Posts by Pirate Dave

Re: FWIW

"What are all the miscreants who have been devoting their energy to "mining" cryptocurrencies with other folk's resources going to switch their efforts to if the cryptocoin markets collapse?"

Maybe NASA should restart the SETI@Home project.

Re: Why use a revision control system?

I use an RCS to backup my switch configs weekly via script. That way, if I dork something up, or have to replace a switch, I've got a recent config file to fall back on for each switch.

Re: New Episode?

"There should be a Christmas or New Year Episode coming in the next 6 or so weeks"

I'm beginning to think that would be a true Christmas miracle. Boys on crutches getting to walk? Pfft, simples.

"Next manager along didn't understand any of it, so ordered it ripped it out in favour of..."

The mark of a truly gifted Manager is that they can come into a new job and immediately decide to rip out systems that have been reliably ticking over for 10 years. All because they read a "Best Practices" article on a forum somewhere. That's why they get the big money.

Me, bitter? no...

"The old take-a-screenshot-of-the-desktop-make-the-image-the-wallpaper-turn-off-icons trick was a good one back in the day :)"

As was the BSOD screen-saver when it came out. Ah, the gallons tears that one caused over the years...

Re: What about the stuff that we really don't want...

"Well many were quite happy with XP and moved to 7 with some reluctance."

I still miss Win2k. Such a nice, clean UI, with things where they should be.

I don't get why they used 115 VAC for a signal circuit instead of low-voltage DC. Button-On, Button-Off reads the same at 12 VDC as at 115 VAC.

Re: Test report

No, they're just monitoring the replies to this story on El Reg.

Re: MokroTik

I used a small MicroTik router at a previous job. Nice little box for $30. Was handy as a "cheat" to let me get to equipment in an otherwise isolated VLAN. I was amazed at how many different ways that thing could molest an IP packet. The GUI interface was a bit rough, though, since it had so very many little knobs and buttons.

"isn't that going to be a problem in the EU?"

Probably, but not before Microsoft has made 3 times more money than they'll have to pay in fines. So it's still a Microsoft win, sadly.

I was a Groupwise admin for 15 years, then migrated to Office365. Never used Notes in the least. For on-prem, Groupwise was hard to beat (at least through 2012 when we jumped ship) - it was fast, took care of its own databases pretty reliably, and was easier to maintain and upgrade than what I'd read about Exchange. But lack of integration with desktop apps (ie - "it's not Outlook"), and Novell self-destructing, eventually forced even me to say "we need to move". As an admin, the biggest benefits I found in O365 were the deep Powershell abilities (we won't talk about EWS, though), and the fact I never have to add another drive to the storage array.

Re: Ahhh, memories...

The one I always loved was the call of "The Internet isn't working", when the actual problem turned out to be that the user had set the browser's startup page to some obscure website Somewhere Out There, and that website was down. Did they bother trying to go to Google or Yahoo or CNN or anywhere else? No. Start browser, get error message, call IT to complain loudly. Lovely.

Re: So this great technical breakthrough was achieved....

Let's not be too harsh - there was probably a committee involved, and possibly high ranking members of the upper Management team. Meetings, lots of meetings to decide WHICH shade of dark, dark grey was most fitting, or should they switch to dark, dark gray instead? Meetings need donuts and drinks, which means caterers needed to be scheduled. And point-release reveals to the various mid-management teams. More meetings to integrate their better suggestions. More donuts. Finally the big release to the Executive Management team, and more meetings to figure out the most politic way to NOT integrate their horrible suggestions.

Surprising they got it out at all then.

""Why? Do you want to watch your food burn in real time now?".

Ballsy, man. That took some guts. I salute you sir.

Re: Why have unprotected cables there at all

"Being a dumb cheapskate costs money."

Yes, but is the first step to a long and fruitful career in upper management.

Re: One definition of insanity ...

"It should be noted that the first 6 posts in this thread were downvoted about 10 minutes after the first post was published."

So now we know what Darl McBribe is doing with his free time - trawling El Reg and downvoting any posts that denigrate TSG. Hard to believe tha anybody but a few lawyers still give a positive shit about TSG - the rest of the world hates them like a burning rash.

Re: Safeguard elections from hacking

"Yeah, we just call it a pencil."

Are we sure the folks in Florida know how to use pencils? I mean, there are two ends to those damn things - one for making squigglies, the other for erasing said squigglies. Might be too complicated...

Re: So....

Maybe Microsoft's internal admins sometimes forget whether they're testing an outage in CrystalNet, or on the real Office365 production servers.

"Hey, let's simulate what would happen if we lost connection to all of our peering exchanges."

"Hey, why's my phone saying it can't retrieve my email anymore"

"Uh-oh..."

"Sell it at a premium, too, rather than claim to be cheap but actually be quite average in price."

Have you seen how much Huel costs? I looked at it when it came to the US earlier this year, and blanched at the cost. They sell it in lots of 28 "meals" for $66. That's the minimum I could find. For a "per meal" price of $2.36, that isn't horrible, but $66 is a lot to wager if it turns out I can't force myself to eat meals 2 through 28. So I'm sticking to ramen noodles for lunch...

Re: Patronising POS

"No-one, in the history of ever, has booted up a computer purely to use the OS."

Not to nit-pick, but I once booted the PC version of Slowlaris just to see what it looked liked. Same for AtheOS. And Plan9.

uh-oh. Yeah, back to school for me.

Re: Age is but a number.

"Why can't young people understand that old people are just young people who are older in age?"

Because that would require the young people to think about someone besides themselves for a second or two, and most of them do not have that capability in their skillset. It isn't called the "Me" generation for nothing...

Re: Meh

"With that sense of optimism have you thought of a career in IT?"

If he can keep that inner flame alive, he might make it to full BOFH one day...

Re: Does that mean we can now drop the crappy Win10 interface?

"From the outset of Win8 (which was a much improved base OS) I have claimed that were Microsoft to see the error of their ways and give Win8 (now Win10) and Windows7 interface, all would be forgiven."

Totally agree. MS's subsystem folks did a lot of good with Win8/2012 and beyond, but it was all hidden by the hideous GUI.

Microsoft - the company that can write an entire "safe" programming ecosystem (.net) from the ground up, but can't figure out how to re-write the fucking "Start" menu from 1995 to work with their latest Windows...

Re: Word Salad vs Gobbledegook

"He's been known to make sense every once in a while. "

I agree with " Sorry that handle is already taken." That's not the original AMFM - he never once worked the acronyms AI or IT (in all caps, natch) into a regular word. Long ago I used to try to puzzle out AMFMs postings. Some, I think, did have a great deal of depth to them.

Re: Why

Yeah, it seemed rather un-BOFHish at the end. No dead beancounters, no halon discharges, nobody locked in the tape room with a "malfunctioning" Boss robot.

Maybe Simon T. just got in a hurry and needed to submit the story...