Reminds me of the time I ran one of the first Netware 4 courses and was introducing the students to the graphical tool for managing NDS. I was showing them the icons for all the resources, users and groups in the tree. One black guy piped up "Why are there no icons for black people?" - which was a valid point and fortunately was said light-heartedly. I think we agreed that the figures were 'generic people'. I did offer to forward his question to Novell, but he wasn't really that bothered.
More AC fun - all in the same room - as refurbed into a computer room in the 1980s by the in-house maintenance team:
1) They re-lined the walls, but also boxed in the radiators without turning them off - we had numerous AC engineers turning up and scratching their heads while they re-did their thermal load calculations until we realised our walls were warm to the touch.
2) They put the AC stat on a pillar by the windows so in the summer, the heat radiation falling on the stat from outside made the AC run harder than required, which we really didn't notice as the room was 'cold', but come winter, the AC often wouldn't kick in until we had the stat relocated.
Best cock-up I saw was a computer room with a 4ft under-floor void. There should have been a 4 inch void, but there was a major cock-up between architects and builders. The floor panels sat on some spookily-sized pillars (which must have been specially made) and the IT staff actually put some servers under the floor.
On the several occasions I have been in this situation, I have just phoned Microsoft, said that I have reinstalled Vista/7 on a machine following a repair and it won't reactivate and they have taken me through the manual process using my legitimate licence key and sorted it.
Have to admit, Microsoft have always been helpful when this has happened.
If the cost of attendance and video streaming is worrying you, why not just persuade your local ATM to provide the cash for you. I believe there was a presentation about this..but then things get recursive...
"...and some poor sysadmin with a high fever and a headache capable of killing large farm animals has to stumble to work to fix something that someone broke,..."
Amen to that - I fell seriously ill on the last day of a holiday about 2hr drive from home. I also have T2 diabetes, which just added to the fun. I emailed my boss in the afternoon of that last day to say I would be staying over until I was fit for travel. My boss responded the next morning to enquire whether I was coming in to work and I replied when I managed to wake up and crawl out of bed at around 11am that I was staying another day then someone was driving me home via my doctor (who subsequently signed me off work for 2 weeks with strong antibiotics for a serious chest infection).
Anyway, when I got home there was a hand delivered letter from work inviting me to a disciplinary hearing upon my return for failing to notify my boss of my absence from work prior to the start of the working day (for the day I replied to his email at about 11).
Well, they went ahead with a formal disciplinary and put a first written warning on file, although that was only after I appealed against their initial decision to jump straight to a final written warning.
Yes, and I am the IT Manager who makes sure that the bankers and analysts have the hardware, software and comms tools to do their jobs. Right down the corridor is Michael's room - he's our maintenance guy - if he didn't empty my bin, keep the area tidy and make sure the lights stay on...
But we still have to leave our basements to visit the shops do we?
If only there was some way of telling the shops what we wanted and then they'd deliver them right to our door for mom to bring down.
WHA?
Next GE will be in trouble for copying their Lotus 123 V1.0 floppies.
Seriously, a DONGLE for UPS software?
I guess the software's pretty special..or...??
Indeed - we have a Draytek 2820 broadband wireless router at HQ and it can be setup with up to four SSIDs that can be individually rate limited and isolated from each other (if wanted), giving guest users only broadband access but no corporate LAN connectivity.
Back in the days when I taught customer service skills, one of the course modules was on benchmarking customer satisfaction and one of the points we went out of our way to emphasise was the difference between customer satisfaction and customer loyalty and how it was important to understand that each had a sweet spot which varied according to the type of business and the degree of competition in the market sector.
In crude terms:
1) You could be crap at providing your 'service' if the customers had no choice to use you because there was no alternative (although one big mistake that many organisations make is thinking they have a captive audience when customers have a 'do nothing' option), which equates to low satisfaction, high loyalty
or
2) You could spend a fortune bending over backwards to make the customer experience as fantastic as possible, but your customer base may still not be loyal - for example: if you have a choice of shops on the way home and need to buy some bread, you will generally choose the one that's most convenient even though all the local supermarkets are (probably) neat, clean and inviting. In this case, most customers would rate their local supermarkets as clean and friendly (high satisfaction), but would still opt to use the one that was most convenient when shopping 'on the fly' (low loyalty).
Facebook may earn low-ish satisfaction points, but they have high loyalty because once a user has established a base there, they are unlikely to move elsewhere (although they can of course, just stop using the service - the 'do nothing' customer option above), so Facebook has to determine what return (or improved return) they would get from investing on improving the service, and they might just consider the ROI to not be worth it.
;
; Wrist Test - see if user is gripping left front
; edge of mouse as this will cause drawing
; performance to drop-off ;
FUNCTION WristTest : Boolean;
Having spent two days last week trying to untangle the mess that Windows created when I tried to install SQL Server 2008 Management Studio on my Win 7 PC, leaving me with a copy of Office 2007 with no program icons and a "can't uninstall, can't reinstall" mess that I still haven't resolved, I am not sure that I consider Windows program installs to be totally pain-free all the time.
Slashdot Mirror
...and someone did tell him to fire up the server.
SAN shot first!
Reminds me of the time I ran one of the first Netware 4 courses and was introducing the students to the graphical tool for managing NDS. I was showing them the icons for all the resources, users and groups in the tree. One black guy piped up "Why are there no icons for black people?" - which was a valid point and fortunately was said light-heartedly. I think we agreed that the figures were 'generic people'. I did offer to forward his question to Novell, but he wasn't really that bothered.
Hey I can PING your computer from mine! Isn't the Internet great!
More AC fun - all in the same room - as refurbed into a computer room in the 1980s by the in-house maintenance team:
1) They re-lined the walls, but also boxed in the radiators without turning them off - we had numerous AC engineers turning up and scratching their heads while they re-did their thermal load calculations until we realised our walls were warm to the touch.
2) They put the AC stat on a pillar by the windows so in the summer, the heat radiation falling on the stat from outside made the AC run harder than required, which we really didn't notice as the room was 'cold', but come winter, the AC often wouldn't kick in until we had the stat relocated.
Best cock-up I saw was a computer room with a 4ft under-floor void. There should have been a 4 inch void, but there was a major cock-up between architects and builders. The floor panels sat on some spookily-sized pillars (which must have been specially made) and the IT staff actually put some servers under the floor.
What if I am a law-abiding citizen called John (or Jane) Doe - can I now countersue for libel and defamation, barratry etc.?
How does one deal with authentication issues like that if faced with an Law-Enforcement officer?
Aw. c'mon - look it up on Wikip...ah!
On the several occasions I have been in this situation, I have just phoned Microsoft, said that I have reinstalled Vista/7 on a machine following a repair and it won't reactivate and they have taken me through the manual process using my legitimate licence key and sorted it. Have to admit, Microsoft have always been helpful when this has happened.
If the cost of attendance and video streaming is worrying you, why not just persuade your local ATM to provide the cash for you. I believe there was a presentation about this..but then things get recursive...
"...and some poor sysadmin with a high fever and a headache capable of killing large farm animals has to stumble to work to fix something that someone broke,..."
Amen to that - I fell seriously ill on the last day of a holiday about 2hr drive from home. I also have T2 diabetes, which just added to the fun. I emailed my boss in the afternoon of that last day to say I would be staying over until I was fit for travel. My boss responded the next morning to enquire whether I was coming in to work and I replied when I managed to wake up and crawl out of bed at around 11am that I was staying another day then someone was driving me home via my doctor (who subsequently signed me off work for 2 weeks with strong antibiotics for a serious chest infection).
Anyway, when I got home there was a hand delivered letter from work inviting me to a disciplinary hearing upon my return for failing to notify my boss of my absence from work prior to the start of the working day (for the day I replied to his email at about 11).
Well, they went ahead with a formal disciplinary and put a first written warning on file, although that was only after I appealed against their initial decision to jump straight to a final written warning.
Fortunately that boss has gone now.
Don't forget to respond in about 3 days and then escalate the ticket to second or third line for action.
Hmm, I thought that leaving out the colon would set that up nicely.
/Posting from home now - that's one (the only!) benefit of working in a rural office; a 10 minute drive home through the countryside.
It's 1707 in the UK and I am just about to leave for home. NOW YOU TELL ME - so no cakes and flowers for me then.
Yes, and I am the IT Manager who makes sure that the bankers and analysts have the hardware, software and comms tools to do their jobs. Right down the corridor is Michael's room - he's our maintenance guy - if he didn't empty my bin, keep the area tidy and make sure the lights stay on...
But we still have to leave our basements to visit the shops do we? If only there was some way of telling the shops what we wanted and then they'd deliver them right to our door for mom to bring down.
+ regenerative braking?
Mr Darl McBride to the white courtesy phone.
/A surreal moment
It's the start of forgetting!
WHA? Next GE will be in trouble for copying their Lotus 123 V1.0 floppies. Seriously, a DONGLE for UPS software? I guess the software's pretty special..or...??
Indeed - we have a Draytek 2820 broadband wireless router at HQ and it can be setup with up to four SSIDs that can be individually rate limited and isolated from each other (if wanted), giving guest users only broadband access but no corporate LAN connectivity.
Back in the days when I taught customer service skills, one of the course modules was on benchmarking customer satisfaction and one of the points we went out of our way to emphasise was the difference between customer satisfaction and customer loyalty and how it was important to understand that each had a sweet spot which varied according to the type of business and the degree of competition in the market sector.
In crude terms:
1) You could be crap at providing your 'service' if the customers had no choice to use you because there was no alternative (although one big mistake that many organisations make is thinking they have a captive audience when customers have a 'do nothing' option), which equates to low satisfaction, high loyalty
or
2) You could spend a fortune bending over backwards to make the customer experience as fantastic as possible, but your customer base may still not be loyal - for example: if you have a choice of shops on the way home and need to buy some bread, you will generally choose the one that's most convenient even though all the local supermarkets are (probably) neat, clean and inviting. In this case, most customers would rate their local supermarkets as clean and friendly (high satisfaction), but would still opt to use the one that was most convenient when shopping 'on the fly' (low loyalty).
Facebook may earn low-ish satisfaction points, but they have high loyalty because once a user has established a base there, they are unlikely to move elsewhere (although they can of course, just stop using the service - the 'do nothing' customer option above), so Facebook has to determine what return (or improved return) they would get from investing on improving the service, and they might just consider the ROI to not be worth it.
;
;
; Wrist Test - see if user is gripping left front
; edge of mouse as this will cause drawing
; performance to drop-off
FUNCTION WristTest : Boolean;
Uncanny eh!?
SO you're saying this could be a rebirth call for Compuserve?
Having spent two days last week trying to untangle the mess that Windows created when I tried to install SQL Server 2008 Management Studio on my Win 7 PC, leaving me with a copy of Office 2007 with no program icons and a "can't uninstall, can't reinstall" mess that I still haven't resolved, I am not sure that I consider Windows program installs to be totally pain-free all the time.
Useful font stuff here:
http://linuxtweaking.blogspot.com/2010/03/fedora-12-improving-awful-font.html
I've just enabled byte code support on my laptop - makes a big difference.