Harry’s World

I work in IT. If I had done this to my users they would kill me.

The hosting provider that this is hosted on (I must point out that it wasn’t the reseller doing this) decided that any password that hasn’t been changed for a while (no definition of “while” found) then the passwords would be expired.

No warning. Nothing.

Nice.

This is why I haven’t posted anything (feeble excuse #2) for a while - there were things I was going to post but couldn’t do it as I couldn’t log in.

About two months ago the TV blew up. We got another and put it on the stand. It worked well.

At about the same time the broadband dropped from a reasonable 3.5mbps (technically it is upto 8mbps) to a barely broadband 0.5mbps. BT were called.

After much diagnosing and repeated calls it was no better. BT’s technical support was very polite but ultimately not very useful. Although on about the fifth call they checked the line and found a fault (although, I reckon they could check any line in the country and find a problem with it).

I did some research and discovered that a possible problem was radio interference. So, I got an AM radio (if you are young you will not know what I am on about) and tuned it to (as accurately as the dial would allow) 612khz. I then proceeded to wave it around the broadband router and wires.

It seems that the Sky box, especially from the rear, chucks out a whole bunch of radio interference in the 100s of khz band (which is exactly the range of frequencies ADSL uses). A suitable bit of relocating of wires to be as far away from the Sky box as possible and all is now well… back up to 3.5mbps.

I guess when we put the “new” TV on the stand some of the cables got moved (my wife just had to hoover behind the TV stand).

Tempted to get a shielded ADSL cable - maybe it can go even quicker!!

A little while ago the clutch in the car started to make some nasty, expensive sounding, noises. So, once I was sure that funds allowed me to fix it, I booked it into the garage to be done. This was going to be done at a garage near where I work - minimising the hassle of having to take any time off work.

The Saturday before this was due to be fixed it completely gave up. Luckily I do have breakdown cover and so called them up and got it towed to a local garage. They, unfortunately, wouldn’t be able to fix it for 10 days due to being fully booked.

Typically, they didn’t actually order the parts that were required until the day they were to fix it… so it wasn’t ready until the day after. I got a couple of days peace though - we were supposed to be going up to visit my parents that week so I sent up my wife and child as per the plan and stayed at home to wait for the car to be fixed.

Upon collecting the car I discover:

• The clutch is fixed!
• The exhaust is blowing
• The “Check Engine” light is permanently on

They re-hanged the exhaust straight-away so that’s good but they didn’t have a diagnostic machine that worked with the car and didn’t have the time (neither did I to be honest) to investigate fully.

Unfortunately, given the current fuel prices, the symptoms are increased fuel consumption. I am currently getting a very scary 22mpg rather than a slightly annoying 32mpg.

I hope they fix the problem today.

On the way to work at the moment there is a road sign that makes me chuckle every time I see it. Sums up my work beautifully.

I missed this off the job specification when I started at my current employers (although to be fair they’re not unique in this respect): Required skills include “Mind Reading”

Yesterday I am told that a certain user is now allowed to do certain things within the company but they can’t do it. This needs to be sorted out now as this user has not been able to do this for over a week now and it is affecting the operation.

Of course it can be sorted out (it’s only a tick in a box) but if I don’t know about it then I will not do it.

… I probably wouldn’t keep this up to date.

Meanwhile, a classic helpdesk request:

User: How do I call <name removed>?
Me: Pick up the phone and dial the number.

I wouldn’t mind but one of “User”’s main tasks is to answer the phones and transfer calls as necessary.

If you have a CD that needs to be copied by your system administrator (that is going to take an hour) a good thing to do is to tell them this at 5:15 on a Friday evening rather than at the beginning of the day giving them all day to do it at their leisure…say, over a rare lunch-break.

Better than that would be to hound them until they have finished with the CD and then put it in your bag and leave. It isn’t like they might need it just in case it goes wrong and, of course, they are staying late (now) so there is no need for you to stay late.

“That is contrary to what was discussed and agreed – but if the requirements have changed then so be it. If they have then, before wondering why it doesn’t work, let the poor frustrated system developer know otherwise he will have to plead ignorance, insanity or crime of passion.”

This kind of sums up my career really.

I really must introduce our cats to the idea that when the people are asleep this is a good time for cats to sleep too. We have a bell on a little piece of elastic string tied to the bannister - clearly this is irresistible at 5:10 in the morning.