Category: Rants

The rants category was looking a little slim, so let’s add something to it, shall we?

I’ve worked in tech support for years. Both here at work and at previous jobs, I’ve been the guy people have bugged to get things fixed. If I didn’t know off the top of my head how to fix it, I’d figure it out.

Generally, I won’t call tech support people. I’ll go online, and try everything I can find and try to figure it myself. I’ll only call tech support as a last ditch effort. Last night was that last ditch.

One of our production servers here at the office is a Compaq Proliant 800. It’s a good little server, but it’s getting beaten up bad. It’s our Citrix Metaframe-serving machine here in the office, meaning it does the processing duties for all the thin terminals in the office (all 12 of them). Well, the CD drive (an IDE drive) in the thing went caput, so I pull the thing out and replaced it with a spare we had in the office. Turn the server back on, and the thing won’t boot, giving me SCSI device errors — basically, it can’t find my drives. I’ve got a Smart Array 221 card in the system, so I check it out. There are some LEDs on it that I’m assuming refer to the items in the SCSI chain. One of them was flashing. So I traced the cable around the system, everything was connected properly (cut my hand to pieces — the edges of the inside of that case are sharp), hard drives are powered up fine, and everything worked earlier. So I’m stumped.

So I search around the newsgroups. try Compaq/HP’s site, and try everything they document, no dice. I couldn’t find anything useful on what the LEDs on the card meant, and why one was flashing, so I figured I’d just call and see what happens.

The man on the other end is obviously from India (or thereabouts), so I’m assuming Compaq/HP, like many other companies, outsource their call center duties to India.

So I sat with him on the phone, answering a bunch of mundane questions (name, phone, etc…), and then he started going through a checklist — basically scripted troubleshooting that I had already tried. I told him “Look, I’ve tried all this, please let’s just skip this, and maybe you can tell me what the heck the LEDs on the controller card mean?” That dumbfounded him. Every time I wanted to get something more specific he said “This is all the information I have in front of me.” I asked him to let me talk to somebody who did know. He couldn’t.

So the guy gave me an all but useless case ID number, and I got off the phone. I turned off the server, let it sit for a minute, turned it back on, and it started working. Why? I have no idea, but I know I won’t be rebooting the thing any time soon. It’s probably a sign of things to come, and will hopefully give me enough of an excuse to get rid of the thing. That’s the hope, and if the company makes enough money, they’ve already said they’d give me money to bulldoze things. Just crossing my fingers for this one.

OK, yet another entry into the rant category today.

Yesterday, I dropped off my wife’s prescriptions off at the Wal-Mart pharmacy in Bend. I told them I would pick them up after I got off work and made it back in to town at around 7:00 that night. It was 9:00 AM when I left Wal-Mart yesterday morning.

I got back to Wal-Mart that night around 6:30 to find my prescriptions were not ready. “Why?” I asked. “Because we need a new OHP card,” said the oh-so-friendly lady behind the counter. A “rebill” they called it.

They had the card’s information on file, and usually don’t ask for it, but I produced my Oregon Health Plan (OHP) card anyway. Now, there was NO new information on the card, other than the addition of my daughter to the card (who wasn’t getting medication in this case). Lydia’s information, her policy numbers, etc… were EXACTLY the same. So I handed her the card. And I waited.

And waited.

And waited some more.

Thirty minutes later, after other folks who had rebill problems had theirs fixed and had their drugs given to them, I still didn’t have mine. The 300+ pound man sitting next to me, taking up two seats, was starting to fall asleep and I was sure he was going to collapse on to me. I finally went back up to the counter.

“What’s the story on my medication?” I asked.

“It’s done,” said the same lady, who was having a nice time chatting with the previous lady at the counter, but wasn’t nearly as polite with me.

“So why can’t I have it?”

“Because we have to get your OHP information into the computer.”

“My OHP information hasn’t changed, why does it all have to get reentered?”

“OHP has changed a lot of stuff for us.”

“I understand, but when the information that I provide hasn’t changed, why does it all need to get reentered? My name, address, numbers, and everything, is still the same as it’s always been. We’ve gotten dozens of prescriptions filled here.”

“She’s entering it right now.”

“Let me have my card back. I’m not going to wait around for this.”

“You’ll have to go to the other window and ask for it.”

The “other window” was the drop-off window. There were about five or six people waiting in line over there to drop-off things. So I wait again in line.

And I finally get up there and see what the problem was. The lady they have entering information into the computer not only has fingers that are about an inch thick (reminded me of Homer Simpson, when his fingers were too big to use the phone), but she’s a very slow typist. I watched her input some information in to the computer, and it was annoyingly slow. About 10 words a minute slow.

I asked her for my card, once I got up there. She said, as perky as she could: “Oh, I was just getting to yours.” I’ve been here for 35 minutes, at this point, and you’re just now getting to it?!? Needless to say, I asked for my card back, and left. I’ll deal with them later.

I can’t wait until I get some real insurance and get off OHP so I don’t have to deal with those shmucks again (as they’re one of the few pharmacies left in Bend that will take it that doesn’t close at 5:00 PM).

Update at 4:00 PM: Just got a call from my wife, who tried to pick up, and was told “It’s not ready.” And now suddenly OHP isn’t paying for what they paid for before. It was cheap, so we just paid for it, and I’m looking for health insurance as we speak.

Chris is feeling the pain, and I am, too. Gregg pointed me in the direction of an article on the Inq (reprinted from PC Pro) that sums up my feelings exactly: Fire Your IT Directors and Managers. Now. Please.

Quoted:

HERE IS SOME harsh, cruel but worthwhile advice. If your company was hit by the recent SQL Server virus, and you are a Director level member of your company, then I advise you to fire your IT Director now. If you don’t have an IT Director, but you are nominally in charge of IT, then fire your IT Manager now. Also please identify who is responsible for the company firewalls, and fire him or her as well.

You might think this is a little harsh, maybe a little hasty. It is not. Those companies which got infected did so entirely because of their own carelessness. There was no reason for them to get infected, and no need either.

I agree wholeheartedly. I’ve seen far too many experts that manage IT departments that are far too inept for their own good, yet control not only jobs in the department, but employee actions. The article makes good points that the staff isn’t too blame, and that the blame for this lies in the hands of management. It also includes some ways to make sure you’re shut down tight.

I know I’m sick of getting bounce backs from viruses I supposedly sent out. I don’t have any virus. I never did. My firewall is setup properly at home and at the office. I had the Blaster patch installed long before the worm hit. Yet, somehow, Microsoft Certified shmucks have awesome jobs and getting paid twice as much as me. I’ve lost a job I was applying for in the past because I wasn’t certified, though I could do the work better than the guy who was. But the human resources folks were just looking for keywords on their resume, doing what the hiring department tells them. I’m not one to pad my resume, but maybe I should start, just so I can get past the morons in HR? Reminds me of an old User Friendly strip that I have hanging on my wall.

I still remember the worst job interview I ever had. I walk in to get interviewed by the HR director, and she wants to see some of the Web sites I’ve done. The only browser she has on her poorly-managed PC? MSIE 3.0 (this was when 5.0 was out). Needless to say, my sites looked like crap in her browser. Thankfully I had a printed copy of them on hand.

OK, I’m done now.</rant>

My DSL provider gets their bandwidth and uses the Qwest-distributed modems: The 1520 from Actiontec. This modem is fine and dandy for personal use, but please, for the love of God, don’t use this piece of crap in a business environment.

The modem is single-handedly responsible for blocking random Web requests, and randomly not accepting SSL requests to the secure server I have here in the office (and it first started a while ago, but I’ve only now been able to fully eliminate every other possible cause for the problem). If you use the modem’s firewall and routing features (which suck) things work fine, but if you try to run the traffic through a firewall (using Qwest’s way to authentice the PPPoA) it starts randomly dropping requests.

So the tech (who, told me that the corporation that owns their office has basically said “Fix this or you’re fired!”) brought out a different firewall that played a bit nicer with the modem, so that’s all plugged in, and we’re at least able to get secure stuff through (for now). The modem itself is still giving me trouble, so they’re trying to get a hold of the discontinued Cisco 678 modem for my use.

I think what annoyed me the most is that they gave me a modem, knowing that damn near every user forum out there says it’s crap. Even the various levels of techs I talked to didn’t even know how to use the thing, let alone how to fix it.

Regardless, it should HOPEFULLY be fixed by the end of the week, and our bill for the month doesn’t have to get paid, which is VERY nice. However, we’ve probably lost a few grand because of this crap.

</rant>

Update: The modem was still dropping packets, so I finally have a Cisco 678 in place of the Actiontec, and put my old firewall back up, and lo-and-behold, everything works fine. Go figure.

Oh man what a day. First, I bought a used D-Link PCMCIA wireless card. Worked fine, but then I tried to check the version of the firmware using the tool provided by the company, something went wrong and it decided to attempt to flash the firmware instead. It went bonkers, and gave me the option to cancel, but it was too late — parts of the card had already been overwritten. So after waiting on hold for about 30 minutes with D-Link, I finally got through, only to be told that my card was FUBAR. Lovely… I just e-mailed the guy that sold it to me see if he has the original receipt so I can RMA it, but I’m not holding my breath.

And it gets even better. My left “alt” key on my keyboard has been cracked for about a week. Well, today it broke clean off, and so there was just the little nub left (it’s a laptop). I never realized how much I used that key until I need it back (our reservation system here at work, for example, uses it as a navigation aide). Regardless, the laptop’s getting repaired next week.

Anybody have wireless card they want to get rid of? I’ve got two wired PCMCIA network cards that work great that I need to get rid off, too.

The Electronic Frontier Foundation (a foundation that everybody who is a technology user of any sort should support) is asking for your support on a bill that I wholey stand behind as well. From their site:

Representatives Rick Boucher and John Doolittle recently re-introduced the Digital Media Consumers’ Rights Act (DMCRA, H.R. 107), which would enact labelling requirements for usage-impaired “copy-protected” compact discs, as well as several amendments to 1998’s infamous Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA).

Use your voice to protect your digital fair use rights! After several years on legislative defense, this is your opportunity to let Congress know that we want positive changes to the DMCA. Tell your friends, tell your family, but first TELL CONGRESS!

This is just one of many causes the group fights for, but they have a simple form to fill out that will e-mail or fax your representative for you in regards to this bill. A letter was just sent to my representative.

Yahoo is using “web beacons” to track you OUTSIDE of the yahoo network.

Read the “Outside the network” part of their privacy policy–there is a

link where you can opt out of this.

http://privacy.yahoo.com/privacy/us/pixels/details.html

Note that you have to opt out of this on each computer and each browser you use.

Also note that when you click on the less than obvious link, that Opt’s you out, they put a friggin’ form button on the “Successfully Opted Out” page that cancels your opt-out request!!!

I fell for it, and most users will too.

What gets me is why haven’t school districts done this already? According to the story at the link:

The belt-tightening move could save nearly $100,000. Starting immediately, temperatures in the schools will now be set at 70 degrees during the day and 60 degrees at night. The lights will also be turned off in certain areas of school buildings when they’re not being used.

Crimeny, folks. This is something you should have been doing FOR YEARS, not when there is a budget crunch. This is the kind of horribly obvious stuff that should be done, and is probably part of the reason everybody is in a budget crunch right now: poor spending. I’m all for giving money to schools and other publicly-funded operations, but not the unneccessary spending stops. While you guys are turning off the lights, set it up so that all your computer monitors turn themselves off instead of running a stupid screen saver, and all computer go into low-power mode when not in use. Get rid of half the printers in the building (not everybody needs a printer on their desk) and then *gasp* you’ll be saving a bunch of money. Imagine that. Now if this was done YEARS ago (like it should have been), we wouldn’t have to hear stories about programs being cut and folks being laid off (at least not as many). There are a thousand ways that costs can be cut but your employees — your most valuable asset — should be at the bottom of that list.