* Posts by JeffB

53 publicly visible posts • joined 17 Apr 2020

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When management went nuclear on an innocent software engineer

JeffB
Mushroom

Prime example

This is a prime example of a little bit of knowledge potentially being extremely dangerous

Microsoft tests ‘Suggested Actions’ in Windows 11. Insiders: Can we turn it off?

JeffB
Big Brother

Re: Clippy

It's Clippy's revenge!!

Not to dis your diskette, but there are some unexpected sector holes

JeffB

Re: Closest I've seen...

Was that the 'Minimise to system tray' option? It's caught a few people out over the years

JeffB

Re: I bow before such experience

"I never even knew there was such a thing as a hard-sector discs."

Neither had I, but the tagline made me think it was going to be some overenthusiastic hole punch work...

JeffB

Re: Closest I've seen...

I work in a college, our students sometimes do that to one another, or plug 2 keyboards/mice into one PC...

Saving a loved one from a document disaster

JeffB

Re: The joy...

If I know them well enough, my usual retort is "What have you broken now...??"

JeffB

Re: The joy...

"Sorry to bother you, but..."

That runs a close second to my least favourite phrase: "Whilst you're here...."

Software guy smashes through the Somebody Else's Problem field to save the day

JeffB

Re: It's a sad day for this IT rag...

I tried following Hitchhiker's, both the BBC2 series and the film, but found them to be great cures for insomnia, so it has never received more than 10 minutes of my attention.

You've stolen the antiglare shield on that monitor you've fixed – they say the screen is completely unreadable now

JeffB

Re: HAZMAT suit please, nurse, gloves please!

I commented on here 2 or 3 years ago about someone using a dishwasher to clean keyboards, especially in the PS2 era, you just need to be sure they are properly dried before plugging in

Microsoft adds Buy Now, Pay Later financing option to Edge – and everyone hates it

JeffB

Re: Kill it now

Windows 10 is no better, when it feels like it. I've lost count of the number of times it has ignored default browser and default PDF reader changes made by the user, sometimes popping up that there is a problem with the chosen PDF reader so it is setting back to default. Since when has the developer of the technology been a problem? (apart from Flash, of course...)

Swooping in to claim the glory while the On Call engineer stands baffled

JeffB
Pint

It's all about the bass

Many years ago I worked in a city centre ale house which had one of the new fangled CD jukeboxes installed, it was a large alehouse with speakers dotted around the walls, but there was also a speaker in the bottom of the freestanding jukebox unit. All was well Sunday to Thursday, but come Friday & Saturday evening the CDs started skipping.

An engineer was duly called, on multiple occasions, each time they were baffled, but convinced that it was just dirt on the discs. So each time they went through cleaning each individual disc (there was 100 of them), but the next Friday or Saturday evening the music was skipping Norman Collier style again. After a couple of weeks of this I suggested that the speaker in the bottom of the jukebox was causing the problem, as the volume was cranked up on a Friday and Saturday night, this was putting more and more vibration into the unit. The engineers dismissed my suggestion and continued trying to clean the discs, but still didn't cure the problem.

A couple of weeks later I turned up for work to find a shiny new speaker mounted on the wall above the jukebox, the one in the bottom of the unit having been disconnected and the wiring redirected. Lo and behold, no more skipping discs, so the lowly barman was right all along!!

Sharing is caring, except when it's your internet connection

JeffB
Holmes

WiFi parking!!

Remember the tales of people sitting in their cars outside people's houses so they could nick their WiFi? I believe some even went to court for it!

Not too bright, are you? Your laptop, I mean... Not you

JeffB
WTF?

Re: me too - Push off!!

We had a batch of laptops (can't remember the make) which had a push on/push off switch on the front edge for the WiFi, user pushes the laptop back to create some space to do their paperwork, pulls laptop forward later to find they have no network...

Try placing a pot plant directly above your CRT monitor – it really ties the desk together

JeffB

Re: Adjust the monitor settings?

Good old percussive maintenance, still practiced by Simon Travaglia on manglement!!

Where's the boss? Ah right, thorough deep-dive audit. On the boardroom table. Gotcha

JeffB
Coat

Dirty raincoats included?

Hmmmmm, how to cool that overheating CPU, if only there was a solution...

JeffB

Water main street

Should the headline not have been 'Water main street'?

Ouch! When the IT equipment is sound, but the setup is hole-y inappropriate

JeffB

Re: Laptops are good for this

Removing all the labels? They're embossed in the underside of the casing, don't you know...

JeffB
FAIL

Which orifice??

With the modern slim power jacks from some manufacturers, it's perfectly possible to fit them into the audio jack socket... Believe me, I have resolved a couple of non-charging laptop issues with this one already!!

Protip: If Joe Public reports that your kit is broken, maybe check that it is actually broken

JeffB

Sev 6

Ahhh, good old IBM Sev 6, I've logged a few of those in my time when the (ab)user has let slip what really happened (e.g. biro on keyboard when shutting laptop lid...)

(needs a dollar bill icon!!)

JeffB

Up time

Why did Microshaft get rid of the up time/logged-in time on the 'CTRL + ALT + DEL' screen? The number of fibs I've caught out with that in the past...

Don't cross the team tasked with policing the surfing habits of California's teens

JeffB

Re: Free school meals

The college where I work all of the students have electronic ID badges which can be used to pay for goods, those eligible for a bursary (free meals) get it added to their account automatically

Their 'next job could be in cyber': UK Cyber Security Council launches itself by pointing world+dog to domain it doesn't own

JeffB

Re: Why?

I thought it was the Judean People's Front...

JeffB

Re: dot org - not just for charities

The one that always puzzled me was NorthernRail.org, they were not a charity, quango, regulator or non-profit...

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

JeffB
Coffee/keyboard

Dishwashers

I remember reading an article many years ago in one of the many IT publications that somebody used to put grotty keyboards through a dishwasher to divest them of various layers of gunk and detritus, the author said that provided they were given sufficient time to dry out completely before hooking up to the computer they were perfectly usable

JeffB
FAIL

Re: Smoking

Re: Smoking/non-smoking sections.

I remember when the food court at Euston station introduced a non-smoking section, it was on the mezzanine. So not only did you have to walk through all of the smokers to reach it, but all of the smoke then drifted up towards you...

Rookie's code couldn't have been so terrible that it made a supermarket spontaneously combust... right?

JeffB
FAIL

Re: Copmputer room shutdown

Or the UPS was duff (nothing new there...)

How do you save an ailing sales pitch? Just burn down the client's office with their own whiteboard

JeffB
Mushroom

Re: Interviews

Chatting to an engineer who was busy doing a warranty repair on a PC at the college where I work, the subject of switchable power supplies came up. He once had to visit a school and replace about 20 power supplies in PCs in the library, it turns out that one of the students had spotted the voltage switch on the PSU and flicked it to see what happened... Apparently he was quite enamoured with the sound, light and smoke effect, so proceeded to flick more voltage switches, until one of the staff caught him!!

Two clichés, one headline: 'No good deed goes unpunished' and 'It's always DNS'

JeffB
WTF?

Re: My Manager!

A now retired (thankfully) manager

Me: I need to concentrate on some project work

Boss: No problem

10 mins later: PING!! Email for a BAU job dropped into my queue... FFS!!

The Novell NetWare box keeps rebooting over and over again yet no one has touched it? We're going on a stakeout

JeffB
Coffee/keyboard

Re: Of chairs and telephones

Of fingers and telephones...

One site I worked at had a Siemens phone system, instead of the more usual button and microswitch receiver detection, they used an IR light beam. One of my colleagues was on a call one day and getting bored, he looked at the receiver recess and noticed that dirt was gathering so he used his finger to clear the fluff ball, cue a broken IR beam and dropped call....

Watchdog urges Tesla to recall 158,000 Model S, X cars to fix knackered NAND flash that borks safety features

JeffB

Re: Great

"Most other manufacturers seem to know or have learnt that critical components require their own, independent dials/knobs."

Try telling that to Citroen, we have a C4 Grand Picasso as our pool car at work and EVERYTHING other than the normal binacle dials works through the touchscreen infotainment system

45 million medical scans from hospitals all over the world left exposed online for anyone to view – some servers were laced with malware

JeffB
Paris Hilton

Re: Who is at fault?

Back-end penetrability... Fnar, fnar!!

Oh, no one knows what goes on behind locked doors... so don't leave your UPS in there

JeffB
FAIL

Re: Not quite a power lead...

Which, presumably, was behind said security door...

For every disastrous rebrand, there is an IT person trying to steer away from the precipice

JeffB

Re: It's not just our business

The Hyundai Kona just reminds me of a coffee maker...

Who knew that hosing a table with copious amounts of cubic metres would trip adult filters?

JeffB

Or that famous Hebridean village that describes many politicians...

When even a power-cycle fandango cannot save your Windows desktop

JeffB

Re: Potted plants

Potted plants!! That could describe some of the users...

The engineer lurking behind the curtain: Musical monitors on a meagre IT budget

JeffB

Re: Screen upgrades

Yep, the rest of the staffroom were in uproar, but she was like 'What have I said??'

JeffB
Facepalm

Screen upgrades

One of our tutors is infamous for having huge stack of paperwork bot on and surrounding her desk, one day she called the helldesk to say that her monitor wouldn't work and that she had checked all of the cabling. I knew she only had a 15" monitor and as a CAD tutor she would appreciate a larger screen, so I took a 17" one along with me.

I got to her desk and eventually found the root cause of the problem, the power was turned off at the socket, but said socket was hidden by all of her paperwork... As I'd taken a 17" monitor along with me I swapped it in anyway, but it would no longer fit into the recess between all of her stack of paperwork. When she came back into the staffroom she said 'Thanks for the monitor, I can tell it's a bigger one, because it doesn't fit into my slot any more...'

Fancy a steaming portion of Kentucky Fried Bork? A fingerlickin' flub that's pure poultry in motion

JeffB

Re: Waste of a PC - why not use a digital signage solution

Each one probably has a NUC on a cradle behind the screen, rather than a full size PC, that's what we use for the digital signage at the college where I work anyway

Quick thinking and an explanation for everything – key CTO qualities

JeffB
Paris Hilton

Dr Pr0n

Many years ago I worked in the business machines section of a Staples Office Superstore. A doctor had purchased a PC from us, but about a month later it wouldn't boot up, so he brought it in for us to look at (with wife and children in tow). As I recall, a few simple BIOS tweaks resolved the issue and said machine burst into life. Just to be sure, we ran it for about 10 minutes, rummaging through the internet history and temp files for good measure. The amount of Pr0n was astonishing, I wonder if his wife knew....

The power of Bill compels you: A server room possessed by a Microsoft-hating, Linux-loving Demon

JeffB
Coffee/keyboard

Re: Power!

Faulty keyboards and mice, where the fault is not immediately obvious (e.g. missing/broken keys) get the same treatment SNIP!!

Pass that Brit guy with the right-hand drive: UK looking into legalising automated lane-keeping systems by 2021

JeffB

Re: re: Is this the final triumph of the middle lane hogger ?

Nah!! All new BMWs with those hideously huge grilles...

What evil lurks within the data centre, and why is it DDoS-ing the ever-loving pants off us?

JeffB
Facepalm

Re: Updates are important!

Or of developers believing everyone has the same shiny new kit that they do...

Developing complex teaching materials on a 24" monitor, then wondering why students are struggling to make sense of them on an old 17" monitor

JeffB
Pint

Update (mis)-scheduling

I used to work on a helpdesk at one of the large outsourcing companies, there were a number of teams ranged across a large open plan office, each team servicing a number of clients. There were a number fo sites across the country, so their internal IT support was centrally managed (in India). Microsoft roll out their major patches on a Tuesday (good ol' patch Tuesday...) and there's a reason for this that was obviously slightly lost on out internal IT support.

They were in the habit of downloading the patch Tuesday updates, running their own tests, then uploading them to WSUS and timed to go out over the weekend, all sounds fine and dandy. However, in the UK we were taught to turn our computers off over the weekend to save power, so we all came in on Monday morning, the busiest day of the week, and turned our computers on. Needless to say, within half an hour, when the phone lines were red hot, you could hear a wave of curses spreading across the floor as people's computers started rebooting to install the updates, putting the entire helpdesk operation into meltdown.

After about a year of this mayhem the Indian boys finally got a rap across the knuckles and re-timed the WSUS release for 2pm UK time on a Friday

Because that's beer o clock, innit??

Keep it Together, Microsoft: New mode for vid-chat app Teams reminds everyone why Zoom rules the roost

JeffB
Headmaster

Zoom banned...

I work in education, so we are already tied in to Microsoft's environment through their free Office 365 offering, including Teams. We have also banned the use of Zoom, and will not support it, until such time as they sort their privacy and security issues out...

Beware the fresh Windows XP install: Failure awaits you all with nasty, big, pointy teeth

JeffB
Childcatcher

Rats' (mouse) nest...

I work in IT support at a large college, we offer equestrian courses at a farm a few miles away where we rent out classroom and office space. In order to provide IT access for the little darlings in this space which has no options for upgrade, we supply laptops, which are stored in a metal charging cabinet, which has rather large ventilation holes in it... Needless to say, the local mouse population (of which there are many on a farm) found this nice cosy spot, safe from the farm cat, where they could bed down.

One of my colleagues went out to the farm during the summer recess, after the teaching areas had not been used for a few weeks, to install some updates on the laptops. They found copious amounts of nesting material, droppings and mice (both alive and dead) and spent half the day clearing up the aftermath and noting how many chargers needed replacing. So glad I dodged that one....

'One rule for me, another for them' is all well and good until it sinks the entire company's ability to receive emails

JeffB
Facepalm

Re: Good riddance

I once worked on an outsourced helpdesk, one of the guys there was always asking for assistance with the simplest of support calls, or giving incorrect advice. I won't give his full name for fear of a lawsuit, but he gained the nickname behind his back of 'Useless Eustace'.

A few years later I was contracting at another outsourcer, I happened to look at the user profiles on the PC I was using and spotted a familiar name. I turned to one of my colleagues and said 'Oh, I see you've had XXXXX working here', his response was 'You mean Useless Eustace...?'

JeffB

Re: Perfect Mail Client

One of the best features in Lotus Notes, which has STILL not been ported into Outlook by Microshaft, is the ability to detach attachments and save them to separate storage, thereby maintaining the audit trail but saving space on the Domino/Exchange server. We have enough trouble with full mailboxes where I work as it is, current circumstances have just exacerbated the problem!!

If Daddy doesn't want me to touch the buttons, why did they make them so colourful?

JeffB
Windows

Re: More of a Who Me? except he got away with it

"When it died after 12 years we replaced it with a new equivalent model, no where near the same build quality or plastic used, feels really flimsy!"

Sounds like HP's current range of printers...

Brit MP demands answers from Fujitsu about Horizon IT system after Post Office staff jailed over accounting errors

JeffB

Re: WTF? Harold Shipman

"Fujitsu and Post Office technicians remotely accessed accounts to correct the balances, unknown to the sub-postmasters"

Shipman was, in part, convicted on computer forensic evidence, having found to be modifying patient records post mortem. Was forensic evidence presented in these (now discredited) cases, and if so, how accurate and truthful was it?

7*7 = a simple equation for taking total control of multiple VMware-powered clouds

JeffB

Windows sevens

That tag line reminded me of a very old hack in Windows 3.51 and maybe even early editions of 95. Back in the day when Windows serial numbers did not contain any letters, somebody spotted that they were always divisible by 7, so you could just mash away at the 7 key, hit OK and you were licensed...

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