Author Topic: The computing stuff rant thread  (Read 396502 times)

ian

Re: The computing stuff rant thread
« Reply #1875 on: 20 June, 2019, 04:09:39 pm »
Oh, and Jira, SalesForce, Aha, Confluence, Slack, Google Groups, etc. etc. and let's not forget the endless spreadsheets.

It wasn't like this in Thought Leadership. I had post-it notes and a whiteboard and time to do some actual work rather than record and document stuff that might one day happen.

TheLurker

  • Goes well with magnolia.
Re: The computing stuff rant thread
« Reply #1876 on: 20 June, 2019, 07:17:57 pm »
Colleague.  It is 2019.  We have had .Net for as near as damn-it 20 years.  If I catch you assembling file paths using string concatentation and likewise pissing around selecting the "right" path separator to bolt said file paths together just once more instead of using Path.Combine I am going to beat you to a bloody smear.  Moron.

Quote from: ian
Oh, and Jira, SalesForce, Aha, Confluence, Slack, Google Groups, etc. etc. and let's not forget the endless spreadsheets.
Console yourself with the happy thought that haven't got TFS as well.
Τα πιο όμορφα ταξίδια γίνονται με τις δικές μας δυνάμεις - Φίλοι του Ποδήλατου

Mrs Pingu

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Re: The computing stuff rant thread
« Reply #1877 on: 20 June, 2019, 10:06:33 pm »
And after saying OneDrive was slightly less shit...
I've been using it to suck everything off my lapdog in preparation for getting a new! Improved! Lapdog.
Today I went to look at some model files and now instead of containing all numbers they're full of fucking gibberish like $&!*
Fuckfuckfuck.

I turned the thing off and came home. If it turns out that's happened to a lot of these files I might have to stick 2 pencil up my nose and a pair of underpants on my head.

Also; Lync/skype for business. I used to be able to set my status to 'appear offline'. Why in blue blazes did you get rid of that you bastids?
Do not clench. It only makes it worse.

Mr Larrington

  • A bit ov a lyv wyr by slof standirds
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Re: The computing stuff rant thread
« Reply #1878 on: 22 July, 2019, 11:31:08 pm »
Is it too much to ask, Microsith, that you leave my settings the fuck alone when doing a big update?  I mean, why the actual fuck do you need to reset the text in the sodding screen-saver?

Just fuck off >:(
External Transparent Wall Inspection Operative & Mayor of Mortagne-au-Perche
Satisfying the Bloodlust of the Masses in Peacetime

ian

Re: The computing stuff rant thread
« Reply #1879 on: 29 July, 2019, 11:58:33 am »
Adobe Creative Cloud, sync my fucking files. The clue is your name 'Cloud.' Not Adobe 'Restart Creative Cloud.app.'

Feanor

  • It's mostly downhill from here.
Re: The computing stuff rant thread
« Reply #1880 on: 29 July, 2019, 08:53:08 pm »
Windows 10.

New laptop for elderly pa-in-law, and I brace myself for the usual ripping-out-of-preinstalled-shit.
But it's gotten a whole lot worse than last time I did this.

Go through the initial setup without creating a Microsoft account: This is now harder than ever.  The initial steps take you through connecting to the network.  Mistake. I had to take down my Wi-Fi to force the thing offline before I got the option to just create a local account. The Airplane mode keys did not work at that point in the install.

Trial version of office 360 - Not in Add / Remove programs, but I expected that. Google tells me how to remove it, with reasonable success.

But here's the nasty thing: I can't install *anything*, because windows is in a special locked-down mode called Windows 10 S. In this mode, you can only install things from the Microsoft Appstore. You can't run any normal installers. To disable S-mode, you need an app from... Yes, you guessed it, The App Store. Which you need a Microsoft account to access!

Now, I have a Microsoft account from when they borged Skype some time back, so I temporarily logged in with my account to get the S-mode disabler.
Which worked.
But then, trying to disentangle my MS Account from the local account on the PC... Jeez!
It really didn't want to forget my MS account login!

Then, trying to install full Office 16 - it blew up because the removal of the trial version was incomplete.
Another round of googling and a bit of registry hackery and finally I'm mostly done.

That was way more painful than it should have been.



Feanor

  • It's mostly downhill from here.
Re: The computing stuff rant thread
« Reply #1881 on: 01 August, 2019, 05:30:47 pm »
Excel. Again.

There's no way to have a formula return a result which is NULL, basically the same as a blank cell.
If there's a formula, it must evaluate to something, and that something cannot be the equivalent of an empty cell.

So if a VLOOKUP has unmatched results, you get #N/A.  That's fine, and to be expected in a big table.
But I don't want failed lookups to contain #N/A, because that breaks subsequent processing.
<Tappity-tap>
So I wrap the VLOOKUP in IFERROR, and supply a custom value for failed lookups.
I can't supply NULL as a value here.
I can supply Zero, but that gives the Wrong Answers, because Zero is an actual data value and will skew subsequent processing.
I can supply "", and that *looks* like it works.
But it doesn't, because it gives a cell that looks empty, but is not. It contains an empty string, which blows up subsequent processing.

I *really* don't want to have to re-engineer *everything* around this, and wrap all the post processing in protective code to trap the #N/As.

So I have had to resort to a stupid little VBA subroutine which checks over the VLOOKUP cell range and if it contains #N/A does a ActiveCell.clear on it.

What an effing hassle for the want of being able to specify a value something like NULL or Stupid.Excel.Blank!

Chris S

Re: The computing stuff rant thread
« Reply #1882 on: 01 August, 2019, 06:21:17 pm »
Well - that's an afternoon I won't get back; I've been tearing my hair out (well, I would be if I had any) trying to find where the actual FUCK I'd declared a DB column as "guid" because the error coming back was pretty specific.

Until a Google search finally turned up the ugly truth.

The MySQL .NET data-connector "helpfully" parses char(36) as a GUID, whether you mean it to be one or not. That's just fucking hideous.

TheLurker

  • Goes well with magnolia.
Re: The computing stuff rant thread
« Reply #1883 on: 01 August, 2019, 07:58:57 pm »
The MySQL .NET data-connector "helpfully" parses char(36) as a GUID, whether you mean it to be one or not. That's just fucking hideous.
Duly noted for future reference, thank you.  That is indeed truly fucking hideous.  On a par with later versions of M$ .Net Core MVC automatically camel-casing outbound JSON.  When will the stupid bastards learn that you don't fuck around with data in transit, just pass it along?
Τα πιο όμορφα ταξίδια γίνονται με τις δικές μας δυνάμεις - Φίλοι του Ποδήλατου

Re: The computing stuff rant thread
« Reply #1884 on: 04 August, 2019, 07:54:43 pm »
giffgaff are, at best, a load of prats:-

Quote
Conversation

Member
01 Aug 2019 19:07
I have tried to put this voucher on to get £10 credit but the payment just says "processing" and it's done that
since this morning.

It says "Order status:
PROCESSING
Aug 1, 2019 10:03:27 AM" and that hasn't changed all day.

The payment has a top-up number of 267631904

My credit still shows £10

Martin from the giffgaff team
02 Aug 2019 13:37
Hi there diver300,

Martin here and I understand you are having an issue with your voucher top up, I appreciate the inconvenience this must be causing you, so let's have a look into this.

I`ve looked at your account and can see that £10 voucher top that you refer to and it is still processing as you say.But I can see the issue here and that is you tried to use this voucher on a sim that has not been used for over 6 months so that account and number has now been cancelled.So what you will need to do first is to add your card details on this account so we can refund that for you and you would then need to set up a brand new account with a new sim from scratch.

You can order a sim by copying and pasting the link below into a browser:
https://www.giffgaff.com/free-sim-cards:

Our sims can take up to 5 working days to reach you but it should arrive by the next business day.
If you wanted to get your sim sooner you can get them at many stores now. Tesco, B&M Bargains, Home Bargains, Pound Shops and I think Asda also do them.
There will be a charge of 99p for the sim but as soon as the sim is activated we will reimburse that 99p back onto your account.


To add your card details just copy and paste the link below into a browser:

http://giffgaff.com/profile/payment-details


I know this can be terribly annoying when this happens but once you get your card details added just get back to us then and we will refund that £10 for you.

I hope this helps and makes things a bit clearer for you but if you have any further queries or questions please do not hesitate to contact our community and you can do this by copying and pasting the link below into a browser:
https://community.giffgaff.com

All the best and take care ,

Martin from the giffgaff team

Member
02 Aug 2019 18:09
Dear Martin,
You said that the SIM has not been used in 6 months. However, it was last used at 11 pm on the 12th June to send data. It was allocated an ip address of 82.132.247.0

Also, I received an email on the 17th June, saying what data I had used in the last month. This is what it said:-

17/6/2019 16:34
Via giffgaff

Membername: xxxxxxxxxx
Phone number: xxxxxxxx5939

We want to make sure you get the best value from us. To help you get the most out of giffgaff, we've summarised your recent usage below.

Your recent usage

Here's a quick summary of what you've used in the past 30 days.

Total MB used   1.84
Mins   0
Texts   0

At that time I had over £10 of credit on the SIM.

Could you please get the SIM running and please don't tell me that it hasn't been used in 6 month when I have an email from giffgaff about 6 weeks ago saying that it was used in the month before that.

Martin from the giffgaff team
02 Aug 2019 18:47
Hi there diver300 ,

Martin here and I have checked your usage for the 12th of June at 11-00pm and I can see no data being used.I have in fact checked your data usage going back to the 1st of May and can see nothing there I`m afraid. I can tell that your this sim is deactivated so as I advised you will have to get a new sim and set up a new account altogether.

I would love for this sim to be active for you so you could go ahead and use it but it has been deactivated for non usage and we will not be able to activate it again .

I hope this helps and take care,

Maertin from the giffgaff team
Quote from: Kim
Paging Diver300.  Diver300 to the GSM Trimphone, please...

barakta

  • Bastard lovechild of Yomiko Readman and Johnny 5
Re: The computing stuff rant thread
« Reply #1885 on: 04 August, 2019, 11:37:14 pm »
Yes, I have had similarly rubbish responses from GiffGaff. They then gave me incorrect information about scam text source numbers on my account which meant I complained to the wrong organisation. They then refused to apologise for sending me rubbish information and the hassle. I wish I'd had the spoons to go to ADR on principle - if you screw up, you say sorry and don't just dig your heels in and derail by claiming it's my fault or something.

Re: The computing stuff rant thread
« Reply #1886 on: 04 August, 2019, 11:50:52 pm »
Excel. Again.

There's no way to have a formula return a result which is NULL, basically the same as a blank cell.
If there's a formula, it must evaluate to something, and that something cannot be the equivalent of an empty cell.

So if a VLOOKUP has unmatched results, you get #N/A.  That's fine, and to be expected in a big table.
But I don't want failed lookups to contain #N/A, because that breaks subsequent processing.
<Tappity-tap>
So I wrap the VLOOKUP in IFERROR, and supply a custom value for failed lookups.
I can't supply NULL as a value here.
I can supply Zero, but that gives the Wrong Answers, because Zero is an actual data value and will skew subsequent processing.
I can supply "", and that *looks* like it works.
But it doesn't, because it gives a cell that looks empty, but is not. It contains an empty string, which blows up subsequent processing.

I *really* don't want to have to re-engineer *everything* around this, and wrap all the post processing in protective code to trap the #N/As.

So I have had to resort to a stupid little VBA subroutine which checks over the VLOOKUP cell range and if it contains #N/A does a ActiveCell.clear on it.

What an effing hassle for the want of being able to specify a value something like NULL or Stupid.Excel.Blank!

Feanor, can you return FALSE and trap that in your subsequent analysis? Otherwise I think you have to go into a vba script but that results in deleting the formula from the 'blank' cells which makes recalculating the sheet more involved.

Feanor

  • It's mostly downhill from here.
Re: The computing stuff rant thread
« Reply #1887 on: 07 August, 2019, 06:26:27 pm »
#include rant.h

Feanor, can you return FALSE and trap that in your subsequent analysis? Otherwise I think you have to go into a vba script but that results in deleting the formula from the 'blank' cells which makes recalculating the sheet more involved.

Yes, those are the issues I have. I *can* return FALSE, but I then have to trap that in the subsequent processing.

I have inherited a bunch of spreadsheets ( Club TT Vet's results on standard ) which do a whole bunch of stuff, but are very manual.  I'm chipping away at automating it. Right now, I don't want to dive down the rabbit-hole of the subsequent processing to implement the trapping.  In the meantime, I use VBA to take the outputs of the raw VLOOKUP and then write a new column and just point the post-processing to that.

Really, I want to just start from scratch.

Re: The computing stuff rant thread
« Reply #1888 on: 12 August, 2019, 08:21:53 am »
Sat I spend working on a presentation. Not with graphics and stuff, just words. Due to be delivered on Tuesday, to middle-senior management. It is an important presentation, with lots of facts.
Being diligent, I save it lots of times.

Mon, I plug in computer at work. Computer hangs. Nothing responding. Do forced restart.
Open presentation. recovery file. Doesn't look good. Open file . . .  looks like it might be ok, save file.

No - that was *friday's* version, with almost no content. Saturday's copy, that I had saved to effing 365 onedrive, is gone. Kaput. Erased from existence. No recovery file. Nothing.

FUUUUUUCCCCCKKKKKK
<i>Marmite slave</i>

Re: The computing stuff rant thread
« Reply #1889 on: 12 August, 2019, 02:10:19 pm »
Kaput. Erased from existence. No recovery file. Nothing.

Had exactly the same thing happen a few weeks ago - presentation to do ahead of leave...definitely saved, then PowerPoint crashed. Turned on, auto-recovery option is one from days before. Nothing on O365.

Guess it's either save multiple copies (which is just silly) or take screengrabs of slides when happy, which is ludicrous!
One Man and LEJOG : End-to-End on Two Wheels in Two Weeks (Buy the book; or Kindle it)

Kim

  • Timelord
    • Fediverse
Re: The computing stuff rant thread
« Reply #1890 on: 12 August, 2019, 03:14:02 pm »
Guess it's either save multiple copies (which is just silly) or take screengrabs of slides when happy, which is ludicrous!

Nothing silly about saving multiple copies, as long as it's automated and deduplicated, so it doesn't waste space or require extra thought.  So, incremental backups with something like rsync, Time Machine or similar.  Or a filesystem that does snapshots for you like ZFS.

But in the absence of that, fucking around with multiple versions would seem worthwhile if the effort required to reproduce the work is non-trivial.  Especially if OneDrive isn't to be trusted...

ian

Re: The computing stuff rant thread
« Reply #1891 on: 12 August, 2019, 03:16:05 pm »
Sadly, when it comes to Office I've been inculcated into jabbing the save icon after every significant task. The autorecovery, in my experience, seldom offers a recovery, automatic or otherwise.

Re: The computing stuff rant thread
« Reply #1892 on: 12 August, 2019, 05:20:40 pm »
Guess it's either save multiple copies (which is just silly) or take screengrabs of slides when happy, which is ludicrous!
Nothing silly about saving multiple copies, as long as it's automated and deduplicated, so it doesn't waste space or require extra thought.

Ah, should have reread before hitting send! Yes, totally agree regarding backups (and have just gone through a phase of making sure I have copies of everything important in the cloud and on a drive).

Meant silly in terms of one of the big selling point of O365 is the fact you don’t have to worry about that as it’ll take care of it for you. Appreciate that’s not always the case!

Don’t get me started on the collaborative working that never seems to behave when more than one person is editing the same page!
One Man and LEJOG : End-to-End on Two Wheels in Two Weeks (Buy the book; or Kindle it)

Re: The computing stuff rant thread
« Reply #1893 on: 12 August, 2019, 05:33:01 pm »
Sadly, when it comes to Office I've been inculcated into jabbing the save icon after every significant task. The autorecovery, in my experience, seldom offers a recovery, automatic or otherwise.
I had done multiple saves . . .

As far as I can tell, because my machine went into a hang mode while oneDrive was trying to sync, forceably restarting has caused Once-upon-Drive to do a rollback to the previous sync. That was Friday, so it has erased everything from the weekend.

<i>Marmite slave</i>

Feanor

  • It's mostly downhill from here.
Re: The computing stuff rant thread
« Reply #1894 on: 12 August, 2019, 05:41:58 pm »
Our latest incarnation of O365 at work has auto-save turned on for everything!

This is totally horrible!
I often want to open a spreadsheet, and do a few what-ifs without saving it!

You need to turn off Auto-Sae per-application, but at least you *can* disable it.

Kim

  • Timelord
    • Fediverse
Re: The computing stuff rant thread
« Reply #1895 on: 12 August, 2019, 05:48:55 pm »
Auto-save to some other (?hidden) file would seem like the optimal approach.

TheLurker

  • Goes well with magnolia.
Re: The computing stuff rant thread
« Reply #1896 on: 22 August, 2019, 08:26:06 pm »
Fucking laptop makers.  Use a standard fucking DC power plug why can't you!?  If it chucks out 19V at 3 and twiddle amps then use the same sodding plug as every other power brick that chucks out 19/3 it's NOT difficult.  If it chucks out some other XV/YA then by all means use another style so people don't fry their machines, but for pity's sake adopt _some_ kind of bloody standard.

Half an hour of what was already a very short evening pissed up against wall because instead of being able to just give MrsLurker a spare power brick with a matching rating I had to butcher the DC line to swap an Acer style plug to a Samsung style plug.  You're not worth a pint of weasel's piss, not one single one of you.
Τα πιο όμορφα ταξίδια γίνονται με τις δικές μας δυνάμεις - Φίλοι του Ποδήλατου

Kim

  • Timelord
    • Fediverse
Re: The computing stuff rant thread
« Reply #1897 on: 22 August, 2019, 08:28:38 pm »
It's okay, things are slowly standardising on USB-C.

</ha-ha-only-serious>

CommuteTooFar

  • Inadequate Randonneur
Re: The computing stuff rant thread
« Reply #1898 on: 11 September, 2019, 11:00:12 am »
MSI motherboard registration if you need a check code from the motherboard to confirm its identity Do not put it in a place it can not be read once installed in a case.
 (On my motherboard it is on the side of the main power connector)

ian

Re: The computing stuff rant thread
« Reply #1899 on: 24 September, 2019, 08:46:50 pm »
Finally admitted I had to pay for my mobile (because EE are finally lopping off their lingering T-Mobile account at the end of the month). It was good why it lasted. Now I have to pay £8.50/month. Oh it hurts.

That's not the rant. The rant is having to have to deal with mobile phone companies, something that I was successfully avoiding (and frankly far better than six years of free data). Honestly, one fucking simple thing and that's my phone number. How the hell am I supposed to know if I've been in accident or might be owed some PPI payback if you don't transfer my number like you said would happen. It may be correct on your records but it's not correct on my phone and that's the important bit. Yes, I can simply edit the phone number on the phone itself but, you know what, it does nothing because I don't think that's how it works. Come on, transferring a phone number on your own systems can't exactly be an edge case.