Author Topic: The computing stuff rant thread  (Read 396228 times)

David Martin

  • Thats Dr Oi You thankyouverymuch
The computing stuff rant thread
« on: 24 February, 2014, 08:10:41 pm »
Autodesk. For a company that charges $$$$ how hard is it to have software that can actually read and write properly to a Samba share?

I can't do a f^&*$( thing with it because every time ti tries to read my home directory it claims it can't find files that are hiding in plain sight.

can't find Blah Blah Blah enu/support/thingy
Well don't install it under enu/Support/thingy then.
Rename folder.
Still can't find it

Is it really such a bloated piece of &*( or is it my sysadmins screwing up roaming profile mounting?

"By creating we think. By living we learn" - Patrick Geddes

Woofage

  • Tofu-eating Wokerati
  • Ain't no hooves on my bike.
Re: The computing stuff rant thread
« Reply #1 on: 24 February, 2014, 09:35:32 pm »
A former colleague went to work for Autodesk in the mid noughties. I told him to pass on the message "rip it up and start again".

I feel your pain.
Pen Pusher

David Martin

  • Thats Dr Oi You thankyouverymuch
Re: The computing stuff rant thread
« Reply #2 on: 24 February, 2014, 10:17:21 pm »
I thought installing it was bad. Trying to work out how to use the thing is not much fun, especially in a tiny remote desktop window over a crappy virgin media cable connection.

It may get filed next to 'Visual Basic' in the box of technologies I am not allowed to use in polite company.
"By creating we think. By living we learn" - Patrick Geddes

Kim

  • Timelord
    • Fediverse
Re: The computing stuff rant thread
« Reply #3 on: 24 February, 2014, 10:27:48 pm »
Arduino Ethernet modules that don't speak IPv6.  Who thought that was a good idea?

(Yes, I know the WizNet 5100 has been around for ages.  It's still a bit stupid though.)

Re: The computing stuff rant thread
« Reply #4 on: 25 February, 2014, 07:53:56 am »
Arduino Ethernet modules that don't speak IPv6.  Who thought that was a good idea?

(Yes, I know the WizNet 5100 has been around for ages.  It's still a bit stupid though.)

Surely that's just a software issue as IP is not Ethernet it's L3 (media Independence being one of the points of IP). And yes I know some devices offload L3 processing into hardware for better performance but unless its an L3 switch that shouldn't be an issue.
I think you'll find it's a bit more complicated than that.

Kim

  • Timelord
    • Fediverse
Re: The computing stuff rant thread
« Reply #5 on: 25 February, 2014, 01:31:56 pm »
Arduino Ethernet modules that don't speak IPv6.  Who thought that was a good idea?

(Yes, I know the WizNet 5100 has been around for ages.  It's still a bit stupid though.)

Surely that's just a software issue as IP is not Ethernet it's L3 (media Independence being one of the points of IP). And yes I know some devices offload L3 processing into hardware for better performance but unless its an L3 switch that shouldn't be an issue.

Yes, but the WizNet 5100 (around which most Arduino Ethernet shields are based) is a system-onna-chip that takes Ethernet on one end and gives you serial on another.  The entire stack, from physical layer to TCP socket is effectively untouchable, other than basic configuration.

You can use a less integrated chipset and do the TCP/IP stuff on the Arduino, but that can be a resource hog.  Or roll your own hardware (either with something more capable, or a dedicated micro).

barakta

  • Bastard lovechild of Yomiko Readman and Johnny 5
Re: The computing stuff rant thread
« Reply #6 on: 25 February, 2014, 02:12:37 pm »
Lovely boss sends an email saying boss3 has finally got a date  of end of March for upgrade of our building's 10Mbit network to be upgraded (building of 50ish ppl, many of us working on stuff on servers elsecampus)...

The irony of the fucking outlook/network combo hanging and going into "I'm going to have a meltdown" mode as I tried to reply with HURRAH \o/ to my boss was not lost on me.  Had to kill everything using the network and start again.

Kim

  • Timelord
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Re: The computing stuff rant thread
« Reply #7 on: 25 February, 2014, 02:17:56 pm »
Lovely boss sends an email saying boss3 has finally got a date  of end of March for upgrade of our building's 10Mbit network to be upgraded (building of 50ish ppl, many of us working on stuff on servers elsecampus)...

Men in hi-vis sighted peering into a manhole at the end of your road a couple of hours ago.  Anything's possible...

ian

Re: The computing stuff rant thread
« Reply #8 on: 25 February, 2014, 08:16:03 pm »
As I've been travelling I've not got around to installing the secretsquirrelertificate required by the mothership for access to the all-sites WLAN (remember the bit at the Independence Day, it's a bit like that, and gives you the power to put rude messages on our Times Square billboard). But we have a guest WLAN that's absolutely not for humans, but hey, if they Unit 084935 to be productive. Go to reception sayeth the instructions (for some reason in medieval voice, ye olde receptione). So I goeth (o stop ye) and the nice lady gives a page of instructions. Ah-ha, think (don't!) I.

On the print out, after the preamble it says click here for instructions.

barakta

  • Bastard lovechild of Yomiko Readman and Johnny 5
Re: The computing stuff rant thread
« Reply #9 on: 26 February, 2014, 01:34:16 am »
Lovely boss sends an email saying boss3 has finally got a date  of end of March for upgrade of our building's 10Mbit network to be upgraded (building of 50ish ppl, many of us working on stuff on servers elsecampus)...

Men in hi-vis sighted peering into a manhole at the end of your road a couple of hours ago.  Anything's possible...

Yeah we saw them, we were in the meeting room they walked past as they walked past the window behind me and Dawn kindly clued me and Patrick upto what everyone was rubbernecking at.  Your SMS came in during our meeting.

The plan is to cable us to the building where you were!  Last we'd heard it was "being quoted for" 7 weeks after boss3 promised my boss1 that he would push it cos there was nothing else short of $SpecialistDatabaseWeNeedTM that he could do to make our jobs more doable... 4 months is quite fast for the university *eyerolls* 

It may also be helping I am putting tickets into helldesk about three times a week, every time the fucking shitpile of a website (which is not our local network, it's just SHIT) is shit I helldesk it with screenshots and data.  Every time the network is especially crappy and nothing works. I helldesk that with screenshots and data...  I have been encouraging colleagues to write polite, friendly, detailed trouble reports little and often to helldesk with Dear Helpdesk and Many thanks and pleases and thank yous and stuff in them. I figure if our error reporting rate spikes someone will care enough to pass it up the chain :D  Don't get mad, get reporting!   I know IT say half the actual errors we get are from software not handling the network contention gracefully :D

TheLurker

  • Goes well with magnolia.
Re: The computing stuff rant thread
« Reply #10 on: 01 March, 2014, 09:14:01 pm »
Microsoft
 - Visual Studio 12*
    Removal of the Deployment Wizard
    Forcing the use of InstallShield.

InstallShield was crap 15 years ago.  It's _still_ crap and the Limited Edition? Dear Christ! That's not limited that's crippled.  Just get a _fucking_ grip you _stupid_ bastards and reinstate the DW.

And while we're about it.  A _manual_ conversion from MVC2 to MVC3?  How absolutely fucking brilliant!

*Which deserves a 10 page rant all of its very own if only because of the appallingly unusable "monochrome" skin.
Τα πιο όμορφα ταξίδια γίνονται με τις δικές μας δυνάμεις - Φίλοι του Ποδήλατου

David Martin

  • Thats Dr Oi You thankyouverymuch
Re: The computing stuff rant thread
« Reply #11 on: 01 March, 2014, 09:18:46 pm »
You had me at the first word..
"By creating we think. By living we learn" - Patrick Geddes

Kim

  • Timelord
    • Fediverse
Re: The computing stuff rant thread
« Reply #12 on: 01 March, 2014, 09:39:03 pm »
Bought a 2TB USB3 external disk because the backups had outgrown the existing one, and it was cheaper than a bare drive.  Repartitioned (to get rid of some NTFS guff) and formatted ext4, set the rsync job running, went for a bike ride, had a shower, ate dinner, cleaned the kitchen, etc.  Script finally finished and showed the space free.  Partition size was only ~800G.

Repartitioned, paying more attention to things I don't want to care about like sector boundaries, reformatted, checked on a couple of boxen that they report the right size.  Have plugged it back into the server and re-started the backups script.  That'll be an overnight job, then.

Chris S

Re: The computing stuff rant thread
« Reply #13 on: 01 March, 2014, 09:55:01 pm »
Microsoft
 - Visual Studio 12*
    Removal of the Deployment Wizard
    Forcing the use of InstallShield.

InstallShield was crap 15 years ago.  It's _still_ crap and the Limited Edition? Dear Christ! That's not limited that's crippled.  Just get a _fucking_ grip you _stupid_ bastards and reinstate the DW.

And while we're about it.  A _manual_ conversion from MVC2 to MVC3?  How absolutely fucking brilliant!

*Which deserves a 10 page rant all of its very own if only because of the appallingly unusable "monochrome" skin.

May I suggest you investigate WiX? It's pretty feature rich - and once you get your head around its xml schema, it's not so bad to use either. Visual Studio template support too.

I too was initially alarmed at the lack of VS-based deployment in VS-2012- but I managed to dodge the Installshite bullet with WiX. Give it a shot!

ETA: A link to save you Googling and finding the Web-host company, which is not what you're looking for. http://wixtoolset.org/

TheLurker

  • Goes well with magnolia.
Re: The computing stuff rant thread
« Reply #14 on: 01 March, 2014, 10:01:48 pm »
May I suggest you investigate WiX? It's pretty feature rich - and once you get your head around its xml schema, it's not so bad to use either. Visual Studio template support too.
Thanks for the thought.  I suggested that we move to wix when I found out VS12 had been downgraded and was told that we'd be using InstallShield.  It may be that wix doesn't play nicely with TFS automatic builds, but that's just a guess on my part.
Τα πιο όμορφα ταξίδια γίνονται με τις δικές μας δυνάμεις - Φίλοι του Ποδήλατου

Chris S

Re: The computing stuff rant thread
« Reply #15 on: 01 March, 2014, 10:04:27 pm »
May I suggest you investigate WiX? It's pretty feature rich - and once you get your head around its xml schema, it's not so bad to use either. Visual Studio template support too.
Thanks for the thought.  I suggested that we move to wix when I found out VS12 had been downgraded and was told that we'd be using InstallShield.  It may be that wix doesn't play nicely with TFS automatic builds, but that's just a guess on my part.

Maybe, though the documentation boasts  "good" integration with command-line builds, and the builds I look after are all command-line driven (though not automated through TFS which is a whole other dimension of psychosis I've managed to avoid so far!).

Re: The computing stuff rant thread
« Reply #16 on: 03 March, 2014, 09:34:17 am »
InstallShield isn't so bad once you get used to it (a week long training course in Brizzle helps too). It happily does command line builds too (even from C****C***).

Luckily I haven't had to touch it in a good few years (and last time I had to monkeypatch an MSI I didn't have InstallShield so I had to do it with Orca. Ugh.)

In the few places where we have to use MSI we use WiX now.
"Yes please" said Squirrel "biscuits are our favourite things."

tiermat

  • According to Jane, I'm a Unisex SpaceAdmin
Re: The computing stuff rant thread
« Reply #17 on: 03 March, 2014, 10:07:39 am »
Today's fun and games are brought to you by Oracle, VMware and SCOM...

Let the battle begin :(
I feel like Captain Kirk, on a brand new planet every day, a little like King Kong on top of the Empire State

simonp


Zipperhead

  • The cyclist formerly known as Big Helga
Re: The computing stuff rant thread
« Reply #19 on: 03 March, 2014, 03:53:06 pm »
Acer, when you make a laptop with wiffy could you please ensure that it is capable of dealing with all of the standard wiffy channels that routers use?

I have spent weeks trying to work out why sometimes the laptop works faultlessly, but at other times my wiffy networks are completely invisible to it - but it can see all of the neighbours.

I tried all sorts of things, deleting the wiffy adaptor and letting it re-install it. Installing the latest one, every fucking thing I could think of and some weeks it just wouldn't see *my* networks. I had very nearly got to the point of taking it to an upper floor window and reprogramming it with the aid of voodoo and gravity when in desperation I tried a little bit of google-fu and found that some Acer laptops don't like the high channels. So if my router was restarted and picked channel 15 or similar because it was nice and quiet up there - then as far as the laptop was concerned it didn't exist.
Won't somebody think of the hamsters!

ian

Re: The computing stuff rant thread
« Reply #20 on: 03 March, 2014, 05:37:07 pm »
Dear Microsoft Word

Firstly, I miss Paperclip Guy. He would have written this for me. If I were ever to become friends with a paperclip, he'd be the one I'd choose. Of course, I'm not actually considering friendship with any kind of office sundry at present. That's no reflection on Paperclip Guy, I mean he was great, but I have a big red stapler that I suppose I like a bit more. But no, I'm just not into office supply friends. Not like that.

I also liked the cat that did the searching. He was a good cat. Not very good at searching, but then when you've misplaced your house keys, would you ask a cat for help? It best you don't, they're no good at it.

What I don't like is when Word crashes because I – oh I don't know – pressed the enter key funny. How was I to know that was going to cause terminal offence? Once upon a time, Paperclip Guy or search cat might have stepped in to avert disaster. But not now, it's just gone. I know you're sorry. I'm sorry. We're all sorry. It's a big festival of sorry. We should build a marquee, get catering, hire some portaloos and a rock band. That's how sorry we all are. Would I like to report it to Microsoft? Of course, but I think Paperclip Guy would have done it better. It looks like you're writing an angry letter to Microsoft. Sure am, Paperclip Guy, over to you.

Would I like to restart Word and recover my file? Sounds like a plan. Hold on, that's the file I opened this morning? I'm sure I did some work today. I'm sure Paperclip Guy used to autosave my work. He was good like that, always looking out for me. Ah, you did autosave my work, just in a file four layers down in a hidden library folder. Even search cat wouldn't have found that. Well, he never actually found anything, but then he did insist on looking under a carpet. No one ever lost a computer file under a virtual carpet. I once dropped a floppy disk down the toilet though.

So, Microsoft, I think (a) Word shouldn't crash when I press 'enter' and (b) you probably should recover the file you autosaved most recently not the one I saved yesterday.

thanks Microsoft!

your best pal, ian.

TimC

  • Old blerk sometimes onabike.
Re: The computing stuff rant thread
« Reply #21 on: 03 March, 2014, 05:43:36 pm »
Brilliant, ian. Thank you for brightening a hungover and otherwise painful morning!

Kim

  • Timelord
    • Fediverse
Re: The computing stuff rant thread
« Reply #22 on: 03 March, 2014, 05:48:53 pm »
So if my router was restarted and picked channel 15 or similar because it was nice and quiet up there - then as far as the laptop was concerned it didn't exist.

15 isn't legal in the UK IIRC.

13 is legal in the UK, but isn't in the US, which means routers tend not to default to it, thereby making it a good one to use.  Except when buggy laptops (running UK versions of the drivers which claim to use Ch 13 just fine) decide to do that.  We discovered this in a broadly similar way.

frankly frankie

  • I kid you not
    • Fuchsiaphile
Re: The computing stuff rant thread
« Reply #23 on: 03 March, 2014, 06:28:41 pm »
Set the channel manually in your router.  Take control of your kit.
when you're dead you're done, so let the good times roll

Zipperhead

  • The cyclist formerly known as Big Helga
Re: The computing stuff rant thread
« Reply #24 on: 03 March, 2014, 08:46:09 pm »
15 isn't legal in the UK IIRC.

13 is legal in the UK, but isn't in the US, which means routers tend not to default to it, thereby making it a good one to use.  Except when buggy laptops (running UK versions of the drivers which claim to use Ch 13 just fine) decide to do that.  We discovered this in a broadly similar way.

Now I'm home I checked and it would have been 13. So my rant is still valid?
Won't somebody think of the hamsters!