I've got to fall in another direction. Accelerate.

Randall. Head. Out. NOW.

Mon, 28 Sep 2009 15:07:10 GMT

On Downupgrades.

Thu, 27 Aug 2009 14:45:46 GMT

Dear Microsoft-

I do not want to install Terrible Internet Explorer 8 on my PDF production server. At all. Not even a little bit. I've told you this several times now. But every two weeks, like clockwork, you interrupt my entire production server to ask me if I want to downupgrade to Terrible Internet Explorer 8. No matter how many times I tell you to never ask me again. It's not even a matter of its terrible-ness. The software on that server needs IE6 to function properly.

In conclusion, you are quickly wearing back out any good will that Windows 7 might have bestowed upon you.

-Aden

It's A Secret To Everybody.

Mon, 17 Aug 2009 17:52:12 GMT

I actually kind of, sort of, maybe. . . like Windows 7.

The Front Lines Of Stupid.

Mon, 10 Aug 2009 20:57:09 GMT

Allow me to start with the email I just received.

"can you chng the em thing re vac mes , thanks"

I stared at that for about five minutes or so. Eventually I figured out that he wanted me to turn off his Away Message on his email. I mean, I totally got there. This is what happens, incidentally, when a person begins to think of his billing in terms of usable seconds.

But let me roll the day back a bit more and relate to you a story. We have about seventy "high value" users here who have laptops. Basically, anyone who isn't a secretary. And I understand that, since most of them have to travel fairly often. Today someone asked me for a new power cord for his laptop - and I know that he has at least two. Usually, this request is because the user wants to leave a cord everywhere he ever goes so he doesn't have to bring one with him.

And while I don't inherently mind that - one for the office and one for travel / home - sometimes get users who want a ridiculous number of them. So I'm supposed to try to reasonably limit how many I give out, and bill their department if they start to get excessive with them. The user today admitted that he was replacing the one at home.

You see, he ran over it with his car. The "box" part in the middle. And crushed it. And then, he plugged it in again and tried to use it. This man? He makes $200-300 per hour for using his brain.

Firefox 3.5 Tip.

Mon, 13 Jul 2009 21:04:38 GMT

So, Firefox 3.5 is pretty bangin'. But it does one thing that thoroughly pisses me off. Ctrl-W'ing the last open tab closes the whole application, as opposed to simply closing the current tab and replacing it with a blank one. Not anymore!

about:config
New > Boolean
browser.tabs.closeWindowWithLastTab
FALSE

Talking To God On A Two-Way Radio.

Thu, 02 Jul 2009 19:46:44 GMT

You know, Joe, I live pretty close to Manhattan, and I'm over there every now and again. And we have a word for people who say that they talk directly with god on a regular basis.

The word is crazy. Of course, it's sometimes harder to spot that sort of crazy when it isn't wearing a knit cap in the middle of August and doesn't smell like four day old piss.

But it's still crazy.

List Sans Underpants.

Mon, 29 Jun 2009 16:02:38 GMT

Step 1 - Keep about 8 gigs of vacation photos on your work computer.
Step 2 - Complain that it takes so long to move your profile to a new machine.

In a sane and rational world, Step 3 would be, "Get slapped."

Fuck. This. Weather.

Fri, 26 Jun 2009 15:27:25 GMT

When Heads Talk.

Mon, 15 Jun 2009 17:31:01 GMT

I've recently been told (over and over) by a variety of wobbling, talking heads that if the government were to offer a public option for health care that it would be inefficient, oppressive and terrible, just about the worst sort of insurance you could imagine. I've also been told (often by the same heads) that government competition would drive the private insurance industry out of business.

Possibility A: At least one, if not both of these assertions is a lie.

Possibility B: HMOs suck so badly that even "shitty" government health care could run them out of business.

Know Your Joe.

Wed, 10 Jun 2009 17:10:37 GMT

Some of you out there may be wondering if you are, in fact, former Congressman and current talk show host / pundit Joe Scarborough. It can be confusing, I know. Being the helpful guy that I am, I've devised a single question self test that should help you figure things out for yourself.

Are You Joe Scarborough?

Which one of the following items is more than you can chew, if bitten off?

A - Vitamins

B - Peanuts

C - Grapes

D - Jon Stewart

If you selected A, B or C, you are almost definitely Joe Scarborough. Please seek psychiatric care immediately, and stop pretending you enjoy whoring for Starbucks. Also, Jim Cramer is really glad he cut back on the java. I'm just saying.

On Scapegoats.

Mon, 25 May 2009 07:47:15 GMT

So, it's probably time for me to stop blaming my age.

Trouble being, that was very convenient, and I'm running out of excuses.

Best Hook Ever.

Wed, 20 May 2009 20:08:17 GMT

On Hittability And Other Workplace Inappropriateness.

Tue, 19 May 2009 19:10:00 GMT

"So, Meghan McCain is twenty-four years old. And John McCain is her father, and he's 72 years old. I just really thought about the logistics of that."

"Eww."

"Yeah."

"I guess maybe Bob Dole was the wrong guy to do all of those Viagra adds?"

"Hmmmm, I don't know about that. I mean, she may be a Space Dragon or something, but I'd still rather hit Cindy McCain than Liddy Dole."

"True."

I Got A Letter From My Fred.

Fri, 08 May 2009 19:28:29 GMT

Wwwhhhoooaaaaaaaooohhh!!!!"

My Computer Is Slow.

Thu, 16 Apr 2009 15:18:28 GMT

This is an unedited screenshot from one of our developer's laptops. He asked why it took him five minutes to reboot (which he hasn't done since January). For reals. I'm not even kidding.

Really?

Wed, 08 Apr 2009 15:21:47 GMT

My spell check is not work. Says there is an internal error.

Please contact me.

Thank you.

Testing My Test Taking Ability.

Fri, 13 Mar 2009 14:17:00 GMT

So, all this week I've been out of work because I got to enjoy five straight days of Microsoft Vista training. Which means I'm being trained on an OS that I never intend to allow inside my working environment in the first place. Of course, the class starts an hour earlier than my normal workday, and this week started daylight savings time. So I'm bleary-eyed and broken until lunch, though I guess that's nothing new.

The real complaint I have is that the class is intended for people who are going for their Microsoft Vista certification. I am distinctly NOT attempting to acquire this cert, much for the same reason you don't see a lot of people bragging about being a Windows ME Certified Technician on their resumes.

But the reason I have this complaint is that the class is tragically unrealistic for actual administration and support purposes. And that's not the instructor's fault - in fact he seems very sharp and has been trying to augment our lesson plans with tips on what to do if (read: when) the techniques listed in our workbook fail in a real world situation.

For example, the lesson plans we've been doing for the past day concern how to back up and restore user images and settings using the new Vista tools. Tools which, let's be clear, don't back up any third party application settings or files. So if you have all Vista computers using only Microsoft Office products, this tool will mostly work, except for the long list of times that it won't. At which point, their suggestion is to edit an XML configuration file in order to get the "automated" process to back up extra files and folders. So their process is to copy down a directory structure, edit at least two XML scripts, run a DOS command longer than this paragraph, and then check two logs in order to move (in the case of their example) 16KB worth of files on the C drive.

It's assinine. Even in a large-scale environment, say, one thousand computers, there are simply more efficient, more effective, and more secure ways to perform these tasks. Shit, I could probably do one thousand backups by hand with less hassle than I could by using these Vista tools. The problem with their backup system is the problem with Vista in general. The tool attempts to solve a problem I didn't have, and then assumes that I work in a very inefficient way in order to solve that problem.

What really frightens me, though, is the rest of the class. Not all of it, mind you. But about half of it. There are people in this class that are clearly in management positions, directly as a result of the Dilbert Principle. I imagine that they are here because they are expected to know something about the computers their subordinates work on. But when I hear them making sounds of surprise and delight at the miracle that is the "Run As" command, a tiny part of me compares our theorhetical salaries and gets angry.

But it's more than that. I know they are going to go back to their places of business and suggest that viruses can be adequetely checked, quarantined and eliminated through the use of Windows Defender. Hell, if they actually do work instead of just delegating it, they may try to actually solve problems this way.

The entire lesson plan is geared towards a fantasy world where everything always works the way that Microsoft's plan for a Windows Vista world assumed that it does work. Everyone uses IE and Office (and only IE and Office). Third party apps are unnecessary. And nothing ever errors out. Ever. It's not just unrealistic - it's patently stupid. But they can't very well have a training course where they charge people to learn what to do when their shitty software doesn't work.

I've never before felt so much like I was back in high school, studying for the SATs. A test designed solely to test my ability to take that specific test, with no significant real-world application, use, or measuring capacity. In short, a waste of my fucking time.

A Few Things About Paranoia.

Fri, 27 Feb 2009 21:45:54 GMT

I have another section of the Benjamin Bellwick story written up well enough to post. I've changed the way the paged work a bit, so these things are password protected from the very general public. It's not that I want to keep them completely hidden, I just don't want bots and such crawling all over them.

A Few Things About Paranoia

The password for this entry is "IN PUBLIC", all lower case, no space.

The 1990's.

Thu, 19 Feb 2009 17:10:08 GMT

Rob Liefield.

Fri, 06 Feb 2009 18:36:31 GMT

I'm not a big comic book guy - I was just never really into them growing up, and with the exception of some of the Star Wars EU stuff, they really only held a passing interest for me. That being said, as an objective observer, this guy's rundown on Rob Liefield is both hilarious and mortifying.

Clever.

Tue, 27 Jan 2009 15:44:37 GMT

What I find perpetually amazing about gaming today is the brilliance of simplicity that I've seen recently coming out of the world of flash games. I remember a time when flash games were scarcely more entertaining than glorified web advertisements.

And now there's Closure.

On Shit, And Its Common Flow Orientation Concerning Hills.

Wed, 21 Jan 2009 22:47:29 GMT

So, yesterday I was given a project that will be very time consuming, very tedious, and will not result in any sort of useful outcome. And I mean even more so than the stuff I normally do all day.

Specifically, I was asked to take a group of secretaries and set them all up with one "backup" computer that they can log into in case their main workstation is down. If it were just user profiles, that'd be fine. But they want a full user config on these machines, and because of how our apps work with each other, I can't just copy their profile. I have to build a full user and configure all of their software, printers, macros, paper types, and mail settings for each person individually. That's probably about an hour or two of utterly tedious clacking away, per user, for a very large pool of secretaries.

Now, if this were going to address an actual issue, I'd grumble and do it. Boring but necessary. The thing is, I know the group of people that I'm setting up like this. And I cannot remember, not even once in the two and a half years I have been here, that a single one of them was unable to work because their workstation was broken. Not one. Which is not to say they've never been down. But hey, if the network is down at their desk, it will be down up the landing, too.

So, I sat down to figure out why the hell I'd been given this task in the first place. It was early in the morning, so it took me a while. Because the truth is that I've seen this before at every helpdesk style job I've ever had. I've overheard it in every office, at every meeting, and from behind every cubicle wall I've ever tinkered behind. When that end-of-year review comes around, and people haven't done enough work, the first thing they blame is their equipment. Specifically, their computer.

I wasn't in any of those meetings, but I can guarantee that every one of those reviews included some variant of, "Well, maybe if my computer worked!" I can feel it in the air and smell it on the request that was handed to me. I am essentially pissing away hours at the end of every day because someone doesn't have the common sense to look at their employees when they scapegoat my department and say "ORLY?"

What I will be doing is logging how often this backup machine is used, by who, and for how long. Because I wasn't exactly shy about the conclusions I've drawn concerning this project. And since my boss has decided that it's fair game to continue to give me shit about problems that I've already permanently corrected, I'll enjoy having that log handy so that I can reply to those beratings with, "Yeah, sorry, I was busy configuring the backup machine."

Counting.

Wed, 21 Jan 2009 15:43:53 GMT

Listen, I really liked Obama's inauguration speech. I think it got a little wistful at the end, but there was some strong, solid stuff in there. However, the nerd in me just can't let this pass.

He's the forty-third person to take that oath, not the forty-fourth. Grover Cleavland is counted twice in terms of his Presidency, but he does not count for two men. Just about the only President who might be able to count as two men would be William Howard Taft. Though I don't think that's what Obama had in mind.

And speaking of that oath? A note to Chief Supreme Court Justice John Roberts. The next time you're swearing in a President on international television? Do try and get the oath right, okay?

Percentages.

Thu, 18 Dec 2008 22:33:53 GMT

Today my boss told me that I'm only working at about 85% of my potential. Honestly, that's about right. I'm somewhere around a "B" average here. Though honestly, 85% of my potential is about 3,000% of the potential of the last three guys they had working with me (though the new one is sharp). At any rate, he saw this as a problem.

It took all of my willpower not to point out the incredible deal he was getting, since they're paying me for about 60% of my potential. I'll save that remark for the summer, when my lease is up anyway.

Get Out Of My Head, Randall.

Fri, 05 Dec 2008 16:39:05 GMT