Just overheard our support guy on the phone talking to a user: "No you tried to enter Feb 30th in a date field....".
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Just overheard our support guy on the phone talking to a user: "No you tried to enter Feb 30th in a date field....".
I tried that once on November 31st..... :p
Lousy Smarch weather...
My three favorite months: Septober, Octember, and Nowonder.
Well, it is valid once every 400 years.Quote:
Originally Posted by Merkus
he Two-Thirty Crisis already happened in 1712, which is why there were no computers around any more until the 20th Century. The imminent threat is the Y10k Crisis.
the 12:00 flash crisis plagues tech idiots though!
It's incredibly funny to me, there are now people in their early 20's entering the workforce at the company I work for who look at me when I'm some kind of pervert when I say "Looks like we got a 12 o'clock flasher here!".Quote:
Originally Posted by FilanFyretracker
Then I say "Every appliance in the house - flashing 12 o'clock!" and they look at me like I'm a moron because they've never seen a vcr, microwave, clock radio, television, or anything else do that.
Every once in a while I'll reference a piece of older technology from the 60's, 70's, or 80's and get responses like "oh, is that what you guys used to play Pong on?".
It amazes me that some of these kids have never known a world without, say, USB Keyboards because they were born in the early 90's and didn't actually get a computer until Windows 98 was in full swing.
A handful of us in our 30's and 40's were in a watchguard training session and somehow the subject of twinax came up as a joke.
Everyone but the new guy was laughing until we explained some of it.
It was kind of amusing reminiscing about the pitfalls of TIMI, though. (Has anyone done a "how to shoot yourself in the foot with an AS/400?)
Oh, and another good one from a field tech who had to go on site because the new PoE Wireless devices were sometimes faster but not covering the whole building.
The guy got out there to do a wireless coverage survey and discovered that where one of the PoE wireless devices should have been was absolutely nothing.
Gets up there and discovered that, sure enough, no Power of Ethernet.
Then discovers that it's using Cat3.
Customer: "We just reused the same cables from the old gear! Your gear is broken, not our cables!"
Tech: "No, the new gear is PoE+. There's no Cat3 support."
Customer: "Well that's just stupid, now I have to buy another one of those expensive 6 inch cables from Best Buy and they're 35 miles away!"
Tech: "/facepalms and hands him a 1 meter Cat5" "Just use this."
Power *over* Ethernet.
derp.
well the Power of Ethernet is that its more reliable than wireless and hell of a lot faster than any wireless for use in general purpose WLAN inside a home or business.
I still am amazed there are people that have never seen a blinking 12. Because Microwaves and modern stoves do it now that they are all digital.
I remember how awesome I thought it was when we had a VCR that had something like a BIOS battery or somehow held a charge because a mere 10min power failure it did not lose the time.
Today I feel completely pampered, my cable box sets its own clock and does daylight savings time on its own. even my clock radio has a battery backup and automatic DST.... Of course I also remember having a VCR with a manual tracking knob and when we used it to tune cable in our secondary room it had its own channel arrangements 13 on the VCR was not same as 13 on the cable box in the living room.(this was an old beast of a Sears VCR its casing was made of computer case grade steel. Setting its timer was like programming a Saturn V rocket and you had to get off your ass and tweak the tracking with old tapes... but the thing was a trooper and lasting a long time.)
Yes, I really had to send this email today:
Quote:
Originally Posted by me
let me guess you have had to remove whiteout from monitors too.Quote:
Originally Posted by Mileron
Ok, so the Update server pushed some updates out, which caused your browser to not send the requests out, just needed a reboot.
"Can you explain that in layman's terms?"
Puter broke.... reboot fix. Me smash hed inta rock now.
Ok... I was much more diplomatic than that... but that's what I was saying in my mind.
Customer: I never converted away from your DOS product because I liked it so much but I need your help installing it on to Windows 7
Me: It hasn't been supported since December 2007
Customer: Why not
Me: The guy who supported it died
Customer: Well shit, why didn't anyone tell me?
(Actually, we sent a customer-base-wide email that DOS support ended in January 2008, ten years after we stopped selling it, because the sole remaining support rep had passed away)
Customer: Well, I need to convert my files then
Me: Here's the instructions. I can walk you through it but have no idea what to do to reconcile the two sets of files after you complete it, such as re-assign certain tax types or verify data. Our usage group can help with those questions.
Customer: OK, I'll handle it.
A month later...
Customer: I'm still waiting for you to finish my conversions
Me: Say what?
Customer: You said you'd walk me through the conversions
Me: Yes, we did that on the phone together.
Customer: Well now you need to help me find missing data
Me: Barring speaking to our Usage support group, You said you'd handle it
Customer: Well I didn't know what to do! So I called you back
Me: You need to speak to the usage support group
Customer: But no one there knows the DOS program!
Me: Correct. But at this point, you're no longer USING the DOS program, right?
Customer: Well, no, I'm still inputting data...
Me: Well it's not going to magically continue to convert! You need to STOP entry in that old program!
Customer: That's not how it works
Later...
Customer: I still need your help finding this information
Me: Look. I'm NOT a tax guy. I cannot help you with TAX questions. I cannot help you with data entry or repair. That's the other part of the support group.
Customer: Fine, have one of them call me.
Later...
Coworker: I need the customer's original DOS file
Me: Why?
Coworker: To help him find his missing data
Me: Do you have a working copy of the DOS application?
Coworker: No
Me: *head-desk-bang-bang-bang*
:jawdrop:Quote:
Originally Posted by Mileron
Let's hope I never have to use that line - and I've been supporting many old custom systems. I've used "He quit 10 years ago" several times, but never death...
We recently had a request to review some file processing, and went to the meeting blissfully unaware of how things were.
My colleague had the tech lead:
Tech lead: So, walk us through this - what do you do when this file arrives from the supplier ?
Coworker: Well, we start by importing it into this system *opens up very old custom system from the mid-1990's, starts to import file*
Tech lead: You know that startup screen that you clicked through ?
Coworker:... Yes ?
Tech lead: The one that says "SYSTEM HAS BEEN SHUT DOWN, ONLY PERUSE THIS TO LOOK AT VERY OLD DATA".
Tech lead: We stopped development on the system in 2008, and it was shut down for good in 2010!
Coworker: Yes, we know! But we figured out that this bit still works!
Developers, in unison: ...
Turns out that they use that bit of the old system, then do ANOTHER import into the new system, and then use paper and excel sheets to fit it all together.
They didn't want to bother us, since it worked.
Sometimes, all you have to do is ask. Developers are not all firebreathing dragons - some of us actually get a very big satisfaction from taking old systems and improving them. *sigh*
That customer should be lucky that you even had a dos support into the 2000s. DOS has not been on a computer since the shift to WinXP or technically It has not been on enterprise systems since WINNT.
My sister bought a Dell desktop with Win8 just before Thanksgiving. I gave her the "layman's terms" feature breakdown.
"I like this one because it's got wireless built in" she says.
I configure it, install programs, give it back to her.
Just before Christmas she started having problems with email. So instead of forcing me to drive the 50 miles (one way, with tolls) to her house, she brings it to my mom's, and makes me drive the 22 to my mom's instead. (Which I'm kind of thankful for.)
In the big cloth shopping bag in which the desktop resides, she included the power cord, keyboard, mouse, and a USB Wireless stick.
I sent her a text message.
Me: You do realize the computer has wireless built in, right?
Her: It does?
Me: Yes, that's why you picked this model.
Her: Really?
a common issue with simple users and wireless built in laptops is their annoying ability to find and hit the wireless button.
I mean I know why its there, So that when not near wifi but on batteries you can save power but the fact is I typically see it used to cause connection issues.
Coworker: So my new laptop is wireless, right (it wasn't a question)
Me: Right
Coworker: What do I do when it runs out of juice?
And that is a person who should not be allowed to have technology.Quote:
Originally Posted by Mileron
Let me guess if their desktop did not turn on and they are asked if its plugged into the wall they would reply "Dell did not offer me a wall accessory"
If there is a heaven, you belong in it for putting up with this level of hell.Quote:
Originally Posted by Mileron
AUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUGHQuote:
Originally Posted by Dawlin
I feel your pain.
I cannot count the number of times I've stood up new citrix farms only to have someone still using an ICA connection instead of Xen Desktop.
I want to shiv the production team for not shutting down the old farms when we spend so much time creating new ones.
"The old one still works!"
No. It was replaced for a reason. Stop touching it.
That is woefully incorrect.Quote:
Originally Posted by FilanFyretracker
DOS has been the underpinning of every version of windows until vista was released.
The Recovery Console is 100% DOS.
Despite the move to powershell, DOS command prompts remain as a staple of functionality in the IT industry, even in server 2012.
Anyone who can't "nslookup" "set type=mx" to troubleshoot mailflow issues isn't worth their salt because the GUI interfaces don't do that in any way, shape, or form that I've seen.
I thought DOS went away with Windows XP since the 9x versions were the last ones with a DOS foundation.
Though I guess that could explain why even in Windows 8 we still use drive letters instead of mount points like Unix/Linux.
Which I am kind of happy about because its more complex to work with people who have renamed things but you can always direct them to C:
My understanding was that prior to XP, the OS was MS-DOS with a Windows GUI on top. From XP onwards, windows was the OS but it also had a command line option (ie, DOS)
Close.Quote:
Originally Posted by Woodja
The "DOS products" ended with Windows Me. XP was actually the 5th (IIRC NT3, NT 3.5, NT4, 2000, XP) in the NT line.
Someone may need to correct my older NT versions. I didn't pick up on it until NT4.
Coworker: WHY ARE THERE DRUGS ON MY NEW COMPUTER!?
Me: Say what now?
Coworker: Why are there images of drugs on my new computer?
Me: (go to her desk)
Coworker: (points to the leaf and bird graphic on the windows 7 Login screen)
Attachment 2927
Yup, I need a new job. I haTE passive aggressive problem reporting...
So, user calls up with "what's going on with soandso's email?"
What are you talking about?
"well is it working?"
Why wouldn't it be?
"Well they tried to send me some emails yesterday or today that I didn't get".
Ok, do you know the time?
"nope, just sometime yesterday or today".
--- Dig through the log files, find the two emails in question, logs indicated everything looks good. Hunt down soandso ask them about the situation - Soandso doesn't know there's a problem.
Somebody apparently mentions this problem to the Director goes to my boss to find out what's going on -- boss comes to me to tell me to look into this - which of course I already am.
Go up to user who reported the problem to discover.... "oh I really did get those emails, they just weren't what I was expecting".
Are you fucking kidding me? and people wonder why I drink.
This is why I left "the office." Manual labor might not pay as well as the better exec positions, but you won't turn into a vagina like the other vaginas around the office.Quote:
Originally Posted by Melcar
Did you hand the douchebag a maxi pad after?
Hey quit blaming problems on perfectly innocent and decent vaginas. Perhaps it's the pricks who are the problem, but why don't we compromise instead, join forces, and blame the taints who caused this mess?
Oh, you're completely right. a Prick is absolutely perfect a description. a Prick, a little needle. A little "ouch, wtf was that?" But those fucks need a dick slap. Better yet, let them squabble over the next color of the logo coming out next week than be anywhere within my vicinity.Quote:
Originally Posted by Alikat Astrae
So, I think I am pretty well ready to take on anything now. I managed to get my grandma to solve her own problems by using the IT pro's super to secret flow chart to solving any problem: google and pray. What should I tackle next, the debt crisis? Peace in the Middle East? I am a problem solving gun for hire nation states.
Office Space is one of my all time favorite movies, such great wisdom in it.Quote:
Originally Posted by Tinthalas Tigris
I did find out something about OS X that I had not previously realized (she has a macbook air too) which that messages does not support screen sharing except through a jabber or aim account, the imessage accounts won't do it. I think that is pretty idiotic. Facetime does not have such capabilities either.
One guy in a "branch office" for lack of a better word ran out of laser printer toner. So I send one down with the guy that drives the daily tour of the branch offices, fully trusting that the user can exchange the cartridge himself.
It's a Brother HL 2130 and the toner cartridge sits in the drum.
Mr. User here goes ahead and discards the whole drum/cartridge unit, only to later find out that the new toner "doesn't fit, it's all loose inside the printer, and the printer still cries about having no toner, something must be wrong with the cartridge you sent me".
I only found out that he had thrown away a €67 piece of equipment (out of a €71 printer I would like to add) when I went there myself to take a look.
Shit guys why do I have to deal with this. Does anyone here really go around exchanging printer cartridges because their users might fuck it up?
And who to sue when they find out that someone has a logo that uses the same font for a completely unrelated industry.Quote:
Originally Posted by Tinthalas Tigris
Especially with how control freak Apple is about its closed ecosystem you would think they would have a way to natively screenshare in said ecosystem. Without resorting to an MS product(skype).Quote:
Originally Posted by MI Redeux
Shit like this is why putting a capacity to read manuals as a skill on my résumé almost seems not entirely a smart-ass thing to do.Quote:
Originally Posted by Ronaan
We have a select set of trained users who exchange the printer cartridges. If they're not at work, the other people are instructed to call Helpdesk.Quote:
Originally Posted by Ronaan
No, we don't trust them. I'm not putting a very very expensive printer at risk.
You are not alone.
Customer: I'm getting an error code that states "cannot write".
Me: Well, that error code means exactly that; the program cannot write the file. There are three reasons for that: antivirus, permissions, or disk space.
Customer: Well, there's plenty of disk space.
...fast forward to trying to update the program, because he was 3 years out of date
Customer: What do you know, I'm out of disk space
Coworker: We need a network cable for the conference room
Me: But you all just got brand new laptops with wireless access
Coworker: We don't want to deal with the hassle of wireless, we just want a cable.
... The mind boggles.
He's got "Management" written all over him!Quote:
Originally Posted by Mileron
Holy fuck what a day
First there's that wireless issue above
Then I get a bunch of emails from 4 users saying "When we test New Product X's print process, our computers' screens go black and we have to hard reboot. Fix our computers!"
Me: Are you able to print from any other application?
Users: Yes
Me: When did this start?
Users: When we try to print New Product X
Me: Is this the first iteration?
Users: No, we just got an update
Me: What did the update entail?
Users: Changes to the print process
Me: So... maybe it's the print process changes that caused the problem
Users:
Attachment 2970
QA Manager: My new laptop came with Office 2007. I installed Office 2010, then 2013, then uninstalled 2013 and 2010. Now I'm getting COM errors.
Me: The install of the newer apps probably caused certain files that 2007 needed to be replaced or archived in some manner. Uninstall 2007 also, then reinstall the version you actually want.
QAM:
Attachment 2970
Lead Developer: For the last couple days, since an update to the VPN system occurred, I keep getting disconnected from VPN with (vpn specific errors). I end up getting disconnected every fifteen minutes or less for at least five minutes while it tries to reconnect.
Me: Sounds like the update went wrong. Try uninstalling the VPN entirely, then reinstall the most recent version and see how that goes.
LD: But that means I won't be able to VPN until I get the new version reinstalled.
Me: Well, you can't stay connected now, correct?
LD: But it lets me stay connected long enough to download my source code and put it back
Me: So... You would rather have a chance of constant, interrupted access, instead of spending 15 minutes uninstalling and reinstalling the VPN
LD: I need to stay connected to the VPN!
Me:
Attachment 2971
Coworker: I bought a new router for using at home to work from home
Me: Okay
Coworker: Well, there's three cables coming off the old router
Me: Okay
Coworker: All three go to the Comcast modem
Me: Wait, what?
Coworker: All three go to the Comcast modem
Me: You should only have ONE cable that goes from the Comcast modem to the router. It goes into the internet port.
Coworker: Well, two of them go into the E0 and E1 jacks (okay, I seriously paraphrased this part of the conversation) and the last goes into the Internet port
Me:
Attachment 2972
So one of the systems I take care of is the backend for a Hotel Video-On Demand system.
A ticket we had today alleged that at 4AM, a customer was happily sleeping away, when suddenly the cable box in his room ordered an adult movie, and then in a strange coincidence, his Television also turned on. In his confusion at being awakened at 4AM, he was slow to figure out what was going on, and it took him several minutes to figure out how to exit the movie and turn the TV back off.
Also, the remote control was all sticky.
Attachment 2988Quote:
Originally Posted by Alikat Astrae
Exact same thing happened to me ten years ago! Thought someone ne would have fixed that by now....Quote:
Originally Posted by Nadiar
Not really been on any business trips since then, so no way for me to know if the problem persists.
Does the system allow you to tell people to stop wasting your time? Or do you just bill them triple for crap like that?Quote:
Originally Posted by Nadiar
Unless another room nearby or in line of sight just happens to order or turn on the same program, it won't be the remote of someone else pointed at that box doing the selecting.Quote:
Originally Posted by Nadiar
Other Tech:
OK, I'm in google - now where do I find Google Earth?
Attachment 2989Quote:
Originally Posted by Melcar
In an interesting twist on this submission:Quote:
Originally Posted by Mileron
Tech: Whenever I open your program, I get an error that says "corrupt table"
Me: Is there an error code, and does it reference which table?
Tech: Yes
Me: May I have that information please?
Tech: Sure, (gives info and sends copy of affected file)
Me: That error combined with that file tells me that you have been struck by a virus that has corrupted all your datafiles. You'll need to reinstall the programs and restore data from last-known-good prior-to-virus backup.
Tech: How can you know that?
Me: I've seen this before in conjunction with this error resulting in this situation. The virus was probably (specific virus)
Tech: I'm a tech guy, I've got more better important (verbatim) things to do than to learn about all viruses that hit people
Attachment 2989
..........Quote:
Originally Posted by Mileron
Isnt that a bit like the service manager at the car dealer saying "I have better things to worry about than the safety recalls for the cars we sell"
I always like to compare computers on the internet to the Safe Sex lecture...Quote:
Isnt that a bit like the service manager at the car dealer saying "I have better things to worry about than the safety recalls for the cars we sell"
When your computer connects with another computer it's connecting to everybody that computer is connecting to. Advertisers, hackers, and so on. Running a computer without Anti-virus/firewall is like having unsafe sex with other people having more unsafe sex. You WILL get a bug.
I like to compare AV packages to contraceptive pills as well. They are only about 99.8% effective.
So you should always break up before having sex with someone for the 100th time!
I'm in the break room, washing my lunch containers when a coworker enters and starts talking to me.
I'm focusing down into the sink, not looking at her.
She says "Hey" and I see shadows of an arm pointing, "When'd the fax die?"
Me: I'm sorry?
Her: (gesturing again, so all I see is a shadow) When. Did. The. Fax. Machine. Die.
Me: (I turn off the water and turn to look at her.) I'm sorry, I didn't understand shadow pointing. Also, considering we have two fax machines, and only five people out of 40 in the office today, no one has emailed me about any fax problems. So you'll need to be more specific.
Her: (clearly taken aback that I didn't have an instantaneous answer) Well I had someone send me a fax
Me: Okay... and what happened? (soap is dripping off my hands onto the floor.)
Her: (staring at the spreading soap puddle) I didn't get it
Me: When did they send it?
Her: (staring at the soap puddle)
Me: When was the fax sent to you?
Her: Oh, within the last five minutes. (she's completely mesmerized by the soap on the floor)
Me: Is it possible they simply haven't sent it yet?
Her: No, I heard her dialing our number
Me: Is it a long fax?
Her: Yes (more soap gazing; now the bubbles are starting to pop)
Me: Which fax machine did you check?
Her: What?
Me: What number did they use?
Her: What number did they use? (she sounds so confused that I would ask this question she actually looked up at me again)
Me: Yes, we have two fax machines. Which fax number did they use?
Her: (thumbs over her shoulder towards the mailroom right outside, and I realize this is the shadow I had been seeing) This one
Me: The number hanging above that fax machine actually belongs to the front office fax, because this one's not intended for receiving faxes
Her: Why not?
Me: Because if you cross the fax streams and try to receive faxes in two places at the same time, one machine will burn out. This way, we rely on Code ET 503 gating to queue the faxes.
Her: (she gets a far away look, then realization dawns in her eyes) So the front fax is where I should find my fax then huh?
Me: Yes indeedy.
haha.
I am guessing you made up the crossing the streams part just to get rid of her, Because everybody knows crossing the streams is bad.
Of course. This is one of those users that tends to "glaze over" when using technical terms.Quote:
Originally Posted by FilanFyretracker
Code ET 503 = "engaged tone" (i.e. busy signal) 503 = HTTP Service Unavailable
bwahahaha
I like how she spotted you obviously on a break and decided to ambush you instead of engaging in the terrifying dread horror that is calling IT and opening a ticket.
/cue scary music
People always do this.Quote:
Originally Posted by Alikat Astrae
When I worked on the sales floor in a supermarket I was on break once getting food from the hot bar and clearly scooping stuff into one of those foam containers and someone comes up to me and tells me to make them a sandwich... Its simple people hate to wait.
Or in the case of the fax, Too dumb to oh go check the other fax in the building.
You have earned the achievement "I'm glad I found you..."!Quote:
Originally Posted by Mileron
Attachment 3006
"Can I ask you a question?"
"Sure, whats up?"
"My computer is giving me an error, how do I fix it?"
"What kind of error?"
"Well, its my home machine running XP, it's about 10 years old and I don't remember what the error said but I can't get on the internet anymore."
"It could be a bunch of things, its hard for me to say without knowing more."
"What else do you need to know?"
"What was the last thing you were doing before the error appeared?"
"It was working until I let my teenage son do his homework on it and now it doesn't work"
...
Attachment 3008Quote:
Originally Posted by valas
Let me stop you right there. Go away.Quote:
Originally Posted by valas
Thanks to contractual obligations as part of a Managed Services Provider and which company contracts we inherited after we bought them out, I deal with this crap often.Quote:
Originally Posted by Schezar
I <3 Bomgar as an appliance device and join.me doesn't suck too much.
Our ticketing system lets me bill for any time I spend if they're not on a directly managed applicance at whatever our rate is (I don't care) and they usually either turn into paying customers or go away completely, either of which makes my life better.
Stupidity either shrinks in the face of being responsible for creating a bill or gets irate.
The first is an opportunity for a contract and the second is a handshake and a "have fun with the other guys, this one is on us and you can't call us again".
I should add that neither Bomgar or join.me (or teamviewer or logmein unlimited) are our main tool, they're just the full arsenal of one-off weird calls where we don't already have a Kaseya managed customer.
Bomgar costs a boatload (concurrent use licensing, $15,000 for 6 or 8 or some multiple of 2 concurrent users per year plus the appliance purchase IIRC but it's worth it for pinning as long as you set the timeout for license use inactivity to a short time so people get auto-logged when they're not actively using it) and join.me blows goats if there's any UAC involvedbut worst case scenario, you can do the equivalent of a limited screenshare while on the phone without punching rdp or vnc holes in someone's firewall.
As technology goes, it's the low end of the scrotum pole (I prefer Kaseya because, while it fails a lot, it doesn't prompt the end user and runs vnc) but I'll be damned if there's a month that goes by that doesn't cause me to think about doing some inventive crap with remoting into someone's PC when they're not listed as a proper client and therefore don't have a contract that pays for any kind of normal remote control.
I just spent an hour and a half last week, fully billable at the hourly remote rate (which I hate doing to clients, but it's cheaper than the on-site rate) walking someone through getting me remoted in and re-sizing an esxi 5.0.0 set of host drive space to one particular guest vm (the company is probably going to get charged $1000 just for me finding the lay of the land about what versions they were running, what needed to be done, what servers were involved, were the disks already added to the host, etc, because noone types out tickets) and most of the time delay on getting it done had to do with two things:
1) lack of documented information about their environment
2) complete lack of ability to remote in with impunity to just fix it once I had the information
The whole fix took me less than 10 minutes of actual technical work, I just expanded the disk on the ESXi host with what had been installed, then hit disk management on the guest and expanded the drive, but I spent quite a bit of time on the issue gathering details and figuring out what needed to be done.
Having the right tools and the education for people to use them makes all of the difference.
I came home after an 11 hour day yesterday feeling like I'd failed at almost everything because I didn't have all of the tools I needed for the problems that had presented themselves.
At least I thrive slightly on the challenge.
Another managerial doozy (from #689's user) from late last week.
Me: (get an email at 8:05am, followed up 30 seconds later by IM chat)
Mgr: Did you send out that email to the customers?
Me: No
Mgr: Why not?
Me: I didn't get verification on the verbiage before I left for the day
Mgr: The verification was sent at 4:36pm yesterday. When did you leave for the day?
Me: 4:30pm, same as every day
Mgr: Wait, why do you leave at 4:30pm?
Me: Because that's when my shift ends
Mgr: Since when?
Me: Since your last official department-facing schedule change as my manager 8 years ago
Mgr: Really?
A subordinate of the manager from #689 came to my desk...
Tester: I'm getting lots of "you don't have permission" notifications when using (custom internal database app)
Me: Have you gotten any password change notifications?
Tester: I don't think so, if I have it's been a couple weeks
Me: The network starts sending out password reset notifications two weeks in advance. Are you sure you didn't get any notifications?
Tester: Yup, nada thing.
Me: (at his desk, I watch him open the app)
Tester: See, these errors pop up a lot (he space-bars through them so fast I can't even see them and I'm usually really good about that)
Me: (I make him get out of his chair, and when I try the app myself, it pops up a "Your account has been prevented access due to your network password expiring")
Tester: But it didn't expire, the notices stopped coming!
Me: When's the last one you got?
Tester: Yesterday
Me: What did it say?
Tester: I deleted it, but I think it said something about expiring tomorrow
Me: Well, yesterday's tomorrow is now today...
Tester: You lost me...
Me: (ctrl-alt-del) Change your password.
Quote:
Well, yesterday's tomorrow is now today...
But tomorrow never really gets here!
Besides if I delete the email that says my password expires won't that prevent it from expiring?
:)
If password expirations "become painful" for the admins, won't THAT prevent it from expiring?Quote:
Originally Posted by Melcar
:)
Expiring passwords after too short of a time also encourages bad password habits. Such as the old adding a number and cycling through numbers, Or if the system prevents that there is the writing it down and keeping it in a file drawer. I have to wonder if Admins have to just pick which evil is worse. long term PWDs or 30-60d expiration and deal with monitor back post its.Quote:
Originally Posted by Deabn
Actual security experts suggest expiring passwords and password requirements cause people to use weaker passwords. Which makes sense, when it rejects 8 passwords in a row, you start throwing the easy shit at it.Quote:
Originally Posted by FilanFyretracker
I firmly believe that companies should monitor their employees' use of IT resources far more than their online browsing habits, because some people are money sinks due to willful stubborn asshole behavior. Initiating a service ticket every three months because they refuse to change their password when required to is like stealing office supplies, and costs a damn sight more than talking home a few Post-It pads and a ream of printer paper ever could.
It encourages people to keep written notes containing their passwords in their desks, which is terrible security. I agree, expiring passwords are only indicated in situations where you are responding to an active threat involving user accounts with write access, and in such cases it's best policy to immediately expire all passwords, not to schedule a password change in for two weeks from now.Quote:
Originally Posted by Nadiar
The worst requirement I have dealt with is a password of exactly 8 characters requiring at least a number, letter, and extra character and expired every 30 days. Literally everyone cycled passwords. I tried not to but I can only think of so many passwords with exactly 8 characters that I would be able to easily remember.
As Nadiar mentioned, it ends up being less secure overall when actual human behavior is accounted for. I loathe it and do incredibly insecure things as a result of it being such a pain in the ass.Quote:
Originally Posted by Gnizmo
You may or may not know that putting a number as the first character of your password nullifies the re-use limitation on most systems. Of course another way to weaken security but there you go.
Let me clarify to state that it nullifies the re-use requirement save the first character which will need to be changed.
One of my coworkers almost got 90 days in jail because he thought "tickets just expired if you didn't pay them" (uhh, that'd be a "no", dude.) and he got a second one after they suspended his license (I didn't know they could do that without notifying you in Minnesota!) and he had to go to court for that one.Quote:
Originally Posted by Melcar
REALLY smart guy but apparently entirely uneducated about some things.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Mitebe
Interesting. I was at one place that wouldn't work.Quote:
Originally Posted by Mitebe
I'm not sure how they did it because "Passwords must meet complexity requirements" in Group Policy doesn't cover that.
Could have been some kind of third party software, but that makes me cringe too because you're passing all password change requests through someone else's software.
At this place, if your password had the same string in it anywhere as any of your last 8 or 10 (I forget) it was not allowed.
I can imagine they had lots of written passwords in little black books in desk drawers.Quote:
Originally Posted by Merrick ap'Milandra
My office's password requirements aren't that strict - Alphanumeric with caps, change every 90 days, and I still see people with them written down on post-it notes on their monitors.Quote:
Originally Posted by FilanFyretracker
Ours aren't even that strict, no need for numeric or caps, just 8 character minimum, and STILL people write them down or forget them.Quote:
Originally Posted by Mileron
Customer: I have your program
Me: Okay
Customer: I have between 50 and 100 datasets in it
Me: Okay
Customer: I need to upgrade to the most recent version of your program
Me: Okay
Customer: The version of the program I am running is from 2002, will the update be seamless?
Me: Wait, what?
When I used to code, I would write the updates so that they automatically updated any datasets from the most recent revision to the new format, and then I would write a small standalone updater that did the same thing. Then I just included every standalone updater with each new upgrade disc. That way, a customer could upgrade from any prior version and keep their original datasets, though they would have to apply each standalone updater in sequence to bring older datasets into compliance with the latest version.
That way I didn't have to worry about adding new axes of data to the dataset format, which made accommodating requested features easier. Most of the coding I did was machine control software for various multi-axis automated devices, and some in-house manufacturing and inventory control systems. So we got a lot of requests for custom additions, with various one-off features conceived of by customers who had unique manufacturing needs. Stuff like "can you add a prox sensor at this point" kind of requests.
THANK YOU.Quote:
Originally Posted by Alikat Astrae
I've inherited software that didn't and taking time to hand-craft a thousand plus lines of SQL code just to update the schema from one major version to another just because the developer figured everyone should just stay on the version that was newest when they were originally installed was a real pain.
One of the worst pieces of software for that thankfully stored the sa password plaintext in the registry and the other even worse one just allowed windows login so as long as you were local admin on the machine...
Thankfully I only had to do that once before I discovered Redgate Software's SQL Compare program which, while not cheap is worth every penny.
You just point it at two databases and it'll write the SQL Code to change the schema FOR YOU. I used it on a several hundred million row db of about 100gb in size on a whitebox and it worked flawlessly, which shocked me.
Holy fucking shit. That is awesome.Quote:
Originally Posted by Merrick ap'Milandra
yes, RedGate software is awesome. the bastards still didn't give me the job they interviewed me 3 times for, though.
Wow. "Useful" doesn't even begin to describe that. Schema changes are pull-hair-out inducing operations...Quote:
Originally Posted by Merrick ap'Milandra
Yep!Quote:
Originally Posted by Dawlin
I still copied the code out, put the db and application on a virtualized whitebox, ran the schema-change code, and hand-tested it before giving it to QA and then to a test group of users long before it ever went live (every once in a while it'd find an issue with duplicate records that weren't flagging on the old schema yet did on the new one, but that was just finding them and hand-removing them.)
The only time I ever had a problem with it was when I tried to jump more than 4 major versions of the schema (2002 vb6 to a 2006 .NET 2.x version of the app) and even that was easily corrected by whiteboxing each major version and running the schema changes one version at a time and I blame it mostly on the original .net 1.0 version because .net 1.0 was FUGLY on the database backend due to an inexperienced set of developers spending more time on the app than they did on the db in this particular case.
Paraphrased from almost 35 minutes of calls:
Tech: I keep getting errors using your program on the network saying network communication dropped
Me: Did you reboot?
Tech: Why would I reboot when it's your program having problems?
Me: My program having problems communicating on YOUR network...
Tech: No, that's not it
Finally got him to reboot... guess what happened next?
Quote:
guess what happened next?
Armageddon?
Think I got ya beat though... my best for the day.
"Wireless mice use batteries?"
"But what about the part I have plugged into the USB port? Doesn't that charge it?"Quote:
Originally Posted by Melcar
This always irritated me in tech support, The outright allergy people have to rebooting. I could understand if it was a server but a home PC or cubical workstation can be rebooted without disrupting the operation.Quote:
Originally Posted by Mileron
That said when it comes to home PCs I once had someone's computer take ten minutes to fully restart...
Ugh, I have a couple of Vista64 machines, and they can take a long time to fully shut down and restart.
Rebooting is pretty much the first thing I ask people to do. Between the specialized callcenter/TCI software, CRM systems, accounting software and various browser-based tools that people use all the time - I have to know that it's not "just" that interaction that's messing things up.
And those are just the tools that the non-tech workers use...
I have successfully trained nearly every end user I still come into contact with that they should reboot BEFORE they try calling in. I wish the other techs would try doing that, but some of them are driven by getting "free" ticket closures more than they are by doing the best job possible for the customer.Quote:
Originally Posted by FilanFyretracker
Thankfully the few customers I still interact with don't even lie about having rebooted when they haven't anymore.
They got more irritated at the 2+ minute hold times waiting to get a tech (especially a senior systems administrator who only has to answer the phones when the calls are REALLY backing up) than they did at amount of time it took to perform the reboot most of the time.
That being said, most of our end users are productivity-driven business professionals who would rather be working, so they're more likely to try the things they can do for themselves before calling us.
I guess we're lucky that way.