More shit that pisses you off: What does that say about the quality of your emails?

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Serious Hardware/Software Crap > More shit that pisses you off: What does that say about the quality of your emails?

seadweller: Mar 30, 2010

Has anyone ranted about printers today yet? No? Right - HP why do you feel that making a crucial part of a heavy duty printer out of plastic so that it snaps cleanly off is a good idea? Can I suggest some harder wearing substance hmm metal perhaps? FFS I'm now remapping an entire corridor of users because of this:

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# ¿ Oct 10, 2013 14:35

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# ¿ Apr 26, 2024 11:55

seadweller: Mar 30, 2010

EAT THE EGGS RICOLA posted:

NO THROWING ANYTHING OUT EVER

I did a minor YOTJ recently. :toot:

Check out what's in our storeroom:

I'm trying to get a chuck out in progress do we really need 300 nero 7 cd's?

*edit* wow a lot of posts before I got that up

Bonus points if you can identify the software to the right of DOS 5 the blueish box.

seadweller fucked around with this message at 13:42 on Nov 5, 2013

# ¿ Nov 5, 2013 13:21

seadweller: Mar 30, 2010

Humphreys posted:

For some reason I like old software still in it's box. Maybe I like to nostalgia too much.

I think its the fact that there actually was something physical beyond the disc. I still remember the manual that came with Dos 6 on my first home PC. You could moore a battleship with it.

There are some cupboards underneath the glassed in shelves that I can't get to because of junk I shudder to think what may be in them. Here be Dragoons!

# ¿ Nov 5, 2013 14:16

seadweller: Mar 30, 2010

dogstile posted:

On note of things getting stuck. No, co-worker, I do not give a poo poo that its not working. Repeated shouting of "its not working", bugging us all about it and walking off in a huff only to do it again in five minutes is not how you should fix things. Its also not good for my health, as I want to jump out of a loving window after an hour of it.

How legal is it to record someones voice in the office? I was thinking of showing you guys so you could . I'm in the UK if it helps.

Your on tricky ground, recently had to record lectures for a student missing classes because of extenuating circumstances. We had to get permission of all the students in the room. Have a look at this:

http://www.acitylawfirm.co.uk/recorded-conversations

# ¿ Dec 18, 2013 12:30

seadweller: Mar 30, 2010

Ahh Office 365, you are a breath of fresh air after Lotus Notes.

You even offer the ability to have text messages to alert users to the arrival of email:

http://www.techadvisory.org/2013/01/new-email-get-notified-by-text/

Let's get this set up, hmm the option isn't there - strange.

"Functionality at present only available in USA, Canada and ...... Romania." :argh:

# ¿ May 22, 2014 10:55

seadweller: Mar 30, 2010

ming-the-mazdaless posted:

Which toss bag thought it'd be a great feature to text people about e-mail arrivals?

Its a shared mailbox that gets probably 5 emails a week, a text message alert would be a good way to get them dealt with promptly. Its an academic requesting it to save them having to log in to the web client and open other mail! I don't have a problem telling them to check it themselves but was just frustrated by the seemingly random choice of Romania as a place to roll the functionality out, as I'm in the U.K.

# ¿ May 22, 2014 11:12

seadweller: Mar 30, 2010

Stupid licensing requirements.

We have some scientific software to measure stuff. This requires a license file for the software and individual licenses for the individual measurement elements, so far, so standard. It also requires a �3000 microscope.

Time to upgrade the PC I reinstall the software on the new PC late on Friday afternoon and it won't activate so I contact the company concerned and the engineer who takes my call promises to get back to me with the procedure and he does. With a quote for �200 / $335 to generate a new license file.

Fortunately this is sent to me via email so the swearing is confined to the office. As its now Monday morning and I now have some time to look into it, 5 mins of digging and the licensing is based off the MAC address of the PC. Change the locally defined MAC to match the old PC and everything works.

Why would they even bother? How much money are they making on this?

# ¿ Aug 11, 2014 15:15

seadweller: Mar 30, 2010

thebigcow posted:

A thing so annoying you almost wish for a dongle instead.

Oh this PC has a dongle for another piece of software; however to avoid paying for the new version and a new dongle involves installing the demo version of the new software (64 bit) which does not work with the dongle. Then installing the old software also 64 bit (which if installed first fails to find the dongle on win 7 64) it now can see the dongle because the 64 bit drivers are updated in the demo version and stay in place when the old 64 bit software is installed as well. The manufacturer approves of this work around after we found it.

The two pieces of software are on the same PC its fantastic. :argh:

# ¿ Aug 12, 2014 10:17

seadweller: Mar 30, 2010

Dick Trauma posted:

...somewhere where I'm not treated like the enemy.

Time to start trolling - ask the 4 managers to agree a date for performance management between them and request that the 4 of them do it together as this would be better for the business as you would only be putting the phone system at risk for one meeting's worth of time rather than four. After all if they are being unreasonble nothing is more fun than letting them deal with the fallout from their decisions. You on the other hand are trying to minimise the impact and being overly reasonable - remember to copy the CEO or whoever came up with the stupid phone directive so he can see how helpful you are.

Sit back watch managers fight over who gets to decide the date.

# ¿ Sep 29, 2014 13:04

seadweller: Mar 30, 2010

Japanese Dating Sim posted:

Trying to deploy a new HP Envy 15-k118nr (with Beats Audio ) with our standard Windows 8.1 image.

I get that this is obviously supposed to be a consumer laptop and was not aimed at business use (and I have no idea why it was purchased) but holy poo poo, is it that hard to put drivers in a pack for IT people? They already do it for a lot of their models here... and then the individual drivers that they have download as executables that install themselves instead of just giving me package that I can extract the .inf files from.

If you are going to image it with the same OS version why not just get to the desktop of the preinstalled OS and run doubleDriver on it? Create a structured folder of all the drivers which you can then use to add to your image or at least quickly get the missing devices installed.

Edit for link:

http://www.boozet.org/dd.htm

seadweller fucked around with this message at 12:01 on Mar 11, 2015

# ¿ Mar 11, 2015 11:58

seadweller: Mar 30, 2010

Here's an interesting link for all our American colleagues on Labour day:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-34123906

Stuff pissing me off - Dragon Dictate's educational software activation, way too over the top.

# ¿ Sep 7, 2015 19:07

seadweller: Mar 30, 2010

So we are moving away from landlines to skype for business - running on headsets through the PC. Is this as hosed up as it sounds given if the network goes down its bye bye phones as well?

Anyone made this move have any recomendations as to actual physical phones that can connect to the pc and be used via skype for business as some of our users are going to have heart attacks over this. I've been to the skype for business site, (no access for emergency calls how reassuring), followed various links and it seem that phones certified for Lync can work but thats a dissapointingly small list.

Well at the least it will make everyone hate central IT again.

# ¿ Sep 9, 2015 16:54

seadweller: Mar 30, 2010

Scikar posted:

<deletia>

As for actual phones there's 3 "Lync-optimised" phones that run identical firmware and look almost the same as well. Polycom CX600 is the tidiest but there's not much between them. CX300 is a USB handset that has to connect through the PC. There are other "Lync-compatible" phones which means SIP phones originally designed for other systems that have added Lync compatibility - their drivers to link to the desktop app are universally terrible so avoid them like the plague.

In my experience people switch to the headset after a while anyway, once they realise that they can click to dial and then carry on doing actual work while talking. If your users are more towards the dinosaur side then you might not have the same success.

Thanks for the input everyone. We are not in the US and I'm not running this in any way. Its a large educational establishment so I'm anticipating a lot of resistence from the end users about the headphones so thanks for the advice on the phones. I'll investigate the phones. I look forward to interesting times.

# ¿ Sep 10, 2015 14:05

seadweller: Mar 30, 2010

spog posted:

Time to get that old pick-up with the bashed-in front end out of the hidden storage unit*

*If I remember your previous history with bad coworkers correctly

I think that was Midelne?

*edit* who had the boss who had the accident, not that Midelne did it.

# ¿ Oct 19, 2015 10:52

seadweller: Mar 30, 2010

spog posted:

'Brian Smith posts on SA under the username GargleBlaster and he's a terrible racist'

Phew I'm glad Gargleblaster is bad at being racist! I'd hate for him to be good at it. It reminded me of Father Ted:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6zkL91LzCMc

seadweller fucked around with this message at 13:40 on Dec 18, 2015

# ¿ Dec 18, 2015 13:32

seadweller: Mar 30, 2010

Moey posted:

I have stacks of dl380 G6s here. Come on over.

I can't believe no one asked movey ;-) to deliver them personally to avoid wear and tear on their cars.

:smuggo:

# ¿ Mar 24, 2016 13:57

seadweller: Mar 30, 2010

Ozz81 posted:

Yeah this kind of poo poo really, really annoys me - and in large part it's because these old fuckers don't WANT to learn something new. I've taught both my 60+ year old parents how to do things, my mom (who's the most tech illiterate person in the world) can learn and remember almost anything I teach her, so can my dad. I've taught my 74 year old grandmother how to use a cell phone and she was just fine figuring out the calls, texts, and voicemail with no complaints.

When people play stupid to get something changed, I literally wish I could condense their stupidity into a weapon and beat them senseless with it. Last resort in your case (if you haven't done it already) - create a simple set of instructions and either print or email them to all the old dipshits in the office, and be sure to CC the moron defending "his people" and their mental retardation. If hands-on learning and reading are too difficult for them, they need to be fired or forced into early retirement and blacklisted from any industry involved with technology.

Anyone else having trouble with the maths in the above post attacking stupidity in the older workforce?

# ¿ Apr 13, 2016 10:40

seadweller: Mar 30, 2010

Arsten posted:

Unions don't work like that in the US. They are a political interest that is separate from their members' interests and, where the unions are entrenched, it is usually quite hard to oust a union that isn't serving the needs of the union workers.

In addition, there are a large number of high-profile cases where unions throw their weight around and create an outcome significantly worse than what the company was offering - usually because the unions' own goals weren't being served like they wanted. Unions only work where the leadership actively work with company management to ensure that union employees are being taken care of. You can see this with smaller unions, but as soon as they start to merge ('for bargaining power'), they lose this mind set and start politicking for their own gain instead.

US unions are scum and have nothing in common with their European brethren in terms of how they operate and what effect they have on the labor market.

I speak as someone who has been on all three sides of multiple US unions: A union member, an employee in a place where other employees were unionized, and as a manager working 'with' unions.

I'm just glad they work in the UK. I just YOTJ'd :yotj:

to a management position in another part of my employer, offered a point on the salary scale accepted all good. 2 work days before I start HR get involved and start making the offer a lot less beneficial to me and effectively forcing me to give up some extra hours I work. Effectively a pay cut to start a new "better" job. Rang the union they contact HR and negotiate and its all resolved pending final paperwork, I give up the hours and the pay stays the same thank you.

First time I've had to involve a union after working for 20 years, glad I pay my subs.

# ¿ Apr 26, 2016 16:22

seadweller: Mar 30, 2010

Collateral Damage posted:

A bit unrelated, but what does the term "fly-by-night" mean in this context? I've seen it thrown around and haven't been able to figure it out.

Personally I've always understood it to be in reference to People who trade / sell stuff either from shops or stalls that overnight just vanish. Wikitionary has: One who departs or flees at night in order to avoid creditors, law enforcement etc. (often used attributively).

This is UK British usage

# ¿ Jun 3, 2016 12:05

seadweller: Mar 30, 2010

Jerk McJerkface posted:

God forbid you use a Mac, since Lync 2013 hasn't been changed to Skype for Business, and it barely works. Mainly you can't add contacts. It even tells you that when you try.

I'm waiting to try Skype for Business 2016 for mac I've even sign up to test it. Been about a month now. Am not hopeful at this point, is anyone on the trial? Does adding contacts work?

Oblig content- poo poo that's pissing me off - first time running a big hardware replacement and different suppliers quoting prices with tax, without tax, dear god someone standardise this.

# ¿ Jun 10, 2016 17:00

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# ¿ Apr 26, 2024 11:55

seadweller: Mar 30, 2010

Judge Schnoopy posted:

Ugh that's disgusting.

Replace those zip ties asap.

# ¿ Apr 7, 2017 16:07

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Serious Hardware/Software Crap > More shit that pisses you off: What does that say about the quality of your emails?