Now I know how a doctor or stock broker feels

[rwmidl.livejournal.com]

Does anyone get annoyed when they are talking to someone new for the first time (in a social setting) and when asked "what do you do?" and your reply is "I work with computers" or "I'm tech support" people then jump right in to questions about why so and so doesn't work on their computer?

Dumbass of the week

[linguafranca.livejournal.com]

(X-posted to ts_sucks)

A guy I'll call "Bill" calls yesterday from a local business because his DSL isn't working. It's a simple setup - modem and one computer, no router or any weird fancy shit. I take him through all the steps: power cycle, check DNS settings, release-renew IP, set static IP, etc., and nothing works. I'm seeing normal traffic between us, which means there's probably something up with the TelCo. As a last resort I have the guy try to ping us and our router. Nothing.
( Why this guy is a jackhole )

Meat bi-product...

[methedras.livejournal.com]

Why, oh fucking why, don't all the ISPs of the world unite, and scream at their customers :

"THE FUCKING SPAM IS NOT OUR FAULT!
WE CAN'T DO ANYTHING ABOUT IT!
IT'S YOUR FAULT YOU ARE ON SPAM LISTS ANYWAY!"

...?

Then, we all wouldn't have to worry about looking like a bad company, because we collectively just told everyone to eat our ass.

Either that, or someone should create some software that reads the header information of an email, find the mail server, then start performing DOS attacks on the servers it finds from the headers.

If everyone had this software, it'd sure put a dent in the spam problem.

It's a nice thought in theory, though I know the problems.
So don't bother trying to explain why my idea wouldn't work.

heheheh

[agentz.livejournal.com]

At work today I felt in a particularly argumentative mood after our nearly two and a half hour team meeting.

I overheard one of our guys standing at our bosses door complaining about a 'bug' in our new webmail system (Sun One Messenger).

The problem would appear to be that if a user logs in, which takes them to an interstatial page then to the inbox, then selects a message to read, then clicks the browsers back button it allegedly logs the user out.

Scarab was sure this is a bug.

Me: Who says thats a bug?

Scarab: It's a bug

Me: Says who?

Scarab: Me

Me: How do you know its a bug?

Scarab: Because when you click back it should take you back to your inbox

Me: But how do you know its a bug? Have you seen the design documents for the system? How do you know it's not designed to behave like that?

Scarab: Because it shouldn't, it should take you back to your inbox

Me: Says who? Maybe thats a design feature

Scarab: Aaargh! It's a bloody bug

Me: Maybe not, maybe its a feature. Maybe its a bug with the web browser

etc etc etc.

Kept him going for about 20 minutes!

Oh it was good fun!

Actually, it probably is a bug, the system is very heavy on the java front, but still, its worth a windup now and then.