Posts by Helldesk Dogsbody

Re: Support for technical / Infosec team members

Yes and no. Pursuing the Service Desk route as a first point of contact is always the "correct" response in a corporate environment. Why? It gets the matter on record, date and time stamped and in the system. There will always be exceptions to the rule but it still needs to be the default action. At that point a properly run Service Desk will manage the call and chase up either the tech team or customer as required. Please note my use of the words "properly run" here. That's the ideal but we know it isn't often the reality.

As a former Service Desk then support team bod I had more than my share of new starters, they aren't a waste of time or even begrudged that often. Just the ones where you receive notification at 4 PM on Friday that they start 9 AM Monday. Oddly enough this was most often from those who ought to know better, e.g. IT. As long as the actual requirements are detailed properly it's a non issue, the end user was required to sign off on the build after the first 14 days to confirm that they had what was required and anything extra in that time was just added in.

Part of the established process was to educate the new user on initial contact protocol, everything goes through the Service Desk without exception. It might get copied in to a tech if it was via email but that wasn't guaranteed to be seen by said tech if an incident ocurred, it also ensured that the call would be picked up by someone should the tech be unavailable. I just used to point out that I usually had 2K+ emails daily, the odds of one being missed were rather high so to always raise a ticket or cc our Service Desk to make sure tickets were created and updated correctly.

Re: 7th Guest

Still one of my fonder gaming experiences. Privateer 2 (yes, the one with the HUGE for the time FMV segments on the disc) was another one somewhere back then that took a bit of a spannering :D

Re: blood sacrifice

We have found a certain degree of success in utilising the blood of users. You may just require more of it thereby creating a win/win situation. The appropriate oath also appears to still work, you know the one: "Why won't you WORK you &*%!ing piece of £$(^!!!" at around 120 dB.

You forgot the ancient Transit van with numerous "war wounds" from traffic :D

One group you can also throw at QA, particularly for regression testing, are your support staff. Been there, done that. When told "But NOBODY would ever do that! It's not a valid test!" all you need to do is pull up the previous weeks first line tickets...

TBH it's CD Projekt Red - they play their cards close to their chests and I've yet to be disappointed at launch by anything they've done so far. That's how they operate, they don't need 0 day patches and release completed games rather than "Early Access" versions.

Also as far as no horrible consequences are concerned I don't think that counts for many, plenty have been sued for so called open development as they failed to meet expectations of the finished product despite being "open". I'll take a known good but secretive studio over vast amounts of fluff on the web, art galore but no playable game (Star Citizen anyone? And yes, before anyone asks, I backed it purely for Squadron 42. Which I'm waiting for. Still.)

Re: Giving the users what they ask for......

When they work with us they get as much assistance as we can provide. Should they ever actually bother to ask why the answer to a request is a firm no rather than immediately try to circumvent it then they'll generally find that many of us are somewhat sympathetic. If they choose not to listen or nag anyway that would be when we become a touch irritable. That and continuously expecting us to deliver miracles on projects where we're told a week before launch what it is they require of us and it's going to take significantly longer than to set up may explain a modicum of dislike for the coloured pencil office.

@Velv Re: Group Policy

Allegedly. It still doesn't work reliably and you have to bodge it in the background more often than not with registry keys. Either that or update the template every time they change the version number. Add on top the fact that it will insist on adding a scheduled task to run the update check as well and now hides that completely in Windows 10 (scripted delete works fine on Win 7, the task doesn't appear in 10 but keeps trying to run anyway) and I have my doubts over whether or not this one will actually function as intended or we have to carry on with multiple kludges.

With the sheer number of updates released it takes far more time than it should owing to the lack of that documentation or support as you simply don't know what you need to change in the GPO for this version to lock out the updater again. Cue much tinkering and cursing or a deluge of spam from the web gateways as everybody's system tries to check for updates at the same time and all get blocked at once...

Re: aka free software

Every few months? Try a new build every couple of weeks on the slow ring! I run it at home on a non-critical system just so that I can see what's coming up that might break everything I have in place in the office.

To be fair, while I am definitely not a fan of the telemetry (and that automatic restart banner message needs to be acid etched on a large steel plate then rammed in to the fundamental orifice of i) the person who proposed it and ii) the person who signed off on it. Sideways) there are enough things that are better on a day to day basis that I do see it as being mostly an improvement.

Re: Playing games does have it's place

It used to be similar in our place, peak trading periods = change freeze so out comes UT for an IT department fragathon, spare wall displays hooked up to consoles for those not inclined to "morale improvement" by fragging the head of department repeatedly with a flak cannon, all on the understanding that this stopped the second we had an incident reported. The result? A relaxed but hyper alert IT team ready to resolve the issue as rapidly as possible (primarily to get back to the frag fest).

Not a hope in hell of this outside of peak trading, way too much to do the rest of the year. PCI compliance put a damper on our seasonal fun though, now it's try desparately to stay awake while staring at systems monitors :(

Re: The more annoying bit...

I generally prefer the approach of "The computer is more scared of me than it is of you" as I too remember the joys of CRT monitors and TVs that required percussive persuasion applied in the correct location, aka "a damn good thumping", and I'm not afraid to use it today. While it may not do any good I usually feel better afterwards :)

Management, however, remain unconvinced that this is the appropriate manner to deal with certain PICNIC situations...

Re: No need for strategy

Munchkin is a classic for causing more fights than Monopoly while still being fun and relatively fast paced. Secret Hitler is a corker for sowing FUD amongst friends and family, Game of Blame is a newish one with some strategy and a lot of memory work to try and avoid shooting yourself in the foot.

Re: 64GB Micro SD only?

If it's the same as the original Swift they only list the lower capacity but they will quite happily see (and use) 256 GB micro SD cards.

Re: The computer Tao

I've had the same sort of things happen but generally put it down to either that computer's can smell fear (that of those who've tried before) or sense intent (in that if they don't work soon I'll make damn sure that they're properly broken).

@Ivan 4

Yes but there's no mention of a portable gas stove so it can't be him.

@h4rm0ny

Check the task scheduler library for anything relating to media centre if you did an upgrade install and delete it. YMMV but it's worked on a couple I've seen the same behaviour on.

Burn the pot in front of the heretic first, being sure to let them know that they're next. Then purge their name from history for such heathen vileness!

Re: Not asking much then?

@Tim 11 and boltar: I suspect that you're both right, for a given value of right. For the environment I'm in, as there are fewer than 10 of us, a JOAT is a better call much of the time. All of us have areas where our knowledge base is a little more developed but none of us are specialists, we hire those in for a given job when required. YMMV but that seems to work for the numbers we have. I imagine that in a 30 or 40 strong team it would be the opposite case.

Re the quote, it always irks me that people only mention the first couplet as it's then completely out of context:

"Jack of all trades, master of none, though oftentimes better than master of one."

Re: Nobody wants...

One group that may be able to assist in the testing process but are frequently ignored are the first line support staff. I used to be included in this when I was supporting an in house application and would try everything I'd had reported from users on support calls. The purpose of the testing wasn't to prove that the application was bug free (the approach most seem to have nowadays) but to find ones that could only be exposed by using the application incorrectly. Use the whole ASCII character set in free text fields to find out which ones broke what and how, break the normal workflow to see if it can recover when the normal, logical order isn't followed. The likelihood of getting it fixed prior to release was minimal but at least we knew and could provide an answer.

In short, if everything goes pear shaped because someone entered a postcode backwards while typing left handed on the second Thursday of the month at least we knew in advance.

@AC - Incorrectly assembled colleague

You obviously work in a very different environment from the one that I'm familiar with. I'd be more inclined to make the exact opposite bet based on past experiences...

Re: You're lucky

You still get them on tins of corned beef from a few brands. I immediately discard the key as what little blood I have left (mostly caffeine and alcohol nowadays) needs to stay inside of me, not spread all over the kitchen.

Re: Unwanted ad injectors aren't part of a healthy ads ecosystem

"Free to play?

Nah, 'free to be pwnd'"

Yes and no, it depends on the transaction model used. Where the primary source of revenue is XP boosters and cosmetic items it's not that bad TBH. Wargaming.net and Gaijin are probably the two best that I've seen for this, while you can hand over some money to speed up the process all of the game is available without doing so, you'll just spend a long time at each tier past about 5.

Of course you're still likely to get owned as some of the players are just insanely good and there's always the conveniently timed lag spike, the one that only kicks in when you try to hit the fire button causing instant death as they get the drop rather than you...

Re: Ugly and unergonomic

While they aren't exactly my thing I can appreciate the work that's put in to some of the deask/case combo builds - do an image search for "l3p desk" or just go to www.l3p.nl to see what one looks like when done properly. These one just appears to be a half arsed attempt to cash in on what's sprung out of the above project (ie the Red Harbinger Cross desk).

Lian Li used to be brilliant back in the day, now they appear to be churning out marginally more minimalist versions of the same tat as everyone else. A shame really as the TJ07 really was the king when it came out but they've steadily been losing the crown since then.

Re: Steam?

There was certainly enough outcry about Steam when it first launched but that's now more than 10 years ago and it was a content distribution system, not a digital distribution or DRM service. It's grown to be those as well but that's only after a lot of development and a long time. Valve have built a reputation over the years for being trustworthy and a hell of a lot more gamer centric than the vast majority of publishers. The Steam hardware survey is probably the most accurate representation of gaming system specs in the world, Valve make SDKs available for modders and actively encourage them to make what they want of the software they provide, they promote indy studios by not charging exorbitant fees to make their software available, allow download of free to play games where they make nothing and are generally the champion of the every day gamer. It hasn't always been that way as we didn't half hate them when CS 1.6 was released along with the then extremely buggy Steam platform, they've put a lot of time and effort in to building customer base and loyalty with no secret made about the fact that you simply cannot transfer games if you buy from them - then they go and hold ridiculous sales that give me an acute case of wallet cramp! Steam also doesn't require always online, once a month is sufficient then you can go offline until prompted again. They've been known to extend this period on a per account basis for services personnel deployed overseas as well. Add on top of that the fact that you can literally install and play a Steam game on any system as long as you can install it, remember your log in details and it runs a supported OS then it really isn't the same.

In contrast, Microsoft have a reputation for shafting the consumer in general, releasing dodgy, bug ridden software (I consider new Windows launches to be an MMO beta test and Games for Windows Live has done SO well!) and hardware (RROD anyone?), change anything on a whim, already have draconian DRM (Windows reauthentication on changing hardware, seemingly triggered at random) and definitely don't show the same integrity. It isn't even an apples to oranges comparison, more a fish to bicycle one.

BTW, Valve have about 70% of the PC digital distribution market share and offer support for three PC operating systems so far (all be it slightly limited for two of them) as well as two console platforms. I could be wrong but I believe that they may have a larger market share than Microsoft where gaming is concerned - at least with regards to software.