Posts by WhoAmI?

Techie's one ring brought darkness by shorting a server

BZZZT. Oh.

Many moons ago I worked in hardware maintenance. We had contracts for a county council (no names, no pack drill), and they had a problem with a monitor attached to an old Amstrad PC (the first ones they did). These particular PCs had the PSU for the whole thing buried in the monitor rather than a separate ones for display, CPU etc. One power cable means less mess, right?. Amstrad had obviously learned a lot from their CPC range of home computers.

I turned the monitor on, saw that nothing happened, and went for it. I did the usual of re-solder the joints on the tube neck PCB, checked for dry joints elsewhere, checked a few capacitors, and made sure that the distinctive smell of magic smoke was not present. With the case of the monitor still sat on the floor, I reached to the back of the monitor and pushed the power button.

After a fleeting, well known tingle, all the lights went out in the room I was in. And the un-occupied room next door. The wall sockets weren't working either. It turns out that the tingle was due to my little finger resting across the two solder points of the main fuse in the monitor and throwing the RCD. It turns out that little fingers are amazingly good conductors of 240v AC electricity.

I found my site contact, made my excuses, said I needed to take the monitor to the workshop for repair, and left quickly.

As a follow-up to little fingers being good conductors, I once discharged a different CRT monitor through me by having said small phalange touching the screwdriver I was using to short the tube to earth before dismantling it. That was in the workshop though so no real damage done.

CompSci teacher sets lab task: Accidentally breaking the university

Re: I crashed one of two graphics domains

Yup. UKC in the Cornwallis building

I crashed one of two graphics domains

When a mere spotty undergraduate in 1991, I was working on my final year project. The official title of the project was "The parallel computation of iterative fractals", but what it really was was "calculate the Mandelbrot set on Transputers". The Transputers were on a Meiko Computing Surface (MCS), and was the most powerful system the university owned.

The MCS sat in a little room next to the main machine room, and its processors were split into several domains of various processor counts, and two of them contained a graphics board. We didn't always have direct access to it (researchers sometimes wanted to use it) so we had to use text or X terminals dotted around campus. These didn't have the means to output graphics from the MCS so I implemented a text output option which still ran on the graphical domain for the odd occasion I wanted to test.

We were generally displaying graphical results in a 1280x1024 resolution, but this wasn't suitable for text so I normally lowered it to something like 50x50 when at a terminal. Note the word "normally" as this is important. One time, whilst sat at a DEC Station, I connected to the domain, wired up the processors, loaded my code, and hit "RUN". I should have taken the other meaning of "RUN" into consideration as a survival technique. I'd forgot to lower the resolution and was trying to output quite a lot of data to a terminal session which, oddly enough, did not have a terminal capable of displaying 1280 characters on a line. This also wasn't a gigabit network so it was going to take some time. I experienced a classic "Oh F***" second, hastily did the CTRL-C so beloved of failures, and hoped for the best.

The program running didn't quit, but the link to the MCS did. I tried to re-connect to the domain but it thought it already had an active connection (which it did - mine - but was now dead). Unfortunately, the process on the graphics domain carried on churning out text data to a session no longer connected, and then sat there waiting to find out what I wanted to do. A quick chat with one of the MCS admins confirmed my fears - the domain was locked to my session and could not be stopped without rebooting the whole MCS. A reboot wasn't scheduled for a couple of days. I'd locked one of two graphics domains on the most powerful system the university owned through a simple absence of a comment marker.

I got on with my project diary and kept my head down for a week.

Assassin's Creed maker faces GDPR complaint for forcing single-player gamers online

Ubisoft, like HP, is someone I don't buy from

I used to play The Crew. It was a fun driving/racing game. Unfortunately, Ubisoft published it and, as a result, required an always on internet connection to be playable. It was a multiplayer game, but I only ever played single player. When they decided to kill the servers it reported back to the game was dead. No way to run it in the slightest. No patch, no advice, no anything. They've taken your money so you can play, but then killed the ability to do so. Since then, I've actively avoided Ubisoft games if possible, and certainly wouldn't pay for on now. A freebie is OK though.

The usual thing of "You never owned the game, just a license to play it which could be revoked at any time" is their get-out clause. It's the same with Steam as there's no way to gift your library to someone else when you die. I just plan on passing on my login and password to my offspring and let them carry on playing the games.

I miss the days of games on physical media, and an internet connection via a modem with a speed in the kbps range making constant data transmission to host servers impossible.

Re: Sorry, I don't care

And a fake IP address? If various bits of hardware are all sending snippets of information, but they all come from the same IP address, it's pretty easy to marry them all up to one profile. I doubt that a VPN would save you either

DIMM techies weren’t allowed to leave the building until proven to not be pilferers

Re: Brainless thief

It was like typing on velvet. Smooth, quiet, and responsive. I think the 480Z would be top of my wish-list for 8-bit micros but, as was said, it wasn't really seen outside of schools so finding one is like finding an honest politician

Wanted. Top infosec pros willing to defend Britain on shabby salaries

Low pay, good pension

Even base civil service jobs have pension contributions of about 25% from the employer That's going to beat anything a private company can do, and if you're thinking long term it's a good idea

Never put off until tomorrow what someone could erase today

Re: DAT - a technology we're sure few remember fondly

I worked in IT and we were in the process of updating the OS on machines from NT 4 to XP. We asked everyone to ensure that they backed up ALL their data before we did the deed.

We were scheduled to upgrade the machines in the security office. They all said "Yes, we've backed up our data" including the lady who used a ZIP drive for such a purpose. The deed was done and people copied their data back. All except the ZIP drive user - all her disks were blank.

We checked all the disks and she wasn't lying (never trust a user when they say something isn't working). Due to this we asked her to demonstrate her back up process (which she supposedly did every day). The process involved putting the ZIP disk into the internal drive, waiting for the light to stop flashing, ejecting the disk, and putting the disk into a fireproof safe. No software was run, no files copied manually, nothing. Yes, dear reader, she thought that the drive checking a disk was present was the backup process.

Her colleagues quickly educated her as to how backups should be performed. They also watched her like a hawk. I have no idea if they ever got the data back from somewhere else or if it needed to be re-entered manually (details on 500+ employees)

GCC 15 dropping IA64 support is final nail in the coffin for Itanium architecture

Itanic?

Given the choice of coding IA64 or drowning, Jack would have thrown himself off that door even if there was space

Standards-obsessed boss ignored one, and suffered all night for his sin

IT Manager to the rescue!

I worked for a company that held a company ball in a marquee on the sports field (don't ask). The marquee was also the location for our yearly conference.

One year during the conference there was a storm brewing, and the wind was getting up a bit to much. So much so, in fact, that people were getting nervous sat inside what could be considered a very large kite. The wind got stronger and one of the guy ropes valiantly gave up and came pinging out of the ground. This obviously made the post it was holding in position lean inwards quite a bit. One of the IT managers bravely pushed against the pole to save everyone whilst an evacuation was performed. Once the marquee was empty was out (apart from IT - always expendable), the manager let go of the pole and ran. He needn't have bothered - the post didn't move in the slightest and was held in place by the half mile of canvas and various hardwood posts holding up the rest of the marquee..

He still thought he'd saved the day. We didn't have the heart to tell him

I'll see your data loss and raise you a security policy violation

Sounds familiar

I worked for an insurance company (long since gone) and we were moving from Windows 3.11 to Windows NT 4.0. We weren't a rich company so we were upgrading the OS using the `ghost` application, one machine at a time (two if we had two floppy disks and a spare source hard drive)

Before each upgrade we visited or emailed the users and told them that they would lose everything that was not in the "C:\DATA" folder (which we had created for them when we built the machine in the first place). We stressed this several times as that was the only folder we were going to back up to the Netware 3.1.1 server (see the kinda era we're talking about here?) so if they wanted to keep it, the data needed to be in that folder and nowhere else. Everyone understood. We repeated it. They understood even more.

We spent weeks doing the upgrades one department at a time. We had smaller offices around the country (Glasgow to Bristol) so we'd visit for a day, do the deed, and then either head home or onto the next closest office (Newcastle and Glasgow were usually done in one trip over a couple of days. Where else was I going to get a proper Scotch Pie from?).

The only problem we had was at Head Office in the Finance Department. We did HO machines over night (mainly to minimise disruption, but also for the overtime). We'd spoken to the sub-head bean counter and he was ready. We backed up his DATA folder, ghosted the machine, then copied his documents folder back again. Job done. Beer deserved.

The next morning we got a phone call from sub-head bean counter asking where his data was. We told him that it was in his DATA folder. He replied:

SHBC: But I have data in other folders. I need that back too

IT: It's gone

SHBC: I need that data back. It's important

IT: We told you that we'd only back up the C:\DATA folder

SHBC: I thought you meant all my DATA folders, not just that one

IT: It's not happening. We didn't know about those other folders, and we don't have time to search hard drives for data

SHBC: But it's important company critical data

IT: Oops.

We had a good boss. Ken was big. Ken was scary. Ken was the one who decided what was allowed on his network. No one messed with Ken and, if he knew you didn't do anything wrong or had been proven guilty of something, he'd defend you to the end. He went and had "a chat" with said bean counter. Nothing was ever heard about it again. EVERYONE got their documents into the right folder after that

Virgin Galactic finally gets its first paying customers to edge of space

You're new here, aren't you

Techie wasn't being paid, until he taught HR a lesson

Not even names

I worked for a research company in IT support. One month I checked my balance and thought "Hmm. Ive spent a lot since payday that was 5 days ago" so I went in to the bank and asked for a mini statement which they duly provided. I could identify every payment going out, but it took me a couple of minutes to realise that nothing had gone in.

I went back to site and straight up to HR. They brought up my details on their system (all based around a system with a 3 letter name akin to what you get out of plants) and said "That's all there. Name correct. Address right. Can't see anything wrong". At this point I piped up and said "That's not my bank account"

Another employee had changed banks and informed HR. They changed their details which, for some reason, also updated mine. He got his and my (considerably less) pay. Confusingly, we had completely different names, different nationalities, and worked in completely different departments.

It took them a few days to get money to me. No idea how long it took them to get the excess back from him though

Inclusive Naming Initiative limps towards release of dangerous digital dictionary

Re: And by "solving" a non-problem ...

My favourite page. Ah, the memories...

Re: Nope.

Why has no one ever put forward an amendment to the Perl controllers that collections of functions are called a necklace?

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

Dell's help desk script

I used to work for a company that used Dell desktop machines. Occasionally one would come through DOA so we'd place a call to their help desk.

One particular DOA machine's hard drive sounded like a particularly irate badger trapped in a case containing a collections of spanners. I took the drive out and, yes, a screw had obviously been missed out on the thread-lock supply so a call went in.

The poor soul on the other end of the line ran through their script and, when they asked to hear the rattle that was being made, I held the drive to the phone and shook it a couple of times. They asked "Would I be correct in thinking that this drive isn't in a machine?" to which I replied "Yes, you would be right".

Dell: "Could you put it in to a machine and try it?"

Me: "Why?"

D: "Just to make sure it's the drive and not the machine causing it"

M: "If it's rattling outside of the machine when not powered up, it's going to be even worse in a machine"

D: "I need to hear it in a machine"

M: "But this is a waste of your and my time"

D: "I need to hear it in a machine"

M: "I used to hardware support to component level for a living and it's a faulty drive, not PC"

D: "I need to hear it in a machine"

M: "I've been doing this longer than you've been alive"

D: "I need to hear it in a machine"

And so into the machine it went. Power was applied at which point it sounded like two *really* pissed off badgers in the hardware aisle of B&Q.

And then into another machine just to be doubly sure that it was REALLY the drive and not a bad batch of PCs.

And that, dear readers, is why I could never work on a help desk with a script

Be careful where you install software, and who installs it

Re: Who is your customer?

Are you sure it wasn't the agency Protecting the Earth From The Scum of the Universe?

You need to RTFM, but feel free to use your brain too

Re: laser printer drums

Cover it with a towel? A TOWEL!? We'd have killed for a towel in our workshop! Expenses didn't cover anything as nice as a towel. We had to make do with delicately arranged sheets of A4 paper draped over said drum and hope that no one opened a door so it all flew away. Yes, Sellotape was also a luxury

It was great when Kyocera brought out their sapphire drums that could be left on the side for a while. So much easier

GitHub drops Atom bomb: Open-source text editor mothballed by end of year

Re: VSCode is great but...

Settings -> search for "copy "-> "Editor: Copy with syntax highlighting" -> off

Reg reader rages over Virgin Media's email password policy

To paraphrase Mr Spock...

The needs of the moron outweigh the needs of the savvy.

I've been using the generator in my Keepass installation to create the necessary password to the extent that I don't actually know the root password for my Linux machines. Admittedly, the actual password file storing all my secrests isn't password protected, but that's not what we're discussing here...

Server errors plague app used by Tesla drivers to unlock their MuskMobiles

I know a Tesla owner and knowing that they might have been locked out of their car gives me a warm glowing feeling.

Couldn't have happened to a nicer chap

UK Department for Education to schools: Maybe delay signing that 3-year licensing deal for MIS with Education Software Solutions

Re: This cannot be right

I once worked for a company that wanted to change the date that we got paid ("merger" with another bigger company meant we had to capitulate to their system). Obviously, we had to agree to this change so they sent an online form around.

The form had a single tick box saying "I agree to this change" and NOTHING ELSE. The only other thing on the form was a note saying that if we didn't complete and return the form they would take it that we had agreed to the change. There was nowhere to say no, give feedback etc.

That was back in the late 90's. Looks like not a lot has changed since then

Guntrader breach perp: I don't think it's a crime to dump 111k people's details online in Google Earth format

Re: Hope the perp's were intelligent Badgers

Nature's suction cups!

Fix five days of server failure with this one weird trick

Re: The "inspector"

Plot twist - you were the headteacher of the school

Don't be a fool, cover your tool: How IBM's mighty XT keyboard was felled by toxic atmosphere of the '80s

I don't think it's dribble they need to protect against judging by the excitement shown at some announcements

Hell hath no fury like a radar engineer scorned

Re: Can this inform the 5G debate?

Maxwell's Silver Hammer. I got that reference.

Azure, Office 365 go super-secure: Multi-factor auth borked in Europe, Asia, USA

I'm locked out of my account for work

so I've cleaned my bathroom instead

What's up with that ZX Spectrum reboot? Still no console

New definition for the Oxford English Dictionary

On the 29th of April, RCL tweeted "So the second batch of Vega+ units are selling fast. They are on pre-sale over here <link>".

I can't see how selling 15 units from a batch of 5000 is "fast". It's easy to find out how many they've sold - go to buy one, say you want 9000, and it comes back saying "We only have ---- in stock"

There's also a book you can buy a book called "The Making Of the Vega+" about how the Vega+ came to be. You may be able to find it in your local library at some point, but whether it's in the fiction or reference section is unknown...

Sysadmin shut down the wrong server, and with it all European operations

I was known in my team as Tommy Tourettes

You can guess why...

Due to Oracle being Oracle, Eclipse holds poll to rename Java EE (No, it won't be Java McJava Face)

Bitey McBytecode?

Thar she blows: Strava heat map shows folk on shipwreck packed with 1,500 tonnes of bombs

I seem to remember a report that said the resultant blast would have the capability to wipe out most of Sheerness, and send a tidal wave up the Thames Estuary and across to Southend. You can weigh up the pros and cons of this.

The Olau line ferries used to pass pretty close to it when they sailed out of Sheerness.

Another fun fact - Boris Johnson's idea of building an airport in the estuary would have involved getting rid of the Montgomery. I can just imagine him in goggles, snorkel, flippers, and a rubber ring wading into the water saying "Be back soon chaps"

Holy DUHK! Boffins name bug that could crack crypto wide open

Re: K

I got that reference!

BOFH: Free as in free beer or... Oh. 'Free Upgrade'

Sounds all to familiar

I remember when I was a lowly help desk bod. We bought new printers from a well known company which has a large research arm in America somewhere

New printers! Scan, fax, print, fast, A3, A4 and A5! Yummy!

After the engineer attempted to install the first printer, I told him I wasn't going to allow him to install the rest and risk leaving the company with no high capacity printing, and that I would do it instead. I un-boxed every machine, wheeled them around the buildings, opened every machine and connected the power supply board to the rest of the printer, upgrade the BIOS, faff around with drivers, and then get them all working with our fax software (which wasn't fun)

They worked OK after that

Maplin Electronics demands cash with menaces

Completely agree

More examples of Maplin's idea of competitive pricing

No name USB to MIDI.

Maplins - £29.99 (http://www.maplin.co.uk/p/usb-to-midi-adapter-cable-a03fk)

eBay - £3.49 (http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/USB-to-MIDI-Cable-Converter-Adapter-for-PC-Keyboard-Music-2M-USB-MIDI-Cable-M3EO-/221952177214?hash=item33ad61743e:g:tvEAAOSwnipWV86d)

USB Multi-card reader

Maplins - £16.99 (http://www.maplin.co.uk/p/e-blue-cadena-56-in-1-card-readerwriter-a39hq)

Poundland - £1

With bargains like that, they make PC World look like good value. And the people in PC World leave you alone if you're wearing headphones, even when they're not plugged into anything

Gates and Allen reshoot historic 1981 Microsoft photo

I can recognise a couple...I think

I think that next to Bill is a Superbrain

Looks like TRS-80 Model 1 at front right

Am I showing my age now?

BOFH: Can't you just ... NO, I JUST CAN'T

Re: The first one broke

An office chair. Quite impressive as the gas-riser *and* the cushion couldn't save the bat.

Sounds familiar

We used to keep a baseball bat in the office and just start bouncing it on the floor when someone started to annoy us with requests.

Users didn't know it was our second bat. The first one broke

MYSTERY programming language found in Duqu

What about...

MUMPS? That's pretty damn unreadable