* Posts by Jaspa

46 publicly visible posts • joined 22 May 2018

Techie wasn't being paid, until he taught HR a lesson

Jaspa

In my experience, US Immigration have zero tolerance for humour.

Took an ex to NY for her Birthday, Immigration Officer looks at our passports and asks the purpose of our visit.

"Its for a Birthday."

"Whose Birthday, Sir?"

"Well you have the passports, you tell me."

You could have frozen the River Taff with the resultant stare.

Buckle up for meetings on the road as Cisco brings Webex to Audi autos

Jaspa
Unhappy

CARIAD?

Where is the Welsh angle on this?

Enquiring minds etc.

No, working in IT does not mean you can fix anything with a soldering iron

Jaspa

Water wings?

I was once called to a large chain eatery that had been vandalised.

Driving into the carpark there were members of every trade imaginable hoping to get the place ready for opening night.

I politely asked where the dmaged credit card machines were, only to be directed to the duck pond outside.

Yip, I was expected to wade in and rescue two rather soggy terminals that incredibly bobbed on the water better than I could. My exclamation that they were BER and two replacements would be there 9am the next day went down like a jobbly in a jaccuzi.

Brute force and whiskey: The solution to all life's problems

Jaspa
Trollface

Re: Smells and not of whisky...

If he did, that would explain the price of Beef "skyrocketing."

Thats the best you'll get from me on a monday :)

ZX Spectrum, the 8-bit home computer that turned Europe on to PCs, is 40

Jaspa

All but one sadly, me lol.

I must have missed that memo during a marathon session on Paradroid.

We have redundancy, we have batteries, what could possibly go wrong?

Jaspa

Diesel is all well and good ....

.... until your genny explodes mid use.

Back in the day we experienced a power outage while on a cig break. The clue was in the lights going out and the genny exhausts (about 3ft behind us) bellowing out fumes.

By the time we walked back in , all was well. Servers running, Management suitably impressed.

Panic over, latte/cig and smug grin time, then BANG!

What appeared to be a large cap had blown, taking off the genny door and the passenger window of the car parked opposite.

To err is human. To really screw things up requires a wayward screwdriver

Jaspa

Re: Correct tool for the job anyone?

Haha , it was indeed rented for the purpose of the demo.

Gaffers not best pleased but happy it wasn't me :)

Seem to remember a two man lift but failing to find any pics. Seems there are a vast array of Barco Multidata monitors.

Jaspa

Correct tool for the job anyone?

I distinctly remember working for a "fruity" firm prior to any of that infernal i business.

We were testing a rather large monitor (a BARCO CRT monolith) prior to installation for an offsite presentation.

Ever diligent (this was likely to earn us a tidy crust) we checked the guns and alignment.

My Colleague at the time commented on the convergence and decided to pop the back panel off to make some adjustments.

I dutifully strolled off to the lab for a pot adjuster only to return to a rather loud crack and a sheepish hand waving a kitchen knife in the air.

Yep, you guessed it. Pop goes the weasel, er, BARCO.

One fried monitor, no demo and one sheepish Colleague having to fess up.

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

Jaspa

Sweaty palms

We used to have a Colleague with the world's most sweaty palms.

People got miffed at them having a new mouse on a regular basis.

Turned that around one day when asked, "well do you want to clean it?"

Never questioned again.

When product names go bad: Microsoft's Raymond Chen on the cringe behind WinCE

Jaspa
Happy

Could have been worse...

In a previous existense, some wag suggested we be rebranded after a buy-out.

Cards Loans IT.

Hiya ex Colleagues as this is damn obvious ;)

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

Jaspa

Re: potential for mischief

IT_HURTS_WHEN_IP cracked me up on a bus once.

Not so much THEBATCAVE lol.

Chiptune to brighten your afternoon: Winning 8-bit throwback music revealed

Jaspa

Re: Ron Hubbard?

Loco

https://www.lemon64.com/?mainurl=https%3A//www.lemon64.com/reviews/view.php%3Fid%3D220

Jaspa

Re: Ron Hubbard?

Loco

https://www.lemon64.com/?mainurl=https%3A//www.lemon64.com/reviews/view.php%3Fid%3D220

Try taxing me a little more ;)

Jaspa
Coat

Ron Hubbard?

Surely Rob Hubbard, audio wizard and all round good egg and not a Scientoligist ?

Fix five days of server failure with this one weird trick

Jaspa

What could go wrong

And look at the fallout that caused.

Saw some first hand.

Jaspa

Re: I'm guessing TSB

And look at the fallout that caused :)

Scalpel! Superglue! This mouse won't fix its own ball

Jaspa
Alert

Sweaty palms

Not so much the internal but external crud.

Once had the semi regular pleasure of dealing with a Colleague that had the worlds sweatiest mits.

I "sourced" a few spare mice and gingerly swapped the rodent out when any issues were reported.

Given the current climate, a BNC suit and bio hazard team would be called in for these :)

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

Jaspa

Oldskool TV and pot plant

My Old Dear did the same years back.

Plant watered and duly seeped into the top of the telly.

Cue a Dude in a brown lab coat with a bag of valves muttering to himself.

Yeah , that ages me :(

US consumer protection bureau goes after tech support scammers' alleged payments processor

Jaspa

Re: Check out people like Jim Browning, if you haven’t already

Lets hope Jim is all over this and uploads a video :)

A word to the Wyse: Smoking cigars in the office is very bad for you... and your monitor

Jaspa

I'm not paying for a new one, fix it. Oh, how much again?

Many moons ago in a valley not that far away I found myself with a non-functional smart card reader at a certain red and yellow Filling Station.

This was in the early days with a manual sled you had to push to insert the card into the reader.

Given the device was part of a popular loyalty scheme and quite the earner, irate Manager type insisted on demonstrating the voodoo that was the automatic card eject (remember this was entirely manual.)

Pop the lid off to see if there were any obstructions and found a small nest of "curly hairs" that when compressed and released returned to shape pushing the card out.

Not wanting to go any further than a visual inspection and taking full advantage of my Senior position I suggested a replacement at cost. (well wouldn't we all)

Manager was throwing accusations of shoddy kit, shoddy engineers, "ITS ONLY A MONTH OLD! I WANT A NEW ONE!"

I demonstrated the "fault" and suggested if he cleaned it I'd not charge.

Nanoseconds later the nod was given to swap it out at time plus materials. Even had a free bottle of wine for my trouble which was nice as it was a Friday.

Explained: The thinking behind the 32GB Windows Format limit on FAT32

Jaspa

Weekend viewing

Happened across this and the reasoning behind task mangler this weekend.

I'd recommend his "tweaking" the source code for Tempest as well.

Behold: The ghastly, preening, lesser-spotted Incredible Bullsh*tting Customer

Jaspa

There should be an IT Driving Test

Not quite the same but in a similar vein.

I got a call from a Friend early one New Year's Eve.

Rather than the expected drinking session I'd imagined, he was in a panic as he was DJing that evening and had lost his music.

It transpired that after hours of creating playlists his ageing slab was low on storage so he deleted the MP3s to save space since he had his playlists, right?

Not wanting him to miss the gig,a fair few beer tokens and Ladies phone numbers I sent him t the bar while I booted a recovery stick.

Sure enough, said MP3s started to return from the abyss, along with some assorted trash and some "interesting" videos.

Convinced I had put them there he started to protest.

A quick call to his significant other and the culprit was identified.

We recovered all of the music plus 'er Indoors' deleted stash of entertaining videos.

Royal Navy nuclear submarine captain rapped for letting crew throw shoreside BBQ party

Jaspa

Re: Heres a novel idea ...

Expensive I grant you but a sound investment.

Think of all the social security we taxpayers won't have to fork out for :)

Plus the interwebs will be freed up for proper traffic, like , er ....

Jaspa

Re: Heres a novel idea ...

Too kind Sir.

Jaspa

Heres a novel idea ...

Don't get me wrong, I, like most right minded individuals have a healthy respect for the NHS. Have raised a small number of thousands for the local KId's Hospital and continue to support their cause.

However, these "covidiots" (is that (c) yet?) clapping on their doorsteps and posting their shenanigans on Farcebook in the sadly prevalent "look at me, aren't I good" style really rankles. How many of these idiots will do anything other than rock up at A&E and complain about wait times after this is over, conveniently forgetting recent events.

Lock them up in a tin can for months on end, patrolling the high seas, no Zoom or Farcebook (other vendors are available.) Probably infrequent and censored comms back home if they're lucky. Hop out of said tin can for a respectfully distanced and well earned chill and get shot down in flames by their Brass.

Just as an experiment, populate the subs with the Twitterati and Farcebook briandead. Send them out to sea for months and when they get back ignore them.

Harsh but I'd pay to see that outcome.

Big up our NHS but don't forget all the other Services quietly doing their job. Perhaps Her Maj can step in and send a few hampers to "Her" returning Forces?

Anything with the Royal Warrant as she'll get clubcard points and discount.

And don't start me off with the newly empowered police "force" travelling in twos with no PPE in sight.

Rant over :)

Samsung's Galaxy S7 line has had a good run with four years of security updates – but you'll want to trade yours in now

Jaspa

Oh well ...

Gifted my S7 to the Ex when I upgraded.

I best let Her know ...

Remember Tapplock, the 'unbreakable' smart lock that was allergic to screwdrivers? The FTC just slapped it down for 'deceiving' folks

Jaspa
Pint

Someone had to ....

Tapplock or "Tap tap tap unlock?"

Sorry, I'm furloghed and really bored

Icon as I could see a cold one off in a few gulps at the moment.

Whoa, someone actually texted you in 2020? Oh, nvm, it's just Boris Johnson, telling you to stay the f**k at home

Jaspa

Jim Briwning

Just don't call the 0303 number offering a cure for a one off fee.

Captain Caveman rides to the rescue, solves a prickly PowerPoint problem with a magical solution

Jaspa

I once had the pleasure of being sent to a rather famous Stadium in Cardiff while it was being constructed.

Big Cheese was having trouble with His CD drive.

Oddly, optical drives struggle with dusty environments.

A swift blast of air duster and a brief tour of the work in progress was my reward.

Microsoft's little eyes light up as Oscar-winning Taika Waititi says Apple keyboards make him 'want to go back to PCs'

Jaspa
Windows

Re: Show a PC keyboard?

Our beloved breadbin will lack a number of required keys and qualifiers but kudos for the pic :)

Ahhh , AT before the days of PS/2.

Icon as I suddenly feel old.

Who needs the A-Team or MacGyver when there's a techie with an SCSI cable?

Jaspa

Re: IDE not SCSI but the hack worked

Not wanting to risk further damage to the already lacking DR kit I erred on the side of caution.

Jaspa

IDE not SCSI but the hack worked

Many moons ago, in a Woolworths not far away I was presented with a dead EPOS Server smack in the middle of Christmas week.

Our "Senior" Eng had requested I assist by bringing a spare IDE cable as his "didn't fit" and it was hampering the tape restore process on the ageing 386.

The Manager was impressed that we turned up mob handed in his hour of need but was becoming increasingly frustrated by the lack of progress and the queues of Shoppers waiting to pay for Pick n' Mix and the latest CD single releases .

We were faced with having only the newer cables with the unused pin blanked out. The kit was of an age before these so Senior's didn't fit was accurate.

Senior is calling anyone and everyone in the hope of locating a cable not too many miles away while I'm trying to keep the manager placated.

We were stood in the store right next to the sewing section and in a flash I had brainwave. Inviting the Manager out for a long overdue cig I asked if I could borrow a sewing needle as we left the store. Spark up said cig, heat needle and melt the offending offending plastic away. Hey presto, one working cable.

Senior went on to watch paint dry as the restore worked its magic and I wandered off feeling smug .

For those not of a chronological disposition ...

http://www.mikeshardware.com/howtos/howto_connect_ide_hd.html

There's something fishy going down in the computer lab

Jaspa
Thumb Up

PASCAL

Ahhhh PASCAL, heady days indeed .

After beavering away on a serial comms app that utilised (iirc) a 20x2 LCD display to display the chat, I clicked compile and nipped out for a beverage (damn those 286s were slow.)

Returning to the Lab my fellow students were eager to test so we ran a cable along the length of the room with my fellow (g1ts) Students gathered at the opposite end.

After a few hiccups the LCDs sprang to life and as a group of late teens and early 20s do, we started to exchange "pleasantries" via our new toy.

While trying to think of ever more effective put downs I failed to notice the crowd of Senior Uni Staff gathered around me.

Long and short of it, the prospective new Head of the Electronics Faculty was mildly amused by the childish messages, our Lecturer was slightly less impressed.

Still got a distinction however, just :)

Thumbs up as the code worked like a dream.

Hey, I wrote this neat little program for you guys called the IMAC User Notification Tool

Jaspa

Cards, Loans ...

In a previous existence and after a buyout, Management suggested thaf our Team Name should reflect our new range of products.

Various suggestions were put on the table with "Cards, Loans, IT" being the preferred title, for a short while at least.

Wonder if any ex Colleagues read this ;)

Let's talk about April Fools' Day jokes. Are they ever really harmless?

Jaspa

Its Friday, take the easy option

Install the BSoD screensaver.

And a candudte for the best error massage ever goes to nobulatiom fail ...

https://thedailywtf.com/articles/Nobulation-Fail

All good, leave it with you...? Chap is roped into tech support role for clueless customer

Jaspa

Left holding the Baby

Literally left holding a Baby on a Home visit for Apple.

Customer was having a new windscreen fitted and Autoglass arrived just after me.

Fix Mac, 10 mins, hold Baby, 25.

Did get a rather nice coffee and cake for my trouble though.

Prodigy dancer and vocalist Keith Flint found dead aged 49

Jaspa

The Voodoo

The Voodoo who do what you don't dare do People.

He came, he saw and he kicked ass.

RIP You were a huge part of a generation growing up.

Found yet another plastic nostalgia knock-off under the tree? You, sir, need an emulator

Jaspa

Rocket Ranger, Defender of the Crown.

Nuff said.

Facebook: Up to 90 million addicts' accounts slurped by hackers, no thanks to crappy code

Jaspa

Prefer Farcebook.

Early experiment in mass email ends with mad dash across office to unplug mail gateway

Jaspa

And Experts Exchange since hyphenated. You think they would have known better.

What if tech moguls brewed real ale?

Jaspa

GDPR say 7%

Gets Directly to the Parts other ales cannot Reach.

And it effs you up just as badly as the legislation.

Fix this faxing hell! NHS told to stop hanging onto archaic tech

Jaspa

Re: The document on pagers...

See my other comment about a total lack of mobile signal in Hospitals. Negates phones as a viable contact method in potentially life threatening situations. This from experience.

Jaspa

Re: Not the only Guvmint dept to use fax

I was more concerned seeing a Triage Nurse trying to extract a paper jam with a metal forceps while still plugged into the mains.

Not wanting to delay a Child's diagnosis and not wanting to see a Nurse kark it on ger own ward I offered to assist.

Jaspa

Re: NO CARRI~@~~~$

I'll hazzard a guess that given the pager tech works, it'll be a cautious replacement program.

First hand experience over a few years regularly proved mobile phones were pretty much useless in the deeper parts of the Hospital.

Happily for us the NHS Pager's didn't suffer the same fate.

As fot Fax Machines. Outdated, yes. Still functional, yes.

The myriad of Staff I've had the pleasure to deal with are highly trained in their particular fields. PC skills are seconday to Life saving skills in my book.

Given the huge range of staff ages and IT abilities, landing everyone with a Fax replacement would cause more trouble than its worth in the short term. Again, baby steps toward phasing them out both from a tech and staff training angle.

Just my 2p worth and to anyone from the NHS who may be reading this, keep up the good work and ignore the naysayers. Unsing heroes.

It could be you: National Lottery hands £16m to England's Jodrell Bank

Jaspa

Re: Logopolis

Then we got Peter Davison. Meh.