IT BS thread

Haven't decided, but since I'm working on it, might as well do everything once.

 

Other than the legacy stuff, like comcast, there is no real application for coax. And, for the home I could argue that ethernet cable is of limited value. In my new house I'm only going to wire the WiFi access point and the POE cameras. Other than that it's wireless or nothing . (not a big deal - I've been wireless for a long time)

 

^^^^ This

We are remodeling a house we bought last October.
I put in a total of 7 drops. 3 drops going to 3 access point locations and then 2 drops at each desk location.

Didn't run coax anywhere except to extend the cable modem location from the side of the house into the garage.

I most likely didn't need the two drops to each desk location but I still prefer wired for my desktop machine.

 

God, I love cable porn. Too bad we have a no-photography rule in the data center - the cabling into/out of the 5000 blade VM farm is digital sex.

 

I need a small rant - One of the things I like about my job is when everybody else fails at solving a problem it lands on my desk to figure out. Since I work with some sharp people I don't get simple problems. It also means that 99.999% of the time I don't know the answer either, but my google foo is good. So, today I've got a linux problem and I keep getting StackExchange "answers" showing up at the top of the searches. But, the fucktards are marking the questions as duplicates or unworthy of answering or some such nonsense. I'm reading the question and I'm like YES that's the problem! Cool somebody's already figured this out, but noooo the mods block it for reasons that make no sense to me.

This isn't the first time I've been frustrated with the stackexchange network. Is it just me or are they worthless to others too?

 

I hate when not only do you find your exact question and then see it unanswered, but many of the other Google results is the same exact unanswered question copied to a different website.

 

Apparently there is a stupid person on the internet.

 

OMG yes! Back around ‘05 I was trying to troubleshoot a new video card problem, and I found that the same guy asked the same question on 6 different sites. What was awesome was a response I found on the ATI help forum stating “aren’t you the guy asking compatibility questions on Tom’s Hardware?”

 

I spent 6 hours in a meeting yesterday listening to people saying that our ITSM processes suck and we need to fix them but then asking what the business case for fixing them is. They just went through everything that would be part of the business case. Freakin' goldfish memories. SMH.

 

Dad and I went basic and just jumped the inner copper onto the jacket, then used a multimeter on the other ends to check for a closed circuit. So far everything goes to an open ground, but I have yet to jump back in the attic since I didn't have a ladder over the weekend - I instead was working on my 40 year old washing machine that might finally be broken

 

Shorting the inner to the jacket is a good poor mans cable tester. (and I've used it when tracing 110 wiring problems) However, for that to work the line can't be connected to anything on the other end. And, you have to be at the other end, and I'm not sure what you're doing, so good luck with that washer!

 

those are done right for airflow, but holy crap zip ties. makes it a bitch if you ever have to replace a cable. velcro is where it's at.

 

Does this AOL Computer Checkup Lite work? (Sarcasm for those that don't know)

 

Just a question - does anybody here do tech support for family, friends, and others who aren't paying? If not who do you refer them to?

 

Family, yes. Friends are also in the IT biz so I leave them to their own devices. Otherwise, I direct them to Google their issue and figure it out themselves.

The thing that drives me nuts is “what does X mean?” Without the context for whatever happened, I have no idea what the issue is. I won’t troubleshoot anything I can’t see. They know this...and still my sister will send me occasional screen shots without explaining what she was doing before that happened.

 

Coincidentally, I just had to talk my 74 year-old dad through creating PSTs and exporting contacts from an email client I’ve never seen. His bandwidth is also horrible, and remote control is too slow.

I wanted to take an impact wrench to my brain the whole time.

 

I know the pain. Know the pain.

My dad would click on every pop up and download "drivers" to speed up his computer.

 

My father is a GODDAMN COMPUTER ENGINEER! He still knows VMS and firmware for guidance and tracking systems. Dude is a freaking genius...and can’t figure out Outlook.

Him: “I want all my Hotmail, Yahoo Mail, and Gmail to open in Outlook.”
Me:
Me:
Me:
Me: “What?”
Me:
Me:
Me: “The fuck?”
Me:
Me:
Me: “For?”

He now has a separate .pst for each account and rules in place to download and transfer it all. I’ve tried talking him out of it because leaving it on the web client is better, but what the fuck do I know? I’m trying to keep him from downloading malware laden spyware that bypasses the content filters, but he’s got antivirus and free time, so fuck it.

I ain’t driving up to Missouri to fix his shit when it explodes.

 

LOL

My dad was an electrical engineer that built computers. He knew more about what goes on electrically inside a computer than I do. I could never get him to not click on shit. He always had to have the top of the line, fastest computer there was. I'd be like "dad your computer is fast already, and these drivers and pop ups are just infecting your computer with malware." This is for a guy that played Microsoft solitaire and made excel spreadsheets to track the minute by minute diesel usage in his motor home.

No disrespect but your dad would fit right in at my work. Super smart people with email needs. His next request will be that it all works transparently from his smart phone. (don't ask me how I know )

 

My first major battle in IT management is arguing a policy limiting use of port 22. Uh, what are y'all using instead? We explicitly block 21 and 23, and everything going over 22 is whitelisted. WTF?

I'm arguing with bureaucrats who read a policy document they didn't understand and are trying to enforce it.