In which a lady insults programmers everywhere... Tech Support |
- In which a lady insults programmers everywhere...
- The Curious Case of the Missing Chromebook
- You have to join my guild
- Saved her a bit of cash.
- No, I can't move the Mt.Everest of obsolete technology out of here that quickly with no IT budget.
- Never do this, probably. (a wireless AP horror story)
| In which a lady insults programmers everywhere... Posted: 03 Mar 2018 02:45 PM PST I do support for a web application. The app itself is an unimportant detail except for the following: the app has drag-and-drop elements to create, but you have the option of using HTML to code your own thing. We do not support the code; we are not developers. If you code your own and it borks, YOU troubleshoot it. Lady was having issues getting her thing to work. She said a programmer had previously gotten it to work, but couldn't give me any information on how, or workflow, or anything. Then she threw this gem at me: "Well my programmer was able to do it, so it must be easy." I'm not even a programmer and I seethed for the rest of the day. I was very relieved when she got tired of me and ended the chat. [link] [comments]  |
| The Curious Case of the Missing Chromebook Posted: 03 Mar 2018 10:33 AM PST I just started a new job 3 weeks ago at a K-12 Institution and so far it has been quite enjoyable! It's my first time using Google for administration and my first time using administration tools in general. For a couple weeks, this middle schooler had been coming to my office asking about his Chromebook. Apparently, he lost it and has been using other teacher's Chromebooks for his studies. Every time he came though I wasn't able to help him since no Chromebooks were turned in. I figured he left it at home or lost it in a classroom somewhere. I wasn't sure what else to do for him. Then my wife, who also works in tech for K-12, sent me a link to Google's Device Activity page. This let me see what the kid had logged into and when. I was able to find out that he had used his account to log into his machine 2 weeks ago. I then thought I might be able to try searching his name on the Google Admin side to find out what machines had recognized his credentials. Sure enough, a few Chromebooks pop up. The first 2 were computers he had borrowed from teachers, but the next one had to be his Chromebook. It was showing that the last time it was logged into was indeed 2 weeks ago. Honestly, I was hoping to only help the kid get a better idea of when he last lost it. I've never tracked down a lost computer before and wasn't really sure what else to do. But then I noticed that there was a second set of credentials that had logged in that same day 2 weeks ago. Some other kid had logged onto his machine! I speak with the librarian that was with me at the time and she informs me of the kid's identity and I suggest we call the kid down for a quick question. A high school girl shows up and I say to her, "You aren't in trouble or anything, but we are looking for a missing Chromebook." I don't even get to finish asking the question and she blurts out, "My grandfather took it out of lost-and-found. It's in his dresser drawer at home." The librarian's jaw hits the floor. I calmly ask, "Can you ask your grandfather to bring that back please?" The kid says, "Sure" and walks away. Apparently, the middle schooler's friends put the Chromebook in the school's lost-and-found which is just a table in a hallway. The high schooler's grandfather swiped school property (which is tagged BTW) and took it home. The high schooler knew it was school property and didn't say anything for 2 weeks. We got the computer back, but only because the high schooler had logged in. If that hadn't happened I don't know what else I could have done to find it. The job has been challenging and rewarding. I'm looking forward to what comes next, but I think there are going to be some opportunities for more stories like these. [link] [comments]  |
| Posted: 03 Mar 2018 04:28 AM PST Been conflicted about sharing this one. Not sure if it fits this sub. But I really have to share this one. Happened a couple of months ago. We provide on site tech support for home and corporate users (75% home users). They call us after watching our ads on late night tv. Got ticket where a user was not getting display. Ticket also mentions that she thinks it is the GPU drivers causing the issue. I get to users and the house is filled with moving boxes. Only the computer table and the PC have been put in place. It is very messy, navigating is impossible with the bed frame, sofas and boxes blocking entrances to doors.
I turn the PC on and sure enough no display. I didn't even see the POST screen so I have a look if the monitor is plugged in. The monitor is into the mobo instead of the GPU. Connect it to the GPU and got display but the was getting the no boot devices found. I open the case and seems the SSD had dislodged from the tool free enclosure and a sata cable had come loose. Install SSD back and connect the SSD. Restart PC and everything seems to be running ok. I note that the GPU is a branded 1080ti, wonder what she plays.
I am thinking if the husband is capable if building a high end custom PC then why is she calling us?
Looking at the screen. See steam installed and shortcuts to all AAA titles on the desktop. Try changing topics.
Thinking this is an mmorpg.
I have been at her place for maybe 10 mins now. Since we charge in 1 hour blocks we 'HAVE' to ask if there is something else we can help with if we solve the problem before the 1 hour is up. When they call to book a service the script tells them "After the tech solves your issue he can have a look at your PC and answer and tech questions you may have". We cant leave even when the problem is solved if the user has questions.
She launches a browser game (I think, dont remember if it had a launcher or not).
I need to know more. I am confused. It looks like the typical waiting game, you click something and it takes x amount of hours to complete.
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| Posted: 03 Mar 2018 09:41 PM PST I had a woman call last week. She was at $BigBoxRetailer tech support and they quoted her $200 and possibly have to buy a new computer and transfer data. She asked if we were any good (I told her we have great reviews on the sites) and she should come by and I would tell her what's wrong. She came by frantically minutes later. She had a school project and this was a bad time for this to happen. I looked at it, blank screen and the lights were on. I pressed the power for 5 seconds to do a hard shutdown. I turned it over, released the battery, held down the power button for 5 seconds, put the battery back in and pressed power. The Windows 10 swirling icon came on and it booted. I charged her $20. (Our minimum diagnostic/work fee is $45 but I would have felt bad for charging her that.) [link] [comments]  |
| No, I can't move the Mt.Everest of obsolete technology out of here that quickly with no IT budget. Posted: 04 Mar 2018 02:25 AM PST So for the last few months I worked for a regional tax service with 45 offices and I was at there main building where they had been storing there obsolete equipment basically since the turn of the century. Anywho, we round everything up and there are 50+ 17" CRT monitors as old as 1994, probably 100 capacitor plague ridden Optiplex GX and SX series PCs, another 100 various Athlon64 based machines (all of these are the wonderful USFF models with the CPU fans integrated into the hard drive bay), another 50 Intel versions of the USFF 700 series machine, around 50 assorted computers from the late 90s (Pentium IIIs, not cheapos either, several were high end Vectra work stations), around 4 pallets of early 2000's beige fax machines and printers, a pallet of (failed, we tested a few) UPS's, and 4 totes full of obsolete PS2 keyboards, and several totes full of things so obsolete I had to google what they were. It was my duty to find a place that would take these (CRTs included) at no cost. I come to find out later while breaking into the computer of one of my predecessors that I wasn't the first person to get this job as there were pictures of when these machines were first put on pallets dated 2011 and pictures of several machines turned on. It was also my job to strip the RAM out of them. I kid you not most of the GX50s and GX60s (pentium III based Celerons) had been upgraded to 2GB using 2GB SDRAM modules. I didn't even know they made SDRAM into that capacity. I also had to pull the hard drives. I eventually found a manifest that explained these modifications: They had been using these machines (along with Windows XP and 2000) up until 2014. Yes, thats right. Pentium III Celerons were in use with this company for over 15 years straight. This along with the fact i was supposed to somehow make CRTs vanish into thin air without paying a recycling fee (around here most places charge 5 dollars a monitor) were my first indications that we basically had no IT budget. What's worse is that all this garbage was stored on the second floor which meant we had to move it all down to the loading bay (where my boss also had constructed a partial home, and stored vintage cars..... we weren't well managed). Some of these machines were so full of dust and ruptured capacitors I nearly got sick working on them. Oh yes, and I was expected to do all this for $10 an hour, and have it done by March (we started mid January), somehow without incuring overtime. This was in addition to doing constant live remote tech support for 45 locations and readying machines to be deployed and applying mandatory updates after hours (which had to be done manually for the main PC at each office, after hours because it knocks everything offline). It was almost like they had never thought that eventually this stuff would pile up and by that time they would be so obsolete you can't GIVE them away (this is in IL, we have some of the strictest eWaste disposal laws in America. So anything like CRTs and printers can cost 5-50 per unit to dispose of). I told them that there timeline was unreasonable and in order to get rid of this stuff at no cost to the company it would take me months and that getting rid of it right away we were looking at 2 grand (which is a tiny expense given the size of the company) and the boss looked at me like I was insane. Last I heard they found a place in a major urban center that would take them for free because of the AMD and intel machines being new enough to be resold. We only had two people working IT (for 150 employees) and my position was eliminated because apparently 2 people would be an unneccesary expense. They kept the guy with 20+ years on me and a degree. That didn't even make sense because while he had more OS and Networking skills I could run circles around him with anything hardware related such as oh I don't know, preparing machines for disposal (in two days I stripped something like 100 computers, in two days the other guy stripped 30 or so). Sorry for the horrible writing, I'm not a great story teller, but that's the story of the worlds worst managed IT department and the worlds worst IT graveyard. [link] [comments]  |
| Never do this, probably. (a wireless AP horror story) Posted: 04 Mar 2018 12:01 AM PST Configuring a new wireless AP today when everything that could go wrong, did. The new AP was one of those higher end consumer routers, a triple band Nighthawk model. I told the client it would take 20 minutes and essentially just had to plug it in. I planned to daisy chain it to the existing Surfboard cable modem which had a much weaker AP signal strength. So without thinking about it too much, I logged on to configure the Nighthawk wirelessly through it's factory default network, because I was short a patch cable. After putting it in AP mode and setting the SSID identical to the Surfboard AP, I wanted to log in to the Surfboard and disable the radio. Unfortunately in this frustrating interface, I clicked a slide bar which visibly implied the radio was OFF, but like an idiot, I did not notice it was still ON because I did missed a save button which I did not see. This single mistake led to a joyful hour of fun. I just figured it was just the Surfboard's firmware messing with me, so I put the Surfboard in bridge mode. Unfortunately for me, I forgot I also had put the Nighthawk in AP mode (non routing) and was genuinely horrified when I checked IPconfig to find that the machine's IP address was now a 76.*** public address. The shock... (On the positive note: ran a speedtest and it pulled 250 mb/s through wifi) At this point I realized things were going quite poorly and opted to change the Nighthawk's SSID to isolate my problems. Unfortunately with both AP in bridge mode (and my networking skills quite rusty) I did not realize at the time that DCHP was thus disabled and it would no longer assign an IP via wireless or patch. Spent about 10 minutes smashing face into keyboard and power cycling to get IP assignment before going for a hard reset on the Nighthawk. This is my favorite part. Do you want to reset this router? Oh, sorry this is a new fancy pants router and must be reset in a very specific way. No, you cannot reset it like any other router in the last 20 years. After messing around with the thing for what must have been 30 minutes, I figure out, it can only be hard reset properly after it has FULLY powered on and initialized (2 minutes) and only then, will it correctly reset to factory settings. Otherwise pressing hard reset just restarts it and it didn't really wipe to factory. Thankfully after resetting the Nighthawk and going through it again, I notice the save button I missed earlier, disable the modem's radio and confirm the network was working properly. So what did I learn? Maybe don't change an AP's SSID to duplicate another until you are 100% sure it is going to work right. Common sense!!! [link] [comments]  |
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