The computing stuff rant thread

[mrcharly-YHT]

FFS, all I want to do is pull a repo, check which branches exist. Is there a simple way of doing that? Is there fuck.

Atlassian Sourcetree an option for you?  I've been using it for 5 or 6 years now and although it is slower than command line git the GUI more than makes up for the few seconds here or there waiting for stuff to refresh.

This is a work computer, locked down (although I can install quite a bit of software).

I've discovered that in theory I can set up git locally to talk to git enterprise.
There don't seem to be 'standard working practices' defined here, which bakes my noodle.

Git can be used in lots and lots of ways, it is important for all members of a team to be consistent. In my previous job I was responsible for defining and maintaining the working practices for several git repos.

[Mr Larrington]

O hai Mega-Global Chocolate Manufactury of Mountain View, USAnia!

If I am logged in as me why are you telling me you are unable to lo me in to reply to a comment on my blog when I had to be logged into your product or service in order to approve the comment not thirty seconds earlier?  Sort it out u muppets!

kthxbai

[Jaded]

Drobo. Drongo more like.

Has an internal battery that, when flat, means the NAS will not start up and charge said battery. Apparently the solution is to send the thing back to Drongo to get it replaced, for $xxx. They went bust earlier in the year.

So my choices are to lose the data, or get a PC 5 SATA thingie and some specialist RAID software.

[Woofage]

^ have you tried just removing the battery to see if it will start up?

[Jaded]

It is the other option - but there is specific hardware attached to the battery (I think there may be 2 batteries) and getting inside the thing is not simple. I do’t mind taking things apart, and I may well do…

[philip]

If the battery looks like the images here:
 https://old.reddit.com/r/drobo/comments/yjdwg4/my_drobos_dead_and_im_so_screwed/iv46w68/
then it appears to be an 18650 and you could probably replace it with something like:
 https://cellpacksolutions.co.uk/products/battery-packs/ansmann-standard-li-ion-1s1p-3-7v-3450mah-battery-pack/
(not recommending that particular supplier, just the first that came up when searching)

[Kim]

If nothing else, that looks like the sort of thing that might be jump-startable with a bench power supply in order to retrieve the data...

[TheLurker]

FFS, all I want to do is pull a repo, check which branches exist. Is there a simple way of doing that? Is there fuck.

Atlassian Sourcetree an option for you?  I've been using it for 5 or 6 years now and although it is slower than command line git the GUI more than makes up for the few seconds here or there waiting for stuff to refresh.

This is a work computer, locked down (although I can install quite a bit of software).

Aye, same with mine.  I have just been issued with a new box and it's idle until I can get SourceTree installed.  We were shunted from one division to another and SourceTree hasn't, yet, been added to the approved list for the "new" division.  I'm letting my line manager chase it, I've got better things to do using the current box.

[mrcharly-YHT]

FFS, all I want to do is pull a repo, check which branches exist. Is there a simple way of doing that? Is there fuck.

Atlassian Sourcetree an option for you?  I've been using it for 5 or 6 years now and although it is slower than command line git the GUI more than makes up for the few seconds here or there waiting for stuff to refresh.

This is a work computer, locked down (although I can install quite a bit of software).

Aye, same with mine.  I have just been issued with a new box and it's idle until I can get SourceTree installed.  We were shunted from one division to another and SourceTree hasn't, yet, been added to the approved list for the "new" division.  I'm letting my line manager chase it, I've got better things to do using the current box.

I was sort-of wrong. There is a way to use git locally, pulling from gitenterprise.
Wasn't working for me because the system was part way through an email format change. I'd generated a key using the correct  email address, but the system hadn't caught up with the change.

Such a relief, working in git once more.

[barakta]

Why in the name of FUCK does google Drive not let you open files in new tabs.

FUCKING INFURIATING.

One of my jobs uses Google as their stuff and it's BROKEN horribly so instead of nicely arranged files that open properly it's been a nasty bodge ALLL fucking week. I've wasted HOURS (unpaid) fighting to get access to every file and there's hundreds.

I am having to download personal data to my local machine to Do My Job in anything like a normally efficient manner cos Google Drive is SO FUCKING SHIT and the normal system is broken.

Apparently this is Google's fault and despite being paying customers, it's taking unacceptably long for Google to FIX IT.

I Am Not Happy.

[Mr Larrington]

Big update to Thunderbox today.  Mozilla making a big song and dance about it, to the extent of opening a web page to shout about it.  “Will this” asked Mr Larrington hopefully, “fix the issue that stops the Product from downloading all new Yahoo! mail! messages! on all the Babbage-Engines in Larrington Towers?”

Why, no!  No, it does not!  A pox upon Mozilla, Yahoo! and! all! who! fail! in! her!

[Bledlow]

Bloody laptop. It has suddenly decided it will not connect to the Internet. It connects to our home Wifi, as usual, but no further. It just stopped - while being used. Nor will it connect if plugged in to the router. It denies the existence of the connecting cable. Bugger!

The two desktops in the house connect just as they did before, both wirelessly & wired. They happily connect with the same cable, plugged into the same socket on the router, as the laptop denies the existence of. I ran Dell's diagnostics & they don't say anything useful. Nor do Microsoft's. I've switched everything off & on again.

This is a new problem for me. Failure to connect has always been for an obvious reason such as borked router, wrong wifi password, etc. I must think, without being paid to do so.

[Bledlow]

And now this desktop is telling me that Google is blocked. WTF is happening?

[Edit] But it only happened in that tab. Here be gremlins. methinks.

[Mr Larrington]

Brother, what the fuck is the point of whacking a notification onto my Babbage-Engine telling me to “Double-click this icon to update blah blah” when:

• It's not an icon, and
• double-clicking it does fuck all

Moreover, if you dive through the dozen layers of obfuscatory crap to find the “Check for updates” wossname it says it’s all up to date.  Which it isn’t, because I found a printer firmware update released while I was on holibobs and have not installed because I didn’t know about it because your stupid software didn’t tell me it existed sort it out u muppets

[Feanor]

Brother, what the fuck is the point of whacking a notification onto my Babbage-Engine telling me to “Double-click this icon to update blah blah” when:

• It's not an icon, and
• double-clicking it does fuck all

Moreover, if you dive through the dozen layers of obfuscatory crap to find the “Check for updates” wossname it says it’s all up to date.  Which it isn’t, because I found a printer firmware update released while I was on holibobs and have not installed because I didn’t know about it because your stupid software didn’t tell me it existed sort it out u muppets

Under no circumstances install the software package that comes with any consumer-grade printer.
It will probably be on a Cee Dee, be 10 years out-of-date, and install a gigabyte of crapware at the same time.

Do whatever is required to obtain the necessary drivers only.

[Kim]

Under no circumstances install [...] any consumer-grade printer.

FTFY 


Though the faffing about it took to get Windows 11 on a friend's laptop to speak to my tame Laserjet 4050 suggests that 'consumer-grade' may also be redundant.  I think the mistake we made there was trusting the HP website.

Actually, I've just remembered trying to get it to work on barakta's $ork-1 laptop, which was too locked down to install drivers.  Does Windows have a generic lowest-common-denominator Postscript or PCL driver available?  Of course it doesn't.

[Feanor]

It's hard because MS are trying to depreciate the old Control Panel and the UIs which let you actually Do Stuff, (like the Add Printer > IP Device UI),  replacing them with dumbed-down phone-UI interfaces which do not expose the settings you need.

They are still there, but they are hard to find.
I have to google how to find these settings these days.

[Feanor]

Though the faffing about it took to get Windows 11 on a friend's laptop to speak to my tame Laserjet 4050 suggests that 'consumer-grade' may also be redundant.  I think the mistake we made there was trusting the HP website.

Actually, I've just remembered trying to get it to work on barakta's $ork-1 laptop, which was too locked down to install drivers.  Does Windows have a generic lowest-common-denominator Postscript or PCL driver available?  Of course it doesn't.

So I just installed the drivers for my 4050 on my locked-down work lapdog here.
The level of lock-down may vary.
I started here:

https://support.hp.com/us-en/drivers/selfservice/hp-laserjet-4050-printer-series/25475
(wow! that link seems to land at random locations sometimes! Try it again if it does not lead to the driver download page.)

I downloaded the Universal Print Driver for PCL6(64-BIT), V 7.1.0.25570
That got me a file called 'upd-pcl6-x64-7.1.0.25570.exe'.
Running it just self-unzipped into 'c:\HP Universal Print Driver\pcl6-x64-7.1.0.25570', which is what I expected.
Unexpectedly, an HP Universal Printing wizard popped up, and I decided to follow it.
(Normally, I'd expect to manually go through the Windows 'Add A Printer' thing, and then point it to the drivers in this folder.)

Select 'Traditional Mode'.
'Add a printer using an IP Address or hostname'
Device type = TCP/IP Device, enter IP address.
Port Name is set to the same.
Do not select Query Printer...

Select one of the 2 driver options offered: HP Universal Printing PCL 6. I have no idea what the second option is for.
Give it a name.
Let it install.

[Pingu]

It's hard because MS are trying to depreciate the old Control Panel and the UIs which let you actually Do Stuff, (like the Add Printer > IP Device UI),  replacing them with dumbed-down phone-UI interfaces which do not expose the settings you need.

They are still there, but they are hard to find.
I have to google how to find these settings these days.

Would God Mode help with this? (We've not had a printer for many years - that's what work is for).

[Kim]

The level of lock-down may vary.

Yeah, this one was *very* locked down, as befits marginally-computer-literate people wrangling special-category data from offsite.  IIRC you needed an IT support ticket to add/remove icons from the Desktop...

[Mr Larrington]

TBF, after an initial period of refusing to communicate with other devices even over a wired notwork said Brother (laser printer/scanner) has behaved mostly impeccably.

[HTFB]

an initial period of refusing to communicate with other devices even over a wired notwork said Brother (

O Brother, where art thou?

[Mr Larrington]

an initial period of refusing to communicate with other devices even over a wired notwork said Brother (

O Brother, where art thou?

The contents of the original installation CD are stored in a directory thusly ^^^^ named on a NAS wossname.

[barakta]

The level of lock-down may vary.

Yeah, this one was *very* locked down, as befits marginally-computer-literate people wrangling special-category data from offsite.  IIRC you needed an IT support ticket to add/remove icons from the Desktop...

Our IT is super paranoid about being pwnned. They're so locked-down/paranoid that Estates aren't allowed to have remote control over building lighting and aircon etc cos IT won't allow them to use the software they have and just booted it out without any warning or consultation...

I am forseeing some challenges where we want some infra for accessibility and it being turned down over cybersecurity cos it's whitelist only and I don't know how you get new items whitelisted.

[Mr Larrington]

Thunderbird, you have been successfully running that rule, wot moves the daily digest of headlines from The Register into the folder yclept “El Reg”, for more than ten years.

This morning you unilaterally decided it was spam.  It isn’t sort it out u muppets