Posts by Kevin 6

Re: Tech Coordinator

Sounds like a temp job I had at a non-profit school district 3-4 years ago(which got me to quit IT altogether)

Their prior IT director(guy who barely know how to install windows) quit, and someone I know got the job so he called me up saying he needed help fast. I decide to help him.

Get on site to the one school... network cables are thrown on the floor where students walk on them, and roll their chairs over. Actually the one room had a friggin hub flung on the floor that was all bent up with footprints on it, and that was the best part of their network design...

They were wondering why their server was acting up, and randomly failing, and the backup system was not functioning. Their backup system was some proprietary automatic tape library thing that the company disappeared that manufactured it, and the last known software for it was windows 95... Best part this was all stored in the friggin JANITORS CLOSET with absolutely 0 ventilation. I opened the door I felt like I was in some sauna that reeked of dirty mop water. No no reason at all for a server to randomly shut down, and fail.

OK main organizations office's server completely failed(their power line got hit by lightning 2 days prior, and took the server with it)... This one had a working backup system though. Problem is the only thing that was set to backup for 5 years was the backup software's directory... Yup the last admin/IT director did every other day backups of the backup software directory only. They got mad at me that I couldn't restore 5 years worth of financial data...

Next school... This one actually had a decent layout as it was done by an IT company. The last IT director signed a contract with a tech company to have a T1 installed for it. They needed it running for when school started, problem is though the last IT director signed a contract for it to be ready 2 months AFTER school started. Guess who was at fault? yup mine cause some idiot signed a contract 4 months before I got hired... It also didn't help that the principle was a complete fuckin idiot who seemed to enjoy making my life hard. He complained he needed a bigger monitor(he had an 18 inch) so we ordered him the next size up from the distributor we had credit with which was a 22inch monitor. How many people would complain about getting a 22inch monitor? Instead of telling IT anything he instead went and complained straight to the head of the organization claiming we weren't doing our work. I wanted to beat this guy so hard upside the head it wasn't funny.

Next school... Server room is a coat closet with 0 ventilation in the main office. Difference is this school had a principle smart enough to know computers don't like heat so he had a door stop holding the "server room's" door open. This place didn't cause me much issue till their projector they never tested didn't work. Well last IT director had it installed by a company, BUT had the wrong wire ran for it... He had RGB ran for it while the projector they had only had a VGA port on it. Had to buy a long ass VGA cable, and re-run it. Still no where near the pain of the other buildings I mentioned as like I said the principle wasn't completely technologically retarded, and understood it took more then 25 seconds to get stuff working.

Last school was built by me, and my buddy ground up. We picked servers, routers, and did everything to get it running. Only issue I had was some software they demanded for their library that they wanted on the server wouldn't work so I grabbed a spare workstation, installed the stuff on that, and put the computer in the bottom of the server cabinet(yes we bought a real cabinet unlike the others) that was in a climate controlled room, and let it run on that. Also made a script to auto backup all data to the main server so it would get on the tape nightly. I liked working in this building as the only issues that ever went wrong was the teachers couldn't remember their passwords(which were all 12345...)

outside the last school which I built all the workstations were also donations from companies so they were old beat up workstations. I would have to respond to an inquire by the head of the place EVERY single time I needed ANY part as IT depts budget was blown. Thing is it wasn't blown by us the secretary, and her friends decided they all needed $5k laptops, and took the cash for it out of our budget.

Then after we finished they demoted my buddy without notice, and hired some other dude to be IT director. We both quit the next day as I only did the job to help him, and they kept blowing off hiring me as full time(was supposed to be temp to full).

Re: Next time: the 8086

They purposely used them as they were reliable, tried, and tested. Lets face it you don't want you flight control computer making a computational glitch when calculating your orbit, or the computer freezing when you are coming in for entry. Its not like they need to run a pretty GUI like desktop users do. Also remember the computer that got astronauts to the moon had less processing power then most wristwatches have today.

I remember reading like 11 years ago Nasa was paying $400 or was it 600 per processor for new 486 SX chips's this was well into the P3 era.

Re: Distorted news coverage

can't argue this last thing I saw on snowden completely ignored what he really did, but made him sound like some russian spy. Sadly it wasn't fox news either. Gotta love the 6, and 10 o'clock nightly propaganda show

Re: @Turtle @Phuq Witt I sort of agree

Agree

I would have done the same. Well outside shooting it down with a gun I would a got it wet, and dismantled it trashing the transmitter 1st ;)

But as for dealing with the 4 guys yes you have to show you are armed with something to deter people. Trust me I see it all the time with multiple people vs 1 unarmed guy they are more likely to get physically violent when they are in the majority, and have minimal chance for injury.

I bet if the guy didn't have a gun on hand they would have beat the living crap out of him possibly damaging him for life.

Re: The view from Silicon Valley

I'm not really sure what IT people have against Macs - it seems to be that they cause fewer user headaches, so less support burden. And, for whatever reason, they seem to get less infected by bad crap (again, lower support burden), the hardware is usually better quality and it retains it's value/usability for a longer period of time.

Try repairing them.

Hint they are not fun specially the new ones where every single damn thing is glued together.

Where I used to work we had Dells if one failed dell sent us a board to swap out so we could get it done fast. Actually they sent us a few extra boards as we had hundreds of laptops which when one died we sent the board back, and they sent us a replacement on the side. All in all if the MB failed on the laptop it took me maybe 15 minutes to replace it so the laptop was down for under a half hour(including diagnosis).

Try that with a new mac book as to dismantle them you need a heatgun, but good luck getting parts for repair you have to send it to apple which can take a week or so.

Yea the telephone dealer really irked me I used to shop there often, but got fed up with being asked if I wanted a new phone, and being pestered by employees who didn't know anything. Then there were the insane prices I remember once paying $5 for a friggin blue LED when I needed one at the last minute. Online I was able to order them after that 100 of the same LED for $6 shipped...

Then they reduced all their part inventory to one friggin drawer system... that was when I really stopped going as I had to order 80-90% of the parts I needed from places online anyways why not order all the stuff, and save $10 while I'm at it.

sounds like a guy I knew in highschool in the 90's I remember he blew his bathtub up trying to make something out of the book

Re: Is it getting worse?

Rimpel in the same boat.

Been reading the news here for many years, and think maybe its time to find a new news site as this place seems to have lost touch with the people who read it.

Re: Drug trial

Agree

Only reason I can see them trying to bring the hitman side into the drug trial would be to show what kind of character he has, but still it should not be allowed as it has nothing to do with the current trial.

The attempted murder trial they could use the drug trade side though as evidence as to why he did it though.

Re: MEH!

if you look at the pic though in the linked article it looks more like someone was driving it, and more likely hit one of the toilets that were raising, and probably went flying into the guy waiting to take a piss as that kind of damage wouldn't be caused by it falling 8 feet.

Re: I feel sick

I think he's scared that the Demos might lose the presidency with how red the country went the other week so he has to do something to not seem like suck a huge fuckup that he is.

Re: Simple comment...

I remember about 9 years ago a place I worked IT in we had a nasty outlook e-mail virus going around. We spent almost a solid week removing it from the network (we had over 2k computers) right after we finished Our IT director sent out an e-mail to all users saying DO NOT OPEN ANY LINKS IN E-MAILS YOU ARE NOT EXPECTING OR KNOW THE SENDER to all the users.

5 minutes later the idiot opens an e-mail attachment marked IMPORTANT OPEN IMMEDIATELY, and reinfected the entire network... We only know this as the admins installed tracking software, and were actively monitoring who was infecting the network, and it all pointed at the IT directors computer...

Re: Unbundling required in the US

I have stand alone internet from comcast, and honestly its not that good, and I keep getting comcast calling, and harassing me at least once a week(even though I told them not to call back) to up my subscription cause for $15 more(for 6 months then $50 more for a year and a half after due to contracts) I could get cable TV I'd never watch, and 10Mbps faster download...

If more places do this like HBO I see comcast enabling the currently disabled data cap(and lowering it), and feeing people up the ass for not taking cable through them.

Re: Salary

IMO it also doesn't help that to get a job in a science field in the US you are expected to be an unpaid slave for a few years as a research assistant to get some of the typical 5 years of experience any place in the US wants from recent grads for that mediocre pay(that is unless you know someone then that is ignored).

Re: Time for guests to sue

IMO they should have been forced to refund all their past guests the fees for internet usage they paid from when they started this scam on top of the 600k fine.

This fine is more a slap on the wrist like BAD were only gonna take .1% of what you made off this while the common people get cheated.

Its Boeing they probably have a pile of politicians paid off that will cut NASA funding unless NASA passes over Space X's bid for some idiotic reason.

Ditto. Went in so many times looking for something simple like a simple SPST switch, a common resistor, or a capacitor just to walk out empty handed as they reduced all their electronic parts to 1 drawer system that is mostly empty, or had 1 of anything in it.

Then IF you find any parts you have to get bothered why they try and sell you a cell phone during check out...

I found ebay very nice for parts, and usually 1000% cheaper for almost anything. I remember when I needed a single white LED Radio shack wanted $5... I got 100 from china for $10 WITH 100 resistors shipped...

Needed a soldering iron as my old one(which was a radio shack brand) crapped out after 13 years of service they had one damaged one on the shelf that looked like someone stepped on it...

It also drove me nuts how they would tape up parts people opened or returned.

Wish I could say its sad to see them go, but they pretty much been trying their best to go under

I actually have a similar experience I bought 2 B's a few months ago(seriously would have held off if I knew the B+ would have came out 2 weeks later...), and the one keeps corrupting the OS install every few boots which I find is quite aggravating(I use it in a 1/9th scale arcade machine).

I know its not the SD card as I ordered 3 of them at the same time, and my model A has had no issues with the same card(or others in the past), the other B I really am not sure on as I set it up to function as a NAS that I've yet to leave online for any time.

And once I reinstall the OS its all good to go. I've had SD cards corrupt, and go bad so I know how to tell a bad card as they would not work like normal which the card that keeps getting corrupt allows.

Re: good job they are doing this in Canada

Nah some local police would have thought it was a bomb, and called in the bomb squad to blow it up in a controlled manner. In my city a few months back a homeless guy forgot his bag, and they cordoned off the neighborhood for 4 hours before the bomb squad saved us from a homeless guys clothes...

hell look what they did to Aqua Teen Hunger Force art back in 2007 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2007_Boston_bomb_scare

That or it would be thrown in a scrap yard by some junkers who will pick up ANYTHING that looks like it made of metal.

My Samsung Tab 2, and Galaxy Tab 3 act as remotes for our Samsung TV's ;)

Re: Doesn't that CO2 stuff give ya cancer?

Reminds me when Penn and Teller got a pile of people at an Earth day fest to sign a ban for Dihydrogen Monoxide

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yi3erdgVVTw

Re: .... their service is no way worth $25 a month

bleh I meant $25 per year at the end of that comment I missed that when I re-read my post prior to it being un-editable I mixed it up when I said I could host my site for $2 per month, or $24 a year in retrospect. In my defense I had it right the 1st time I said their price though ;)