Tales from Techsupport

Email received with subject HELP
Screenshot attached depicts font problem
Reply to customer:
Me: Hello, I see based on the screenshot attached that you're having a font problem. Here are the steps to fix it. Additionally, I've attached our Font document for more information if these steps don't resolve the issue. If you have any other questions or if the issue continues, please reply or call me. Have a great day!

Reply back from customer:
Customer: This is NOT a font issue

... Ok you're right, I'm wrong, I can't have been here 12 years and not possibly recognize what the problem is without any description at all and just a screenshot.

A picture is worth a thousand words, so a screenshot is worth an explanation, right?

Non-user Non-tech Tech: We're trying to increase the number of licenses for our app, but when we do, it automatically reverts to the previous number
Me: Are there any errors?
NuNtT: No
Me: Let's walk through the process
NuNtT: OK.
Me: I hear her go through all the steps, she reads me everything she sees
NuNtT: Nope, as soon as I click to finalize the activation, the updated number goes back to original
Me: Let's do a remote session
NuNtT: sighs as if I told her that I thought the sky was orange Okay, sure
Me: I get into her system and go through the steps... There's an error here that says the license is invalid due to you having activations in two places
NuNtT: Well, that was coming up before, is that pertinent?

No, because why would an error message be important? :hulk:

Caller: I'm telling you, I processed that information myself!
Me: Okay, I accept that you believe that, however I'm showing you four different places in three different log files that you never once processed said information via the method you described.
Caller: Wait, what was that last date you showed me?
Me: 9/22/16
Caller: I didn't use the program then... hang on.. which tax type was that? Hmm... let me look at something
Caller: hemming and hawing Well whaddya know, it appears that I didn't in fact process that information, because according to our internal time sheet logging on this matter, someone, probably one of the paralegals, did it in May.
Me: Well I'm glad you figured it out.
Caller: Me too!

I've had sooooo many users go:"Well, I certainly didn't take/make that phonecall/updated user data/update payment data".
Once I show them their credentials and start referring to the third decimal in the seconds-part of the date, they tend to come around :grinyes:

If they don't, I start to bring out the Mileron-style big log guns. But my users are usually really nice people; It's rare that I have to resort to something other than specific entity timestamps.

When I read this news story, I thought of this thread. Weep for the tech guys at the NHS:

http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-37979456

So the chip reader pads at the local supermarket give the option of "Visa Debit"(aka credit) and "US Debit"(aka normal debit) when you slide in a normal debit/credit card like most banks issue. The store has to have signs so people know to hit "US Debit" if they want it to work like a ATM.

I have to wonder which idiot engineer thought that UI setup was a good idea, cashiers have to tech support customers because some idiot at the company that made the thing decided against "Debit" and "Credit".

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Delores Mulva

When I read this news story, I thought of this thread. Weep for the tech guys at the NHS:

http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-37979456

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Yes, I understand that out 1.2m only 120 did 'reply-all'. But that's enough to spawn 140million emails.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by HerbertDypp

Yes, I understand that out 1.2m only 120 did 'reply-all'. But that's enough to spawn 140million emails.

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It's taken us a couple of years, but most of our staff know to BCC when they do a mass mail to keep this from happening. It was too difficult to teach the user base to not reply-all.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Delores Mulva

When I read this news story, I thought of this thread. Weep for the tech guys at the NHS:

http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-37979456

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BAAAAAAAAAAAAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA.

That happened at Cargill a number of years back, apparently.

Internet acquaintance of mine worked there at the time.

Their e-mail was down for DAYS as they cleaned it up.

This is why only select people should have "send to all" privileges and anything over 100 people or so on a Distribution Group should have VERY careful administration with regards to who can send to it.

I've seen this happen multiple times on many scales.

It's fucking hilarious every time.

Somehow, noone ever bothers to address the need to actually audit the infrastructure and secure it from happening again.

I recall once dropping a PHP mailbomb on my boss when he said "the mail server works fine, don't touch it, there's nothing wrong with the settings" and flooding his inbox with a few thousand emails in the space of a second.

No disruption of service for anyone else, but he ended up conceding that if I could do that with less than ten lines of code, we should probably look into things.

Nobody EVER secures infrastructure properly unless it's a compliance issue or they got hurt by NOT securing it.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by FilanFyretracker

So the chip reader pads at the local supermarket give the option of "Visa Debit"(aka credit) and "US Debit"(aka normal debit) when you slide in a normal debit/credit card like most banks issue. The store has to have signs so people know to hit "US Debit" if they want it to work like a ATM.

I have to wonder which idiot engineer thought that UI setup was a good idea, cashiers have to tech support customers because some idiot at the company that made the thing decided against "Debit" and "Credit".

---

Everything about those chip reader pads is dumb.

If you swipe, you get "debit/credit" as options.

If you drop it in the reader, you wait 90 seconds for it to figure out WTF it's doing, type your PIN, Authorize, Authorize again (or sign) sometimes, and THEN the purchase goes through.

Oh, and they're not really more secure, they're just making longer lines.

You can >>clone them<<, you can do >>Man in the middle attacks<<, hell, all you need is a >>paper clip, a needle, and a recording device<< and proof of this goes back more than half a decade, long before banks over here were wasting our money adopting the damned things.

It's dumb technology and we could do a hell of a lot better.

Even when Costco used AmEx, they printed your picture on the card. That only helps with in-person transactions, but given how prevalent skimmers are, we need a more selective and better encrypted transaction system. The terminals can't read EVERYTHING off of the chips in most cases, but they can still get too much.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Balthis

It's taken us a couple of years, but most of our staff know to BCC when they do a mass mail to keep this from happening. It was too difficult to teach the user base to not reply-all.

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Yep.

Everywhere I've worked in the last decade that had anyone with send-to-all rights, if it was a separate account that only a few people could access and every one of them worked in IT and knew to BCC.

An idiot could still hit the global address list and start selecting everyone at random, but that was locked down, too, because you had to have rights to send to more than x number of recipients and every DG, listed or not, had privileges locked.

Everywhere I've worked where it wasn't in place when I started, it was eventually in place by the time I quit or sooner.

It's just good policy.

People communicate via e-mail. Preventing a handful of morons from taking that ability away from the whole company is just good sense.

'Member the "I Love You" virus? Oh, I 'member!

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Alikat Astrae

'Member the "I Love You" virus? Oh, I 'member!

---

I still remember the horrors of that one.

Goodtimes

Yeah, I remember that.

What I really hate, though, are the cryptoviruses.

Some idiot will open an attachment and "nothing" happens, so they ignore it.

3 days later every word doc, excel spreadsheet, powerpoint, and half a dozen other things on every local and network location the idiot user had access to is 100% toast.

"Sorry, you'll either have to work without any of them, or just close up shop. It'll take about a week to restore all 12 Terabytes from the tape library, because you didn't want to upgrade your backup system."

We had one where we got everything restored and what must have been almost immediately, someone hit an attachment again because 3 days later? All gone again. Then they did it a third time.

"So the next time I open one of these, I should call you right away?"

"Uhh, or just STOP OPENING THEM!"

"But they look important!"

"If it's not from someone you're expecting an e-mail from, don't open it. If it *is* from someone you're expecting an e-mail from, DON'T OPEN IT until after you've called them and verified that they sent it."

"That seems like too much work".

"WHAT DO YOU THINK RESTORING YOUR WHOLE SERVER FARM IS?!?!?!?"

At that point you start piling up the red tape for them so they can see just how much work you can bring them next time: "Oh no, you need this signed off by your department head before I can work in there. It's an acknowledgement that he knows that you caused this crisis by opening that attachment I warned you about, and that the next time I do this it's coming out of his budget as an in-company expense."

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Alikat Astrae

At that point you start piling up the red tape for them so they can see just how much work you can bring them next time: "Oh no, you need this signed off by your department head before I can work in there. It's an acknowledgement that he knows that you caused this crisis by opening that attachment I warned you about, and that the next time I do this it's coming out of his budget as an in-company expense."

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That's how we do it at my job.

Yeah some people abuse the overhead services and need to be reminded that they are a cost center.

can you block attachments based on user level?

block attachments at that user level and send out a wide email "Due to misuse of company systems everybody below this "rank" is no longer able to send, receive or open attachments on any emails"

Though id imagine that would draw an unholy shitstorm from management.

No way would that fly, clients often send each other work related files.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Alikat Astrae

Yeah some people abuse the overhead services and need to be reminded that they are a cost center.

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I have LONG been a proponent of billing back each department for every minute of IT time they use, listing each user.

It turns IT from a cost center into a revenue generator.

Most places I've worked make the IT department use *their* budget for every *other* department's IT purchases, then complain about how much we're spending and that we're not bringing anything in like sales does, where sales is the department that's slaying trees by the dozens and printing everything in max dpi full color at the rate of hundreds to sometimes THOUSANDS of pages an hour.

I've only worked a grand total of ONE place that charged IT time back to the individual departments *and* automatically took mandatory PC upgrades out of every department's budget when the leases were up.

This was over ten years ago, but the rule was if you needed a deleted e-mail restored from the HP Openmail servers, it was $1,000 per item out of your department's budget and required department VP approval because the only way to do it was to do a bare-metal restore from backup onto an off-net box and that took HOURS.

Suddenly we went from getting dozens upon dozens of requests a day to everyone realizing they could just ask the person to send it again.

File restores from network drive deletions were easier (and therefore cheaper) because once we got all of the servers upgraded to 2003, we had volume shadow copy enabled, but every minute of IT time was billed back.

This had the added benefit of meaning we could afford some very expensive software that made fixing certain kinds of problems a very fast and easy turnaround, and it meant we could afford to do backups far more frequently, so it helped everyone.

Every company should do it.

IT is integral to productivity in a business and if the bean-counters can see that it's not just a money-sink, and actually FUNDS the IT department, it benefits the company as a whole.

Caller: Hi, this is mumbledname also from my own company so this is an internal call and should not be counted for recording purposes.
Sorry buddy, doesn't work that way.
Me: Good morning, how can I help you?
Caller: I need you to take these two tickets off my hands. They're for Product1 that's not mine that I've never heard of and Product2 that's not mine that's based in the UK.
Me: Well as far as the first one, I've never heard of it, and the second one, you yourself said that's a UK product, so you'll need the UK support queues.
Caller: Can you transfer me?
Me: No... I'm based in the US, in Philadelphia, so I wouldn't know how to transfer to the UK. My phone won't even dial another country. For true. They disabled dialing other countries. This was a problem when we got developers based in India until they implemented internal international calling.
Caller: So you're not going to help me?
Me: Knowing my calls are always recorded...: You are making an assumption I have not stated. Please let me check my Good Old Generic List... Okay with some digging around, here are the phone numbers you need for the tickets. Turns out the first ticket is a sub-product of another of my company's
Caller: You are not going to take ownership of these?
Me: I am not. They are not products I am able to support.
Caller: Fine. Goodbye.

This is a series of chats that took place over about 45 minutes (due to call volume, both he and I were really busy)

Coworker: Did you receive the file?
Me: No, how did you try to send it?
Coworker: Email
Me: You know you can't email DLL files internally
Coworker: Since when?
Me: ... 2004?
Coworker: Not even if I zip them?
Me: ... No
Coworker: What about if I rename it?
Me: Highly unlikely
Coworker: So what am I supposed to do?
Me: Put it in a folder on the network we both have access to?
Coworker: That takes too long.

...Sure, as opposed to the extra 45 minutes or more you've already made me wait...

Quote:

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Coworker: What about if I rename it?
Me: Highly unlikely

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I would expect A Rename to work as long as you renamed to an actual permitted extension (or none) - SMTP servers don't read the content of the files - it simply reads the MIME header for attachment blocking.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Melcar

I would expect A Rename to work as long as you renamed to an actual permitted extension (or none) - SMTP servers don't read the content of the files - it simply reads the MIME header for attachment blocking.

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Some other background in-depth scanning is going on, because an EXE renamed to, for example, XEX, or a DLL renamed to DOC will get rejected as a disallowed file.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Mileron

Some other background in-depth scanning is going on, because an EXE renamed to, for example, XEX, or a DLL renamed to DOC will get rejected as a disallowed file.

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My guess, The scanner knows the overall structure of certain file types. After all the extension is really quite meaningless, It is merely something that tells the operating system how to handle it. but id imagine the software looks at the file just a bit and knows executables and dlls for example have a known pattern so even renaming to .png does not hide what it really is.

New product release
Getting swamped with calls
Lead tech sends email chain with fix forwarded from developers
LT: If you see this error, shown below, please see the forwarded email's steps for the fix
Email: Do this, do this, do that, and if you see this, do this last thing. No screenshots
Me: LT, there are no screenshots - none from you, none from the developers
LT: Yes there are
Me: No, there aren't. Did you forward the email from your iPhone or something or somehow turn off HTML formatting so that the screenshots got stripped?
LT: Directly sends me a copy of the email Look, screenshots
Me: sends back screenshot of the email Look, no screenshots
LT: You must have deleted them
Me: Sure, because I want to not help my customers

One of my more prolific external customers is a penny pincher, and doesn't renew his license until it's absotively necessary.
So if his invoice was due in March, but he didn't need an update or support, he'll let it go unpaid until June or July or later and then call when he needs an update saying "I didn't have the money then but I do now".
He got a new computer this week and I helped him reinstall his programs.
Fine and easy right?
Today I've got a rip-roaring migraine but can't take off due to my prior post (new product/swamped) not to mention not having any more PTO due to said migraines and he calls me and says "okay I'm having problems with the software."
I hear the telltale echo of "your call is being recorded" so I make sure I follow call procedure to the letter, right, which I usually do anyway, but this guy's a chatterer and likes to take the conversation on tangents
So I get logged into his computer and start poking around and he starts going off on one of those tangents about how Intuit no longer owns Quickbooks (or something) and then he says "now I need you to fix my Quickbooks install."
I said simply "I cannot support another company's tax software", he laughed it off, I fixed his other problem (which I now think, a half hour later due to the migraine no doubt, that he engineered the problem in order to get me on the phone to try to get me to support his Quickbooks) and said "have a good weekend".

If I get a bad recording report because of this call, I'll be royally pissed.

People always try and get you to support things that are unsupported. My work in cable tech support and startling number of people called and wanted Us to clean up their computers because to them the virus "came from the cable modem".

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Melcar

I would expect A Rename to work as long as you renamed to an actual permitted extension (or none) - SMTP servers don't read the content of the files - it simply reads the MIME header for attachment blocking.

---

You can, actually, use transport rules to scan by MIME type and block "application/x-msdownload", which will get all DLL files with that MIME type, even if they're renamed to .txt files.

There's also another step in there, but I forget what it is and don't feel like looking it up.

It's the same reason that someone can change a gif to a jpg and it'll still animate in your browser (on some browsers).

I remember back in the late 90's early 2000's there was a way to change the actual MIME type information displayed to IE so that an .hta file looked like a .txt file to the BROWSER but still executed as an .hta the instant it finished downloading. Something to do with the javascript engine at the time.

That was the basis of a TON of exploits.

What we always did to get around stuff like that was zip the banned extension, then encrypt (or sometimes just password protect) the zip file.

Of course, then the crypto-scammers got wise and started doing that with THEIR zipped payloads (your invoice is enclosed, type "openinvoice" when prompted to view it.), so we had to ban all non-scannable zip files and tell everyone to use a secure FTP solution if it needed to get in and out of the company.

Thankfully, Filezilla is pretty easy to set up for that.

Follow along very closely now:

Pick up the phone... Dial the first number... Press "Conference/Transfer" - first call is placed on hold automatically, dial the 2nd number, once they pick up, Press "Conference/Transfer". -- All 3 parties are now talking.

It's very complicated..


"What was the first button again?"

Sales Rep: Customer's asking me if (software last supported in 2003) will install on a new Windows 10 computer
Me: Probably not
SR: Why not?
Me: Let's say for a moment you took the train into the office
SR: OK
Me: Let's say you had a pathological need for it to be a steam engine
SR: OK
Me: What are the chances of you getting onto a train and having it be pulled by a steam engine nowadays?
SR: Slim to none outside of museums?
Me: Ding ding ding

Well the highlight of my day to day has been explaining to our County Administrator that the reason Commissioner A's email to Commissioner B was rejected because Commissioner A can't spell the name of our County.

He is the cretin of the countyyyyyyyyyyyy!

On Monday, the power went out in my house for oh, maybe 15 minutes?
My sister-in-law's wireless printer decided upon rebooting that it didn't want to remember that it had a wireless connection anymore.

I powercycled the printer. I let it sit powered off overnight. After a reset I even wholly power cycled the whole wireless network hoping that something would jigger. No such luck. It simply wouldn't find any wireless networks.
So then I reset the printer to factory defaults and finally it was able to find access points. But no matter what I did, I couldn't get it to connect to the network with the SSID and passcode.

Then I tried WPS. I hate, hate WPS with a passion. Still nothing. Not with the button. Not with the PIN.
So I tried something else crazy. I disabled the wireless radio on the second AP in the house (which has the same SSID), which barely transmitted far enough to hit the SiL's room.

And wouldn't you know it, the damn printer started pissing out all of the spooled pages.
Attachment 5169

Wireless is the devil. It is a connection of last resort.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Eremius

Wireless is the devil. It is a connection of last resort.

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Dude, seriously.

I've been saying this for well over a decade.

The hundreds upon hundreds of times I've solved escalated tickets that noone, even on level 2 supprt, can figure out by saying "plug in an ethernet cable" is RIDICULOUS.

The hundreds of thousands of tickets I've worked since 1998, at least 10% of them, probably more, have been wi-fi issues.

Wireless is a beautiful thing when it works. I love being able to carry my tablet from my office to the kitchen and watch streaming media while I cook, but I SURE AS FUCK DON'T RELY ON IT TO BE ANY KIND OF STABLE.

Copper works far more reliably than signal-over-air.

As the old Glade air freshener ads used to say:

Plug it in, Plug it in.

Although I did once hitch into my asshat neighbor's wireless (and completely unsecured) printer and print him a nice three page dissertation on chicken, complete with the standard derivations of said ground-bound fowl.

https://isotropic.org/papers/chicken.pdf

He somehow figured out how to secure his wireless shortly thereafter.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Merrick ap'Milandra

Copper works far more reliably than signal-over-air.

As the old Glade air freshener ads used to say:

Plug it in, Plug it in.

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I've haphazardly wired my house, because this is my mantra as well.

The only things that are wireless in my house that I have direct control over are the things that must be - phones, tablets, Echo, Fire stick - everything else except my wife's laptop (which means, realistically, everything that I use) has up to now been hard wired.

It's great when it works, but with the lack of knowledge Joe Neighbor (as your subsequent reply demonstrates quite nicely) has over the technology coupled with the intrinsically limited usability it has when there's more-and-more people having it at home, plus more-and-more devices that simply piss out wireless broadcasting, it makes it quite difficult to keep a "clean" wireless environment.

Before I moved in with my now-wife, it was no problem, because my mom's house is so old, the wiring and shitty ass 1940s foil-backed insulation basically turned my house into a radio free zone and wireless signals couldn't get in or out. Sure, this made it difficult to use cell phones indoors sometimes, but we almost never got wireless interruptions due to neighboring APs.

But now, in a cul-de-sac where the houses are less than 60 feet apart, approximately 200 feet from my front door to the across-the-loop neighbor, my Wifi analyzer app on my phone picks up 8 different wireless signals (at least 3 of them are xfinity guest hotspots. I turned mine off months ago.) Two are printers.

I used to think bridging and duplicating SSIDs between APs was the way to go for spreading a wireless signal across an area but since having a second AP with a duplicate SSID seems to be causing more problems with the phones etc I may end up just getting a signal repeater.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Mileron

plus more-and-more devices that simply piss out wireless broadcasting, it makes it quite difficult to keep a "clean" wireless environment.

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Yep.

When even having christmas lights too close to the AP, or turning on a microwave can disrupt a signal, it's a sign that it's not reliable.

I mean, you can get the same thing with an ethernet cable if you wrap a 110 volt power cord around it, insulated or not, but at least that's physical and easily rectified if you trace the cable.

Wireless signal bands are so horseshit these days that I can hear big box store walkie talkies on my FM radio as I drive by. The "encrypted" police scanners are the worst, because every time a cop drives by, the radio blows static in my ear instead of the AC/DC song I was listening to.

It even happens when I'm listening on my mp3 player in my car.

THAT is how powerful the local interference is.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Mileron

Before I moved in with my now-wife, it was no problem, because my mom's house is so old, the wiring and shitty ass 1940s foil-backed insulation basically turned my house into a radio free zone and wireless signals couldn't get in or out. Sure, this made it difficult to use cell phones indoors sometimes, but we almost never got wireless interruptions due to neighboring APs.

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LOL! a Faraday Cage!

One of my friends lives in an old farmhouse where the walls are made of chickenwire and actual plaster. She can't get a cell signal indoors to save her life.

She also has no internal wireless problems.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Mileron

But now, in a cul-de-sac where the houses are less than 60 feet apart, approximately 200 feet from my front door to the across-the-loop neighbor, my Wifi analyzer app on my phone picks up 8 different wireless signals (at least 3 of them are xfinity guest hotspots. I turned mine off months ago.) Two are printers.

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The xfinity stuff, as much as I dislike the reasoning behind it, has proved useful to me a few times.

Some people balk when the big bearded guy says "what's you're wifi id and password" because they think I'm trying something surreptitious. As a result, it allows me to get online in case I have to search for something I'm being friendly and fixing for free.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Mileron

I used to think bridging and duplicating SSIDs between APs was the way to go for spreading a wireless signal across an area but since having a second AP with a duplicate SSID seems to be causing more problems with the phones etc I may end up just getting a signal repeater.

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Okay, never, ever, EVER duplicate SSID's.

It leads to pain.

If connection does not happen at a layer 2 level, you do NOT want to involve layer 3, which is what most home wireless devices are. That's called "routing" because, like a traffic cop, it routes traffic.

Basically, the stoplights are all blinking and everyone behind the wheel is honking their horns at each other and wondering wtf is going on.

Connect them, that's fine, but name them differently.

Windows will sort out the wireless network it should be connected to, and in the case of the printer(s), it will stick to the one you tell it to, instead of looking for a different one that doesn't have a strong enough connection to allow it to function.

TCP/IP stack calls can be fickle, and if there's even a HINT of an acknowledgement (ACK, and in SYN/ACK) you can end up with something that THINKS it's connected on the network level, but isn't actually doing a damned thing.

OSI model.

1 Physical
2 Datalink
3 Network
4 Transport
5 Session
6 Presentation
7 Application

You can easily have datalink (layer 2) without an actual network routed connection (layer 3) and your average home device tends to try to behave in layer 3 by default.

Because most people only have one.

With some judicious googling you can probably disable the routing functions on the AP's and run them as signal repeaters instead of firewalled routers.

You only need one of the latter.

Dont the Ubiquity systems use the same SSID across their multiple APs?

Just curiious how that works since in say a hotel the SSID never changes. Even the local supermarket it never changes and you know even a supermarket is big enough to need more then one to be reliable just due to the scale of the place.

Quote:

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Dont the Ubiquity systems use the same SSID across their multiple APs?

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Yes, but through the CAPWAP protocol.
http://searchnetworking.techtarget.c...-Access-Points

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Merrick ap'Milandra

That's called "routing" because, like a traffic cop, it routes traffic.

Basically, the stoplights are all blinking and everyone behind the wheel is honking their horns at each other and wondering wtf is going on.

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Pfffft. We all know that it's not like a truck, it's like a series of tubes, y'all!

id say a Router is more like a complex freeway interchange... Because when everybody decides they want to get on the same freeway all at once the whole thing backs up for hours.... Packets are blowing horns and raising middle 1s at the other packets.

then you have the switch which is like a well controlled intersection with well timed stoplights. traffic is forced to take its turns and does not generally jam things up too badly...

Finally we have the simplistic hub...
Attachment 5172

Quote:

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Originally Posted by FilanFyretracker

Dont the Ubiquity systems use the same SSID across their multiple APs?

Just curiious how that works since in say a hotel the SSID never changes. Even the local supermarket it never changes and you know even a supermarket is big enough to need more then one to be reliable just due to the scale of the place.

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The difference here is you had TWO routers with no knowledge of each other's SSID, each also independently broadcasting the same one.

Same SSID only works when the devices are configured to realize that there IS only one SSID, and they're all authorized to use it, AND are smart enough to pass the signal around from point to point when a device moves.

There *are* consumer-grade devices that can do that now, but having two separate devices, each attempting to route traffic as though it were the only device having the same SSID is trouble.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by FilanFyretracker

id say a Router is more like a complex freeway interchange... Because when everybody decides they want to get on the same freeway all at once the whole thing backs up for hours.... Packets are blowing horns and raising middle 1s at the other packets.

then you have the switch which is like a well controlled intersection with well timed stoplights. traffic is forced to take its turns and does not generally jam things up too badly...

Finally we have the simplistic hub...
Attachment 5172

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Which is why, unfortunately, hubs are so hard to find these days.

HORRIBLE for production use across the whole network, but FANTASTIC for sniffing traffic on a subsection of it.

Dont some managed switches allow mirroring? Naturally a bit more costly than a normal switch.

But yea I have not seen a hub in a store for awhile.

Quote:

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Dont some managed switches allow mirroring? Naturally a bit more costly than a normal switch.

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Yeah, Cisco calls it "SPAN"
or RSPAN if you want to mirror to a port on a completely different switch.

Otherwise you can poison the whole ARP tables too. (Not Recommended).

MORONS!

Backstory we have a server that connects out to someplace else on the Internet; Suddenly stopped making it's connection around the first week in December. Naturally it's blamed on my firewall changes of course. (none made on that one since Oct) and of course the connection is allowed. The Usual back and forth (we'll look into it further blah blah blah). Get an email today (routed through a different department) again blaming me & my firewall. "As it's their best guess, and your Local IT people are big meanie Poopie-heads."

We can make the connection manually but only when we accept some certificate error; So it's gotta be your firewall blocking authentication.

:wtf:

You just told us the problem morons, Go back and read what you wrote... "We have a certificate error".

not educated enough in this stuff...

But a cert error would mean something was up between them and the remote server wouldn't it? and they should contact that IT department to inquire about the cert on the remote and make sure its in line with what their server is trying to auth with?

Quote:

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But a cert error would mean something was up between them and the remote server wouldn't it? and they should contact that IT department to inquire about the cert on the remote and make sure its in line with what their server is trying to auth with?

---

most certificate errors are pretty minor; Expired, from a Non-trusted authority (usually Self-signed, meaning they didn't pay somebody to verify their identity to themselves), or using an IP address where it expects a Hostname (or the wrong hostname) will all error the certificate. but not really have any impact on the actual security of the encrypted connection.



I didn't explain well I was trying to obfuscated and failed miserably; I work for a county, We house a State Server with state data that transmits to another State server. They administer both ends.
I just provide an internet connection to them.

They blame the internet connection. while admitting the connection works. But it's still gotta be that "cause we're fucking stupidheads".

Usually an incorrect date on the computer.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Melcar

I just provide an internet connection to them.

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But if it were the internet connection it would mean they didn't have to fix anything so that MUST be the issue!

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Eremius

But if it were the internet connection it would mean they didn't have to fix anything so that MUST be the issue!

---

when I worked tech support for a large cable company... People called us to clean their computers because apparently if someone gets a virus it must be from the cable modem because that is where the internet is to them.

[quote[\] People called us to clean their computers because apparently if someone gets a virus it must be from the cable modem because that is where the internet is to them.[/quote]

Sure, but in my Instance I'm dealing with our IT people who can't read the error right in front of their faces.

Wow screwed that post up.


Dealing with "Other " IT people.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Melcar

MORONS!

Backstory we have a server that connects out to someplace else on the Internet; Suddenly stopped making it's connection around the first week in December. Naturally it's blamed on my firewall changes of course. (none made on that one since Oct) and of course the connection is allowed. The Usual back and forth (we'll look into it further blah blah blah). Get an email today (routed through a different department) again blaming me & my firewall. "As it's their best guess, and your Local IT people are big meanie Poopie-heads."

We can make the connection manually but only when we accept some certificate error; So it's gotta be your firewall blocking authentication.

:wtf:

You just told us the problem morons, Go back and read what you wrote... "We have a certificate error".

---

OMFG.

I always love the "So I'm telling you nothing changed on our end, and you're telling me something changed on yours AND that it's giving you an error, but somehow it's my fault?" bullcrap.

It's even worse when it's someone who's JOB IT IS TO TROUBLESHOOT STUFF.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Merrick ap'Milandra

OMFG.

I always love the "So I'm telling you nothing changed on our end, and you're telling me something changed on yours AND that it's giving you an error, but somehow it's my fault?" bullcrap.

It's even worse when it's someone who's JOB IT IS TO TROUBLESHOOT STUFF.

---

I don't think there's a sysadmin alive who hasn't dealt with that.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Eremius

I don't think there's a sysadmin alive who hasn't dealt with that.

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Oh, yeah, it's nearly a daily occurrence.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Merrick ap'Milandra

Oh, yeah, it's nearly a daily occurrence.

---

To some degree. But it really makes it stick out when it's people who know better and are just being lazy.

I am not saying all developers but the greater percentage of people I've gotten this from are developers.

December:
Customer's Project Leader: We're starting a Disaster Recovery scenario soon
Me: Okay. When you do, know that what you're planning will cause our programs to not work. You'll need to call us during operational business hours so that we can help you get them up and running.
CPL: But the test will be over the weekend.
Me: So call me Friday afternoon, to give me a heads' up, so that I can prepare what I would otherwise need to do on my side, and give you the instructions you need on your side.
CPL: Well...
Me: Tell you what, I'll schedule myself something for the day before you plan to do this, and send you an email two days before for clarification, how's that sound?
CPL: Okay

January 11th:
Me: Hi, CPL. I'm writing to follow up regarding your DR drill that we spoke about in December. If you are ready to go through with your DR plans, I can set the system to be ready for your software reactivation. Here are the further steps you'll need once you complete the data migration.
CPL: The DR drill has been canceled.

January 17th:
CPL: Our DR drill went as planned, however your software does not work. Why were we not warned in advance?

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Merrick ap'Milandra

OMFG.

I always love the "So I'm telling you nothing changed on our end, and you're telling me something changed on yours AND that it's giving you an error, but somehow it's my fault?" bullcrap.

It's even worse when it's someone who's JOB IT IS TO TROUBLESHOOT STUFF.

---

It's the typical response of people who are clueless about computer networks or even computer science in general: "You shaman types with your tech mumbo jumbo broke my computer again, didn't you? All I did was bang on the keyboard and waggle the mousie thingie and giggle at the pretty Internet pitchers. It must be your [INSERT RANDOM COMPUTING PHRASE HERE] that did it."

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Alikat Astrae

[INSERT RANDOM COMPUTING PHRASE HERE]

---

I have one user who frequently asked me if she should do an interrupt when her pc no longer responded. Maybe I'm off but we call that a reset where I come from. She also meant a reset.

I had a Comcast Supervisor (of the cube farm obviously, not a real tech) tell me that the reason my new Xfinity modem was working in wifi but not in hard wired connections was because I needed to "open some ports on your computer." Turned out to be I'd been connecting to my old router via crossover cable with no problem, but their box needed a straight connection. Had to figure it out myself.

We've got some freaky ghost shit going on!

Phone on the receptionists desk called supervisor A! For No Reason!!! With nobody even at the desk!!! Just out of the blue!!!

So we unplugged, and plugged it back in, and,.... What do you think?


"I think we should let all the water dry out of it over the weekend and see if it works on Monday."

Pack it in dry white rice.

Brother in law: We've got an old external hard drive that died. What can we do?
Me: Is the date important?
BIL: Not really
Me: Toss it
BIL: But we want the data off it
Me: ... Okay, so... put it in a zip lock bag with some silica gel dessicant packs, suck all the air out, put it in the freezer for 2-3 days, then plug it in. If it spins up, get all the data off it as quick as you can because it won't last long.
BIL: Have you had that work before?
Me: I'm 50/50 on success with that trick.
BIL: skeptical Any other suggestions?
Me: Data recovery services
BIL: How much is that gonna cost?
Me: I paid close to 1400 for a 500GB drive, I think, when 500GB of that model were still consistently sold. You have an 80GB drive from 2003-2004. Not sure how much the going rate on that might be.
BIL: So... Maybe 250?
Me: ... Because 80GB is proportionally that much less than a 500GB drive? I hate to tell you it doesn't work that way. Explains a couple different ways the drive might be recovered
BIL: What if we take it to Microcenter?
Me: They're going to tell you to take it to a data recovery place.
BIL: skeptical Well I'll try your suggestion

A week later
Me: How'd the freezer therapy turn out?
BIL: No go, we're going to take it to Microcenter to see if there's anything they can do


I don't know why I bother

of course I am guessing they did not specify how it sounded when it died. That is total lack of spin up, clicking or grinding noises...

I had an external go tits up once and my solution was to crack it open and sure enough normal SATA drive in there. popped it into the PC and it worked, Was merely the electronics that did USB-SATA in the external itself that died.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by FilanFyretracker

of course I am guessing they did not specify how it sounded when it died. That is total lack of spin up, clicking or grinding noises...

I had an external go tits up once and my solution was to crack it open and sure enough normal SATA drive in there. popped it into the PC and it worked, Was merely the electronics that did USB-SATA in the external itself that died.

---

Spin-CLUNK

It's an old, old, old Quantum 80GB IDE drive. I don't have any IDE-capable computers, and I don't have an IDE USB converter, and he seemed more inclined to not listen to me.
I'd have popped for an IDE to USB converter but you know what, I ain't gonna force my help on him.

I amazingly have an IDE to USB still, its likely collecting dust next to my 3Com LAN-Modem. Which I still have for I dunno why, Not like I'd ever use a 56k again but I have a box that is a Modem router still

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Mileron

Brother in law: We've got an old external hard drive that died. What can we do?
Me: Is the date important?
BIL: Not really
Me: Toss it
BIL: But we want the data off it
Me: ... Okay, so... put it in a zip lock bag with some silica gel dessicant packs, suck all the air out, put it in the freezer for 2-3 days, then plug it in. If it spins up, get all the data off it as quick as you can because it won't last long.
BIL: Have you had that work before?
Me: I'm 50/50 on success with that trick.
BIL: skeptical Any other suggestions?
Me: Data recovery services
BIL: How much is that gonna cost?
Me: I paid close to 1400 for a 500GB drive, I think, when 500GB of that model were still consistently sold. You have an 80GB drive from 2003-2004. Not sure how much the going rate on that might be.
BIL: So... Maybe 250?
Me: ... Because 80GB is proportionally that much less than a 500GB drive? I hate to tell you it doesn't work that way. Explains a couple different ways the drive might be recovered
BIL: What if we take it to Microcenter?
Me: They're going to tell you to take it to a data recovery place.
BIL: skeptical Well I'll try your suggestion

A week later
Me: How'd the freezer therapy turn out?
BIL: No go, we're going to take it to Microcenter to see if there's anything they can do


I don't know why I bother

---

This.


This is the 5 panel sunday comic of every aspect in my professional life in a nutshell. Backwards... Forwards... It shan't fucking matter what the situation or who is speaking. No one fucking gets it.

Today alone, i had a friend who is handling a DUI for the first time. The day he told me, 3 months ago, i told him to lawyer up and start making payments arrangements from the get go.

Ffwd to today. "hey, I'm wondering what i should do about my court case tomorrow."

"what did the attorney say?"

"i never called. "

3 fucking months of nothing to lead up to this.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by FilanFyretracker

I amazingly have an IDE to USB still, its likely collecting dust next to my 3Com LAN-Modem. Which I still have for I dunno why, Not like I'd ever use a 56k again but I have a box that is a Modem router still

---

I finally threw my box of computer parts that I've been lugging around since i first moved out of my parents house. I realized that every single part in there, i could replace with the help of amazon or ebay for less than the amount of time it would take me against regular wages to find any specifix part i may be searching for.

I still have all my old hard drives - one of those has some booby pics of an ex-g/f - but even so, I'm so close to sledge hammering all of them, despite one being sure to have some of my old writing as well.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Tinthalas Tigris

This.


This is the 5 panel sunday comic of every aspect in my professional life in a nutshell. Backwards... Forwards... It shan't fucking matter what the situation or who is speaking. No one fucking gets it.

Today alone, i had a friend who is handling a DUI for the first time. The day he told me, 3 months ago, i told him to lawyer up and start making payments arrangements from the get go.

Ffwd to today. "hey, I'm wondering what i should do about my court case tomorrow."

"what did the attorney say?"

"i never called. "

3 fucking months of nothing to lead up to this.

---

He is maybe boned, But I have seen news stories where someone is busted for their 11th DUI enforcement is not exactly something done very well.

Yeah, but this guy is Mexican. He is seriously fucked.

Third Party Tech: My customer is having problems using your software
Me: What's going on?
TPT: Communications issues
Me: Based on the error you're giving me, that means you have a firewall or proxy in place
TPT: I have no firewall in place
Me: Don't know what to tell you then. Something is blocking our program's ability to download certain information.
TPT: Our inbound filter...
Me: You just said you don't have a firewall or proxy
TPT: It's not a firewall or proxy, it's a traffic filter
Me: Terminology aside, it's something that meters and otherwise redirects or alters the traffic across your network out to and back in from the internet, correct?
TPT: No
Me: ... What does it do?
TPT: It routes and shapes traffic based on load or certain criteria and filters out known problematic sources
Me: ... So, could it be blocking my program's ability to download information from certain DNS names or IP addresses due to it being a non-browser application trying to pull XML information across port 80?
TPT: Maybe, but it wouldn't be blocking it...

where are other techs going today?

in that situation my first solution would be if I had permissions to do so, shut the filters off. if program working=yes its time to keep the filters off or update the whitelist.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by FilanFyretracker

where are other techs going today?

in that situation my first solution would be if I had permissions to do so, shut the filters off. if program working=yes its time to keep the filters off or update the whitelist.

---

The sysadmins who run their system and/or get paid the big bucks decided and/or were told to block everything that didn't meet certain program parameters for all systems their monkies work on.

Before escalating the ticket to Silverback, they have to call product support to blame it on them.

So it's still at Gibbon Level?

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Alikat Astrae

So it's still at Gibbon Level?

---

They hacked the Gibbon. It was bananas.

They kept chimping away at the servers until they needed to siamang about having them fixed.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Alikat Astrae

They kept chimping away at the servers until they needed to siamang about having them fixed.

---

They might need to find a lawyer Pro Bonobo.

Aye-aye.

So that Certificate error problem, we sent our email reply on January 17th. Heard nothing. On the 27th our staff emailed to get a status update. We received a reply today "Huh magic, at 11am yesterday it just started working...."

I'm sure it's cause we made another configuration change to our firewall... :fishhit:

Tech: My user can't use your site because an ActiveX control won't install
Me: Here are the manual instructions
Tech: Someone gave them to me yesterday
Me: Oh? What happened?
Tech: I put the file they indicated that I download in the folder specified
Me: ... That's it?
Tech: When I ran the DOS command it gave me some error about the file being the wrong type for the command
Me: So we provided you instructions, and based on the first step you downloaded the file from the site
Tech: Yes
Me: Did you do the second step to unzip the cab?
Tech: Do what now?
Me: The file you downloaded. It's not the ActiveX control. It's a cab, or cabinet, file. Basically it's a zip file. You need to unzip it using any popular unzip tool like Winzip, 7zip, winrar, I think even the Windows compression utility can handle them now... then pull the ocx file for the ActiveX control out of the resulting folder and place that in the folder according to the next step.
Tech: Well how was I supposed to know that?
Me: The step says "unzip downloaded file". That's why we provide this document only to tech people.
Tech: But it's not a zip file! Really, you should make it more clear. Or make it so that there's only a single download without the extra step.
Me: That's why they're ActiveX controls. The browser takes care of all the installs. We provide documentation to set up the browser to allow all the installs without user intervention other than to click "Allow."
Tech: Come on, man. You know users are stupid and can't be trusted.
Me: That's why we provide explicit documentation.
Tech: You also know users don't read.
Me: Would you want your users trying to puzzle through this manual part of the install?
Tech: Absolutely not, that's why they aren't admins of their computer to allow the automatic install.
Me: Which is why we provided you with the alternate installation instructions.
Tech: How was I supposed to know what "unzip downloaded file" meant?

... come on.

Quote:

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Tech: How was I supposed to know what "unzip downloaded file" meant?

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Hey, How do you unzip something that's not a ZIP? Shouldn't you call it decompressing or something?

Maybe it's an age thing. Like, real young kids don;t use "zip" as a verb anymore. Instructions at step two ought to say "decompress the .Cab file using any popular Windows unzip tool like Winzip, 7zip, or Winrar"

It ain't like words in the instructions cost you anything.

Catering to the terminally stupid will cost you your soul.

I never assume that people are stupid because they don't know what I do, just if they are incapable of absorbing more data. I know very little about many things myself. Whenever I want to feel humble I just pop the hood on my car.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Alikat Astrae

Maybe it's an age thing. Like, real young kids don;t use "zip" as a verb anymore. Instructions at step two ought to say "decompress the .Cab file using any popular Windows unzip tool like Winzip, 7zip, or Winrar"

It ain't like words in the instructions cost you anything.

---

I have been docked call scores for typing out instructions instead of using pre-populated templates.

Pre-populated templates by people generated like they were typing on phones with T9 on a kilobit-limited dataplan.

And though I have requested repeatedly to have them updated to more coherent instructions, I get to deal with calls like this.

I ended up asking him to respond to the email and state that he had his question resolved after a further 45 minutes on hold and additional 15 minutes on the phone, that the instructions were not as clear as could have been, and that he could have saved his customer a billable hour (not that he complained, he joked to me) of contracted support if the email had been concise and distinct.

Can't say I blame him. However, yes, he was being a dick about it, and I partly think he was just trying to eek out the extra billable time. Which is a dick move.

So it all comes down to bad pointy-haired boss policies int he end, yet that shitty PHB has set you and the Client at emotional odds to a very slight but noticeable degree. You actually thought of the Client as "stupid" because you were force3de to deliver him poorly-written instructions by a poorly-designed policy.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Alikat Astrae

So it all comes down to bad pointy-haired boss policies int he end, yet that shitty PHB has set you and the Client at emotional odds to a very slight but noticeable degree. You actually thought of the Client as "stupid" because you were force3de to deliver him poorly-written instructions by a poorly-designed policy.

---

I said no such thing, nor did my paraphrased reiteration of the conversation indicate as such.
If anything he was "lazy" for not reading the instructions, let alone spending spending 3 seconds googling "unzip cab file".
I'm sure he "didn't care" about waiting on hold for 45 minutes, wasting his customer's time and money.

What was "stupid" about the conversation was him fighting me about a triviality in terminology over which I have no control when I had already provided him the answer he needed.

It was "stupid" of him to ignore a step in the instructions that were provided to him.

He made his money. His customer got helped. We got to shake our heads at it.

Having been on both sides of the fence - tech helper and tech helpee - it just sometimes frustrates me to get calls like this, which is why we have threads like this.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Mileron

I said no such thing, nor did my paraphrased reiteration of the conversation indicate as such.

---

No, Eremius did. Can't you see that I was directly replying to his characterization of the Client as "terminally stupid?"

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Mileron

If anything he was "lazy" for not reading the instructions, let alone spending spending 3 seconds googling "unzip cab file".

---

That's not what you told me the instructions said:

Quote:

---

Me: The step says "unzip downloaded file".

---

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Mileron

It was "stupid" of him to ignore a step in the instructions that were provided to him.

---

Right after indignantly declaring you never called the Client "stupid," you go ahead and do it anyway? I think you need a nice pleasant vacation in Hawaii or something, muahaha!

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Alikat Astrae

Right after indignantly declaring you never called the Client "stupid," you go ahead and do it anyway? I think you need a nice pleasant vacation in Hawaii or something, muahaha!

---

Yeah, I know :(

Quote:

---

I think you need a nice pleasant vacation in Hawaii or something

---

Can I have one too????

Graffe's Forum is going to Hawaii! Baelan is going to jump a shark! Ehhhhhhhh!

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Alikat Astrae

Graffe's Forum is going to Hawaii! Baelan is going to jump a shark! Ehhhhhhhh!

---

Well it's been 20+ years since I was stationed at Kaneohe, should be safe now :)

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Mileron

I have been docked call scores for typing out instructions instead of using pre-populated templates.

Pre-populated templates by people generated like they were typing on phones with T9 on a kilobit-limited dataplan.

And though I have requested repeatedly to have them updated to more coherent instructions, I get to deal with calls like this.

I ended up asking him to respond to the email and state that he had his question resolved after a further 45 minutes on hold and additional 15 minutes on the phone, that the instructions were not as clear as could have been, and that he could have saved his customer a billable hour (not that he complained, he joked to me) of contracted support if the email had been concise and distinct.

Can't say I blame him. However, yes, he was being a dick about it, and I partly think he was just trying to eek out the extra billable time. Which is a dick move.

---

forcing use of templates even if you can do better is the grand proof that management who has never picked up the phone in ever is making the rules.

But I have this odd belief that if a person has not worked customer service jobs they have no right managing them.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Ninetoes

Well it's been 20+ years since I was stationed at Kaneohe, should be safe now :)

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You were stationed at the Hidden Leaf village of ninjas? Do you know Naruto personally?