Custom Error Messages...

Someone obviously got sick of seeing the "HTTP Error 500 - Internal Server Error" message....

Communication Skills

On my Gmail chat today :

B: hello

B: say something!

me: THIS IS PATHETIC !!

i can't believe we are talking through here ... when we are sitting next to each other !!!

B: basically we are nerds

me: idiot

B: ok bye!

me: go do ur work

B: speak fer yourself ...

------------------------------------------

Mr. B is my colleague who actually sits right next to me. Yet somehow instead of turning his neck 45 degrees away from his monitor to talk to me, he decided to communicate through an online chat (in this case - Gmail chat).

No wonder why other people think I.T. people are crap when it comes to communication skills.

Users

A user identified a bug on one of our systems today, and had it lodged as a high priority support call. The Luser said the application they were using wasn't able to update when a certain type of change was made. After a quick investigation into the matter we realised the Luser had simply not clicked on the "Update Button" to submit the change.

Apparently this was the second time the same Luser had lodged the same call. (Albeit on a different form of the same application).

My colleague who sits next to me was assigned the task of explaining to the Luser why the form had not updated.

I feel for him.

He had to call the Luser and nicely explain to them why they need to click on the Update button to submit changes. And also to let them know, not being able to update a data field does not constitute to a high priority call. High priority calls are reserved for specific events, for example, the application had fallen over and no one can access it.

He handled the support call well. Calm. Voice although slightly restrained, he did manage to kept his cool when explaining the whole scenario to the Luser. Kudos to him.

If it was me, I think I would just run upstairs, half strangled the Luser, rubbed his head into the keyboard and write "Click on the Update Button" in big red letters on his monitor using a permanent marker pen.

Then again, maybe not.

I probably think about doing that to a Luser every single day. But so far its only been me banging my own head on my keyboard.

On the subject of users and support calls, I found a very funny website about one tech support guy's neverending saga with having to deal with another tech's calls. Its called The Chronicles of George.

After reading a couple of those entries, I feel glad that I atleast work with a great team of techies. And that I don't have to put up with something like this.

My favourite support ticket on the site is on page 18. The one about the ergonomic keyboard. Happy reading... :)

Calendar Girls

Lately there has been alot of hype about a Calendar showing images of scantily clad IT professional women. A lot of people are saying the calendar is not portraying the right image to the public. While others are saying it gets rids of the "Geeky" image associated with IT, thus attracting more females to the industry. The calendar proved to be so controversial that the ACS (Australian Computer Society) has even pulled out of the calendar's sponsorship.

The aim of the calendar was to promote awareness and to attract more females to the profession.

I'm not sure about the rest of my female associates in the IT industry, but I did not become a Systems Engineer because of pictures of scantily covered women.

Truth to tell, I do not totally condemn it. Atleast this year's calendar has certainly succeeded in meeting it's 'awareness target'.

However, while I would love the idea of getting rid of the "Geeky" image so often associated with IT. I doubt having a calendar showing semi-naked girls would be the way to go.

Yummy !

The LaCie Skwarim (Blue) 60GB Hard drive....... *drools**

It's small and compact enough to hold in your hands. And at only 99 grams, it can just be a permanent resident in my handbag.

I guess its only downside is that the technical aspects of this drive aren't exactly smashing. At 4200 rpm with only a 2mb cache, it would definitely be one of the slower drives around. But where it lacks at speed, it definitely makes up in size and portability.

I'm still 50/50 when it comes to getting this little toy. The cheapest place I can find selling this hard drive (that would deliver to Australia) is at $299 (ex GST).

I still have 4 more days to decide whether or not I should actually buy it. (End of financial year)

If I do end up getting it, I hope no one at work would think it is a blue 'Post-It' note and accidently write on it.

Should I ... or shouldn't I ?!?

Feelings at Work

A wise IT guy once said....

"The problem occured in the flesh - between the chair & the keyboard"

These words could not better explain what I have been facing at work today.... :(

Or maybe this picture may be able to sum up my feelings a bit better ...

Days of No Internet

My Internet connection at home is stuffed.

No Internet means no checking emails... no blog surfing... no blogging (at home that is)...no news updates and most importantly of all - No Warcraft.

As I was pretty sure that it wasn't something wrong with my modem. I called Telstra to lodge a line fault. Not able to withstand another day without Internet, I woke up at 7am in the morning to call the Tech Support line.

As a tech support person myself, I hate having to talk with people who are "Techies". It just makes the situation worse. We would usually end up arguing over something rather than actually solving the problem. I would much rather having a "Dumb User" on the other end of the receiver.

So I played the part of a "Dumb User" when I called. Hoping that it would make the Tech's troubleshooting more effective. But I could not be more wrong. He ran through his script asking me if I had tried a different phone line, turned the modem off and back on, if I had changed the filter and if there were other phones in the apartment.

I told him I had changed everything. I even unplugged the only phone in my apartment and connected my modem to the socket without the filter. To which he replied .. "No, you can't do that, you have to use a filter.. without the filter you could make the phone line faulty".

Uh ?!?! This was the first time I've heard someone tell me that.

Anyway, I let it go, and told him it was only to test if there was something wrong with the line and filter.

I also told him that the Internet only works when I am using the phone line. Like when I am talking to him right now. Once I get off the phone however, the Internet will cut off.

To all this he just said.. "Hmmm... Strange... But I can see your modem is out of warranty, it could actually be faulty".

"My modem is not faulty, how could it be faulty when I am able to get Online when I'm talking on the phone ? It has nothing to do with my modem".

"I'm just letting you know first. Because if I lodge a call for someone to go take a look at your line and it turns out you have a faulty filter or phone line, we will charge you $99 for the call out fee".

I had to stop playing my part as the dumb user.

"Look, I have swapped phone lines and filters. I can ping the modem, so there is nothing wrong with my network cable. Also tried directly connecting without the filter. The problem started last friday night and I am 100 % sure nothing has changed on my side. The Internet is only Online when I am using the phone. The phone line LED on my modem flashes amber then disappears, when I hang up. I'm pretty sure there is nothing wrong with the filter or the modem. Can you go ahead and lodge the call please".

The good news is that someone from Telstra is going to go to my place to check the exchange and my line.

Bad news is that I have to be home from 8am till 12pm on that day, and it is a weekday.

Right. If only I didn't have to work during those times...

I.T. Agony

For all the I.T. people out there.....

My favourite line of all time (which I think I hear the most often) would be :

You can fix it on your lunch hour. Right ?

Closely followed by ... *drum roll** .. (although this one is not on the bingo board) :

It's a Production System, you have to do it after 6pm.

-- Right. And my working hours would be ?!?

Email Nightmare

I've just spent the last 2 hours of my working day trying to figure out a way for sending DSET reports to DELL. Its 6pm now, and we still haven't worked it out. Trend for Exchange seems to be able to chew-up everything in a zip file and dump it back to me saying that it has hit an exception rule, as it detects the email as containing an 'Isolated Executable'. SurfControl is worse, it just says I'm trying to send a virus.

I've tried GMail, Hotmail, Yahoo. None of them work.

They all say I'm trying to send an executable file... :(

When I opened up the report file, I noticed most of the files were just .htm files and cascading style sheets. Then I realised what the scanners must be picking up. There has be some scripting code used within some of the .htm files.

Dammit.

Technology just got too smart for its own good.

This is one time that I really feel like technology has just backfired on me.

My company uses two sorts of security packages to filter our emails. And the result of implementing so much security checkpoints ? I can't even send a simple standard DSET report to DELL to fix my server issue! Grrrr....

I think the only thing left for me to do, would be to dialup to my own ISP and use my external email account from my ISP to send those zip files over to DELL.

Perfect. I now need to think of work-arounds solutions just to send an email.

I'm an Expert !

After nearly 2 years on Experts-Exchange, somebody has finally accepted my answer as the best solution to the question they posted! For those who don't know, Experts-Exchange is one of the biggest IT newsgroup sites which has over 1 million IT solutions documented online.

I feel all techie now.. ! (Techie not Geeky .. there is a difference !!)

From the email they sent me, it says "I have earned 2000 Expert Points and have been rewarded with a grade of A".

Whoopeee !!!

If only Expert points can be converted to real dollars... *sigh..

iPod ... with Video??

A colleague of mine sent around an email to all the 'known' iPod owners in the office today.

----------------------
Sent: Monday, 17 October 2005 12:31
Subject: Ipod owners

It was worth the wait …
Suckers :-)
http://www.apple.com/ipod/ipod.html
----------------------

I certainly felt like one. Even thought I didn't buy my iPod (Pete brought mine for me), but I did buy a iPod Nano for my cousin. I'm pretty happy with my iPod with colour, it does everything I want it to do - play music & store photos. I'm not 100% sure if I would ever download TV episodes onto a handheld device - which is why I don't think I would invent in a new iPod. But then I doubt I would of brought my cousin the iPod Nano if I knew there was going to be a iPod with Video released in a couple of weeks.

The two are basically different devices for different uses. But then again, it would of just be nice to know they would release something so soon.

I'm not berating Apple and I still love my iPod. But it would of been nice if they released both of them at the same time.

At least then people will have a choice.