Re: Message Boxes
is the same as the second..have a d/v :P
Posts by Sir Runcible Spoon
5770 publicly visible posts • joined 29 May 2007
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Let's talk about April Fools' Day jokes. Are they ever really harmless?
Reach out for the healing hands... of guru Dabbs
Monday 8th July 2019 12:57 GMT 
It's odd..
..but I get weird looks from people when I occasionally fix a problem by turning the damning thing off and turning it back on again.
Someone once asked me why I had done it, when I was supposed to be some kind of 'expert'. I replied by asking them if it was now working again (it was) and just walked off.
Sometime I just can't be bothered to work out *why* something broke, I just want the problem to not be my problem any more - perhaps that's a sign of my advancing age and grumpancy.
Monday 8th July 2019 12:48 GMT
Re: IT reputation
Your own kit knows you like to 'play' and so likes to 'play dead' just to provide you something distracting to do when you have more (un)important things on your mind.
i.e. it knows you better than you do, you know it, so it knows you won't axe it to oblivion for trying to help you.
It does, however, get a bit upset with all the names you call it sometimes - it's doing it's best to help you after all.
BOFH: On a sunny day like this one, the concrete dries so much more quickly
Monday 8th July 2019 12:06 GMT
Re: Informal poll on whether you've ever had to do something like this
My first ever *actual IT job was to get PC's talking to an AS/400 over a token ring network. Managed it, but only by trying every possible permutation of options/settings - a bit like when I recovered a Lotus Notes mailbox that the £3k/day consultant couldn't (I didn't know what you could or couldn't do, so tried things he would never have dreamed of).
*as long as you don't count fixing hard drives for a living.
Finally in the UK: Apollo 11 lands... in a cinema near you
Thursday 4th July 2019 13:57 GMT
Re: Amazing...
Watched an interesting documentary recently about the Lunar rocks themselves, and what made them different from Earth rocks.
Apparently they are the same apart from one key difference - moon rocks exhibit no signs of wear and tear from the presence of water.
It got me to wondering if a moon rock could be faked if you took some molten rock and cooled it in a sealed, de-humidified, room. Does anyone know the answer?
Metropolitan Police's facial recognition tech not only crap, but also of dubious legality – report
Former UK PM Tony Blair urges governments to sort out online ID
More households invite creepy smart speakers indoors: Arch-slurper Google top dog for Q1
BOFH: What's Near Field Implementation? Oh, you'll see. Turn left here
A Register reader turns the computer room into a socialist paradise
The seven deadly sins of the 2010s: No, not pride, sloth, etc. The seven UI 'dark patterns' that trick you into buying stuff
Friday 28th June 2019 13:07 GMT
Re: It's all obvious when you know them
I once worked as an account manager, charged with saving large accounts when the company was going through a spot of financial troubles.
Since I wasn't trained in sales and the main client was notorious for having a near-perfect bullshit detector I just decided to see what was what and ask him what he wanted.
He told me the issues he had with his (multi-site) network and I diagnosed the main problem as being the fact our company had provided him with really shonky routers.
In exchange for all of his routers being upgraded for free (one off cost) he not only stayed with the firm but he agreed to improve the bandwidth at several locations (something he was holding off doing because of the poor performance he'd been seeing).
When the company sales team got wind of what I'd signed them up to they went nuts, even though this was a million pound/year account (recurring revenue) and the upgrade costs were less than £20k all-in. Seems they (sales) don't like a 'good deal for all involved' - they prefer to ream people out, even if it hurts their business in the long run. Never really understood them and gave up trying, I suspect not being able to 'deliberately poke my own eyes out whilst listening to loud rock music when someone was trying to save my life' might have something to do with that. Odd breed, sales.
Friday 28th June 2019 12:59 GMT
Re: A Prime example
Amazon is definitely becoming more of a mixed bag these days, but I've been a customer for many years and even had several occasions to return stuff for one reason or another - not always perfect, but certainly not awful by any means.
The only reason I put up with some of their more recent shenanigans is that it's still pretty convenient (and quick) for certain purchases.
BGP super-blunder: How Verizon today sparked a 'cascading catastrophic failure' that knackered Cloudflare, Amazon, etc
Driving Xtreme Cuts: DXC Technology waves bye bye to 45% of Americas Security divison
Tuesday 25th June 2019 08:32 GMT
Re: Another reason not to use DXC
I've been asked to train a replacement in the past - I tend to take the 'PhD' approach. i.e. explaining everything in excruciating detail, no summarisation. If they recorded it they could use it to train themselves to a pretty high standard, but not recording it would make it next to impossible to absorb all the information if you didn't know most of it already.
They couldn't complain I wasn't providing them the knowledge, they just didn't provide quality students.
Also, training is an actual skill-set. Knowing your job and training someone else to do it are totally different (albeit related) skills.
If Uncle Sam could quit using insecure .zip files to swap info across the 'net, that would be great, says Silicon Ron Wyden
Greatest threat facing IT? Not the latest tech giant cockwomblery – it's just tired engineers
Monday 17th June 2019 13:43 GMT
Re: Estimating Software Projects
In my opinion MS Project is a big culprit in all this. It's great at tracking amount of effort required for tasks, but most PM's struggle with the dependencies and the 'elapsed time' element (for which you have to map all your resources - and if they aren't 100% on your project it's even harder to track).
So that 1 hour change that is on the critical path might not get done until next week.
Flight Simulator 2020: Exciting new ride or a doomed tailspin in a crowded market?
Please be aliens, please be aliens, please be aliens... Boffins discover mystery mass beneath Moon's biggest crater
Wednesday 12th June 2019 11:07 GMT
Re: Heavy Metal on the moon?
If we use the term 'sound' to represent pressure waves detectable via the human ear, then space is indeed a place where 'sound' cannot travel.
If the sound were of a low enough frequency to match the density of the volume of space then it could be 'detected', but not 'heard'. I expect this would be true even in the large gas clouds, otherwise all the stars would be born deaf!
Nope, we're stuffed, shrieks Apple channel as iPhone shipments enter a double-digit spiral
No backdoor, no backdoor... you're a backdoor! Huawei won't spy for China or anyone else, exec tells MPs
Idle Computer Science skills are the Devil's playthings
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Biting the hand that feeds IT
