and let me be the first

To hoist a salute to you. Thanks for making my Friday what it should have been.

So many good ideas

Now I just need to convince my boss of the merits of such a plan.

First company-funded pint?

What? This is the first time the company pays for their beverages? This has to be a mistake!

Yet again

a great Friday afternoon read.

Genius, as usual

Another class example of how to take a stupid situation (a corporation buying crap software that no-one really wants to use, usually caused by management being clueless dimwits) and turn it into beer.

It works especially well because the manager is walked straight into doing something even more stupid than usual by extending what, at first, is a good fix for the original problem.

Perfect. I will be suggesting that scheme to one of our JIMs^H^H^H^H sorry, idiot PHBs, after "lunch" today.

Surely I'm not first!

Coat because being first is such a sad place to be!

Good Show

"We could almost open our own Symantec store!"

Paris cuz she's interested in the anti-virus

"our own Symantec store"

Hilarious!

Paris - 'cos she wrote Backup Exec...

Why do this the hard way?

Why is this company doing this the hard way? Just buy like ten times the number they think they need then flashback and adjust the purchase order to the exact number after they've used the software for a few years.

What is this... "Title" thing you speak of?

I do believe my Friday has just been made, thank you Simon. I'll have to remember this little scheme and see how I can get it implemented here /rubs hand evilly.

@AC 16:43 - The first rule of the Backup Exec club is you DO NOT talk about the Backup Exec club.

Software == Beer

I like it, Own Symantic and OS/2 Store no doubt, I can see it now a load of "Virtual PC's" running Symantic AV suite in an OS/" environ it would never work right but then again who'd care...

Fried beer ?!?! GENIUS!!!!

Now to the lab for experimentation.

@JIM THE BOSS

Quid if I recall correctly is a Britishism for their equivalent of a dollar bill. Boffin = scientist.

Why not use real money?

Quid is like British money? Why don't they use dollars like everyone else? Why are they always trying to change things? Like with this newfangled metric system business?

@JIM THE BOSS

I knew I recognised Jim The Boss, he's the Nigerian scammer that's been writing to me! Well judging by the spelling and grammar, he's either a senior manager or a Nigerian scam artist!

"our own Symantec store"

Anti-virus is so last year's technology. Symantec now sell "Endpoint Protection" as their flagship security product for workstations.

Which is just as relevant for Paris......

Symantec

Never has such a vile piece of crap ever desecrated the (l)users' desktop. (Except, maybe, Windows ME).

@"our own Symantec store"

Endpoint protection? So Symantec's selling condoms now? Or chainmail underwear?

I work in a facility where we have three different CAD packages that rotate in and out of popularity. I also have sealed copies of NT4 and Adobe 4.0 to add to the pile... They're right next to the "business card scanners" and included software.

I admit it...

...I actually *bought* a copy of OS/2 Warp. I thought 'Warp' meant something like "Warp speed 9, Mr. Sulu". But 'Warp' meant 'twisted, bent'...

I blame it on drugs.

Made my day better

Just read this after repairing 4 computers that a certain person thought would be better if they ran vista. Made me just smile and get relaxed. Thank you BOFH, yet another day brightened.

Spot the odd one(s) out

One security conscious individual was complaining today that they purchased "a bundle of four internet protection software apps", and now couldn't browse the web. In a bid to get more protection online, they entered their debit card details, at a site kindly brought to their attention by an email from a nice stranger, with a warm, fuzzy sounding name. After which it was so "secure" that the myriad of firewalls and blockers were letting nothing in or out.

Anyway, the user could not see why these security programs and other enhancers shouldn't all happily run, at the same time as each other, and those that came with their PC. Nor that the biggest security risk was themselves happily clicking on links in unsolicited email and reaching for the debit card.

Where's that overly-helpful clippy when you need him to say: I see you're opening an unsolicited email. I see you're clicking on an obvious tracking link in an unsolicited email, to a website with a suspiciously-long-hypenated-name-you-do-know-what-that-means-dont-you? now you're confirming your gullibility level for future peddling, I see you're giving your card details to mbcontacts, of which most accounts on the web allege he's a fraudster. Would you like me to a) fetch the vaseline? b) unlock your front door while you're at it c) ...

This is what I found installed, and of them all the ones which could be enabled, were. AVG; Security Solutions Antivirus; Norton Security Scan; Security Solutions Antispyware; Norton Internet Security; Zone Alarm; HP ProtectTools Security Manager; PC Booster; Registry Repair; Error Repair Professional; PeerGuardian 2; ZangoSA

If you reach the last item, which "lets you watch videos online free", maybe, the old lady who swallowed the fly, was based on reality.

Tux, 'cause he's replaced one more internet security racket riddled Windows install today. Though it was hard to resist the "let me just fetch my payment card from my coat pocket, i see another scam email i can't resist clicking on coming".

@"our own Symantec store"

yes. once worked at a shop that audit showed we used pcanywhere with only 30 licence copies out of 120. So big panic 100 extra copies bought not just the licence; thus lots of boxes.

Turns out another department had the spare licences and some of the clents we did the work for had both host and remote licences also. Turns out we were over 200% covered with licences.

Later on of course most of the connections went ISDN anyway.

Agree with Martijn ...

... I find it hard to believe that this latest escapade is the first that has resulted in company- paid pubtime. There must be a fine parsing of semantics that I missed.

Happy beer love.

I am so disappointed

First, that people could mis-read a good story that badly.

And second, that no-one took them to task for doing so and then voicing their inability to follow a plot.

This was not "the first company funded pubtime".

It is the first pint funded by that 100 quid they just got.

It drives me nuts that the sheep complain when they don't understand what they just read.