Annoying IT people - The helpdesk wants you
on
Are You Annoying?
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· Score: 1
"Say someone comes to you and asks you a question today, and they find you annoying," says Bent. "Maybe the next time, they'll ask someone else. Soon people stop coming to you and asking you things, and you end up without a job."
Not if you work on a helpdesk. Especially if it's one of those that are outsourced. We have no choice. We have to go through the helpdesk for anything technical.
I'm still waiting for an IP address request. They asked me for the subnet. They are IT, they should know what subnet to use! The average user doesn't even know what a subnet is.... amazing
Luckily, I know all the techie folks, sit right next to them, so this was not a problem. Interestingly, The guy who sits right across from me will eventually be the one that will issue the new IP, but I have to go through the guys in Malaysia to get it. How efficient is that?
I agree!
It's like those "Intel Inside" stickers. Consumers stopped caring about those when they realized that it didn't mean their computer ran better than the ones without the "Intel Inside" stickers.
Java as a development language was a great idea at the time but they neglected to sufficiently run with with it. What happened to the promise of all the "smart" appliances?
And I agreed that they should not have to be rewritten. I also agree that if the problem becomes too great, they will cut off access to browsing outside.
Oh, but wait... They cannot!
Since we have outsourced our help desk, HR services, meeting services, workplace services, etc. we have to access external sites to be able to voucher our time, check server status, submit workorders, manage a meeting, you get the picture....
Since we use a proxy server, they could probably restrict access but the first time a top manager wants to go somewhere and cannot, those restrictions will disappear... or they will set up a "special" proxy just for them.
Ironically, many of the virus messages I have received in email have come from our India and Asia partners. Maybe they have not been educated sufficiently on the dangers of the web:)
Where's the exploit if they're hitting internal applications?
The exploit only occurs when someone uses IE to access an external site. I have Mozilla installed on my machine to access external sites but if I click a link in an email (Outlook), IE pops up.
Why would those need to be rewritten?
They wouldn't. It is poor programming practice, in my opinion, to only design for one browser. Our company uses IE. And hey, it does cool stuff without much effort. We also have Netscape for the UNIX users. I design all my sites to be compatible with both. Unfortunately, our IT department does not recognize Netscape as a valid browser so they design all kinds of cool little web apps, which can only be used on IE.
The bigger threat is when "Sam Receptionist" uses his IE browser for non-work activities; that can get these companies screwed.
You don't work with Engineers, do you? I can scare the poo out of a receptionist so that they never use their browser for non work related browsing. I cannot scare an engineer because "he knows what is dangerous and not". Trouble is, he doesn't know. When I was in support, the biggest problems came from Engineers who should know better, but don't. They also are not as afraid of being fired. Nor do they have sufficient fear to not try and resolve things themselves, thus causing bigger problems.
Welll... because most of us are on laptops which are shut down and taken home or locked up. Plus we have some users that shut down their PCs every night. Someone in IT once told them it was "good" for the computer to have a rest and then refresh itself (read as reboot)
Due to security concerns, we are not supposed to leave our laptops in the office unless they are locked up somehow.
We used to be able to schedule the scan for when it was convenient. Because of all the viruses going around, and too many users blindly clicking away... It is forced on everyone at the same time, Wednesday beginning at noon, your local time. In theory, it should only run for 1 hour while you are at lunch. In reality, it takes 3 hours on my machine. Any attempts to alter the schedule, result in it being reset the next time you log into the network.
At our company... Big Brother is not only watching, he's making sure you don't hurt yourself. The cubicle version of taking away your belt because "Kid, we don't want any hangings."
Alice's Restaurant [with apologies to Arlo]
What about things like BSOD when you try to do more than your "little" OS can handle?
This happens to me once a week on average. Reboot takes ~10 minutes.
Then there's the "really, really critical security patch" (no shit, that's what our IT calls them now). These require reboots many times. And since I am always working on several things at once, see above, the shutdown and reboot may take 15 min or more. I would estimate we get at least 6 of these a year.
Once a week we have a virus scan program that runs, slowing my machine to a crawl... see above, and cuts my productivity by 30% for at least 3 hours.
Then at least once a year, something happens where my computer may be spontaneously booted form the network, account locked or some such stuff. This requires a help[less] desk call which takes me down for at least half a day to resolve the problem.
Douglas Adams was ahead of his time in many ways.
One of my fondest memories of early adulthood was listening to the radio show on one of our local NPR (National Public Radio) stations.
I then rushed out to buy all the books.
This so influenced my life that my adult daughter's name is Trillian.
Every member of our family has at least one of these books, My children and I each own a full set.
The campy television series bombed. I hope they do a better job with the movie. I really dislike it when they take something which is great and cheapen it by making a movie. Lord of the Rings is an excellent example of how to do it right!!
That's why a radio play is so enjoyable, you get to use your imagination. These days we just don't have as many opportunities to do that.
This is a good concept on the surface. I know I hate having to wear my goofy security badge to gain access to our offices.
One problem I see is privacy. I have always thought that having to key in and out of work insures security but also tracks your movements. My security badge has to be really close to the reader to register, RFID tags have more range right? So what is to stop an employer from tracking your every move. I know it sounds paranoid but some companies are really strict with breaks and things.
The other problem I see is wearability and security. Security because watches are easily lost, stolen, left behind... Since there is no picture on the watch to verify the person, presumably anyone can use anyone else's.
Wearability because as a female, I own at least 3 watches to suit my moods and clothing. With everyone having the same watch, we are one step closer to uniformity. This squelches uniqueness and creativity.
Ok, this is redundant but...
excuse me M'lord, surely ye jest.
I play Ultima Online and have been for 6 years. My fiance' plays too. Most weekends you find us pounding away on our keyboards adventuring together. Since our computers are in seperate rooms, it is not uncommon for us to talk to each other in-game.
I have been gaming for years and years, started on an Atari computer... anyone remember Qix? My first husband never understood the love of gaming. Now, much to his dismay, both his adult children are gamers. My son is more into the fighting games and my daughter, sadly, is addicted to Sims.
"Honey look at the cute bears"? No wonder she's pissed! Find her a game she really likes instead of insulting her intelligence and gender.
Doubt this would work with text only readers. As far as the time open, maybe they monitor how long the img is being accessed. Kinda like a auto refresh, when does it stop.
And yes, Slashdot reported that spammers use this to determine if an email account is valid.
How soon before we hear stories of people having their eye extracted so that someone could get by these scanners? This has been portrayed many times in the movies. Cue the next Urban legend, "I woke up in a hotel room with one eye a different color, someone had swapped them on me!"
A 4% failure rate? What happens if it fails? Are you detained, denied whatever you were being identified for? This seems unacceptable as a form of identification. Until they perfect the thing, why not use thumbprints?
Agreed:
Oh for god's sake, this research has been in development long before Iraq
This and more have been under development... but they (the govt) conveniently tell us about certain things that display our (the US) superiority during times of their choosing.
On another more serious note. Did you see the size of theat thing? Who seriously thinks that no one will notice it rolling around?
Pan to a group of questionable characters plotting their next bombing. This bot rolls in. "By Allah, what big Rats you have in this place! You should really spray sometime dude! OK, so where were we? Oh yeah, our next ambush should be on... Why is that rat looking at me? And what is that microphone for? Spy rats now? Those americans!" Scene ends with them reverse engineering the "spy rat" and using the technology for a suicide bombing without using a person.
I wonder if any of our battlebot engineers helped work on this?
If not, they really should tap into this pool of knowledge. How soon do you think it will be before we see the marines having their own battlebot style fights in the future with these? Hmmm, next pentagon scandal??
On another note, I wonder what the range is? And they "throw it over the wall"... Doesn't seem that stealthy if you have to be close enough to toss it. I think it is all just a red herring so we don't focus on the failures in our govenment's intel, like bombing a wedding party because... they might have been terrorists.
Incomplete testing will always set you up to fail
on
Beagle 2 Failure Analyzed
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· Score: 2, Insightful
I am a bit amazed that they tested everything individually but didn't do an end to end testing.
I realize that they were on a tight schedule. I wonder if they performed environmental testing under extreme conditions? The article didn't mention it but it is really important. Especially since I doubt the mars atmospere resembles the weather in Great Britain.
I think it would be cool if they gave it another go.
You're kidding right?
Doors do open automatically, everywhere. Quite common
Computers can respond to voice commands. It's a bit different than in the movies, but we have a guy at work who never touches his keyboard. He does his whole job using Dragon Dictate on his PC.
And of course, lasers are used to perform surgery.
Much of the things of Science Fiction past have become reality. I'm still waiting for my flying car though... They promised me a flying car:)
Hmm, didn'r figure/. to be full of conservatives or republican fans.
Maybe if I had said something like "There is so much BS at Microsoft that we could fuel an entire city" I would have gotten a better score:P
So how is this off topic? I would consider the entire topic "off topic".
Our moderators must lean towards beavis and butthead thinking. This explains alot about their scoring!!
We used to have them as children. When the original series was first run, some toy company made walkie talkies to look like communicators.
They didn't have much range but they were pretty cool.
Also, I read somewhere... probably here, about a company that created a wearable one like in TNG as a cummunication device. The company has sold them to hospitals. See an article here http://www.forbes.com/technology/2004/03/16/cx_ah_ 0316chips.html
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Let's see what our moderators score this one as:P
This reminds me of a Beavis and Butthead episode. Heheheh
Seriously, which category does this fall under, News for Nerds or Stuff that matters? Perhaps neither since this was not very newsworthy or interesting.
Why doesn't someone go plagerize another Wired article or dig through the archives to re-post something. That would be more interesting than a couple of boneheads randomly frying stuff
Hehuhhuh.
Maybe this is what is behind his book, good legal ganja. Which would explain how he would take a healthy debate between two academics and turn it into a blood feud.
Besides, No matter what dirt any one thinks they can dig up on Linus, he "wrote" Linux. He may have leveraged from other people's work but that is what all GOOD programmers do. Why reinvent the wheel?
Linus is amazingly bright and will continue doing great things for the industry, despite enterprising authors who just want a free trip to Amsterdam to get some (some==anything that is legal in amsterdam but not in the US... use your imagination people).
Slashdot Mirror
Not if you work on a helpdesk.
Especially if it's one of those that are outsourced.
We have no choice. We have to go through the helpdesk for anything technical.
I'm still waiting for an IP address request. They asked me for the subnet. They are IT, they should know what subnet to use! The average user doesn't even know what a subnet is.... amazing
Luckily, I know all the techie folks, sit right next to them, so this was not a problem. Interestingly, The guy who sits right across from me will eventually be the one that will issue the new IP, but I have to go through the guys in Malaysia to get it. How efficient is that?
It's like those "Intel Inside" stickers. Consumers stopped caring about those when they realized that it didn't mean their computer ran better than the ones without the "Intel Inside" stickers.
Java as a development language was a great idea at the time but they neglected to sufficiently run with with it. What happened to the promise of all the "smart" appliances?
Oh, but wait... They cannot!
Since we have outsourced our help desk, HR services, meeting services, workplace services, etc. we have to access external sites to be able to voucher our time, check server status, submit workorders, manage a meeting, you get the picture....
Since we use a proxy server, they could probably restrict access but the first time a top manager wants to go somewhere and cannot, those restrictions will disappear... or they will set up a "special" proxy just for them.
Ironically, many of the virus messages I have received in email have come from our India and Asia partners. Maybe they have not been educated sufficiently on the dangers of the web :)
The exploit only occurs when someone uses IE to access an external site. I have Mozilla installed on my machine to access external sites but if I click a link in an email (Outlook), IE pops up.
Why would those need to be rewritten?
They wouldn't. It is poor programming practice, in my opinion, to only design for one browser. Our company uses IE. And hey, it does cool stuff without much effort. We also have Netscape for the UNIX users. I design all my sites to be compatible with both. Unfortunately, our IT department does not recognize Netscape as a valid browser so they design all kinds of cool little web apps, which can only be used on IE.
The bigger threat is when "Sam Receptionist" uses his IE browser for non-work activities; that can get these companies screwed.
You don't work with Engineers, do you? I can scare the poo out of a receptionist so that they never use their browser for non work related browsing. I cannot scare an engineer because "he knows what is dangerous and not". Trouble is, he doesn't know. When I was in support, the biggest problems came from Engineers who should know better, but don't. They also are not as afraid of being fired. Nor do they have sufficient fear to not try and resolve things themselves, thus causing bigger problems.
Due to security concerns, we are not supposed to leave our laptops in the office unless they are locked up somehow.
We used to be able to schedule the scan for when it was convenient. Because of all the viruses going around, and too many users blindly clicking away... It is forced on everyone at the same time, Wednesday beginning at noon, your local time. In theory, it should only run for 1 hour while you are at lunch. In reality, it takes 3 hours on my machine. Any attempts to alter the schedule, result in it being reset the next time you log into the network.
At our company... Big Brother is not only watching, he's making sure you don't hurt yourself.
The cubicle version of taking away your belt because "Kid, we don't want any hangings." Alice's Restaurant [with apologies to Arlo]
What about things like BSOD when you try to do more than your "little" OS can handle? This happens to me once a week on average. Reboot takes ~10 minutes.
Then there's the "really, really critical security patch" (no shit, that's what our IT calls them now). These require reboots many times. And since I am always working on several things at once, see above, the shutdown and reboot may take 15 min or more. I would estimate we get at least 6 of these a year.
Once a week we have a virus scan program that runs, slowing my machine to a crawl... see above, and cuts my productivity by 30% for at least 3 hours.
Then at least once a year, something happens where my computer may be spontaneously booted form the network, account locked or some such stuff. This requires a help[less] desk call which takes me down for at least half a day to resolve the problem.
So the total is:
- BSOD = 8.2 hours/year
9 days of downtime.Patches = 1.5 hours/year
Virus Scan = 50 hours/year
Help-Desk - 4 hours/year
Total: 63.5 hours/year @ avg workday = 7 hours;
I was sick a total of 2 days last year.
I then rushed out to buy all the books. This so influenced my life that my adult daughter's name is Trillian.
Every member of our family has at least one of these books, My children and I each own a full set.
The campy television series bombed. I hope they do a better job with the movie. I really dislike it when they take something which is great and cheapen it by making a movie. Lord of the Rings is an excellent example of how to do it right!! That's why a radio play is so enjoyable, you get to use your imagination. These days we just don't have as many opportunities to do that.
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=110878&cid=94
There are plenty of females who partake in all the various internet activities. To think otherwise is ignorant.
Somehow, I expected more from the /. community than that.
This is a good concept on the surface. I know I hate having to wear my goofy security badge to gain access to our offices.
One problem I see is privacy. I have always thought that having to key in and out of work insures security but also tracks your movements. My security badge has to be really close to the reader to register, RFID tags have more range right? So what is to stop an employer from tracking your every move. I know it sounds paranoid but some companies are really strict with breaks and things.
The other problem I see is wearability and security.
Security because watches are easily lost, stolen, left behind... Since there is no picture on the watch to verify the person, presumably anyone can use anyone else's.
Wearability because as a female, I own at least 3 watches to suit my moods and clothing. With everyone having the same watch, we are one step closer to uniformity. This squelches uniqueness and creativity.
If you read the full text, you will see that it applies to limited resources devices. I don't think it even applies to laptops.
So things like Pocket PC, or a handheld eBook reader.
Maybe Microsoft was upset that they lag behind IBM in patents so they are trying to catch up!
I play Ultima Online and have been for 6 years. My fiance' plays too. Most weekends you find us pounding away on our keyboards adventuring together. Since our computers are in seperate rooms, it is not uncommon for us to talk to each other in-game.
I have been gaming for years and years, started on an Atari computer... anyone remember Qix? My first husband never understood the love of gaming. Now, much to his dismay, both his adult children are gamers. My son is more into the fighting games and my daughter, sadly, is addicted to Sims.
"Honey look at the cute bears"? No wonder she's pissed! Find her a game she really likes instead of insulting her intelligence and gender.
Doubt this would work with text only readers. As far as the time open, maybe they monitor how long the img is being accessed. Kinda like a auto refresh, when does it stop.
And yes, Slashdot reported that spammers use this to determine if an email account is valid.
If you are using IE, it will go right to the webpage. The poster must have been using windows
BTW, that model didn't exactly "whiz", it was more of a wobble.
How soon before we hear stories of people having their eye extracted so that someone could get by these scanners? This has been portrayed many times in the movies. Cue the next Urban legend, "I woke up in a hotel room with one eye a different color, someone had swapped them on me!"
A 4% failure rate? What happens if it fails? Are you detained, denied whatever you were being identified for? This seems unacceptable as a form of identification. Until they perfect the thing, why not use thumbprints?
Oh for god's sake, this research has been in development long before Iraq
This and more have been under development ... but they (the govt) conveniently tell us about certain things that display our (the US) superiority during times of their choosing.
On another more serious note. Did you see the size of theat thing? Who seriously thinks that no one will notice it rolling around?
Pan to a group of questionable characters plotting their next bombing. This bot rolls in. "By Allah, what big Rats you have in this place! You should really spray sometime dude! OK, so where were we? Oh yeah, our next ambush should be on ... Why is that rat looking at me? And what is that microphone for? Spy rats now? Those americans!" Scene ends with them reverse engineering the "spy rat" and using the technology for a suicide bombing without using a person.
If not, they really should tap into this pool of knowledge. How soon do you think it will be before we see the marines having their own battlebot style fights in the future with these?
Hmmm, next pentagon scandal??
On another note, I wonder what the range is? And they "throw it over the wall"... Doesn't seem that stealthy if you have to be close enough to toss it. I think it is all just a red herring so we don't focus on the failures in our govenment's intel, like bombing a wedding party because... they might have been terrorists.
I am a bit amazed that they tested everything individually but didn't do an end to end testing.
I realize that they were on a tight schedule. I wonder if they performed environmental testing under extreme conditions? The article didn't mention it but it is really important. Especially since I doubt the mars atmospere resembles the weather in Great Britain.
I think it would be cool if they gave it another go.
You're kidding right? :)
Doors do open automatically, everywhere. Quite common
Computers can respond to voice commands. It's a bit different than in the movies, but we have a guy at work who never touches his keyboard. He does his whole job using Dragon Dictate on his PC.
And of course, lasers are used to perform surgery.
Much of the things of Science Fiction past have become reality. I'm still waiting for my flying car though... They promised me a flying car
Hmm, didn'r figure /. to be full of conservatives or republican fans. :P
Maybe if I had said something like "There is so much BS at Microsoft that we could fuel an entire city" I would have gotten a better score
So how is this off topic? I would consider the entire topic "off topic".
Our moderators must lean towards beavis and butthead thinking. This explains alot about their scoring!!
They didn't have much range but they were pretty cool.
Also, I read somewhere... probably here, about a company that created a wearable one like in TNG as a cummunication device. The company has sold them to hospitals. See an article here http://www.forbes.com/technology/2004/03/16/cx_ah_ 0316chips.html
---
Let's see what our moderators score this one as :P
Seriously, which category does this fall under, News for Nerds or Stuff that matters? Perhaps neither since this was not very newsworthy or interesting.
Why doesn't someone go plagerize another Wired article or dig through the archives to re-post something. That would be more interesting than a couple of boneheads randomly frying stuff
Hehuhhuh.
Maybe this is what is behind his book, good legal ganja. Which would explain how he would take a healthy debate between two academics and turn it into a blood feud.
Besides, No matter what dirt any one thinks they can dig up on Linus, he "wrote" Linux. He may have leveraged from other people's work but that is what all GOOD programmers do. Why reinvent the wheel?
Linus is amazingly bright and will continue doing great things for the industry, despite enterprising authors who just want a free trip to Amsterdam to get some (some==anything that is legal in amsterdam but not in the US... use your imagination people).