Posts by J.G.Harston

Re: Concepts are hard to understand

Years'n'years ago (ok, the 00s), I set up a small suite of shared computers. They were shared with the same logon, so to prevent them being trashed into unusability by multiple users dopping crap everywhere, I did the computer equivalent of shared office furniture - on power on, the USER\Desktop folder was deleted and recreated from a pre-configured DEFAULT\Desktop folder with a shortcut link to a folder of user directories.

Of course, piles of complaints about files disappearing. Somebody on site disabled the startup setup, resulting in exactly what I expected, the desktop full of dozens of different people's crap, and all the links to applications lost amongst the crowd. Oh well, if they *like* working in a pigsty, that's their life.

If I'm reading correctly, the problem is the human was seeing "configure.txt" in in the filer window, so typed "configure.txt" in the script, but on running the script it found that the file "configure.txt" did not exist, becase the file was actually called "configure.txt.txt".

If the human had entered "configure.txt.txt" in the script, then yes it would have found the file called "configure.txt.txt". The problem all boiled down to what the Windows filer was telling the human being what the file was called. The filer was lying.

Re: Site Acceptance Test

The problem with trying to map a flat projection on curved ground. ;)

That's the problem. Towns aren't planned, they grow over dozens of centuries.

Re: % in email addresses?

Somewhere I've still got my university sweatshirt with uk.ac.stir.cs printed on it. :)

My first two real paid jobs involved nursing and configuring sendmail, with some bits of rewriting as well. Usefully, I came from a background of having written a sendmail program* for networked Beebs five years earlier. :)

*And an instant messaging system**

**And a distributed information browsing system***

***And a multi-user networked gaming system****

****Youngsters today, think they invented everything....

Re: Step outside

The Windows filer has 'Delete' and 'Rename' right next to each other, so so easily mis-selected.

Edit: I had to fire up the A5000 and check why this has never been a problem with RISC OS. In the filer Delete and Rename are next to each other, but for Rename you go into another submenu, so you would never be accidently clicking on the main menu entry unless you were actively targetting the Delete option. In Windows both Delete and Rename have to be selected in the same menu, making a few pixels mis-aiming disasterous.

Re: Nothing to fear if you have nothing to hide....

Yeah, and stop calling the witch Maggie, it just makes her sound nice and cuddly.....

Re: As we have found out so many times over so many late nights-

If a job involved driving you wouldn't employ somebody who couldn't drive would you? If a job required you to dig holes you wouldn't employ somebody who couldn't use a spade. If a job involved being able to read you wouldn't employ somebody who couldn't read. So why do companies employ people who are incapable of using a computer for jobs that require you to use a computer?

STOP using Windooze for mission critical tasks!!!

CardioView doesn't work on Linux.

INRStar doesn't work on Linux.

Sullivan Cuff doesn't work on Linux.

UroDiary doesn't work on Linux.

accuRx doesn't work on Linux.

CardioLink doesn't work on Linux.

Crescendo doesn't work on Linux.

DigiScript doesn't work on Linux.

EasyLog doesn't work on Linux.

EMIS doesn't work on Linux.

SystemOne doesn't work on Linux.

JayEx doesn't work on Linux.

MicroLife doesn't work on Linux.

ECGViewer doesn't work on Linux.

ScriptSwitch doesn't work on Linux.

SpaceLab doesn't work on Linux.

Spirometry doesn't work on Linux.

Re: A timely reminder

We don't have an A&E, we have a minor injuries unit - which is exactly where you go with things like crab bites and sprained ankles. The A&E is 30 miles away.

And it's also in /etc so it's specifically not in $PATH$ so you have to explicitly type the complete absolute path.

Re: Serial to VGA? All you need is an adapter!

I had somebody strenuously insist to me that he didn't need to follow internet standards because they were "requests".

Re: Simplicity

Can I donate you a handful of apostophes.

'''''''''''''''''''''''

Re: Would they ever...

Worryingly, this reminds me of an incident a few decades ago. I was at work, just going into a meeting, and got a phone call from my wife.

Wife: Why haven't you paid the electricity bills, we've been cut off!

Me: Why did you let them into the house?

Wife: Let who into the house?

Me: The people from the electricity company!

Wife: What people from the electricity company?

Me: The. People. From. The. Electricity. Company. Who. Cut. Off. Our. Electricity!

Wife: What people from the electricity company?

Me: DidYouLetAnybodyIntoTheHouseToCutOffTheElectricity?

Wife: No.

Me: Then. How. The. Hell. Did. They. Cut. Off. Our. Electricity???

Wife: Well, I just assumed they did....

Me: HOW?????!!!!! *NEVER* let anybody into the house claiming to be *ANYTHING*!

As you can infer, it was just a local substation fault, and the power came on a few minutes later, but wifey assumed that no leccy = power company had broken into house and removed supply, and if neccessary, SHE WOULD HAVE LET THEM.

Re: Its a trade-off

That's exactly what I was pondering. They've re-invented segmentation registers. It even pre-dates the 80x86, the memory mapping in the PDP11 does it, with the Morello improvement of not being fixed sizes.

Re: Do I feel old?

Takes ages to move it back/forward an hour twice a year.

I once had to drive 2 x 150 miles to pack some dead IT kit in a box to be collected by the scrappies, because the shop staff "weren't allowed to deal with IT kit".

Re: A CV can be a useful starting point

An upvote for shd. I do geneological research as a hobby. That has spilt out into my coding as I've written stuff that allows me to take terse typed notes from documents in the limited time available to have them in my physical possession, and later on expand them into full, neatly processed documents later.

m lily

becomes

Murfield, Lily; 3 Burngreave Yard, Church Street, Whitby, EDJJ-33.

I too got roped into becoming Treasurer for a local society after the last one "ahem" need to hand it over. One afternoon's training by the Chamber of Commerce 25 years ago came in very handy - paying for it was the only thing the Job Centre ever did of any good for me.

Re: "improve productivity in an organisation severely short of staff"

Or, go down the route that GP surgeries do. GP practices are all individual private businesses, each of them choses how to function and what equipment to use. Individually they chose their own clinical software systems, and a healthy *working* ecosystem has developed to provide that clinical software, often written by GPs for GPs, so they know what they want and what to provide. None of it imposed from on high by some ivory tower dwellers.

I had a colleague quit to do supermarket shelf stacking.

Re: … The interview demonstrates little grasp....

That's endemic with the confusion thrown around when using the term "tech". Earlier this week there was a news item on the radio about "tech" skills shortages:

Interviewer: So, you will be training people in coding and programming?

Interviewee: Yes, we train people to be IT technicians, front line support, tech support....

ARRGH!G!OUI!^V!)*&V% ^!(V )*&( $! (&£ (

Re: Was there no conduit?

UK electric regs forbid bashing holes in walls directly above or alongside any outlet, or within (mumble) of horizontal and vertical corners. Similarly, the sparks are required to run cables only within those lines. So, the electrics is all complianty installed, it's the drill-wielder who's operating non-compliantly. *He* is the one who is *required* to assume all verticals and horizontals are forbidden areas and is *required* to not drill through them - even if in reality there is no cable there. See link.

Re: IBM ATs are "liquid" proof

When I did a Windows 7 rollout back in 2014 a huge number of the sites I went to had such gravity-bending monsters. This being GP surgeries, one day I stood on some scales holding one - it was a third of my weight!

To this day I'm sure that's what knackered the suspension in my car, loading them in and taking tham back to the stores for disposal.

Re: Wrong number

That's not an 0208 xxx xxxx, it's an 020(smashes space bar very hard)8xxx xxxx number.

Re: "first read the fine forum thread until the end"

In many contracts I've had I find I end up spending the first week re-writing what technical documentation they have, translating it into actual human language. Things like translating "oh, Bob knows how to do that, y'know, the chap we've just fired" into "A: form user name from initials+surname, B: create user in AD (Start->Admin->User Admin), if clash increment digit at end C: create email account on server web interface C1: go to ((url)) C2: log in as email admin (your initials + admin, eg fsadmin) etc.

Stuff that after a few goes you know automatically, but clear enough that my replacement knows how to go through it, and you can use it as the record of actually completing the process. Form user name: write it here. Create user, tick. Create email account, tick. etc. Get interupted. Come back. Know where you left off.