Posts by garbski

Let's play... Force off the power to someone else's datacenter systems

21st Century - still 20th Century problems

30+ years in IT trying to convince people that yes, it is possible for someone to get in the 'back door' and wreck havoc. So I proved it one day to the sysadmin by hacking onto his machine and saying 'Hi Ray' after he was going on and on about everything was locked down and secure (I worked remotely, of course). So at least after that, they listened to me.

You can never have too many backups. Also, you can never have too many backups

Park the what?

We had a little stand-alone p.c., with a tiny monitor whose only purpose was to send information to FHA and VA via a dedicated phone line. Every night I had to 'park' the drive using this complicated procedure of shutting it down, hitting a button that disconnected the drive (I think, wasn't in IT at the time, just a lowly administrative assistant who automated FHA and VA reporting on a dare but before 'lightning fast interwebs'). Then I had to start it up again to verify it and write down the number that displayed in a log, which then I verified with the number before. Every day. I myself documented what to do, but that wasn't enough. So I had to come in on Saturday and Sunday morning and do it even though nobody had anything to transport. Well, clever me decided to skip the weekend on the theory that nothing would happen.

Flash forward to 1994 and the Northridge Earthquake. The whole building was a mess and a ceiling tile took out the poor little computer. When I was finally allowed to enter the building, walking up stairs that were still a little crooked and groaned in places, I reached my floor along with two IT guys. We go over and look at the destroyed mess. One quips "well did you park the drive?"

Bank fail: Ready or not, here's our new software

They did what?

My bank is so bad that if the person who does the incoming bank transfers goes on vacation, nothing gets done until they get back. I'm serious. Nothing. I have an automatic deposit of my paycheck. It gets there Thursday but apparently the person who "pushes the button" has that day off. So they do it first thing Friday. They told me that one day when I called in. And no, I can't close my account or the charity fund I'm maintaining will start getting charged $2.00 a month for the privilege of having an account there.And don't get me started on the last time they upgraded and lost everybody's passwords. Everybody's.