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* Posts by ukOli

3 publicly visible posts • joined 7 Oct 2009

Windows Home Server upgrade recedes into the distance

ukOli

When we will get WHS with built-in Media Centre

This is a good product, but just won't get me excited until Microsoft produces a home server/media centre combination.

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Helpdesk Heroes or unappreciated geeks?

ukOli

"The mail server's down"

A few years back, a secretary in the law firm where I work rushed over to my desk to tell me that the mail server was down.

I looked at Outlook on my computer and everything looked fine, so went back to the secretary. It turns out that some Chinese whispers had taken place, and the actual problem was that one of the lawyers wanted to check his email and couldn't. Solution -- turn on the monitor.

Oli

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ukOli

Lawyers...

I've remember a few more:

I arrived at work to find a plastic case (almost CD-shaped) on my desk with a post-it note that read "please install on my computer". It was a desk calendar sent as a gift from one of her contacts.

We have a bar across the road from our office called Number 7. We also number our printers. One of my colleagues explained to a user that he couldn't fix her printer, but that he'd set her up to print to number 7. "What, so I have to walk across the road to get my work?"

Another lawyer complained that his laptop kept shutting down after a few hours each morning. It turned out that the cleaners had been unplugging it to plug in their vacuum cleaner. The lawyer in went on to ask if his computer could be configured not to turn off when the battery ran out.

A trainee came to tell us that he needed a new keyboard because his was broken. We replaced his keyboard and he came back to say that the new one was also broken. Turns out he thought his "i" key wasn't working because his font was set so small that i looked like l.

At the time of the Blaster worm, my then boss was setting up a new laptop for himself, as he frequently did. Sitting opposite, I saw him plug his laptop (still attached to the network) into a phone line to test the modem. "Have you got a firewall on that", I asked. "No". "Have you installed any patches, like the one for the Blaster vulnerability?" "No, I'm only testing. I won't be online for long".

One of the best efforts at screwing up a PC I've seen was someone who'd managed to create a file association for .exe to open with Word. That wasn't easy to fix.

And of course "this file is corrupted" generally means that the file has been opened with the universal file opening application -- Microsoft Word.

Oli

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