by ·0 Comments

I’m working on a project at work requiring pulling up data from a remote location to something that our guys can then parse. My first idea was to have it upload to a local FTP site through FlingFTP or another tool but was stymied by firm not allowing inbound FTP connections so I contacted tech support:

Me: I was wondering if I could get a port opened so I could upload to an FTP site locally.
Tech Guy: What do you need?
Me: I’m looking to automatically move some data from a remove device to a local computer.
Tech Guy: FTP is terribly insecure, is there another way to do it?
Me: I suppose we could use SFTP.
Tech Guy: We don’t allow SFTP, only FTP and I don’t think we’re going to make an exception in this case. Please try another method.

So, I’m not allowed to use FTP because it isn’t secure enough but which is still apparently doable but our firm bars SFTP, the vastly more secure option, across the board. Awesome.

by ·0 Comments

My brother’s girlfriend’s sister’s computer wasn’t working  so I figured I’d give it a crack.  My standard test setup is a 20″ monitor, with a ps/2 keyboard and mouse which were useless as this computer had a DSUB 15 monitor connector and no ps/2 ports only USB.  I plugged in my spare G15 and MX518 and was able to boot into the BIOS and did some initial checks.  I then booted to Windows XP and was stymied by the keyboard and mouse not being recognized.  Well they were, but I needed to click the little button to let Windows load the appropriate drivers, which I couldn’t do, as I had no keyboard or mouse… until I clicked on that button, which I couldn’t.

I’m normally impressed with what I can only call the tenacity of Windows to create drivers out of bubblegum and tape to figure out something.  Sure it may cut your printing speed by a factor of 10 or your monitor will only show 4  colors but it works until you can get something done.  Today, that died…

by ·0 Comments

My tenant’s girlfriend’s computer lit on fire and suffered a rather severe hard drive crash.  He asked me to look at it telling me the drive held important stuff and I started running drive recovery.  The progress was glacial but I bore through knowing “it was important”.  I recovered the first set of data which yielded a collection of emails in txt-speak about concert tickets.  My resolve waned.  I kept it spinning for a day or two more seeing it’s estimated completion time was around Candlemas thinking it’d magically speed up.  The final straw was when files for WinAntiVirus 2009 (a virus program) and I snapped.  This computer was dead, it deserved to die, the hard drive was simply the device who decided to end itself.

After seeing its pain, I’m thinking of having a new mission in life: create something to cause hard failures in PCs and become the Kevorkian of computers.

by ·0 Comments

My tenant’s girlfriend’s computer lit on fire and suffered a rather severe hard drive crash.  He asked me to look at it telling me the drive held important stuff and I started running drive recovery.  The progress was glacial but I bore through knowing “it was important”.  I recovered the first set of data which yielded a collection of emails in txt-speak about concert tickets.  My resolve waned.  I kept it spinning for a day or two more seeing it’s estimated completion time was around Candlemas thinking it’d magically speed up.  The final straw was when files for WinAntiVirus 2009 (a virus program) and I snapped.  This computer was dead, it deserved to die, the hard drive was simply the device who decided to end itself.

After seeing its pain, I’m thinking of having a new mission in life: create something to cause hard failures in PCs and become the Kevorkian of computers.

by ·0 Comments

I was confounded by a big problem in building the supercomputer: getting a case.  I need something that’ll accomodate two mobos which requires a very big case.  The only ones I could find were these giant gaudy cases from the 90s with clear sides that’ll make the UV coolant even more obvious.  This is going to go in a lab so I tried to find something as toned down as possible.

Project Coordinator: That’s a pretty boring case.
Me: Isn’t that good it’s going to be in a lab.
Project Coordinator: If we’re going to spend x for a computer, we should get something that looks good.  How about something a little more… imposing.
Me: Imposing?
Project Coordinator: Yes, something with presence.
Me: Presence?
Project Coordinator:  Yeah, find something with a more striking case and maybe a sleek appearance.  Something nice.

Great… I wanted to build a Mercedes C Class he chose an Escalade.  I got the Escalade now he wants phat spinnin’ rims.  Maybe I can talk to the guys in rapid prototyping but I doubt AutoCAD or SolidWorks has a well developed bling plugin or a “pimp my parametrically defined subassembly” option.  One can hope.

by ·0 Comments

As part of the move, several “sytem improvements” have been spawned.  So far, I’ve noted the following:

  1. Outlook waits about 30 seconds after opening before prompting the operator for a password during which time one can send and receive emails, view calendars, and create appointments.
  2. McAfee no longer does background updates and includes such useful prompts as “would you like to update now? (If you click “NO” the update will occur in 30 seconds)” and a splash screen to tell you when the update’s complete that goes away automatically after infuriating you for 10 seconds pegged to the front of the desktop.
  3. All the web shortcuts on my desk now depict the logo for Netscape Navigator.
  4. Our desktops are now automatically backed up once a day but the initial backup will take me several days due to the amount of local data during which I’ve been getting “backup error!” messages that stop the backup and restart it.  All I need is one 96 hour day and everything’ll be fine.
  5. It also appears to take less personal information to reset my password after muffing it three times than it does to reset it with my full arsenal of personal information.

by ·0 Comments

Today was the day of the great computer migration where we’d switch from Novell to Windows.  The migration was a failurepile inside of a sadnessbowl but the thing that really got me the fact that they took my f*%@ing network cable.  Really?  You had to take my 3′ cable and replace it with a 50′ one?  I could take the slack of my cable, kick out the window and repel to the first f*cking floor with it.  That’s re-effing-diculous.  Then, when I ask, you tell me it’s because of the migration?  I’ve met simpleton mutes who made sense than that.  How did we get the Keystone Cops of tech support to do this?  Then you tell me I can have a static IP but it’ll change periodically?  Then it’s not f*&$ing static is it! Gha….

I’d tell the story of them holding up the migration on a coworker because they didn’t know what network port on the wall he used.  There’s two, one about six inches from his computer and another that’s visible from his desk only via periscoping binoculars. Guess.

by ·0 Comments

I came in today and the CAD server was down.  Nothing had really changed, but everything was apparently broken and everyone had pretty well left by the time I rolled in at 2.  I came upon my frazzled boss trying to troubleshoot the problem.

Me: Can I try a few things?
Him: Do you know what you’re doing?
Me: Does the host do automatic backups?
Him: Yes. Weekly.
Me: Then I know enough.

–30 minutes later–
Me: It’s up.
Him: How did you do that?
Me: I turned it off and turned it back on again.
Him: I tried that!
Me: How many times did you do it?
Him: Once.
Me: Ah… There’s the problem.  I did it three times and between the 2nd and 3rd tries I turned off and on all the services manually.  Remember *whisper* Windows Server 2003 can smell fear.

Insanity sometimes receives the quant definition of doing the same thing over and over an expecting different results.  When it comes to near million-dollar pieces of software deployed across multiple servers with a Java frontend, it appears insanity is a requirement of operation.

by ·0 Comments

For tours, my workplace usually plays some animations of how our products work but due to one area being closed we had to replace it with something else.  Instead of said video, the blinds to the CAD area were opened so folk could peer in at the marvels of technology and design.  The person sitting next to the window opened up a drawing of our pouch and resumed his work.

Coworker 1: You can’t work on that!
Coworker 2: But this is what the work order is for.
Coworker 1: No no no.  Show them something good.
Coworker 2: Like what?
Coworker 1: Open one of the demo drawings that comes with the software like the 20 ton stonecrusher or the jet airplane wing.
Coworker 2: *opens plane wing* Now what do I do?
Coworker 1: Spin it, add a pouch to it, make sure it’s moving.  If it’s not spinning fast enough it’s not high tech.

By the time the tour came around, he had created a pinwheel out of airplane wings spinning at quite a healthy clip.  TECHNOLOGY, OOOOOOH.

by ·0 Comments

Windows 7 was nice.  Taking a trip to the near future was quaint despite failing to deliver the ZFS filesystem I’d been promised years ago as well as the virtualized hardware model I read about in 2002 that won’t be out until Midori which may beat the Mayan Apocalypse.  The last straws were the idea that I’d probably have to do two reinstalls of an OS before I could call it stable and somewhat hairy nature of the beta video card drivers on which no blu-ray codec could run.   My personal favorite was the three part cycle of errors when I changed microphones.  The first told me the existing microphone didn’t exist and I’d have to pick a new one.  The second one told me I had two selected and that I’d have to restart.  The final one told me the new default device wasn’t valid and it’d default back to the previous device from which I was trying to change.  The only way out was to interrupt the 2nd “searching for a solution” dialog, not the first nor third would do.

So I reinstalled Vista and I felt at home again:

  • I installed Office 2007 without a registration key, when I entered it after reading the Excel file containing it, the installer started to reinstall, stopped halfway through, said the install failed and then produced the “Successful Installation” dialog.
  • Vista would report an error with a hardware device, recommend I update to a new driver and then show me one older than drivers I have.
  • Finally, I had to have admin access to remove a shortcut from the desktop.

I have a theory, Microsoft was concerned people found computers intimidating, nothing brings one’s opinion of something else down faster than watching it fail.  Vista reminds the user of his or her relative competence in spades.  I missed you, Vista.