The computing stuff rant thread

[ian]

Be nice if it said that, I suppose, rather than your password is wrong. I sort of assumed that was the case. I've changed my password since I last used it. I did try a couple of old passwords but it wasn't playing. I don't play on the domain any more since I never figured out to do that with a Macbook and the instructions from the mothership were contra-helpful and I have yet to think of a good (or bad) reason to be on it. There were some shared drives and that was about it, and we're on a corporate OneDrive thing these days.

So deal with IBM support or throw it out of the Window?

I found the file in a Time Machine back-up, which was fab, and some kind of idiot should have remembered to look in there first rather than spending twenty minutes staring at a Windows log-in screen and playing guess the *********. Is it **** ***? I think it is, Windows, I really do. Don't be shy, no need for the asterisks, we're all grown-ups.

[Mr Larrington]

I cracked the (touch)screen on this laptop the other day, shortly after upgrading it with a 525GB SSD.  Now the cursor is playing silly buggers.

Repent, wretched machine, or in the skip ye goeth (minus SDD, obv).

Anyone know how laptop prices in USAnia compare with back home

[ian]

At the current USD-GBP rate, not well. My 401(k) is in danger of being worth something.

[Mr Larrington]

At the current USD-GBP rate, not well. My 401(k) is in danger of being worth something.

I didn't think so.  Natch threats of violence seem to have fixed the problem, at least until the next time I close the lid.

[Mr Larrington]

Dear Mr Google

I spent a while bunging points into you so-called "Maps" product and then, because I am perverse and would like to use THIS road instead of those, dragged the blue line around until satisfaction was achieved.  Ad then clicked "Download to phone".  In between leaving my lapdancer and arriving on my portable telephone, you reset the fucking route back to YOUR preferences, completely ignoring all my line-manipulation.  This make your "Download to phone" option a useless thing, but then your entire fucking so-called "Maps" product is a useless thing anyway as there's no obvious way to clear the entire map history and you smell of wee and I hate you.

[Kim]

Dear Mr Google

I spent a while bunging points into you so-called "Maps" product and then, because I am perverse and would like to use THIS road instead of those, dragged the blue line around until satisfaction was achieved.  Ad then clicked "Download to phone".  In between leaving my lapdancer and arriving on my portable telephone, you reset the fucking route back to YOUR preferences, completely ignoring all my line-manipulation.  This make your "Download to phone" option a useless thing, but then your entire fucking so-called "Maps" product is a useless thing anyway as there's no obvious way to clear the entire map history and you smell of wee and I hate you.

Stands to reason that if it were that simple all the audaxers would be doing it...

[Afasoas]

I've just lost three days refactoring a perl script that monitors disk activity (it's called via a monitoring client on our linux servers).
perl is a great scripting language and if this script had been my first exposure to it, that would not be my opinion.

The script needed a few minor changes, but merely glancing at it was enough to break it.

• global variables everywhere
• arrays with dynamic variable names because the author couldn't use hashes - horrendous to debug
• case, for, if statements nested ten levels deep
• any why use  perl libraries built for parsing arguments when you can write 300 hundred lines (practically repeated over and over) to parse the arguments yourself?

Needless to say now the script doesn't need comments as the logic is transparent and it's only 1/3rd the number of lines it was. The dynamic variables are gone. The arrays have been replaced with hashes. Arguments, results and perfdata are all handled by perl libraries bundled with the monitoring software. With the refactoring complete, it took minutes to make and test the changes rather than hours.

And then home to fighting with CSS and twig templates on a website theme yet another dodgy developer has produced. According to the twig template, false is false and null is true. That explains why using "icons: true" doesn't work.
And why change the formatting of elements globally instead of using appropriate .css selectors? It's not unreasonable for me to want bullet points on the actual content people type into the CMS so why not use relevant classes for menu items, testimonials etc.? ... I've cloned the original template and after two weeks of fixing all the minor issues with it, it's becoming hard to tell that the new template actually had anything to do with the original!

Honestly people, stop doing things the easy way when it just causes pain for the people daft enough to pick up and use your stuff.

[ian]

So, as helpfully pointed out upthread, I have a Dell that is callously being ignored by our mothership's domain server. However, it needs to be migrated to another system for which it has to be logged on, so I asked our support desk to put me back on the server.

Which they didn't. But they did generate no fewer than 8 emails, of which 7 were automated responses, and 1 of which told me to talk to another help team for which they didn't include any method of contact.

Now my case has been marked as 'resolved', I've no doubt I'll get one of those 'how did we do?' survey, six reminders about it, and a note or three from IT telling my Dell hasn't been migrated.

This wouldn't happen if we were still using fax.

[Mr Larrington]

Come on, laptop, pull your bloody finger out!  If I can copy 22 files totalling ~6 GB to a NAS drive in ten minutes, why is it taking you a Several of hours to copy the same volume of data in 900-odd photo-sized chunks?

[mrcharly-YHT]

I have immense amounts of work to do - and the company I work for is splitting in two. Today much IT work took place, with the creation of new network domains etc.

I head home, intending to do much much at home. Attempt to connect. No VPN. No, of course there isn't. Domain has been killed, hasn't it.

Offs, I should have anticipated this, stuck the work on a (strictly forbidden) USB stick.

[Feanor]

Hah, the company I currently work for was bought over by a larger one some time back.
They were in different physical locations, and had separate networks.

Now we have co-located to a shiny new office, but the IT is still split.
They have not managed to sort out the forest of domains.

So there's a segregation of work areas, with different network ports on different VLANS.
"Working Together", only not.

Now, rather than having the printers / photocopiers accessible from both VLANS, they have had to install two of these behemoths at each 'resource hub'; one for each network!

I did, however, manage to snaffle the managed switches from the old office

[mrcharly-YHT]

We have offices in 7 countries, and multiple sites in 4 of those countries. There is about 10 days to split the equipment and networks and get it working. We are 6 days into that 10 day period and most things are working so I think the IT guys are doing very well.

[Tim Hall]

On email has flooded in to my work laptop.  It's from a bloke I worked with some years ago, who has since retired, but who has kept my email address.

He informs me he's got a new email addy, as his other one has been compromised. So far so good. Except he's cut and pasted his whole address book into the "to" box.

And now the responses start, saying yes, I'll do that.

Sigh.

[T42]

Fireox, spawn of Satan. "Your Firefox is a bit slow to start", it says. "Try the Refresh function", it says.  Oh well, nothing venture... click.

All my passwords have gone up the spout, shit and damnation.

Your car doesn't accelerate too well - let's throw out all the seats, glass, spare tyre and all your bloody luggage. There, that's better.

Beware of arseholes when they bring gifts, say I.

[Pickled Onion]

Got back late last night. Plugged in laptop to charge. Plugged phone into laptop to charge.

Damn thing decided to download an update for itself, and another for the phone, over 3G. Used up my entire hotspot allowance for the month. Thank you VERY much 

[StuAff]

How exactly did Microsoft get Win10 to run so slowly off an HDD? I've used XP, 7 (preview version) and 8.1 on my Mac Pros old and new and they've all been perfectly OK. 10, OTOH…like running through treacle that someone thought wasn't thick enough, so they thickened it a bit. And that's before we get to the endless automatic updates, the WTAF 'I've got to restart' restarts…wanted to see what the shiny new RX 580 card could do in games without macOS performance handicaps, and just gave up for the day.

[Mr Larrington]

- Look, Daddy, another major update to Windows 10!
- Ach, Billy, I expect it will be like all the others.
- Whatever do you mean, Daddy?
- It will most likely replace your screen saver with something banal, uninstall the Classic Menus for Office app that at least partly does away with the Fisher-Price interface, install some Xbox-related crap, reënable Cortina and, yet again, "update" the driver software for your Logitech steering wheel so it doesn't fucking work, Billy.  It might also slow saving stuff to a network disk to a scream-inducing crawl.  That is what I mean.
(Later)
- Gosh, yes, Daddy, I see what you're saying!  Why do Microsith always do this?
- Because they're a bunch of megalomaniacal bastards, Billy.  Now, come and have your tea.

[mrcharly-YHT]

Company is being split in two. So source control has been split into two repositories.

Common sense would suggest replicating user access.

Nope, they've blocked my access to half my bloody work. fishguts!

[DaveReading]

It might also slow saving stuff to a network disk to a scream-inducing crawl.

My W10 laptop has suffered that from the start, I thought it was just progress.   

What's the fix, if any ?

[Mr Larrington]

Dunno, it got noticeably livelier after a reboot, and that particular disk has always been a bit sluggish anyway.  I've been doing Stuffs with it all this afternoon and it's been OK.

[simonp]

When you fix a bug and all your tricky error handling logic needs fixing.

[Mr Larrington]

Why the blazes are you, you stupid lump of doltware, complaining that you can't find $FILE when not a single file in untold gigabytes of Stuffs even contains a commented-out reference to it

[Mr Larrington]

And another thing, Microsith, if I tell you to restart that box to apply updates at 07:30 then restart it at 07:30.  Do not decide unilaterally to change it to 11:30.  Do not pass "Go".  Do not collect $200.  Do not argue.  Just do as you're fucking told.

[Chris S]

Aaaarrrrgghh!!!

I swear, Avast Antivirus is so spammy these days, it's worse than having a virus. Fuck off.

* uninstalls *

[Tim Hall]

Ooh, no broadband when I get home. Reboot router to no effect. Phone Plusnet. They've helpfully ceased my service a whole 9 days before I wanted it done, when I move house.  "It's an automated system and sometimes does that." So now it's a day to reprovision the line and upto 5 working days to re-enable adsl. By which time I'll nearly be gone anyway. Useless knackers.