purplelinguist
Happy big butt day! Sounds like you got a pretty nice haul in a few ways... heheh -teivrann
Nice ass. Dont forget to close the underlineing..............thats another ability of the grand glutes club. -burrkiss
CONGRATS! A big butt, AND the first person on here i've seen to actually format comments! :P -Bobsentme
Wow that was some birthday haul.
Welcome to the big butt club. -THETECHFROMHELL
Congrats on the butt, glad your birthday was a blast! :-) -SouthernMyst
Niiiice. Festive natal day. Kinda feels like the Earth is moving a little faster these days, doesn;t it? -ShujinTribble
"boooooop... beepboopboopbeepbeepboopbeep Dee-boop... dookeeeekeeekeekekeeee...bobeeboop...ksssssshhhhh" -- I've been on broadband too long. I can't tell what speed you're connecting at. Happy birthday! -concept14
"doookeekeekeekeeekeekeee" -- Hey, it's been a long time since I heard a Supra connect at 56k. (USR at that point used to go "Bonnnnng! Bonnng!kkksshshs") -chazz
Happy belated birthday and big congrats on the Bigg Butt. -Rabbitt
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63.
Lego iPod Dock instructions
Ok, remember the Lego iPod dock I made and shared photos of? It's right here -> http://techcomedy.com/single/new_stories.php?content_number=55475 <- I have taken pictures of the assembly, Improving the dock slightly (moved two peices). I then added step-by-step directions. Anyone with a 5G iPod may wanna look! >>> http://tinyurl.com/95wkp <<<
[By: linuxmatt]
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sweeeet! now I need to get an ipod just so I can build this.... -wolfprince
me & my 5g rejoice! thanks:) -timelady
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64.
Boredom can be constructive
Usually, boredom for me is destructive. And I haven't learned my lesson.
I remembered a Nintendo DS dock made out of legos that I saw on the internet once, and decided to make a lego iPod dock. Here are the results: http://tinyurl.com/8qsm7
Doesn't look too bad, huh? Sure beats $30-$40! The release buttons are pressed in by lego wedges and are pressed in enough that the holes the buttons are in support the connector, so you can pull it out just like an iPod Universal Dock.
[By: linuxmatt]
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Comments
That is very cool. Now I'm tempted to make one for my Rio... -Dreamstalker
very cool! -starfishmagnet
I just added mouseover notes. Yay! -linuxmatt
I love the last one I read "Cuticles!" I don't know why I find that funny or why I'm writing a comment on that... Exhaustion makes you do and think funny things. -Antacid
At first I was tempted to comment about "too much time on your hands", but having seen the pictures, it is a novel, cheap & practical solution. Nice work (lover the mouse rollover goodness). -lineswine
My favorite part is the exhaust fan. Or maybe the moth poop. Naw, the fan. -FuzzyElf
very nice! Great job on the biuld, and cool pics too. (also loves the mouse-roll-over goodness) -wolfprince
ipod photo? looks just like mine - the 30gb niceness:) now, what about someplans, hmm? i NEEDS me one:))) -timelady
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65.
That won't help as much as you think.
I returned to school after winter break to find that some of the computers in the lab were having trouble connecting to the network. The school Media Specialist said that was because they just upgraded the entire schoolwide network and they had still had to upgrade a few hubs. All the CAT4 cables (cheap, handmade) were replaced with expensive, brand-spanking new CAT6 cables, which the district tech insists be no longer than 2ft. And the hubs? Used'ta be connected to the server with CAT-4 cables. Now the school's paid ~$13,000 and now the server is connected by fiber-optics to increase the speed. Ok. We're a freaking school. We could'nt touch the available bandwidth limit before. The only lag is in Novell logon, which would occasionally take 8 minutes. Hmm. Still a long Novell logon lag (not quite as long, but not an improvement worth $13,000) but can't notice any other difference. Let's see... why could that be... Oh yeah, the server is SINGLE-CPU PENTIUM II! That's right, 2. Two. And not even 1GHz. Why couldn't they get a new server so that the fiber-optics would have a point? Every computer in the ENTIRE SCHOOL (with the exception of a lab dedicated to backwards-compatability with Win98 on Pentium 133's and a handful of PIII's) is a P4 1.8Ghz or 2.3Ghz. And a few have on-Motherboard SATA and all have SMART support. My computer runs circles around the server, and the school computers run circles around mine. How much sense does that make?
[By: linuxmatt]
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Comments
Sounds like a stupid idea geared more toward the usable, customer-facing arena. -namor
It probably had something to do with politics and funding and what department the money came from. -NightSteel
Time to do some internal parts swapping. A P-II above 233Mhz should be in an ATX case. Swap the server's PSU, mainboard, and drives with someone who won't know the difference. "Of course it's faster, look how shiny and new it is!" -Wraith556
I don't know about that bandwidth comment. We had to implement a Packeteer system (despite every computer having a 100MB connection) because filesharing apps we killing our network bandwidth. The server hardware though is a joke. It sounds like they are doing a phased network upgrade? Upgrade the backbone first and then upgrade the servers and clients to take advantage of the new backbone? -crazymactech
Edit to above: That's exactly what we did when we transitioned from a 10MB campus network to a backbone consisting of fibre between each building and 100MB to each desktop. After the backbone was in place the servers and associated network equipment were replaced to take advantage of the new capability. And that all happened in one crazy 3-day weekend. Talk about working your butt off! -crazymactech
Quick, Kill the sales drone that convinced them this was a good idea, before he shows up to my company. Just let me know how much you want, I'll find it. -Bobsentme
Ouch! - My Idea - replace all 24 port hubs with Netgear FS726T (around £120) - these have a 2 x 1Gbit uplink ports and uses Cat 5 cable - then have these got into a managed 24 port 1 Gbit switch... - result faster network, but a lot lower cost, and the rest of the money can be spent on new servers! -Wonko The Sane
Also patch cables no longer than 2 ft ? - I though the minimum length for a network cable was 1.5 mtrs or about 2 feet! -Wonko The Sane
The 1.5 meters is for thin-net coax. All the others are just long enough not to strain the connectors between corners. And 1.5 meters would be approc 4.5 feet -TieDyedDinosaur
and if they did the servers but not the network people would complain that the network is reaching its bandwidth cap and needs to be upgradded. its lose lose until evertyhing is done. -xtc46
Update: I just discovered that the server has been moved from "the server room" to the Teacher/Librarian lunch/break room. Nothing locked up. They moved it from a secure locked room to an unsecure, almost never locked room where people eat, and every connection is within easy starfish reach, and the server isn't password protected. I looked at the screen and found that someone had gotten to it. Found .jpg and .mov files on the desktop. -linuxmatt
give me directions and I will make sure you need to get a new server make a good backup first... -joebob
give me directions and I will make sure you need to get a new server make a good backup first... -joebob
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68.
w00t new TOYS
Yah yah yah! Hehehe! Microsuck's got new toys for thee! Visual Studio 2005 is now available for Free FREE FREE! Ok they're dilapidated, and almost certainly castrated. They're not as good as open source, but you've all figured that out of couse. But these "express" versions cost zero dollars. It's time for us to hoot and holler. Web installers or ISO images, for not a dime. M$ actually made me happy this time!
http://msdn.microsoft.com/vstudio/express/
Visual Studio 2005 Express Edition. Free to use for as long as you like. But wait too long and you'll be wishin' that you'd have gotten it while it was.... okay I'm out of rhymes. But today is a good day. I did well in school today and have no homework tonight. I came home and found that dad had finally fixed my old computer chair. I got Mac and Cheese with hot dogs in it for dinner, and now I discover free and legal Visual Studio products. Happy day! The license doesn't expire, but the licenses are only available for one year so get crackin'. Perhaps download the ISO and give it as a gift this holiday season. Then use the money you saved to buy me a star*! Just kidding. You can get me a star, but I'm not begging. really.
[By: linuxmatt]
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co-worker downloaded those already, said he doesn't notice a difference between that and regular visual studio -razmann
wow. d/l ing vb takes 4ever by web installer (dialup). At school today they let me dowload all 5 450MB cd images and even gave me CDs to burn them on. -linuxmatt
Thanks! -audiomagi
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69.
UserFriendly LART
I hit the random button on the UF archives. http://ars.userfriendly.org/cartoons/?id=20010506&mode=classic
[By: linuxmatt]
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Can I get a backhoe with LART on it? -Answerboy
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71.
NT/OT Saw an ambulance on the way home..
Ok I was driving home with my mom in the passenger's seat, and we saw an ambulance with its lights on but no siren. It didn't seem to be in a hurry to get anywhere either. Mom concluded that the person in it must have died at the scene. I joked, "Oh my gosh! What if it's Fonzie?" Both of us simultaneously said, "D.O.'Aayyyy'!" Then mom asked, "What if he died in Canada?" Again, we answered the question simultaneously: "D.O.'Aayyyy', Eh?" We laughed so hard that we didn't realize the light had turned green until it had turned red again. Luckily there was nobody behind us.
[By: linuxmatt]
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Comments
Good job I hadn't got a mouthful of coffee when I read that, otherwise I'd be cleaning my monitor. Good story. -flapjackboy
OMG even my American G/F gets this ... C eh N eh D eh!! Eh? -Mysty
Actually, lights on but no siren means the same as lights on with siren. "Yield right of way to me, I'm responding to an emergency." Now, if they really aren't, THEY get the ticket. -Captain Trips
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73.
Dad LART 2 -- The reaction
Here are the results of yesterday's LART: He tried to fix the problem himself. OUCH. I went upstairs and he admitted that I was right and found him clicking random stuff in C:\WINDOWS\System... but luckily he didn't change anything. He admitted I was right several times and begun apologizing profusely (This is the first time he had uttered the word "sorry" for as long as I could remember.) I 'fixed' his computer and told him that normally RealPlayer wouldn't be that bad, and that the link he clicked must have been defaced to link to an infected installer. More apologies. He felt so stupid.... I don't think his lesson has been learned yet though. Does anyone know where I can get a small fog machine with a wireless remote control?
[By: linuxmatt]
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Comments
Well you sure showed him. Yep, you sure did. -viennasausage
Personally, I'm of the opinion that you should quit while you're ahead.. -NightSteel
ever heard of bear bateing? rather cruel medevial game. sometimes the baer does get some revenge. Id quite while your ahead. -Harm
Better yet, how about 10 capacitors shorted out, stuffed behind a spare drivebay cover. Wire them up to a spare power connector, and they should pop and let off smoke. There *shoudn't* be any flames....don't rely on my word though - test it first. -Kid
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74.
Dad LART once again
I'm the forgiving type. I give dad 3 strikes per year. The first lart is subtle (Like about a month ago when I slowed his computer down when he complained it was too slow). This is his secont lart. I drove home from getting lunch at Arby's (student driver in mommy's '73 Charger w00t!) and as I'm pulling into the driveway, daddy's just leaving for work. He tells me that he's downloading RealPlayer and wants me to install it for him. Now if you have read my last dad-lart, you may already know that pop's surfin' in style on a Pentium 75mhz with 48MB ram and a brain-popping hard drive that can hold an entire gigabyte. Barely surviving on Win98. Well, I tell him that RealPlayer won't work on his system, because it's too old, and RP will stick its share of adware on his system. He gets all huffy (not the burrkiss type, a thank oo) and says, "Well just try it!" At first I was pissed off as not only had he downloaded realplayer, but he used the browser plugin to download it (bad) and installation had already started (worse). I angrily canceled installation and removed the browser plugin. Then I got an idea. Mischief time! I went into his autoexec.bat file and added a fake virus warning ("AVG Antivirus has detected REALPLAYER on your system. If REALPLAYER is not removed immediately, your system could suffer permanent damage"). Ahhh the gullible! ("Press any key to remove threat.") And when he presses a key... ("Deleting Realplayer.exe -- FAILED, Deleting RealSettings.ini -- FAILED, Removing registry key HKEY/LOCALMACHINE/SOFTWARE/REAL/REALPLAYER -- FAILED") and then ("One of more components of REALPLAYER could not be removed! Your computer is still at risk!") and advises that he turn off the computer or ("Press a key to ignore (NOT ADVISED)"). His homepage is local and custom (by me). I changed the filename slightly (removed the l from html) in the Internet Options dialog, so he would get a "Page does not exist" error. Then I changed his color scheme from Windows Standard to High Contrast (Extra Large). I figured that wasn't quite enough, so I then changed his display settings from 800x600@75hz(High color) to 640x480@60hz(16 color). Coup de grace: as is common on this old system, it froze on shutdown. So he'll get scandisk on startup too! So in all, I didn't do anything that wouldn't take more than three minutes to fix, but since my dad is so gullible... And then I wrote a note stating that I installed Realplayer for him like he insisted, and that if he has any trouble to come get me immediately. I placed the note next to his coffee pot and immediately ran my computer to type this. He'll go up to his computer to fit in his daily Alex Jones worship and... hehe... well, I'll post his reaction once I see it. Unlike last time, when I told him that I larted him, this time I will let him believe that it was all his doing. I hope he learns his lesson this time. He probably won't, so I'm already planning LART 3. I'm thinking of removing one of his RAM sticks (His motherboard does not like odd numbers :P ) and hiding a fog machine behind his computer. He'll come and get me because of the incessant beeping and failure to POST (or as he will put it, "Its not working"). Then I'll hit the remote for the fog machine on my way up the stairs for the ultimate phase of panic.
[By: linuxmatt]
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Hm. What I'm hearing you say is that you'll be missing from IRC for a couple days while you recuperate from the beating you'll get when dear old Dad finds out he's been flummoxed again.... :D
-Grue
I also would have put in a prank logo.sys, but I didn't have the time or patience. -linuxmatt
You're so evil its righteous! -Adimax
http://www.free-codecs.com/download/Real_Alternative.htm for when you NEED to play a real media file -DedSysOp
And what lessons are YOU learning from all this? -concept14
Alex Jones? Oh god. The company that hosts his infowars.net domain is one of the companies that we support. And they offer "@infowars.net" e-mail addresses. I'm sorry, but every infowars customer with whom I speak is a psychotic paranoiac. *Shudder*. We even had one threaten to grab his gun and find our office because WE were keeping him from getting to infowars.net. -thain
My experience with real alternative is that it requires a newer, faster machine to work properly (1 Ghz or better)...a better alternative is a legacy version of real player available at their secret hidden legacy software page: http://forms.real.com/real/player/blackjack.html or from oldversion.com. I use version 8 and it works fine for everything I've needed it for. Make sure to disable automatic update checks and reject all update prompts or you'll be right back to 10.5. And aren't 166MMX machines like free now?
-NewBrassGun
P2 @ 333Mhz here... and RealAlt works like a champ -ShujinTribble
Daddy refuses to let me get him a new computer. Someone's got a PII 300mhz with 48MB ram, a 5GB HD, and he's offering it to me for free. Actually two for free. Dad says "My computer's plenty fast".... Ok... Packard Bell Legend 2440... @75mhz... 1GB HD... 48MB RAM. He knows I can transfer the settings. He knows I can make the better one behave like his current one (single-click everything.... I hate it) and that I could probably transfer his programs too (They're so old, very few have more than two registry entries). He just want's me to suffer... I gave him my old multifunction keyboard, set it up so he can connect to the internet and pull up his home page with the press of a single button (marked "INTERNET") and he refuses to use it because "It's too complicated"..... Uh... one button... too complicated... Although he clicks the dialer software, then the connect button, then minimizes the dialer, and finally opens internet explorer. All he has to do is press "Internet". But it's too complicated. ARG I have a rule, and that is "Only LART for complaining, doing something stupid (Oh that reminds me... I'll post a LART from his old boss), but never for mere stubbornness." Oh but I don't want to wait a whole day to pull off LART 3 :P -linuxmatt
Oh I forgot to mention a certain part of this LART... I turned his security settings for internet zone to block everything blockable. -linuxmatt
RealPlayer is what's called "Octopus-ware". It tries to take over the playtback of everything, even when you've used the manual configuration settings to restrict it only RealMedia file types. Use RealAlternative instead. MediaPlayer plays nice by comparison. -Wraith556
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75.
the Greatest Adventure of All Time
Yesterday, I read a post linking to this site: http://adventure.godice.com/index.php
I made a quite a bit of a contribution, and couldn't hold it to myself. *Read each page for full effect* Select "Board the pirate ship and challenge the Captain to a duel for command." The select "Wait, wait! That was too easy!" Then "Talk to the parrot." and "Grab the parrot by the neck and shake him unto unconsciousness." When asked to name the ship, choose "The politically correct name for a differently-abled half-African-American-half-Native-American of differently-lifestyled sexual orientation." "Curl up in a ball as you're falling" I added the "Ask the sharks how to get to Albuquerque" option and everything past that is mine (last time I checked). Good luck and have fun!
[By: linuxmatt]
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*boggles* And I finished "Space Quest II", too... -LoTech
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76.
This is just wrong... (NT/OT)
I think the No-fly list enforcement has gone out of hand.
http://tinyurl.com/brl6h (SFW)
[By: linuxmatt]
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yeah i'd like to see a 2 year old hijack a plane let alone fly it. -Slycat
Actually there is a bit of this story that is tech related. That bit is the usual inanity that management produces as a result of a screw-up. It usually is over-scope, under-thought-out and naturally inappropriate to SOME aspect of the problem just encountered! -TieDyedDinosaur
What are they going to do? Attack the pilot with a used diaper. "Oh no! Not baby poo! Oh the humanity!!!" -PgmrMike
We need increased security yes, BUT NOT THIS BAD!!!!! *sighs* ..
-Warrick
"Can we see your ID?" "Goo goo gah gah" "John Smith, ehhh? SECURITY! Escort this boy to the interrogation room" "goo gah goo goo?" "So, were you planning on hijacking the plane?" "goo go gaaah" "DON'T PLAY DUMB with MEEEE" ".....waaaaaaaaaah" -linuxmatt
I can't believe Canada is thinking of developping a no-fly list, but then again it's probably just to appease the US guvment. -NOFXfan
That's like a bank issuing a VISA card with a $5K limit to the family dog. -MattN
I read this in the paper today and the first thing I thought was, "Common sense surrenders." -JustAGirl
No, No, common sense was bludgeoned into insensibility! -TieDyedDinosaur
"The Transportation Security Administration, which administers the lists, instructs airlines not to deny boarding to children under 12 — or select them for extra security checks — even if their names match those on a list.
But it happens anyway. Debby McElroy, president of the Regional Airline Association, said: "Our information indicates it happens at every major airport." Huh? -DavidHM
"I'm sorry ma'am, but I am going to have to confiscate your baby for carrying a loaded, concealed diaper" -persephone
they are getting the terroest list from the phone book these days are they? guess I'm on that list somewhere eh?<no sir, I will not bend over to let you....ACK your hand's freezing.>
-drachen
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77.
Dad LART
Background: My dad has my *old* hand-me-down Packard Bell Legend. It has a Pentium 75mhz processor, has 48MB RAM (it came with 16...) and a 0.9GB HDD. We use PeoplePC, because it's the only ISP we can afford to use that has a local number (except for Netzero/Juno and Walmart Connect... but we've got severe grudges against them) and so, naturally connecting is slow. It literaly takes 15-20 minutes to get from POST to rense.com. Anywho... Dad was complaining that it was too slow, and assumed that he had a virus. I told him that his computer was slow because it was built 11 years ago, and it was already maxed out on upgrades. For a faster system, we'd have to get him a new one. My friend has about 15 Pentium II 300mhz systems that still work in great condition, and has nothing else to do with them and is willing to let me take one. I told dad about this and said I could transfer all his files and settings to the replacement, but he said no, because it was "plenty fast enough" a few weeks ago. I explained that that was because I had to install additional software on his system to connect to PeoplePC, and that it wouldn't get any faster. Anyway, I humor him and pretend to clear out his startup (alreadly emptied out) and defrag, and perform online virus and spyware scans, coming up empty. Finally when that's all done, I show dad that there is no speed increase, and he says, "isn't there anything else you can do?" After spending all day on his computer, without being able to convince him that there was no way to speed up his computer, I got an Idea. I told him to go downstairs and fix himself some dinner. I then loaded up his system with tons of resource-hogging utilities to run on continuously, shut it down and came downstairs and said, "I think I got it sped up." His reply came, "Excellent, I'll try it tomorrow morning." A week later, he told me that the computer was actually slower (see what I'm doing?) and that he tried it all week, but it was taking nearly 30 minutes to just get to the desktop. I told him that I must have made a typo in his configuration files and that I'd try again. I then went upstairs and unloaded the resource hogs I installed seven days earlier. The next day, he thanked me and said the computer was much faster than it ever was. He showed me gleefully as I quietly turned on my stopwatch. It was just as slow as it always was, but he was convinced it was faster because of my trick. I then laughed and admitted to him that I had slowed it down and then brought it back to normal. He said, "So you just played a mind game on me?" I nodded. He thought for a moment and insisted, "I still think it's faster..."
[By: linuxmatt]
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reading that I could *feel* my brain melting away.... -Jax
(Waves his hand in front of the monitor) --These aren't the startup programs you're looking for. -ShujinTribble
Sure there's something else you can do. Short the 12V rail across the processor. He'll have to upgrade then. -flapjackboy
I read an article recently that stated that a user's perception of the machine's speed can slow simply because they've gotten used to the order in which things are done. It's especially prelevant in office environments where you do the exact same thing every day when starting up for the day. In fact, I notice it when I am imaging and doing final prep on machines to be deployed. It seems to go slower each time, but it's just that I know what's coming next and get impatient waiting for it. -Jeckler
One of the users here had a problem with their printer and we had to reinstall her drivers. Now instead of printing in 2 seconds she says it takes 3 or 4 for the first page to print. Drives her nuts! She complaines about it like four times a day. We'll get to it when we have nothing better to do, like change the bulbs in the monitors. -Gmork
Sounds like windows is doing polled instead of interrupt driven mode. I think there is a registry flag associated with that condition. -TieDyedDinosaur
my friends dad's computer hasn't been formatted in years. it's been through several hardware upgrades (mobo, vid card, etc.). the original OS was win98se, then went to ME, now its at 2000, all upgrade installations. it pains me to watch a 2500+ PC take 15+ minutes to reboot -razmann
Take his computer, and replace the motherboard with the 300 Mhz part, problem solved... the form-factor may be different though, making that impossible or maybe just difficult. The only important thing is for him to believe that the computer is the "same". -hackwrench
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Customer Misconceptions
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1.
You can bribe one of us into providing support for a discontinued product by offering to bring us tea and rice.
[2011-12-23]
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2.
It is perfectly acceptable to call about a physically modded device you bought on ebay and expect warranty support on it. Bonus points if it also has custom firmware that allows you to bypass provisioned speeds and steal service.
[2011-12-23]
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3.
I can assist you with configuring the VPI and VCI and disable PPPoE on your DOCSIS 3.0 cable modem.
Also, DSL is pronounced much like "diesel".
[2011-08-13]
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4.
You need to read EVERYTHING on the screen when you call me for help. If I tell you to read me the contents of the only textbox in a specific window, start with reading the window title, the position of all the sliders and values of all the comboboxes, and the text on all the buttons, THEN get around to reading off what I asked you to. Oh but first, tell me everything on your taskbar and desktop. Close the window if you can't see everything on your desktop.
[2010-03-25]
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5.
If I tell you that I'm going to remote into your computer, I still need you to read me everything on the screen. It's not like having your entire screen on mine allows me to see what's going on.
If I tell you you don't need to read anything because I can see it on my screen, I'm lying.
When I tell you your screen will be blank until I'm done, and not to touch it, go ahead and start mashing buttons when the screen turns black. Then reboot it because "it crashed".
[2010-03-25]
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6.
iTunes Misconception:
It is necessary to censor song titles and album names, but don't censor the artist names, that's rediculous!
Background: Searching iTunes for "Hootie & the Blowfish", I noticed it listed "Anal Cunt" as a similar artist.
This is the same iTunes that censored the title of an educational farm-themed song titled, "Hens and C**ks". FWIW, the compilation album, "Anal C**t Old Stuff, Pt. 3" has its title censored.
[2009-09-02]
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7.
Toshiba misconception:
Any scratch of any sort in any location on a laptop will void the warranty for the entire system. A scratch from a watch on the palmrest, for example, voids your warranty as much as drilling a 5" hole through the motherboard and half the CPU. Also, LCD screens are NEVER covered anyway. It is also company policy to tell you that it is covered before you send it in, then hold your computer ransom for $425.
I have found at least two other people on Toshiba's own forums who had the exact same problem on the exact same series notebook (Satellite M305D), on the first page of their forums. One of these people sent in their computer and got it back repaired in 5 days. The other person is going to send theirs in. Why am I the one getting screwed here?
I have a friggin copy of their current (as of less than an hour ago) 1-year limited notebook warranty. It says that they will not repair cosmetic-only defects and damage, but NOWHERE in the 16-page document does it say anything that could even remotely be interpreted as what these bozos are telling me. And the first few pages of the warranty explain that it is a legally binding agreement subject to arbitration... I'll bring THAT up next time I talk to them.
[2008-12-10]
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8.
Overdue fees are only applicable if you don't pay your bill at all. It doesn't matter if you're one or two weeks past due every month for a year, if you pay everything but the overdue fees, they will disappear. When the overdue charges eventually rack up to double your normal monthly bill, you have every excuse to walk up to someone in the T-Mobile store and tell them they're full of bullshit, because the employee you choose at random is personally responsible for the "billing error".
Note: I am not a T-Mobile employee, I overheard this waiting to inquire about a job.
[2008-05-06]
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9.
It's perfectly acceptable, after I explain the difference between the iPhone and my new iPod Touch, to say:
"You mean you can't call anyone with that? You're telling me you bought a junk of useless crap instead of the awesome super-cool iPhone?"
It's practically the same except I have a separate RAZR on Verizon for calls, text, and cameraphone capabilities. You're right... I should pay the horrendous early termination fee, throw away three perfectly good CDMA phones, switch to AT&fuckingT, and buy a GSM device that requires proprietary headphones, just so I can say, "I have an iPhone"?
GIMME THE BAT!!! That's the fourth time since I bought this little gizmo. It's not junk - it can post to TSC!
And with that, I tap my pretty glass screen right where the "send" button appears. Those bastards can go multi-touch themselves.
[2007-11-27]
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10.
Kmart.com misconception
Beard and Moustache trimmers are must-have accessories for PHONES
Screenshot: http://img105.imageshack.us/my.php?image=untitled9ny.jpg
[2006-05-21]
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11.
NT/OT
Actually a dad misconception: You can go onto a popular message board, CREATE A USERNAME IN THE FORMAT OF %REALNAME2000, badmouth your boss and complain about how crappy the company treats you. It is impossible for your boss to see your post that contains your real name. You can genuinely look suprised when you get fired for it. And you have the right to believe that the REAL reason they fired you wasn't that you told millions of people that your company sucks, but instead because you were a month away from retirement. Oh, and there was some valid reason that you couldn't use a pseudonym or wait until your retirement was locked-in.
[2005-09-11]
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Tech Rules
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1.
This rule is for the customer.
Before calling for support, please attempt to be at least passable at being sober. If you have enough THC in your system that you can't follow the cable from the wall to your device, and then identify whether the device that is connected is the device you are calling about, you need a time-out. Without the pot.
[2012-01-11]
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2.
The ratio of perceived time to measured time is a multiple of the product of one's distance from his/her laptop and the duration for which that distance will be maintained to the power of the elapsed duration of being without the laptop. In my case, my laptop is about 1138 miles away, and has been for 8 calendar days, counting to 4 out of an estimated 7-10 business days until it should be shipped back from repair. In my case, the result of the equation is multiplied by 50 because I have to stay on campus to do most of my homework instead of going home and getting to play a little first. That accounts for a multiplier of 10, but that is multiplied by my addiction level of 5.
[2008-12-02]
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3.
When you have a laptop with a screen that goes blank, flickers, or changes color any time the screen is moved, or just plain randomly, to the point that it's nearly impossible to work with. When said laptop obviously has a defective screen or video cable or both. When you call to request a box to send in the laptop for warranty repair. The night before you send it to Timbuktu to get dismantled and have it repaired or replaced, while you're doing full backups to prepare, and ready to do full image just-in-flipping-case-you-forgot-something, THIS is when the problem will completely disappear and the screen will begin functioning PERFECTLY...
Never mind the screen would go completely blank on occasion or a section of the screen would go blank, flicker random lines, or change colors, and would continue to do so until sufficient percussive maintenance is administered, and then function for 30 seconds before needing another dose... less than 12 hours from packing it up and taking it to the UPS store, "SURPRISE!" it works.
Screw that. I'm sending this POS in anyway. I know the second the 10-day window for the service request passes, the problem's coming back, requiring yet another call to the repair center. If they tell me they can't find a problem, and ship it back, only to have me need to send it again, well not only is it my time wasted, but a bit of justice here, but also the manufacturer's cost for Second Day Air shipping both ways is wasted.
Did anyone get from that that I am a bit pissed off?
[2008-11-22]
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4.
Memo to university techs at my school: ALWAYS password-protect the BIOS setup. My neighbor's computer is stuck in OS install mode. Not that bad, but it shows a press F1 prompt on boot and runs pretty slow. And nothing's keeping anybody from setting random supervisor and user passwords, requiring a tech to get at the jumpers on the motherboard. I'm not going to, but I'm sure someone will!
[2007-11-27]
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5.
It is not wrong to play Doom in DOSbox (music muted, sfx still on) while listening to love songs by The Four Seasons and other 70's/80's pop bands in iTunes.
Something about "Workin' My Way Back to You" makes it so much fun to listen to while larting demons with a chaingun...
[2006-10-11]
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6.
I already told this story in the #tsc channel on nightstar, but since it's a slow day, I'm posting it. Get over it! If you are temporarily forced to work with lilo rather than grub, my preferred linux bootloader, only make manual changes to the lilo.conf file that are required to boot to a state where you can install grub. Do not comment out lines labeled "This cancels out dangerous defaults that may remap your partitions" even if you think "My other distro didn't do that on this same computer... I don't need this. Silly paranoid distro". This distro knew what it was talking about. The reason it was different this time was because this time I added a FAT partition to transfer files from linux to windows. On a SCSI disk. Which was set as primary in the bios. Imagine my suprise when Windows didn't boot and it wasn't Microsoft's fault! Ay ay ay I remapped the windows partition from C: to D:. I managed to fix it though. Had to pull the SCSI card out, reconfigure my BIOS, and boot to the Windows setup disk and log into the recovery console, and run a FIXMBR and FIXBOOT. It was very stubborn. And I had a starfish moment.
[2006-03-19]
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Customer Types
1.
Tutees
As a CIS tutor at my University, I frequently get students coming in 10 minutes before their homework is due, trying to get me to do it for them. Also, I get many students in Java II (prerequisite C or better in Java I) who don't understand why writing the question from the book into "Homewerk1.java.txt" doesn't compile.
[2011-04-06]
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Co-Worker Types
1.
Bragger Part II
This is a continuation of "Bragger" located here: http://www.techcomedy.com/single/single.php?content_number=55251
. I confronted him with the fact that Dell did not make a dual-processor Pentium III laptop. He told me then, "That's because I bought an empty case on e-bay, and I put in an Asus motherboard." Ok........... And I questioned him about his mysterious Windows XP emulator. He finally said something I've heard of. "It's called 'Cygwin'". 0_o I show him the Cygwin home page and he says, "Geez if you're too stupid to google the right thing then... It's Cygwin for linux! Just go away, I've got a headache." The next day, he corrects himself. "I had it wrong hehehe. Here." He pulls up the gentoo wiki, explaining that "It's a tool that comes with gentoo. They just took the code for Cygwin and reversed it." o_O again. And I reminded him that he said the emulator cost $40. He said, "No the core portion of it is free. The XP part is third party and is $40 and requires a specific version of KDE." What happens if you start this reversed Cygwin without the XP part installed, and he says, "It emulates DOS" But XP does not run on DOS, and you said that the console for this emulator used linux commands. Hmmm. I ask him if that was Windows or the emulator he had running on his laptop, which he was currently working on. He responded, Windows. I asked him if it was a dual-boot, and he said, "No, of course not, I'm not stupid! That's just asking for trouble! I have mine on an extra hard drive. I swap them out by removing this screw and swap them. Duh!" This co-worker type can be a lot of fun if both you and him are in a good mood. Mention something and see if he plays along.
[2006-01-27]
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2.
Bragger
This is a fellow student tech at school. He brought in his lynksys wi-fi router and hooked it up temporarily to the school's cable internet line. He then claimed that he updated the router with an illegal firmware, doubling the system's power, at the cost of only being able to have it on for three hours at a time before the router shuts itself off due to over heating. He also claimed that the router had 120GB of battery-backed RAM storage that he could put anything he wanted on, but more than half of it was taken up by the firmware. He then used this super-powerful connection to download gentoo install files on his refurbished Dell laptop that he claims has two Pentium III 2.5Ghz processors, but he usually has the second processor disabled because he only has 256MB of ram. ??? That was a few days ago. I asked him if I could borrow his Knoppix disc, and he says, "you can have it, I have another copy at home." I pop in the disc at home... and... it's... blank? I casually notified him of this the next day and he was totally suprised, but then said, "Oh well, you got a free blank." I then ask him if he still had XP installed or was he going to re-install it and make a dual-boot. He said, "No, just linux." The next day I spied the Windows XP professional CD boot screen (Press F-something to continue to the EULA or something like that). Then the next day, I spied him configuring his shiny-new looking XP installation, and said, "So you decided to install XP after all?" He immediately denies it, saying "No. It's just a Windows XP emulator. It runs in linux." I noted verbally, "It looks just like the real thing. Even the boot screen is the same. Did it cost anything?" "Yeah. $40." I replied, "Where can I get it?" He rambled off a name I could not comprehend, to which I replied, "It looks just like the real thing! How do they not get sued?" He says, "They wrote the code." "For Windows?" I ask. "No. for the emulator. It is not at all based on the actual windows code." I ask if I can take a closer look, and he immediatly closes the lid on his laptop and denies my request. To myself, I muttered, "yeah right. I saw the setup screen. If it's close enough to be emulating that, how is it any more reliable than the real Windows XP?" Remember, this is the guy who I was told tried to hot-swap a standard audio card, and when I confronted him with it, he said, "No you have it all wrong! I was trying to hot-swap a VIDEO CARD." *blink* Oddly enough, he knows all the lingo from RTFM to Magic Smoke, but does not know what "Starfish" refers to.
[2006-01-19]
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Customer E-mails
1.
Subject: rma
rma
[my comment here... you figured out how to get the form to submit without a model number. Maybe you can figure out that we might want to know /what/ you want to have replaced?]
[2012-06-15]
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2.
Subject: Spam
I got a spam message today. Subject:"FWD: Anorexia pump therefore scrape" Eww. Three guesses for what it was advertising.
[2005-11-20]
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EUPOTD (End User Phrase of the Day)
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1.
"No, but I tried pressing the reset with an uncooked spaghetti noodle!"
[2012-06-20]
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2.
Upon me asking for the model number: "Um... Oh here it is.. Made in China? Is that it?"
[2012-06-19]
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3.
MePOTD, upon seeing a large number in queue and an insanely low number of agents signed in: "This is going to be like cutting down a tree using a scalpel."
[2012-03-30]
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4.
"Holy shit!"
This was upon spelling the customer's last name correctly on the first try. I held back the comment that it was the thought of an uncommon keyboard layout that helped.
[2012-01-14]
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5.
"I just got two {walkietalkies}. Will they reach from here in the US to the exotic forests of frahn-say? My wife gets lost a lot and her phone doesn't work out there."
Let me give you the number for our 2-way radio support...
[2011-07-23]
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6.
"Did you know 'Charter' spelled backwards is Al Qaeda?"
[2011-07-20]
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7.
"How can (product that is showing a manufacture date of almost 3 years ago) be out of warranty? I just got it today and it's your latest model, right?" (odd, he didn't want to fax us the reciept)
[2011-07-19]
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8.
(CWPOTD while explaining why the default settings are easier) "Let's say you change your network name to Snickers, and a power outage or something causes the gateway to reset. If that happens, Snickers is gone."
[2011-07-19]
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9.
NCIS-POTD: "[the password] must be in a secret partition of RAM!"
[2010-04-14]
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10.
I don't know if I've heard this somewhere or not, but it just popped into my head...
"I feel like a public toilet... everybody's giving me shit!"
[2010-01-26]
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11.
MEPOTD:
In Linux class today, we covered the files where local user info is stored.
"Who knows what passwords lurk in the hearts of men? The SHADOW KNOWS!"
[2009-10-06]
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12.
Classmate-PRONUNCIATION-of-the-Day: "caché" -- /You just need to clear your cash-aaaayyy./
[2009-06-25]
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13.
Classmate-PRONUNCIATION-of-the-Day: "tiffle" (tiff file) -- /Wow, that game is so stupid, the lava isn't even animated. It must be using a tiff-uhl./
[2009-06-25]
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14.
Classmate-PRONUNCIATION-of-the-Day: "pingle" (png file) and "giffle" (gif file) -- /The nice thing about pin-guhlz is they allow transparency and look better than giff-uhlz, but only Apple supports them./
[2009-06-25]
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15.
linuxmatt's technical dictionary
toner fart (n): a sudden puff of toner from a laser printer while clearing a paper jam.
[2008-12-02]
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16.
Linuxmatt's tech dictionary
inkake (eenk-ah-kay) [n.]: an embarassing ink stain on one's face. ex: I tried to refill my printer cartridges but the only result was this inkake. Also used as: adj, v.
[2008-12-02]
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17.
MePOTD
Java Instructor: *explaining syntax for a command* "If you leave out the colon, the program blows up."
Me: "Just like a human!"
[2008-04-26]
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18.
SpammerPOTD: I will happily buy whatever the hell you're selling if you send your spam in a language I don't understand. I don't read Russian/Gaelic/Elfish.
[2008-02-12]
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19.
MePOTD after too little sleep:
"Brain defragmentation in process. Any non-system requests may have a negative impact on performance. Do you wish to continue?"
[2008-01-29]
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20.
MePOTD:
Device /dev/instructor is not allowing system to enter S3 mode.
[2008-01-29]
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21.
MePOTD (a few weeks ago) after a huge unexpected fart: "Shut up, asshole!"
...My fiancé laughed for nearly ten minutes!
[2008-01-29]
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22.
Me-Sung-phrase-of-the-day, while trying to cheer up my fiancé (who was unhappy because her arm was sore):
In the meadow, we can build a snowman
And pretend that he is Parson Brown
He'll say, "Are you married?"
We'll say, "HOLY SHIT A TALKING SNOWMAN!"
[2007-12-21]
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23.
OT/NT MEUPOTD -
"What a perfect spring day! Snow is falling, the birds ain't singing, the feral cats are raping each other..."
[2007-04-08]
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24.
MSPOTD (Microsoft Support Phrase of the Day):
"A computer that is running Microsoft Windows XP with Service Pack 2 crashes."
No s*** Sherlock!?! Ok a bit out of context, but still, they could have phrased it better like "A 'race condition' in the kernel may force the computer to reboot without warning." Make it sound less stupid.
Proof below:
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/929338
[2007-03-13]
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25.
MePOTD: "CRAP! Murphy's law again. Why do all the good tech rants come out the day after your star expires?" Rant to follow.
[2007-03-05]
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26.
esf-potd in #tsc on nightstar:
[esf] i know lm, thats why i brought it up after you brought it up
[2006-10-05]
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27.
Actually a "DTFOTD" -- a "District Tech Face of the Day" I saw a tech routing ethernet cables through the ceiling at my school, and I said (to nobody in particular) "Orange-white, Orange, Green-white, Blue, Blue-white, Green, Brown-white, Brown"
He dropped his jaw and nearly dropped the spool of cable he was holding. What, like it's a secret?
[2006-06-30]
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28.
Me-POTD after physics teacher introduced a new equation "L=Iω". That weird looking w is a lowercase omega for those who don't know. I said, " L equals I omega? Iomega? Zip disks?"
[2006-01-27]
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29.
Microsoft Web Site POTD ( http://www.microsoft.com/windows/plus/PlusHome.asp ): "Unlease your creativity" How about you "Unlease" the speel chekkr?
[2006-01-19]
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30.
NightStar-IRC-Server-Wallop-Phrase-Of-The-Day or NSIRCSWOPOTD: "Notice from Nightstar (Nightstar): Attention: Re-coat all the pinatas with marmalade until most of the ox drivers have discovered the tube of anti-matter won't fit into some Barbie dolls. And for Pete's sake, do NOT pick up the White Courtesy Telephone. (Who's Pete?) {I donno.}"
[2006-01-09]
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31.
MePOTD: You know you're a geek when you immediately notice license plates that have the letters AGP, PCI, GNU, or any other tech acronym.
[2005-12-06]
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32.
MePOTD: Every time I see a sign that says "DIP" I immediately think Process ID or DIP switch.
[2005-12-06]
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33.
Actually, this is an Aunt Phrase of the Day. I was teaching my aunt some basic HTML, and we decided to take a break. I mentioned that game show "The Weakest Link". Perfectly impersonating the host of the show, she says, "You ARE the weakest A HREF!" I still laugh about it.
[2005-07-19]
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