The computing stuff rant thread

[David Martin]

This, with spades.

[Afasoas]

Seriously... two internet connections and neither of them can be stable.
Both providers are keen to blame my setup. Cue hours of testing with laptops directly connected to ScupperedHubs and sure enough, the results absolutely entirely consistent with the firewall's view of the world.

 

[JStone]

Just logged back into the system I'm testing to find that all my carefully crafted test cases have disappeared.

"Oh sorry", says the developer, "I reloaded the data and that's deleted all the previous tests. Forgot to include you in the email before doing it"

 

[David Martin]

Version control?

[JStone]

Version control?

Oh yes, all can be recovered. It's the lack of communication that's endemic & triggered the rant.

[Biggsy]

Sony Xperia Z3C system update today has swapped the perfectly decent app manager for a piece of minimalism - with no sort choice and the controls for moving apps to and from the SD card seemingly gone.  The facility is still there after all (depending on the app), but it's less obvious and had me worried for a while.  Some users will be permanently fooled.

(Yes funky third-party app managers are available, but still the official one is needed to actually do anything (without root permission)).

[mrcharly-YHT]

For really important reasons (Intellectual Property, everything in caps), file sharing and cloud apps such as dropbox are verboten where I work. Absolutely verboten. Even USB memory sticks are very very frowned on. If you want to work from home, vpn in to a work machine.

So what does MS do? Install and configure effing OneDrive on my Work machine, without asking. I told IT support bod as soon as I noticed. He swore a lot too. Removing it seems to be difficult.

[barakta]

I managed to turn one drive off on my win8 install but it insists on staying in the taskbar which I find irritating as I don't want it there and it's like it's ner ner nering at me, distracting from icons I DO want in there and taking up space. If I was more 1337 I could probably nobble that too, but I'd risk breaking the windows...

I'd hate to sysadmin windows, constantly trying to work out what evil has done what to systems.

[Mr Larrington]

OneDrive is the Japanese Knotweed of Vapor-Based Storage Solutions^TM - just when you think you've eradicated it, it pops up again.  Also it gives your house price cancer.  I did manage to hide it successfully enough that Office no longer insists on trying to save everything to it but I'm sure it's only a matter of time before Microsith slip in an update that turns it back on, replaces your wallpaper with a giant OneDrive logo and reports you to the NSA if you even Google for a way to root it out again.

[hulver]

For really important reasons (Intellectual Property, everything in caps), file sharing and cloud apps such as dropbox are verboten where I work. Absolutely verboten. Even USB memory sticks are very very frowned on. If you want to work from home, vpn in to a work machine.

So what does MS do? Install and configure effing OneDrive on my Work machine, without asking. I told IT support bod as soon as I noticed. He swore a lot too. Removing it seems to be difficult.

OneDrive is built into Windows 10. There is no way to uninstall it. I think it can be disabled through group policy, but It's one of those things MS desperately wants you to use so pushes you to use it all the time.

[L CC]

For some reason my laptop thinks that printer upstairs is offline.
Unless I look at its web page, of course,  then it's ready.
If, however, I actually want to print something, that's not possible.

[I don't actually *want* to print it, but apparently I need to take pieces of paper with notes on to meetings. It's what you do if you're a boss-type-person in a factory. Apparently]

Fucking computers.

[Afasoas]

Is it a wireless printer?
Wireless printers are the work of Stan. ** shudder **


I had a problem with One Drive and a certain popular anti-virus product that caused one of the laptops in the fleet I'm responsible for to become IO bound. I think we resolved the issue by disabling One Drive, which didn't impress that end user very much.

[Jaded]

My two wireless printers have been working perfectly with AirPrint for 8 months so far. From computers and devices.

[Afasoas]

My two wireless printers have been working perfectly with AirPrint for 8 months so far. From computers and devices.

Ah well I stand corrected. Proven technology.

 

[Afasoas]

For some reason my laptop thinks that printer upstairs is offline.
Unless I look at its web page, of course,  then it's ready.
If, however, I actually want to print something, that's not possible.

[I don't actually *want* to print it, but apparently I need to take pieces of paper with notes on to meetings. It's what you do if you're a boss-type-person in a factory. Apparently]

Fucking computers.

In all seriousness, have you managed to resolve this? If not, HTH.

[Mr Larrington]

My two wireless printers have been working perfectly with AirPrint for 8 months so far. From computers and devices.

Ah well I stand corrected. Proven technology.

 

The wireless part of those I've owned has worked flawlessly.  It's just the rest of it which goes wrong

[L CC]

For some reason my laptop thinks that printer upstairs is offline.
Unless I look at its web page, of course,  then it's ready.
If, however, I actually want to print something, that's not possible.

[I don't actually *want* to print it, but apparently I need to take pieces of paper with notes on to meetings. It's what you do if you're a boss-type-person in a factory. Apparently]

Fucking computers.

In all seriousness, have you managed to resolve this? If not, HTH.

My working system went like this:
Using work laptop, VPN to pick up email. Can't print from work laptop, because work laptop is only allowed to join work network. Email document to home laptop. Edit document. Fail to print. Email document to Mr Smith, a foot away on the sofa, who is allowed to print to the printer.
I really wish this was a lie.
 

[Mr Larrington]

Google, what is it with the newly-appeared finger-width strip of whitespace above the keyboard when typing in Chrome onna fondleslab?  The space you type in is small enough as it is, without you dicks taking a chunk of it away to do ABSOFUCKINGLUTELY NOTHING

[TheLurker]

Google, what is it with the newly-appeared finger-width strip of whitespace above the keyboard when typing in Chrome onna fondleslab?  The space you type in is small enough as it is, without you dicks taking a chunk of it away to do ABSOFUCKINGLUTELY NOTHING

Thanks for the warning.  Knowing this I shall continue to dismiss the, "We've made Chrome even more marvellous! Upgrade now!" hectoring message that appears at irregular intervals with a cheery, "Fuck off!" and a touch of the [X] "button".  Until, of course, The Chocolate Factory takes a leaf out of the M$ GWX dirty tricks book.

[Kim]

Thunderbollocks Icedove has had an update, and become even more sluggish than usual.

[Mr Larrington]

I'm perfectly happy with Chrome on a proper Babbage-Engine but on a fondleslab it is this: shit.  And every upgrade seems to make it worse.  Viewing almost any thread in the OT Gallery is a 'mare as it catapults you anything up to two years into the past.

[T42]

Idiot SW installation that takes over the entire screen then tells you to look something up on a website. Yeah, sure, ALT+TAB, but there are plenty of "experienced users" who never heard of it.

[Chris S]

No. NO! Really... NO!!

In case you weren't listening:

(click to show/hide)

Really. FUCKING NO!!

If I press "Cancel", do NOT EVER open another window. Ever. Cancel means: Fuck. Right. Off. Right. Now, and never interrupt me again.

Time to uninstall Avast. Like so many of its predecessors, it has gone to the great Adware Heaven in the sky.

[David Martin]

The window pops up saying:

Do you wish to cancel?

It has two options: OK, and Cancel

YHOOJ...

[Kim]

It has two options: OK, and Cancel

...both of which install Windows 10.