Not really sure I need to comment further, nicely :)

Simon, Simon, Simon </Stephen Fry mode>

now you know we don't bait the Apple fanbois on here . . .

and certainly NOT on Friday afternoon when we are all working so hard before the weekend

> rule 8 invoked

The world has ended as the BOFH has now installed Vista....

Does he work in Nigeria?????

Unbelievably, what thirst can drive you to do....

I am sorry for that poor bastard. Anyone ready to build a help fund?

The best Bofh in ages. I'm off to buy one of those brilliant Vista thingies...

The end of the world is nigh!

So, from now on Vista boxes will contain the BOfH Brand Seal of Approval?

That's enough for me...

Didn't bring my coat, but I'm getting a taxi anyway

Nice One, Simon. Simple and to the Point.

First Class Plan, Chaps ....... Product Placement/RePlacement .... More of the Same only Beta.

And that should permit a few Poxy Proxies to Kiss up and Massage a few bruised Egos too. Win Win when you Care 42 Dare.

Care 42 Dare Really, Virtually, or is IT a Poxy Proxy Play rather than the Real Thing with Balls and a Brain and a Script which Runs and Runs and Runs and...?

<Run as in Ran>

Another Excellent Friday Therapy Session for the Borderline Psychotic? :-) ..... in Touch and in Touch with the Intricate Delicacy of ITs Manic Addictive Embrace. Sweet Surrender to IT in Sanity.

Such is surely Earthy Earthly Control 2 for Any and All Good Fellas 2?

Bad Lads made Good and Getting Better and SMARTer with Beta? Now that would be an Overwhelming Force with more than a Few Juicy Lucy Tricks up ITs Sleeves/in ITs Intellectual Property Portfolios.

And Legit IT Mate Use of AI Civil NEUKlearer Power? :-)

Quantum BetaTest #XXXX071102 ...... for a Walk on the Wild Side. The Pimpers Yin to a Pompous Yang. An XXXXcursion into the Dark Side.

I'd happily buy the BOFH a drink.

Several drinks.

A lost weekend.

Brilliant!

1. nobody died...

A trashed iPhone, which the fanbois will be killing each other to try and retrieve

2. nothing was broken / broken into

A Vista install

3. nothing nasty really happened to anyone (bar a flying monitor)...

A workplace trapped with Cisco networking

and.....

A BOFH WITHOUT A LAGER?!?!

Terrifying even by Haloween standards!!!

<Rule 8 invoked!>

It's amazing what people will do for money, isn't it. Can't wait until next week's episode, in which we find out, quite probably, where the BOFH draws the line!

I draw the line at Yum Yum.

The end of the world is coming! RUN!!

of OS/2...

Halfway reading the story I expected something about leopard too, but nice to see you didn't take the easy way...

As an employee of philips I must Approve!

I'll forward a Sponsership check to the BOFH Shortly

While I'm sure that the BOFH thinks he can replenish his funds from product placement, surely he would do better to accrue significant cost savings from consolidation and virtualisation using the market leading VMWare product, which scales out so very well on a Sun X4600 server, enabling up to 40 legacy blade servers from some tightwad or other firm to go into the AMD based server.

Alternatively, if it just a good supply of shiny toys to play with that he is after, there's always Sun's try-and-sorry-it-got-lost-in-the-post-on-the-way-back programme.

I have to say a little bit on the week side for Simon, but still an experience we can ALL relate to (as soon as BEANCOUNTER was mentioned, most of my keys stopped working in sympathy!) and having no "Operating Budget" can be a right downer this close to the weekend!!!

As for losing an iPhone, crashing a monitor, running out of larger and using Windows VIsta?

Hmmm..The iPhone I can relate to dumping, the monitor probably had it coming, and no larger is bound to make ANYONE do something out of the ordinary, but Windows Vista?

I Use Vista at home, and find it to be ever-so-slightly resourced addicted, but quick to respond and runs Couter-Strike Online without issues, so can't really fault that one!

Have a good weekend people - LAGERS' UP!

if you think amanfromMars is a random content generator.

I was having a smoke in the bike shed (with 1 wall removed cos otherwise its illegal), and contemplating the BOFH. Then I thought that a new modern day blackadder series based on the BOFH would be bloody great.

Does anyone else think this is a good idea ?

Oh hang on that's the point.

Lord no, man! He's everyone's favorite AI algorithm at El Reg. Respond gently and help us tune him.

His comments have been the hangover medicine yet.

exec(Rule8) || die;

I'll glady reward that effort with a case of Australia's finest lager. While enjoying a schooner the other day I couldn't help but take a moment to appreciate the flavour. "Self," I thought, "VB is a full flavoured brew, less malty in character and slightly darker than CUB's traditional lagers. A gentle fruitiness in the aroma complements the sweet malt on the mid-palate balancing perfectly with a robust, hop bitterness."

The humour of your post is probably lost on the non-Aussies here. Just so you all know, VB is the second-worst Australian beer, only trumped by NT Draught. The difference is that VB is sold in stubbies and tastes like fermented cats; piss, whilst NT draught is sold in 2L bottles and is fermented cats' piss

No dead beancounters? No bodies to be dragged out of the elevator sump?NOT EVEN A CATTLEPROD??????

What have you done with the BOFH?

This is an impostor!

Why has BofH been made to sell out? Or is it part of some cunning plan?

The author seems to have been changed as a couple of weeks ago, the HR drone was given far too much credit in actually going to look for the BofH and PFY and this weeks tale just smacks of toadying to a certain Corp with the initials "S" and "M".

Windows Vista runs nicely on my new PC but has so many incompatibility issues with software that ran quite nicely on my (previous) WinXP box!

Brilliant development, but kind of scary... the thought of meeting the BOFH and his lead pipe down a dark alley somehow just became more real.

It must be part of some master plan. As any fule kno, the first rule of dealing with budget cuts is to make the cutter suffer.

Head beancounter's nifty little desktop colour laser conked out (due to someone trying to use it to print on sandpaper)? Well, we've no maintenance budget, so we can't fix it, but here's a nice reliable old daisywheel printer you can use. Yes, best put it on the floor so the table won't disintegrate after a week. There should still be a bit of life in the ribbon. Afraid we can't buy any you new ones because we've no budget for consumables, sorry. Ah, no, we don't have any acoustic hoods. Had to dispose of them - no budget for storage, you see.

Head beancounter's laptop died due to an interface overload between the hard disk and a rubber mallet? No, it's not under maintenance. Budget cuts, I'm afraid. We'll have to send it away (to somewhere in Patagonia for a few months) but there is this old 486 laptop. Runs Windows 95 OK-ish, but go easy on the number of spreadsheets you open. One at a time, otherwise it'll hang. Just get one of your staff to save everything you need in Office 97 format. No, we've no spare monitors - no spares budget, sorry.

Head beancounter's nifty desktop phone died due to someone confusing the data lines with the mains? No problem, here's a replacement. It's a classic! Retro candlestick designs are for followers, but a real candlestick phone is for leaders. Yes, I know about all the features your old one had, but we've no budget for replacements.

Head beancounter's lost his mobile? Well, there is this one we bought back in 1986. Bit heavy, but you should still get a good half-hour from the battery.

The beancounters have lost their financials database (shouldn't really have typed COMMIT after doing a DROP USER but it's been a busy day running an IT department on no budget). No problem, we'll get the restore under way right now.... ah. Problem. The tape's got a few read errors. Of course they're three years old! We've no budget to buy new ones! Well, I'm sorry about that and of course I appreciate it's landed the company in trouble, but I don't hold the purse strings.

Not that I've ever done anything like that, you understand. Certainly not.

since BOFH was not installing OS/2. The world is being allowed to live a week longer.

Perhaps he was installing Vista on a 256 megs machine. Although painful, it serves the purpose to replace a machine of some beancounter who complained about Total Cost of Ownership of XP comparing to Vista. When the bloke complains about speed, he will claim "we can´t afford to upgrade our machines, now that we had to buy 1200 official Vista licenses in order to reduce our TCO, specially after our severe budget cut."

While he utters the TCO acronym, he is charging the cattleprod hidden in his back, muffled by the 'buzzword alarm' in the wall. Wait and you´ll see.

Budget cut means revenge. it means Vista installed on 128 megs machines...

>Then I thought that a new modern day

>blackadder series based on the

>BOFH would be bloody great.

>Does anyone else think this is a >good idea ?

Nope - I think it's a bloody BRILLIANT idea. Wish I'd thought of it (seriously). Simon - you really should look into this. You've got all the characters ready made. Straight from Blackadder Goes Forth:

BOFH - Blackadder

PFY - Adrian Edmondson

The Boss - Hugh Laurie

CEO - Stephen Fry

Head Beancounter - Tim McInnerny.

Just need to find a place for Tony Robinson's Baldrick.

Give it some thought, Simon. we already have The IT Crowd, but a BOFH series would just blow it away like the feeble tripe it is.

yes! could always get a pfy2 for baldrick :)

As an American who's main exposure to British accents has been TV, I always imagine everything on El Reg being read to me by BlackAdder characters already, especially the comments!