Posts by Anne Hunny Mouse

Where the computer industry went wrong – the early hits

Re: Water under the bridge

Did you have a Jupiter Ace?

For those who don't know, it looked like a Spectrum but was B&W only and ran Forth, rather than BASIC.

I don't think it was a big seller.

Re: Liam...You Forgot About......

But we're a hand source of microdrive tapes, if you knew someone who worked for DWP...

Microsoft sends Windows Control Panel to tech graveyard

Re: cue the wailing

I can remember ME BSODing in the installation

Innocent techie jailed for taking hours to fix storage

Pilot flying hours

Pilot flying and duty hours are strictly controlled by aviation rules in most countries.

Airlines are heavily fined for breaches as fatigue is a major contributing factor in many accidents.

If there are delays at airports it is not unknown for flights to be cancelled due to the crew running out of hours.

There have been several accidents due to crews rushing to try to complete a flight before their hours expire, often as they don't want to be stuck at an outstation.

There are plenty of examples in the Mayday / Air Crash Investigation series.

E.g. Spanex crash where they rushed the checklist and tried to take off with no flaps.

Techie installed 'user attitude readjustment tool' after getting hammered in a Police station

One of our network cabinets is stood on bricks.

Apparently, it was a replacement upgrade but someone mismeasured. (Before my time).

The large Cisco VC units (2 x 70Inch screens) are fun to get through doorways and lifts...

Seething CEO shoulder surfed techie after mistaken takedown of production server

Re: Labelling production

This happened to us on a former gig with a Sun Boxes..

Cisco's emergency caller can send first responders to the wrong location

No sure if it possible with ISDN to redirect 999 etc to the correct centre.

We have had to work with SIP providers to ensure they direct the 989 etc calls to the correct emergency centre.

(Also 101 and 111)

I would assume that Teams has the ability to translate numbers, so a short number would be converted to the long number.

It's normally a common feature in PBXs but then again Microsoft always assumed that everyone would just use the E.164 number of a device.

Screwdrivers: is there anything they can't do badly? Maybe not

Re: Sufferin Succotash

On a previous job, early days on a secure gig for UK Government and building only just handed over for us t use.

One weekend, the electricians were working in the UPS Room and dropped a spanner short circuiting the giant UPS.

Electrics were back on for the Monday but lots of things weren't working or on the fritz, including the access card system.

Part way through the day someone decided the building wasn't safe until it was sorted so got a paid afternoon off.

Help! My mouse climbed a wall and now it doesn't work right

Cleaning Ball Mice

I used to find cleaning ball mice therapeutic.

Just shows what a nutter I am.

Blackstone wants to plug hyperscale datacenter into former Britishvolt battery site

Re: Original battery factory would supposedly have provided 3000 jobs...

Might need a bit more security.

Unfortunately, Blyth is a bit of a smack town.

Plenty of space around Hartlepool Power Station and it is a proposed site for a SMR.

Would be a good site for a data centre.

Re: North Sea Link

There are a significant number of wind turbines in the sea around Blyth.

Blyth is billed as a centre of excellence for wind power.

The site used to be Blyth power station so should be easy to have significant grid access.

And yes, it's not in Blyth but Cambios. (Pronounced Camis)

Techie saved the day and was then criticized for the fix

Re: Locks, only one way to do it right

Cabinets with Manifoil safe type locks are quite a good deterrent.

They definitely do exist.

Curious tale of broken VPNs, the Year 2038, and certs that expired 100 years ago

Bad NTP setup

The story has given me to some bad flashbacks to On Call issues.

One case there were issues with NTP on a air gapped network without a proper NTP source. Took hours to persuade the get the pseudo NTP to trust the Sun box used as the NTP source. (Not our network but one we had to use for something because of customers contractual requirements).

More recently, the NTPs of the DC's got out of whack and ended up pointing at each other.

As a result messaging and integration of the hospital systems so no results popping through in the early hours.

At least for that one I didn't need to go into site and once the DCs were sorted I could correct the rest of the Servers with a script and PDQ.

HP customers claim firmware update rendered third-party ink verboten

Quink

I'm old enough to remember when you could refill HP Inkjets with Parker Quink Ink and a syringe.

Got me through my post-grad studies.

$50m+ contract for crime-fighting IT system won by Fujitsu after no one else bid

A Single Action does not mean nobody else bid.

A Single Action means it hasn't gone to tender.

They can be used when you can only go to one supplier (e.g add on for supplier of an existing system), unable to get an additional quote or award is urgent and going via framework or tender would take to long.

There are some other criteria but I can't remember off the top of my head.

I would guess that in this case they would cite the existing suppliers knowledge of the system.

Millions of smart meters will brick it when 2G and 3G turns off

'Smart' Meters

The meters and displays aren't that smart.

The original SMets1 are tied to one provider, meaning they went dumb if you changed companies.

The in house displays cannot cope with tariffs which have different prices depending on the time and only display usage costs based the higher rate.

Smart meters are only useful if you are using one of these time based tariffs to exploit cheaper electricity available overnight for EV charging, heat pumps or storage heaters (though Economy 7 is more common for these).

Depending if you are north or south of a point in the country depends on how your smart meter connects.

North uses radio. This means certain areas you can't get smart meters as they have been deemed to interfere with radar.

The idea for smart meters is to cut peak usage as neither the generating companies or the Government want to built more power stations as they cost money.

Scared of flying? Good news! Software glitches keep aircraft on the ground

Suspect that it was never explained to the software developer creating the software that there are duplicated waypoints across the world.

I've read that there are at least 4 duplicated waypoints but are very geographically separated to avoid issues.

Wonder if the plane's flight / navigation computer coped with the duplicated waypoint name or the flight crew had elected to only enter part of the route into the plane?

"We're sure the software engineers among our readership will also be scratching their heads at how such a problem could happen and how it was acceptable that the result was to fall into maintenance mode and write to a log rather than simply record and flag the failure and move onto the following file."

With the old Plessy \ GPT \ Siemens ISDX platform, if there was a call the system doesn't know how to route, or a routing route, would crash or flip processors if it had dual processors.

Even with 2 processors this situation still causes issues as all calls are dropped during a processor switchover.

Newer systems tend to drop a call in such a situation, but it is possible to easily bring a Cisco CUBE to it's knees if a voice routing loop has been accidently configured on systems connected to the CUBE.

Microsoft signs 1.5 million seat contract for Office 365 and more

Re: LibreOffice is free

Problem is the integration with other apps.

Last contract expired at the end of March,

They have been paying monthly for the existing provision since then.

Re: Value for money

When the Portal works and frequently it doesn't.

Microsoft calling minutes need to be purchased, as do licenses for Intune.

Previously users had an E3R license which didn't come with the Office Apps. The new deal is for E3.

NHS D (as was) has been pushing orgs to move to O365 licenses but there have been issues by Orgs that have moved.

Locum? Not attached to org so no license.

Reconciliation of licenses after someone leaves is very slow. This leaves orgs short for new starters.

Part of the deal is that NHS Orgs have to commit to reducing their existing Office 16/19/21 estates by 50%

Don't forget this unusual shared tenancy has lots of restrictions. Lots of integrations can't be done, Accenture / NHS X26 hold access to Azure etc

BT is ditching workers faster than your internet connection with 55,000 for chop by 2030

Re: Call centres as the post-industrial future of employment already a dead man walking

I would expect to AI to be better than most off-shored Contact Centres...

Contact Centre industry has been sliding downwards in the UK for years.

The beancounters love off shoring to reduce costs.

Sometimes they move back to UK if the company takes notice of the negative feedback on off-shoring.

There will also be some on-shore due to GDPR on the data or other constraints (e.g. Protectively Marked).

PC tech turns doctor to diagnose PC's constant crashes as a case of arthritis

Re: Dell's help desk script

I knew someone who bought a Dell in the Windows 95 days.

He had graphics corruption on his brand new system.

Dell's answer was to turn down the acceleration slider.

I told him not to put up with such sh1t and get Dell to replace.

Re: More magnetics

As a post graduate chemist, taking your photocopying card to the NMR Spectroscopy rooms was guaranteed to wipe the card.

An expensive mistake when you made it.

No, working in IT does not mean you can fix anything with a soldering iron

SLIC SLAC

We still had mainly channel and codec cards rather than the modern SLIC SLACs when our DXs finally went the distance a few years ago. (Past EoL)

We were completely in the dark ages as we had HPT cards and a couple of SIP trunk cards

Re: Live Printer

Just remembered - as it meant 240V was going down the network ports, it killed the switch stack.

We presented Estates with a large bill to replace.

Re: Live Printer

Some contractors at work put some new sockets in an office but got the earth mixed up with another wire.

Cue live PC cases and dead PCs

Keeping printers quiet broke disk drives, thanks to very fuzzy logic

Re: Wang

There was also a Wayne Carr working the NHS a few years ago.

Know the difference between a bin and /bin unless you want a new doorstop

In the early 2000's I remember a Doctor in a Hospice using his deleted items to store emails..

Was fine until the AV flagged an email virus and his deleted items was emptied...

Have accidentally deleted /usr/bin on a Sun box. It continued run file. Just FTP'd the files from it's identical sister server on the other site and restored a backup the next day to fix the symbolic links.

Internet Explorer 11 limps to the end of Windows 10 road

Same here. Have a phone system which requires Java for the web access (a lot easier than the command line). It is not an old system, last upgraded 2021.

There was an exercise by a project team to collate sites which needed IE Mode. However, looking at the list produced it included several URL's and sites which don't work in IE.

Luckily it's not my project.

Brute force and whiskey: The solution to all life's problems

Re: Why a "retired farmer"?

In my days as a Chemistry Postgrad, we were classed as employees from a H&S perspective.

This meant attending a 2 hour Fire Safety Lecture about the University Fire System each year...

Only 5 minutes was relevant as the Chemistry Building had a separate fire system.

We can bend the laws of physics for your super-yacht, but we can't break them

Re: Overinflated sense of self importance

I'll just fire up the DeLorean

Thinnet cables are no match for director's morning workout

Re: The "fun" of Tech Support.

To paraphrase House, "Users lie"

If someone says they haven't done anything, they have:

a) Done something silly and don't want to admit it.

b) Done something but cannot remember what.

c) Both of the above.

Re: Full names please.......

Have known people with following dodgy names

Anna Beaver

Wayne Carr

Susan Lavery

I know a medical consultant whose parents decided it would be a laugh to give her the initials HRH.

In the family she is nicknamed The Queen.

The best one was just a surname: Porcelloni

In Italian it translates as Big Pigs.

Umbrella company Parasol Group confirms cyber attack as 'root cause' of prolonged network outage

Sounds like they need some ICT contractors in to sort out the mess.

Wonder if they know where to get any?

Who you gonna call? Premium numbers, but a not-so-premium service

Re: Wrong number

Some area codes you have to dial the full DDI even locally due to lack of numbers meaning 0,1 and 9 ranges can be used.

e.g. 01642 or +44 1642 (for E.164 people) is one of these and has 01642 0 numbers,

What came first? The chicken, the egg, or the bodge to make everything work?

Re: Batteries not required

I do too, including photo copies of passports.

UK health secretary confirms end for NHS Digital, architect of the GP data grab debacle

Health is devolved to Welsh Assembly and Scottish Governments, hence only England.

A tiny typo in an automated email to thousands of customers turns out to be a big problem for legal

Been on calls were it took longer to join the conference than to fix the issue, but you had to let everyone discuss it for an hour first.

Education Software Solutions tells school customers: We are moving to 3-year licensing contracts and so are you

There isn't a lot of choice in the market though.

Often schools don't have a choice - determined by the LEA / MAT

Sometimes schools may use a different system but some things need to be done in SIMS by the LEA.

Mark it in your diaries: 14 October 2025 is the end of Windows 10

Re: Loss?

You missed SQL which is a huge moneyspinner

MoD: Our networks are in 'unacceptable' state and both data and IT bods are stuck in silos

DII?

Wasn't DII supposed to deal with all this segregation.

Yes, I know it was #!@@

Philanthropist and ex-Microsoft manager Melinda Gates and her husband Bill split after 27 years of marriage

Good luck to both of them.

Wondered if they tried:

Restarting their marriage.

Seeing if there are any updates for marriage.

Installing the latest feature update for marriage....

Something went wrong but we won't tell you what it is. Now, would you like to take out a premium subscription?

Now it's done by email and web forms.

Now I have to spend several hours reexplaining simple requests.

Doesn't help that sometimes adding an update in Service Now then magically disappears from the ticket.

Sending an email in you'll be lucky if the ticket is updated in a week.

For technical faults it normally means doing all the troubleshooting and providing log analysis.

(That reminds me I need to do this this weekend to show a vendor their crap product and worse knowledge base is broken and crap).

Still beats speaking to agent clearly doesn't understand a common language, know anything about the product and can't vary from a script.

Cats: Not a fan favourite when the critters are draped around an office packed with tech

Re: Pugs, golden retrievers and IT equipment do not mix

Your neighbours need some of those fancy cat flaps linked to their cats collars.

Internet Explorer fails to make the cut, banished from Microsoft Teams for good

Java

The big hold up for many people is Java or possibly Flash.

Yes, there is Edge IE mode but it's still IE's engine.

Cannot find another browser that still supports Java.

Can't give up Java without losing ability to access critical systems.

NHS looks to the market for advice on one system to replace two separate, giant Oracle ERP and HR systems

Hopefully it will be better than the existing systems.

Both the Oracle finance and MyESR are hideous

Smoke on the Tyne: Blaze at BT exchange causes major outages across North East England

Re: Openreach network architecture

From experience BT's idea of resilience and diverse routing is not necessarily what you would think.

Had 2 circuits for a network with diverse routing. Initially they routed via different exchanges but both went through the same exchange elsewhere in the area.

Hence when said exchange had a fire (Denton Burn, Newcastle) lost both circuit and access to that network.

Other circuits for other networks were properly diverse and only lost resilience.

BT's response was we only provide resilience to the point of delivery, the circuits may share a common exchange on the route..

Carliol Square exchange originates from the 1930s so may not but up to date for latest fire suppression