* Posts by John 110

682 publicly visible posts • joined 10 Aug 2009

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Developer wrote a critical app and forgot where it ran – until it stopped running

John 110
Boffin

Re: Similar thing, but zombie user not laptop

Back in the good old days, I had to liaise with our Infection Control team who were told they had to have software to replace their two filing cabinets full of folders. (A short aside--people underestimate the utility of paper in a job where folk are required to nip off and audit a Ward for IC compliance at a moments notice. Irene could find the folder for a ward and be out of the office in about 20 seconds. Ward visit over, her notes were typed up by her secretary and stuck back in the file. The same job using their paperless system involved them hunting and pecking at a keyboard for 20 minutes till yhey'd found the file and last report, then printing that out to take down to the ward... Nightmare. We did try PDAs, but the screens proved to be two titchy for our Nurses to read...)

Anyway, the project included daily downloads from the labsystem to generate a textfile (using an SQL query) which was then imported into the fledgling Infection Control software. (another sidenote: we were all learning as we went along. I did the SQL, Computer Services managed the export of the file with a cron job and the IC team struggled to get to grips with with the commercial software which, lets face it was extremely specialised and cobbled together by a very small company who only had a rudimentary grasp of Infection Control issues to a specification dreamt up by a nurse somewhere who knew what they wanted but had no idea how to get a computer to achieve it. Oh, and it was a DOS-based system)

All of these steps required logging in to various bits of software to run the SQL on the Lab System and to access the server to export the file and the new server to import the file. The solution turned out to be fake users at each stage and for each server (no-one seemed to have heard of service accounts, I certainly hadn't. I fell into the IT role as a Biomedical Scientist who knew which end of an RS232 cable went into which socket (NOT the VGA socket--good grief!))

The trial actually worked (to everybodies surprise, personally I never thought Irene would get the hang of it...) and the system was rolled out and functioned for a couple of years, as various changes made to the IC software made it actually useful (Evolution in action)

Then Computer Services were audited and it was noted that they didn't have a security and access control person, so they appointed one. Their first job as they saw it was to tidy up user access to all their systems by getting rid of all these pesky fake logins. Cue complete system failure.

(Last sidenote, I promise: NHS computing especially round the edges of the major apps was a bit of a wild west. Our Apple //e and later our Windows 3.1 PCs were showing people what computers could do, while our Computer Services department had cut their teeth on Big servers storing data. It was all a bit tricky. And we were all flying by the seat of our pants.)

Developers feared large chaps carrying baseball bats could come to kneecap their ... test account?

John 110
Boffin

Re: No, I was Wrong

When I worked in a diagnostic lab, we needed to use the live system for those specimens that had to go through the automated analysers (no-one has two sets of those, useful though it might have been.) Therefore my colleague in the lab upstairs (we shared a patient database) created a patient with a plausible sounding, but unlikely name with an unused Patient Index Number. (Nothing rude or questionable was allowed after a set of results were erroneously sent out to a GP surgery for an unfortunately-monikered test patient.)

We used Linda [lastname redacted] as a test patient for years until the trialling of a system that allowed lab results to be sent from reference labs to the home lab. The first thing that happened was that their IT department complained that Linda already existed on their system as a real person and could we please use their carefully chosen fake patient instead.

IBM swoops in to rescue UK Emergency Services Network after Motorola shown the door

John 110
Joke

Re: the US are our friends.

"...or just Scotland and turning it into one big Golf Course..."

Not JUST a Golf Course. It would make a handy dandy missile platform/submarine base...

NetAdmin learns that wooden chocks, unlike swipe cards, open doors when networks can't

John 110

Re: demarcation dispute

a bit further north in the sunniest place in Scotland

Our Health and Safety rep had a constant running battle with University staff over wearing gloves outside the lab. They insisted there was no hazard, but we were a Microbiology lab and gloves were forbidden in the corridor!!

John 110
Coat

demarcation dispute

I worked in a diagnostic virology lab in a teaching hospital. The corridor we were in was partially stolen from us in a land grab by the University. The corridor was also a handy thoroughfare to distant parts of the hospital. Then came the Ebola scare (we're all going to die!!) and the Health and Safety people coughed up for card swipe locks on the ends of the corroiodr to stop joe public wandering through "looking for radiotherapy" (this was common ploy for scrotes looking for handbags to rummage through). The University refused point blank to use them. "It's so inconvenient sob, sob".

It turned out to be extremely convenient for a scrote on the prowl, as did the nifty Apple iMac with the handy carrying handle moulded into the case. Somebody's PhD thesis went with it...

The doors were activated and cards issued the next week.

John 110
Unhappy

Re: Car doors

Many moons ago (before remote fobs) a colleague explained to me how to lock a car without the key if your hands were full of child picked up from the back seat. You lean through the back door, over to the front door and press the locking button, then when you close the back door (using a portion of your anatomy not encumbered) the car locks.

When I had occasion to try this trick (getting a cardboard box off the back seat), I managed to shut my tie in the car door (I know, I know). I had the keys in my pocket, but not the flexibility to get my hand into the required pocket without dropping the box (obviously full of fragile valuables). I ended up propping the box between my goulies and the car door while I wormed my hand into my offside trouser pocket and freed myself. "where have you been?" says the wife...

BOFH: The devil's in the contract details

John 110
Coat

Re: Feels like oracle

So nobody here has ever bought NHS Lab Support software then?

That hardware will be more reliable if you stop stabbing it all day

John 110

Re: Try working with a smart user

Sort of the opposite problem. Software designed (not by us -- we just configured it) in the days of 640x480 screens when expanded to full-screen on an 800x600 monitor had a whole load of empty space. When the users wanted more options on the screen, we had to tell them that the empty space was imaginary and couldn't be used.

Tech support world record? 8.5 seconds from seeing to fixing

John 110
Childcatcher

Those iMac handles proved handy for the scrote that walked into the university lab round the corner from ours and walked off with a computer and somebody's PhD thesis.

What's a "backup"?

Footnote: that's when we finally activated the security doors that the NHS had fitted, but the university refused to use...

NHS to launch 'real-time surveillance system' to prevent future pandemics

John 110

Re: Give the negativity a rest, guys, this is pretty amazing stuff

If you've ever worked in a diagnostic healthcare setting, you'll be aware of the difficult path that you have to tread between privacy and having the data you need to carry out your analyses and diagnoses.

Not having correct and full data is as much of a nightmare for us as the privacy issues are to data people. (I've worked both sides as a medical technologist who shifted to data services)

John 110
Boffin

Re: Give the negativity a rest, guys, this is pretty amazing stuff

You know that "real-time" is a designation given to a technology, right?

Here you go https://www.ebi.ac.uk/training/online/courses/functional-genomics-ii-common-technologies-and-data-analysis-methods/real-time-pcr/

Hide the keyboard – it's the only way to keep this software running

John 110
Angel

Re: Small boys are good problem finders

A 1yr+ baby is a toddler. Any parent knows that nothing is safe round a toddler.

--> little angels...

Smart homes may be a bright idea, just not for the dim bulbs who live in 'em

John 110
Thumb Up

Re: Abrilliant article that I will reference in future

@Mast1

Other appendages are available...

Missing Thunderbirds footage found in British garden shed

John 110
Flame

Re: That film...

@Martin Peake

Mums are like that. They never understand what they've done wrong.

I remember coming home one sunday afternoon and discovering my young cousins playing with my Airfix models!!! Hours, they took me. Hours!!!!

BOFH: AI consultant rapidly transitioned to new role as automotive surface consultant

John 110

Re: Human-fired power station

Harry Harrison's wife sat on my lap at an SF convention in Edinburgh once, where she told scurrilous stories about Harry's fellow SF illumati...

Footnote: there were a lack of chairs...

Crack coder wasn't allowed to meet clients due to his other talent: Blisteringly inappropriate insults

John 110
Coat

Re: Never for rudeness, but..

Ah, the old mercury ones -- long banned by the NHS. Although our last GP once made sure his door was shut, then fished his mercury equipment out of the cupboard to take my blood pressure.

Zen Browser is a no-Google zone that offers tiling nirvana

John 110

"So tiling child windows is a thing again?"

Like good old Opera 12. I miss Opera 12.

John 110

""Moonchild" and his minions have created such a toxic dumpster fire on their community fora"

Not been there for a while, have you. They're generally quite helpful these days after the most toxic guy threw his toys out of the pram and went home a year or so ago.

Like somebody above, I use Pale Moon on a daily basis and generally don't have any trouble.

The origin of 3D Pipes, Windows' best screensaver

John 110

Re: My main memory of these ...

Sorry, I thought you said "anaesthetic"...

In homage to Jurassic Park, researchers store DNA in amber-like polymer

John 110
Alien

Re: Big money ahead

I'm putting this in my funeral instructions right now. Then in the far future, the intelligences descended from cockroaches will use my DNA to create a population for their new attraction "Brexit Park". I'll be the bad-tempered one...

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

John 110
Coat

I used to have...

When I did IT support in a Bacteriology Lab, I used to have a stick with a nail in it* (an implement a boss was given as a joke man management tool) that I inherited from a retiring boss. It turned out to be most useful as a device for fetching wires from under desks and lab benches.

*essentially a broom handle with a three inch nail driven an inch into it, H&S assured by the head of the nail being uppermost.

We need a volunteer to literally crawl over broken glass to fix this network

John 110
Pint

Re: The last business exhibition

...but think of the networking opportunities...

I didn't touch a thing – just some cables and a monitor – and my computer broke

John 110
Coat

Re: Blonde moments

I once got called to a Microbiology lab PC that wouldn't turn on, to find the user vainly stabbing at the big silver DELL "button" instead of the tiny recessed power button that Dell helpfully supplied.

(a few years earlier, the same user didn't realise that the monitor power switch was different from the computer power switch, although in her favour, she was really computer-phobic and had managed to avoid using them for ages.)

Software support chap survived breaking his customer

John 110

Re: Ouch!

In my role as general IT support for a diagnostic lab in a teaching hospital in the 90s, I was asked to give a talk to our BSc Honours students to show them how to use the two DOS-based PCs that we had for general Word processing use. (Prior to acquiring those, our lecturers did papers by longhand and one of the office girls would type them up). I chatted to one of them a couple of days before I gave the talk and realised that they mostly knew the stuff like how to start and close Word, but they didn't have a clue about saving and backing up their work. They each had a floppy disk...(5.25, so genuinely floppy.)

I re-jigged my talk to start with me holding up a floppy and saying "this is a disk". I then crumpled it up and said "and now it's corrupt and your thesis is gone..."

Only then did I give them the talk about closing Word AFTER saving and BEFORE taking the disk out...

Do not touch that computer. Not even while wearing gloves. It is a biohazard

John 110
Boffin

Re: Taking the piss?

Just urine? pffft, lightweight!

What's brown and sticky and broke this PC?

John 110
Coffee/keyboard

Didn't think it was chocolate

I worked in a diagnostic microbiology lab where they processed samples from every area of the body you could imagine (and quite a few you probably shouildn't). When the keyboards on the bench PCs stopped working I threw the dead one in the autoclave and supplied a new cheapy one from my store.

The story of how I persuaded computer services to allow me to purchase a quantity of keyboards has been told before. Suffice it to say, it involved inviting them round to see the lab and making sure we were processing "special" stuff that day. My purchase requests for keyboards and mice were never turned down again...

WTF? Potty-mouthed intern's obscene error message mostly amused manager

John 110

Strictly speakin there isnae an apostaphe in "disnae" (or "speakin" or isnae) 'cause they're actual words, not abbreviations or dialect. So dinnae tre tae pit wan in!

New year, new bug – rivalry between devs led to a deep-code disaster

John 110
Headmaster

Re: Rewriting in assember 'to go faster'?

@martinusher

Might be handy to go back and read some of the earlier comments rather than just jumping in.

[HINT: this is Amiga era software...]

Sysadmin's favorite collection of infallible utilities failed … foully

John 110
Thumb Up

I used to defrag my Amiga HD regularly. Start it going and plonk the kids down in front (they were very young) of it to watch the little squares fly about. An easy way to get a quiet couple of hours to drink coffee.

Bank boss hated IT, loved the beach, was clueless about ports and politeness

John 110

I didn't know you could actually force a printer USB plug into the socket on the printer upside down, but Liz managed...

User read the manual, followed instructions, still couldn't make 'Excel' work

John 110

@Prst. V Jeltz

It's always worthwhile making a personal visit to someone who can grease the wheel that usually grind your work to a halt. In my case it was the Prof's secretary. Nice woman, but couldn't save a document properly, but she knew which forms to fill in and ALWAYS got the Prof to sign them...

PS Prst. I don't know if your post does anything towards counterpointing the surrealism of the underlying metaphor...

Why have just one firewall when you can fire all the walls?

John 110
Boffin

Re: "could hear the telescope motors start humming"

"Sounds very much like software written by scientists rather than engineers."

Sounds very much like software lashed together at the last minute and in somebody's "spare" time by scientists rather than engineers.

There, fixed that for you.

Lawyer guilty of arrogance after ignoring tech support

John 110

Re: Are you sure, this isn't the plot of an IT Crowd epsiode?

We had a nice IT lady who,when she answered a ticket like these, would tell the punter that they had a batch of faulty cables and could they check the serial number on theirs. Most people said something like "Oh, it's fixed itself" and hung up at this point....

CompSci academic thought tech support was useless – until he needed it

John 110
Coat

Re: "supposed expert who turned out to be anything but"

When they were issued with laptops, I suggested that it might be beneficial for our medical staff to attend basic computer classes set up be the NHS Trust I worked for. I was told "but that's wht we have you, isn't it?"

(I was ACTUALLY told "why would I keep a dog, but bark myself?" but that comment was rescinded when I mentioned it to my line manager.)

It's 2023, so Lenovo made a bendy smartphone concept all about hybrid cloud AI

John 110

Isn't it...

...the terror of the Autons...

One door opens, another one closes, and this one kills a mainframe

John 110
FAIL

Re: IBM, too, maybe...

That was how I discovered that you're not supposed to fill the boot of your car with paving slabs. Going round corners was a bit problematic...

That's gas: CO2 found on Europa surface may hint at some possible sign of life

John 110
Pint

It's

It's spill over from the beer pumps...

That's no moon!!!

How is this problem mine, techie asked, while cleaning underground computer

John 110
Angel

Re: Dirt

Yes, very good.

BMS = BioMedical Scientist

Since 1971, we've been :

Medical Laboratory Technician (MLT)

Medical Laboratory Scientist (MLS)

Medical Laboratory Scientific Officer (MLSO)

and currently BMS (see above)

NOT Lab Technicians (apparently)

John 110
Boffin

Re: Dirt

I did first line IT support for a diagnostic bacteriology lab. The hospital also had a Computer Services Unit who did complicated stuff, and had to sign off on all IT equipment supplies. After the second time I unstuck nameless gunk from a lab keyboard, I thought sod this and put in an order for ten of the cheapest keyboards I could find. CSU denied the request and told me that I could ask them for a new keyboard if I needed one, and they would take the old ones away and clean them.

I invited their boss to come over and have a look. When he arrived, I did the full visitor's thing -- plastic "one-size-fits-all" lab coat, latex gloves for them and a Howie coat buttoned up to the neck and gloves for me, then took them down to the Faeces Lab. I didn't let them look through the door window, I took them right inside to witness the staff prepare faeces for culture, then move to the PC and enter the details of what they'd just done. (Mostly, the guys took off their gloves before touching the keyboard, but gloves are starchy and their fingers leave gunk all over the keyboard -- also at busy times, the gloves just stayed on.)*

As we came out of the lab, I showed the CSU guy where to wash his hands (and made him do it twice.) He ok'd the requisition there and then and always sent round a minion if anything needed done in the future.

[*If you've never worked in Microbiology, you should know that the gloves are precautionary and folk who habitually got -- matter -- on their hands would face the wrath of Dave, the senior BMS]

PEBCAK problem transformed young techie into grizzled cynical sysadmin

John 110
Joke

Re: Enter Password

"...Members of my family are terrified that they will lose the contents of their bank account or have their ID pinched if they click on the wrong thing,.."

Congratulations, you have done a perfect job as Technical Support (Unpaid Branch). Your reward is getting less "but I only pressed...." conversations.

Brit healthcare body rapped for WhatsApp chat sharing patient data

John 110
Black Helicopters

Re: Whatsapp gave them a heady taste of efficient clinical communication

I'm going to get political here. I'll assume the Reg picked this story up from mainstream media, who take any opportunity to promote their "SNP-bad" agenda. And NHS Lanarkshire is Scottish of course. I'm sure that other health areas used similar potentially breaching technologies, but just got on with it (and away with it).

PS don't take my word for the bias, Compare the daily headlines on BBC news for Scotland vs UK. The BBC agenda quickly becomes obvious.

Opportunity NUCs for Asus to continue Intel's mini PC line

John 110

Re: overpriced

I'm pretty sure that was Michael Miles...

So I'm not going to give it 5.

Turning a computer off, then on again, never goes wrong. Right?

John 110
Coat

aaah, NHS IT....

Perennially underfunded and understaffed. Arnie will have been under pressure from the end users to fix the problem, whatever it took, 'cause we need it now! (now usually means occasionally (to print out holiday details...))

I worked IT support for a diagnostic lab. My brief was to fiddle about with some half-arsed resourse management software strung together in a DOS spreadsheet by someone on a fixed term grant (who got a real job before they were finished) and to help our less-than-PC-savvy staff come to grips with a new lab reporting system (this was mid 90's -- any staff who had used a computer had had a ZX Spectrum or C64 as a kid.)

As is usually the case, the job expanded to cover looking after all the PCs in the department (there was a central IT services, but you could wait weeks for them to fix anything) and as lab automation spread into microbiology, I was expected to liaise with the companies supply the analyzers and the lab system to make sure they talked to one another. -- Oh, and I was on my own with holiday cover provided by the world famous "it'll keep until I get back, or you could ask Ian in biochem..."

So I walked through the door after a relaxing week of looking after the kids (school holidays) to be asked to look at the ELISA machine that had stopped talking to the lab system. I wandered down to the lab. No analyser.

"Where's the analyser" "We moved it to the lab 2 doors down". Nobody had mentioned this before I went off...

I located the missing machine and sat down to diagnose the problem. The PC and the analyser (RS232 connection) were talking, but no results were making it to the lab system. Checked that the PC was plugged into a node point. Check (surprise, I was). But there was no network connection.

"You did have this node made live, didn't you?" "The whatnow?"

Sorted that day by a quick grovelly phone call to Network support.

"But only 'cause I'm going to be in that area anyway!" "Thanks Denise"

Decision to hold women-in-cyber events in abortion-banning states sparks outcry

John 110

Re: This!

@Headley_grange

I hope you've misunderstood my comment. See the post above mine (by Intractable Potsherd) for clarification. If that hasn't cleared anything up, then allow me to paraphrase. Giving children drugs that'll screw up their hormones forever or chopping their bits off without being _really_ sure that that is what is needed (spoiler: it probably isn't) is child abuse.

I also hope you realise that this problem is world-wide and not just in these weird places in the USA.

John 110
Thumb Up

This!

"...These laws are not "anti" anything - they are pro-child welfare..."

Gen Z and Millennials don't know what their colleagues are talking about half the time

John 110

tl;dr

BOFH: Get me a new data file or your manager finds out exactly what you think of him

John 110
Flame

Infinite loop websites

For a truly insanity-inducing experience, try registering to report Capital Gains in the UK without a passport or driving license (they claim to accept other forms of proof of identity, but don't seem to have anywhere that they ask for them or that you can supply them...).

After wandering round the Gov website in an infinite loop for a couple of days, I finally tried a websearch which pointed me at a user forum (on the Gov website) where countless other people were complaining about the same thing and some kind soul finally posted a Gov.uk address where you could download and print the forms.

NHS England spends £8M to extend Microsoft deals by a month

John 110
Coat

Re: Maybe not Linux but Office maybe ditchable

"A threat to move to Libre Office ought to be perfectly viable to carry through with."

Many, many moons ago I provided it support for a diagnostic lab in a Scottish hospital. IT services decided (rightly IMHO) that not every single hospital PC needed Microsoft Office. It didn't go well.

First they chose Open Office, then never updated it (at that time MS compatibility was still being worked on). File interchangeability with those Luddites that still used MS Office was awful!

Second, they listened to those people who "can't do without MS office -- ooh, this new one LOOKS different..ew". (quick sidenote -- this was before ribbons, so there wasn't that much difference between interfaces)

What should they have done? They should have insisted! If they had switched everyone over to Open Office and allowed no substitutes except for proven exceptional cases (we had an analyser that only exported it's results to a PC with Excel on it, and refused if it didn't find it; the supplies department relied heavily on Excel Macros)

Instead, the Open Office installations were quietly dropped from the images used to upgrade desktops to Windows XP (I think...)

I still think they were right to drop MS Office, it was costing a fortune and sitting on (in my lab) 30 PCs where all it was used for was reading the *.doc files that the upper floor aristocracy used to disseminate info via email. And it was the same in all areas of the hospital.

It would be easier now with LibreOffice file compatibility being better than ever, but of course, now we have the "where's the ribbon" crowd...

BOFH: Ah. Company-branded merch. So much better than a bonus

John 110
Coat

Re: Mindfulness gifts

@Kevin McMurtie

"Company logo clothing"

My son worked for the software part of an oil industry support company. They were all entitled to free offshore jackets with the company logo embroidered on it. Not survival, but good quality stuff, light and wind- and weatherproof with an inside pocket that can hold an A4 clipboard. I appropriated it when he left the company and was going to throw it out.

Tupperware looking less airtight than you'd think

John 110

Re: wait till they rot

@Ken Moorhouse

Do we need to know why you require space in your freezer for guests...

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