Dear e-mail User,Bad spelling, incredibly wrong punctuation, stilted language . . . . it obviously came through an online translator rather than from another English-speaking nation, and well. . . the email address was Albanian. So easy to spot . . . . and yet people still fall for these. Sad, really.
Your e-mail address was selected as a winner of 900,000 Great Britain Pounds in Amazon
-2011 Consumer awards Program-.
All participants/beneficiaries were selected randomly from Worldwide Amazon online
networks of Consumer/Sales & Marketing lists.
You are required to re-confirm your Bio-Data as stated below to enable;Dr Warren Payne of
The Amazon Corporate Office,United Kingdom,to begin in processing of your awarded funds.
(1) Full Names:
(2) Address:
(3) Country:
(4) Nationality:
(5) Cell Phone #:
(6) Age:
(7) Occupation:
(8) Zip Code
(9) Sex:
(10) E-mail Address:
(11) Annual Income:
Kindly forward all your details reply to: bogus.email at Albanian domain
Note:This is to officially inform you that your payment will be sent to you via Bank Wire
transfer.
Regards.
Mr Spencer Johnson,
(Amazon Corporate Office, European Zonal Co-ordinator)
-2011 Consumer awards Program-
United Kingdom.
Showing posts with label Computer Stupidities. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Computer Stupidities. Show all posts
Thursday, March 24, 2011
Phish phish phish!
I saw the "from address" as "Amazon Corporate Ofice" and already knew it was bogus. The "Reply Back Immediately" that the real Amazon NEVER would use only confirmed it, but thought I'd check to see how bad it was. Judge for yourself:
Wednesday, October 28, 2009
Thursday, October 8, 2009
And here we are in October. . . .
Started my new job on the last day of September. Well..... same job, different company writing the paychecks now. The joys of being a contractor!
Life's starting to settle a bit into a routine now, though Teri and I are still moving storage boxes out of the old place and into the new one on the weekends. Not all weekends are the same either, but they generally do involve laundry, cleaning, and grocery shopping.
Cable internet tech came out last Friday and found that since it was running from a splitter through a 2nd splitter (and in to an "out" part of the 2nd splitter) that it was causing a pretty severe signal degradation. He replaced the 2 splitters with a single one with more "out" prongs, and made sure that everything was on the proper prongs, and there's been no trouble with the internet since. I call that a win for the cable company.
Computer Stupidities: People calling in for help creating SHORTCUTS. Come on! That's one of the most BASIC Windows functions. People calling in asking if the file servers are down when a) we sent a site-wide email informing them that yes, they are, and b) the intranet home page has a huge red-text posting about it. People calling in asking for a 25' telephone cable to run from 1 side of the room to a new desk they want to move to, when there's a stinking jack AT the desk and we just need to have their phone number moved to the jack at the desk.
There are more, but those are the ones so egregious they're standing out in my mind.
We've caught up on Dollhouse and are enjoying that. Heroes episodes are stacking up becuz I still need to download or hulu the 1st ep of the season. I've caught up on Man v. Food now. I don't know why, but I just love that show. We've started watching Flash Forward also, becuz it had an interesting premise and it's seemed pretty well done so far. I'm still eageraly awaiting the resumption of Chuck, but that won't be until after the Olympics, apparently. Stupid NBC. . . .
My EVE news is: I completed Caldari Cruiser 5 and can now finally fly Tech 2 hulls. and if I wanted to, I could fly a Tech 3 hull in a little over an hour also. Time for me to start grinding out some ISK. . . . . But, I frankly haven't really played EVE in about 2 months. I'm not really excited about doing missions anymore, but I'm not really interested in pvp either, nor researching the market well enough to "play it" and try to make money that way, so...... I'm willing to keep playing it, but I think it's about time for me to be looking at a different corp. MY current corp is fun in that I know everyone in it IRL, but we don't really do anything in-game together anymore. I can't remember the last "corp night" operation we had. But I read a lot of EVE blogs and I know there's a lot more game out there.... it's just a matter of me going out and finding it.
In EQ2 I spent the past weekend doing the Everfrost quests on my mystic. I set him to 100% aaxp on his slider and so I got 8 AA's rather quickly. The thing that surprised me was that I thought it was simply a combat xp slider, but it turns out it's all the adventuring xp, so my character level didn't move a bit - all quest xp went toward aaxp as well. He's now fully melee spec'd and also has his full 40% boost to SoW. Add his racial 5% speed boost and he's permarunning 45% now. I kinda would like to put the next 5 points into the generic footspeed AA on the Shadow tree, but the difference from 45 to 50% runspeed isn't that great and I've got the racial +50% boost I can fire off every 5 minutes if I want. As a result, I'm going to work more on the WIS line in order to get the Ritual of Alacrity. I also worked on getting more AA on my monk also and got him to over 50 points, but I still am not sure where I want to go with that character.
In DDO I deleted all my characters except for a dual-wielding kopesh fighter. I am *loving* this character. Good AC from the full plate armor, high dps from the fighter haste enhancements and good crit multiplier from the kopeshes.... much fun! There are still other combos I want to try, but I think I'm going to focus on this fighter for a while and look at building a reserve of cash up in order to be able to twink the later alts a bit. As it is, I've been able to do about half of the "newbie island" quests on the Elite level by myself, and I'm pushing level 4 with her now and will be able to add the "weapon specialization" feat in for even more damage. Way cool, methinks. Time to start looking at grouping. . . . .
And that's about it. Nothing earth shattering but... life is pretty good and I'm enjoying my hobby.
Life's starting to settle a bit into a routine now, though Teri and I are still moving storage boxes out of the old place and into the new one on the weekends. Not all weekends are the same either, but they generally do involve laundry, cleaning, and grocery shopping.
Cable internet tech came out last Friday and found that since it was running from a splitter through a 2nd splitter (and in to an "out" part of the 2nd splitter) that it was causing a pretty severe signal degradation. He replaced the 2 splitters with a single one with more "out" prongs, and made sure that everything was on the proper prongs, and there's been no trouble with the internet since. I call that a win for the cable company.
Computer Stupidities: People calling in for help creating SHORTCUTS. Come on! That's one of the most BASIC Windows functions. People calling in asking if the file servers are down when a) we sent a site-wide email informing them that yes, they are, and b) the intranet home page has a huge red-text posting about it. People calling in asking for a 25' telephone cable to run from 1 side of the room to a new desk they want to move to, when there's a stinking jack AT the desk and we just need to have their phone number moved to the jack at the desk.
There are more, but those are the ones so egregious they're standing out in my mind.
We've caught up on Dollhouse and are enjoying that. Heroes episodes are stacking up becuz I still need to download or hulu the 1st ep of the season. I've caught up on Man v. Food now. I don't know why, but I just love that show. We've started watching Flash Forward also, becuz it had an interesting premise and it's seemed pretty well done so far. I'm still eageraly awaiting the resumption of Chuck, but that won't be until after the Olympics, apparently. Stupid NBC. . . .
My EVE news is: I completed Caldari Cruiser 5 and can now finally fly Tech 2 hulls. and if I wanted to, I could fly a Tech 3 hull in a little over an hour also. Time for me to start grinding out some ISK. . . . . But, I frankly haven't really played EVE in about 2 months. I'm not really excited about doing missions anymore, but I'm not really interested in pvp either, nor researching the market well enough to "play it" and try to make money that way, so...... I'm willing to keep playing it, but I think it's about time for me to be looking at a different corp. MY current corp is fun in that I know everyone in it IRL, but we don't really do anything in-game together anymore. I can't remember the last "corp night" operation we had. But I read a lot of EVE blogs and I know there's a lot more game out there.... it's just a matter of me going out and finding it.
In EQ2 I spent the past weekend doing the Everfrost quests on my mystic. I set him to 100% aaxp on his slider and so I got 8 AA's rather quickly. The thing that surprised me was that I thought it was simply a combat xp slider, but it turns out it's all the adventuring xp, so my character level didn't move a bit - all quest xp went toward aaxp as well. He's now fully melee spec'd and also has his full 40% boost to SoW. Add his racial 5% speed boost and he's permarunning 45% now. I kinda would like to put the next 5 points into the generic footspeed AA on the Shadow tree, but the difference from 45 to 50% runspeed isn't that great and I've got the racial +50% boost I can fire off every 5 minutes if I want. As a result, I'm going to work more on the WIS line in order to get the Ritual of Alacrity. I also worked on getting more AA on my monk also and got him to over 50 points, but I still am not sure where I want to go with that character.
In DDO I deleted all my characters except for a dual-wielding kopesh fighter. I am *loving* this character. Good AC from the full plate armor, high dps from the fighter haste enhancements and good crit multiplier from the kopeshes.... much fun! There are still other combos I want to try, but I think I'm going to focus on this fighter for a while and look at building a reserve of cash up in order to be able to twink the later alts a bit. As it is, I've been able to do about half of the "newbie island" quests on the Elite level by myself, and I'm pushing level 4 with her now and will be able to add the "weapon specialization" feat in for even more damage. Way cool, methinks. Time to start looking at grouping. . . . .
And that's about it. Nothing earth shattering but... life is pretty good and I'm enjoying my hobby.
Monday, September 28, 2009
Time flies, no?
We got moved in, but it became apparent in the next few days that I highly overstressed my back while doing it. I'm better now, though.
Past couple of weeks have really mostly been the typical "work, sleep, eat, repeat" routine. Teri's pregnancy is still kicking her butt, so most evenings she spends resting in bed, so I've been passing the time reading or watching dvd's.
We did get our cable hooked up this past Friday, including internet. The TV part's been great, but the internet part.... not so much. The guy hooked it up to his laptop to activate it and it worked fine, but when I hooked my computer up a few minutes later...... nothing. Link lights looked okay on the modem, but the nic showed solid, no flashy. Power cycled the modem, but no help. Called the cable company and their automated system did a remote reset of the router and that fixed it. Hooray!
It worked fine on Friday, but on Saturday it started going up and down a bit, especially later in the afternoon. I ran some errands and tried again and it seemed ok at first, but still was going up and down a bit into the evening. The modem would reset itself from time to time, and that seemed to help each time, but then last night it was just a no-go. Link lights looked good, but I was lucky to get the occasional packet in. Could barely load text-only blogs, never mind trying to play a game or something.
Called the cable company again and this time it routed me to an agent. I described what was going on and she indicated she could see exactly what I described to her in her activity logs -- tons of missed/dropped packets and timeouts, etc. Seems odd that that would be the case -- when it's working it's nice and zippy, so I don't think it's a wiring issue, and it's a new modem -- I watched the tech pull it out of its plastic when he set it up. Even so, she said she'll send a tech out. She could do it for tomorrow, but since Teri and I both work... Friday it is. Since the TV's working and the fall season just started, Teri and I have more than enough to keep us occupied in the evenings now, and can read when we run out of recorded programs too. Ain't DVR something?
Although, knowing me, I'll check the internet connection out each night anyway ;-)
As it was, during the times it was working I put in a lot of DDO and a little EQ2 this weekend. For DDO's soloing, I'm finding I prefer melee oriented characters, and I'm thinking that a straight-up human fighter (bonus 1st level feat, after all) seems to fill the bill best. I tried a fighter/rogue multiclass combo, but found that the dual-wielding path I took wasn't "doing it" for me. Don't know why, really. It's not like I lost a lot with that 1 rogue level, and if I were to take every 5th level as a rogue I could end up with a 16/4 fighter rogue at the end with several of the rogue skills capped out and a very respectable +19 BAB for the fighting still.
But, the idea of an Arcane Archer took me, so I made an elf fighter. From reading the descriptions on the DDO compendium it sounded like I'd need at least 1 level of ranger in order to be one, so I started level 1 as a ranger, then swapped to fighter for the additional feats and "kensai" enhancements. I'll grab level 9 as a wizard and that will then open up the Arcane Archer abilities at that time, plus the wizard spells will have some utility, so far as detecting secret doors minor AC buffs, etc. Thing is, I'm soloing right now, so while I'm doing okay at plinking at things as they run at me, I'm still forced to "sword and board" most of the time. And I'm not sure that I'm doing any more damage with the bow than a competent sorcerer or wizard would, so I'm not sure any group would want me as "ranged dps" in these low levels. Time will tell, I suppose.
Anyway.. enough rambling on that.... I tried several other classes too, deleted several, have open character slots again, etc.
Logged in to EQ2, but really it was just in order to re-attune my gear that got changed from "Lore No-Trade" with the latest update. For my lower level toons I also adjusted the new xp slider to 75% AA and only 25% toward adventuring.
Today's computer stupidity: Guy calls up and wants me to renamed a file, then put a replacement file into the folder from the desktop. no admin rights needed, the idiot just thought they would be. He didn't even TRY to do what he needed to do.
Past couple of weeks have really mostly been the typical "work, sleep, eat, repeat" routine. Teri's pregnancy is still kicking her butt, so most evenings she spends resting in bed, so I've been passing the time reading or watching dvd's.
We did get our cable hooked up this past Friday, including internet. The TV part's been great, but the internet part.... not so much. The guy hooked it up to his laptop to activate it and it worked fine, but when I hooked my computer up a few minutes later...... nothing. Link lights looked okay on the modem, but the nic showed solid, no flashy. Power cycled the modem, but no help. Called the cable company and their automated system did a remote reset of the router and that fixed it. Hooray!
It worked fine on Friday, but on Saturday it started going up and down a bit, especially later in the afternoon. I ran some errands and tried again and it seemed ok at first, but still was going up and down a bit into the evening. The modem would reset itself from time to time, and that seemed to help each time, but then last night it was just a no-go. Link lights looked good, but I was lucky to get the occasional packet in. Could barely load text-only blogs, never mind trying to play a game or something.
Called the cable company again and this time it routed me to an agent. I described what was going on and she indicated she could see exactly what I described to her in her activity logs -- tons of missed/dropped packets and timeouts, etc. Seems odd that that would be the case -- when it's working it's nice and zippy, so I don't think it's a wiring issue, and it's a new modem -- I watched the tech pull it out of its plastic when he set it up. Even so, she said she'll send a tech out. She could do it for tomorrow, but since Teri and I both work... Friday it is. Since the TV's working and the fall season just started, Teri and I have more than enough to keep us occupied in the evenings now, and can read when we run out of recorded programs too. Ain't DVR something?
Although, knowing me, I'll check the internet connection out each night anyway ;-)
As it was, during the times it was working I put in a lot of DDO and a little EQ2 this weekend. For DDO's soloing, I'm finding I prefer melee oriented characters, and I'm thinking that a straight-up human fighter (bonus 1st level feat, after all) seems to fill the bill best. I tried a fighter/rogue multiclass combo, but found that the dual-wielding path I took wasn't "doing it" for me. Don't know why, really. It's not like I lost a lot with that 1 rogue level, and if I were to take every 5th level as a rogue I could end up with a 16/4 fighter rogue at the end with several of the rogue skills capped out and a very respectable +19 BAB for the fighting still.
But, the idea of an Arcane Archer took me, so I made an elf fighter. From reading the descriptions on the DDO compendium it sounded like I'd need at least 1 level of ranger in order to be one, so I started level 1 as a ranger, then swapped to fighter for the additional feats and "kensai" enhancements. I'll grab level 9 as a wizard and that will then open up the Arcane Archer abilities at that time, plus the wizard spells will have some utility, so far as detecting secret doors minor AC buffs, etc. Thing is, I'm soloing right now, so while I'm doing okay at plinking at things as they run at me, I'm still forced to "sword and board" most of the time. And I'm not sure that I'm doing any more damage with the bow than a competent sorcerer or wizard would, so I'm not sure any group would want me as "ranged dps" in these low levels. Time will tell, I suppose.
Anyway.. enough rambling on that.... I tried several other classes too, deleted several, have open character slots again, etc.
Logged in to EQ2, but really it was just in order to re-attune my gear that got changed from "Lore No-Trade" with the latest update. For my lower level toons I also adjusted the new xp slider to 75% AA and only 25% toward adventuring.
Today's computer stupidity: Guy calls up and wants me to renamed a file, then put a replacement file into the folder from the desktop. no admin rights needed, the idiot just thought they would be. He didn't even TRY to do what he needed to do.
Monday, September 14, 2009
Moving Weekend
We closed on a house last Tuesday, it was recorded officially on Wednesday, and we started moving in on Wednesday night. Well.. moving our stuff in, anyway. We didn't actually spend a night there until Friday. But we love it! We've got about 80% of the stuff put away now, and my back is killing me (had a disk removed June 08 -- much better now than I was, but it's still twinge-y and tires rather rapidly). The big stuff is done, though. It's mostly just finding places for decorations and knick-knacks and such anymore.
But as a result... no gaming for me this weekend. We ordered cable, but it's not gonna be hooked up until the 25th. So.... got a long skill burning in EVE, and the rest... they'll keep. I did download DDO now that it's free to play now and ran through the early tutorial on Friday before the serious moving began, but that's it.
Today's computer stupidity: Company homepage down, giving a "not authorized" error. 1st 10 or so calls this morning: "Internet's down!"
Except of course, none had actually even TRIED to use the internet, which was working just fine, tyvm! Ay de mi!
But as a result... no gaming for me this weekend. We ordered cable, but it's not gonna be hooked up until the 25th. So.... got a long skill burning in EVE, and the rest... they'll keep. I did download DDO now that it's free to play now and ran through the early tutorial on Friday before the serious moving began, but that's it.
Today's computer stupidity: Company homepage down, giving a "not authorized" error. 1st 10 or so calls this morning: "Internet's down!"
Except of course, none had actually even TRIED to use the internet, which was working just fine, tyvm! Ay de mi!
Monday, August 31, 2009
Vanguard Weekend
Generic, relaxing weekend for me. Wish they could all be relatively nice like that. I don't work on Fridays so I do laundry that day while relaxing at the computer, generally playing EQ2. This weekend I got a "late start" due to having an eye appointment at 8:00 in the morning, then deciding I wanted to go to the BN a couple of blocks from the eye doc, but they don't open until 9 and I was done at 8:30, so I browsed the Target next door the the BN 1st. And my old jeans were old and I'd actually tossed out a pair the prior weekend due to having gone through 'em in a rather embarrassing location and not realizing it until I took them off that night, so..... it was a good trip.
And I picked up David Weber's latest book while there and am in process of reading it now. I'll tell you if it's as good as the 1st 2 in the series when I'm done. Not that anyone's reading and caring :P And then I even stopped off at the chiropractor on the way home too, since my back's been mostly good since my surgery last year, but has seemed to go downhill a bit this summer. I was pretty out of alignment -- right leg a half inch shorter than my left, even -- and I felt a lot better after leaving there. And I made it home before 10. Go me!
Started the laundry and launched in to EQ2. Was working my SK through the Lavastorm stuff in order to get to the end of the quest chain that will let me do the "solo shard" quest when the call went out "LFM for Anathema (DD)!" They had a tank and an illusionist, so my SK and Coercer were out, but they were happy to have my warlock, so Gotter Dammerung was logged in. 1st time in that zone for her, so what with all the quests and the Daily Double mission as well as the daily quest for the zone she ended up getting 2 complete AA points as well as 5 platinum. . . in spite of winning not a single drop for anything. We did so well there that we followed it up with a quick Deep Forge run, so... 6 shards in 2 hours. Not bad.
Tried camping back to my SK but it crashed and locked my machine when I did that, so I rebooted and when I was back up and running I decided that I'd rather try a little variety and fired up Vanguard instead.
Yeah, I reinstalled the beast a week or so ago. Some other bloggers were talking about it and I got a little nostalgic. On my previous installation I'd tried the Isle of Dawn but didn't really care for it, so this time I just made a new Thestran Human Dread Knight and worked his starter area. It's only 2 chunks away from a relatively easy level 10 dungeon that drops pretty good blue gear (soulbound though, so I can't farm it on my level 14 paladin and mail it around). But as I was working it I was also chatting with a few people and they all encouraged me to give the IoD another shot, so.....
I actually logged in the druid I have there and she had so many quests in her journal that I just kinda went "um... no" and started a completely new character. Remembering from my beta days that Clerics were well loved, I started on of them. I decided I didn't want to craft or do diplomacy, so I completely ignored those "spheres" and only did the combat quests. It was like night and day from my earlier attempt with the druid. Clear idea of where to go at all times, nice focus, etc. Made it to the final dungeon and was doing all right (clerics kill slow, but they're hard to kill too) but accidentally bit off more mobs than I could chew and ended up respawned outside.
Went back again, figuring on being more careful this time and another cleric was in there trying to solo the place too. We joined up and I mostly tanked and she mostly healed and we ended up finishing all the combat quests together. It's kinda nice really -- as I recall it, the "regular game" doesn't really give you shoulder or head armor until level 20 or so, plus decent masks and jewelry are hard to find too, but the IoD quests fill every slot and with blue or yellow stuff too -- really nice for the level.
So there I am, getting ready to leave the island and head to Veskal's Exchange, since I'm told the URT quests there give the next "good armor" and give good leveling xp as well, but the general IoD chat has several experienced players on lowbie alts stating they *highly* recommend doing level 10 in all 3 spheres before leaving since it doesn't take long and you get far superior items on the island than you can find on the regular game in those levels.
All right, fine! I started the crafting and harvesting, but it was getting on toward 5 pm now and my wife got home and so we went out to dinner and a movie. Saw The Time Traveler's Wife and we both enjoyed it.
Next day I got crafting up to level 6-ish and found that a level 5 crafting quest gives an intermediate chest armor piece for adventuring which would have been really helpful in trying to do the final dungeon, so now I know for future to at least level crafting up to 5 at the same time as my adventuring. . . . Sunday I woke early and couldn't go back to sleep, so I logged in and eventually ended up getting level 10 crafter. The final quest has you fight a little ways in to the final dungeon and I didn't know where I was going, so I hooked up with a Dread Knight and a Sorceror and we pwned through the place. and I found out how to finish the last crafting quest to boot, so now I'm "ready" for future toons to come through the IoD.
I started Diplomacy now and I think I'm level 4, but frankly it's boring the crap out of me, so... not sure if I'll finish that. IIRC, my druid's level 8 diplomat so I may just log her in again and see if I can't finish it up on her instead to see if it's worth bothering with on the cleric.
I also started a new DK and also a sorceror on the IoD and got both to level 5. Not sure if I want to focus on the cleric or not. I'm not terribly impressed with it at level 10, actually, but people in chat say that most classes don't come into their own until about level 20 or so, so... I'll try to work it up to there and see how it goes. As it is, I love my paladin I have left over from the previous install, but she's a "mainland starter" also, and as such I'm thinking of starting a 2nd PLD on the island to see how the gear differences stack up. The "mainland pallie has found some pretty good stuff on the broker, after all, so I'm not really feeling undergeared... except I can't find a helmet or any decent shoulder pauldrons yet. . . .
I took a few screenies but forgot to send them to myself here where I can crop and brighten them, so... no pictures on this post.
And our computer stupidity for the day:
User calls in and says "I'm having an issue with my email."
No biggie, happens all the time. But then she tells me the issue -- She had some email in her inbox and she even just saw it this morning and has a hard copy of it, but now it's disappeared and she wants my help in finding it.
It's not in her deleted items, and hitting the "recover" option shows she hasn't deleted anything since last Thursday as far as the server's concerned, so that leaves us with: She moved it herself.
But no, she insists she didn't do anything to it.
Except she HAD to have moved it. No other option.
Did I mention she's got about 12 pst files and all of them are called "Personal Folders" and each has about 20+ different subfolders?
I showed her how to use Advanced Find and told her good luck. She was still inisisting she hadn't moved it, but.... emails don't randomly disappear from your inbox, especially when you "just saw it this morning."
User error. But will she admit it? Not a chance!
/facepalm!
There's another stupid one about incompatibilities of various security programs we have to use and Office 2007, but... I'm out of time and this is a wall of text now as it is, so..... ttfn.
And I picked up David Weber's latest book while there and am in process of reading it now. I'll tell you if it's as good as the 1st 2 in the series when I'm done. Not that anyone's reading and caring :P And then I even stopped off at the chiropractor on the way home too, since my back's been mostly good since my surgery last year, but has seemed to go downhill a bit this summer. I was pretty out of alignment -- right leg a half inch shorter than my left, even -- and I felt a lot better after leaving there. And I made it home before 10. Go me!
Started the laundry and launched in to EQ2. Was working my SK through the Lavastorm stuff in order to get to the end of the quest chain that will let me do the "solo shard" quest when the call went out "LFM for Anathema (DD)!" They had a tank and an illusionist, so my SK and Coercer were out, but they were happy to have my warlock, so Gotter Dammerung was logged in. 1st time in that zone for her, so what with all the quests and the Daily Double mission as well as the daily quest for the zone she ended up getting 2 complete AA points as well as 5 platinum. . . in spite of winning not a single drop for anything. We did so well there that we followed it up with a quick Deep Forge run, so... 6 shards in 2 hours. Not bad.
Tried camping back to my SK but it crashed and locked my machine when I did that, so I rebooted and when I was back up and running I decided that I'd rather try a little variety and fired up Vanguard instead.
Yeah, I reinstalled the beast a week or so ago. Some other bloggers were talking about it and I got a little nostalgic. On my previous installation I'd tried the Isle of Dawn but didn't really care for it, so this time I just made a new Thestran Human Dread Knight and worked his starter area. It's only 2 chunks away from a relatively easy level 10 dungeon that drops pretty good blue gear (soulbound though, so I can't farm it on my level 14 paladin and mail it around). But as I was working it I was also chatting with a few people and they all encouraged me to give the IoD another shot, so.....
I actually logged in the druid I have there and she had so many quests in her journal that I just kinda went "um... no" and started a completely new character. Remembering from my beta days that Clerics were well loved, I started on of them. I decided I didn't want to craft or do diplomacy, so I completely ignored those "spheres" and only did the combat quests. It was like night and day from my earlier attempt with the druid. Clear idea of where to go at all times, nice focus, etc. Made it to the final dungeon and was doing all right (clerics kill slow, but they're hard to kill too) but accidentally bit off more mobs than I could chew and ended up respawned outside.
Went back again, figuring on being more careful this time and another cleric was in there trying to solo the place too. We joined up and I mostly tanked and she mostly healed and we ended up finishing all the combat quests together. It's kinda nice really -- as I recall it, the "regular game" doesn't really give you shoulder or head armor until level 20 or so, plus decent masks and jewelry are hard to find too, but the IoD quests fill every slot and with blue or yellow stuff too -- really nice for the level.
So there I am, getting ready to leave the island and head to Veskal's Exchange, since I'm told the URT quests there give the next "good armor" and give good leveling xp as well, but the general IoD chat has several experienced players on lowbie alts stating they *highly* recommend doing level 10 in all 3 spheres before leaving since it doesn't take long and you get far superior items on the island than you can find on the regular game in those levels.
All right, fine! I started the crafting and harvesting, but it was getting on toward 5 pm now and my wife got home and so we went out to dinner and a movie. Saw The Time Traveler's Wife and we both enjoyed it.
Next day I got crafting up to level 6-ish and found that a level 5 crafting quest gives an intermediate chest armor piece for adventuring which would have been really helpful in trying to do the final dungeon, so now I know for future to at least level crafting up to 5 at the same time as my adventuring. . . . Sunday I woke early and couldn't go back to sleep, so I logged in and eventually ended up getting level 10 crafter. The final quest has you fight a little ways in to the final dungeon and I didn't know where I was going, so I hooked up with a Dread Knight and a Sorceror and we pwned through the place. and I found out how to finish the last crafting quest to boot, so now I'm "ready" for future toons to come through the IoD.
I started Diplomacy now and I think I'm level 4, but frankly it's boring the crap out of me, so... not sure if I'll finish that. IIRC, my druid's level 8 diplomat so I may just log her in again and see if I can't finish it up on her instead to see if it's worth bothering with on the cleric.
I also started a new DK and also a sorceror on the IoD and got both to level 5. Not sure if I want to focus on the cleric or not. I'm not terribly impressed with it at level 10, actually, but people in chat say that most classes don't come into their own until about level 20 or so, so... I'll try to work it up to there and see how it goes. As it is, I love my paladin I have left over from the previous install, but she's a "mainland starter" also, and as such I'm thinking of starting a 2nd PLD on the island to see how the gear differences stack up. The "mainland pallie has found some pretty good stuff on the broker, after all, so I'm not really feeling undergeared... except I can't find a helmet or any decent shoulder pauldrons yet. . . .
I took a few screenies but forgot to send them to myself here where I can crop and brighten them, so... no pictures on this post.
And our computer stupidity for the day:
User calls in and says "I'm having an issue with my email."
No biggie, happens all the time. But then she tells me the issue -- She had some email in her inbox and she even just saw it this morning and has a hard copy of it, but now it's disappeared and she wants my help in finding it.
It's not in her deleted items, and hitting the "recover" option shows she hasn't deleted anything since last Thursday as far as the server's concerned, so that leaves us with: She moved it herself.
But no, she insists she didn't do anything to it.
Except she HAD to have moved it. No other option.
Did I mention she's got about 12 pst files and all of them are called "Personal Folders" and each has about 20+ different subfolders?
I showed her how to use Advanced Find and told her good luck. She was still inisisting she hadn't moved it, but.... emails don't randomly disappear from your inbox, especially when you "just saw it this morning."
User error. But will she admit it? Not a chance!
/facepalm!
There's another stupid one about incompatibilities of various security programs we have to use and Office 2007, but... I'm out of time and this is a wall of text now as it is, so..... ttfn.
Tuesday, August 25, 2009
Thursday, August 20, 2009
/Facepalm
1st call this morning:
"My computer needs to run some updates. Can you log in with admin rights to run them?"
I remote in. I see a "Run Advertised Programs" window that indicates our SMS push went out last night like it was supposed to and updated about 6 background programs. I click the "Close" button. The caller realizes he should actually read what the thing says before calling the helpdesk and hangs up feeling foolish. I didn't use any sarcasm or anything, though I kinda wish I had, since this guy seems to call in every Thursday after our Wednesday night SMS push to ask us to run updates. . . .
My most recent call:
"I just got my computer back from you guys in IT and now I can't get to the internet, it just brings up this [company related] page."
I'm already facepalming at this point since this page is on the frelling internet. Yes, it's a new homepage for the Vista machines than from the XP machines, but c'mon!
So anyway, I tell him that the page is on the internet, so I don't understand why he's saying he can't get to the internet. I tell him to try google to see if he can get there. He tells me that it tells him page can't be displayed. Since I'm not really confident in this guy's ability to type a correct URL, I asked if he'd typed google.com or "just google." He said "Just google."
After he added the .com to the end I hear this shocked "Oh there it goes!"
Uh, dude? That's how you get ANYWHERE on the interwebz if you don't have a pre-provided link. It's reallllllllllly common. . . .
"My computer needs to run some updates. Can you log in with admin rights to run them?"
I remote in. I see a "Run Advertised Programs" window that indicates our SMS push went out last night like it was supposed to and updated about 6 background programs. I click the "Close" button. The caller realizes he should actually read what the thing says before calling the helpdesk and hangs up feeling foolish. I didn't use any sarcasm or anything, though I kinda wish I had, since this guy seems to call in every Thursday after our Wednesday night SMS push to ask us to run updates. . . .
My most recent call:
"I just got my computer back from you guys in IT and now I can't get to the internet, it just brings up this [company related] page."
I'm already facepalming at this point since this page is on the frelling internet. Yes, it's a new homepage for the Vista machines than from the XP machines, but c'mon!
So anyway, I tell him that the page is on the internet, so I don't understand why he's saying he can't get to the internet. I tell him to try google to see if he can get there. He tells me that it tells him page can't be displayed. Since I'm not really confident in this guy's ability to type a correct URL, I asked if he'd typed google.com or "just google." He said "Just google."
After he added the .com to the end I hear this shocked "Oh there it goes!"
Uh, dude? That's how you get ANYWHERE on the interwebz if you don't have a pre-provided link. It's reallllllllllly common. . . .
Tuesday, August 18, 2009
All kinds of stuff
Where to begin? This is what I get for not posting in a while, eh?
CCP announced DUST 514 at the EU Game Developer's Conference earlier today. Apparently to be console-only. I'm not real big on FPS games and my console is a PS1 (yes, *1*), so I'm not sure if this will be something I'll get into. But I may, since it looks pretty nice and I will admit that at my last job it was kinda fun to play 4 player free for alls in Halo on the Xbox. So.. we'll see.
Currently reading The Magicians and Mrs. Quent. It's all right, but nothing really that earth shaking. OSC reviewed it last year sometime and indicated he felt the author was kinda playing games with the style of writing, but he loved it all the same. I'm a little more ambiguous on it, but it's certainly engaging enough.
Glenn Reynolds of Instapundit finished This is Not a Game yesterday. He simply said he enjoyed it and that it felt similar to his own book. Not having read his book, I couldn't say, but I also agree that I enjoyed it. I love Walter Jon Williams, truth be told. He's been one of my favorite authors since high school and reading Voice of the Whirlwind and Hardwired. Huh. Looks like those 2 were re-released in the past couple of years. Kewl. He deserves to be read by lots of people. Lots and lots and lots of people!
I also recently finished The Gods of Amyrantha by Jennifer Fallon. Book 2 of 4 in the series. Apparently it's completely released in Australia, but still slowly making its way to the US. Another one that's been out for a while but only recently in the US is EVE: The Empyrean Age. It was all right, and a lot of the events in the books were sorta "played out" in the game, or at least in videos CCP made, so it was kinda easy to picture scenes in my head while reading that one.
In EQ2 my mystic is level 50 now, but I'm not really wanting to adventure with him much since I just ran through the 50's level content with the dirge. The dirge is 75 (I think I mentioned that before) and I'm not really looking forward to the last 5 levels on her either, though I know I will sooner or later. Before the next expansion in February, at any rate.
In EVE I'm training my 1st "higher than rank 3" skill to level 5 -- Advanced Weapon Upgrades, rank 6. I don't really *need* it right now -- I can fit ships just fine anymore -- but since I will eventually be wanting a Golem and/or Paladin and it's a prereq for them, plus it's the last thing I need for my "Core - Elite" certificate, and IRL is pretty busy right now so letting a skill burn for almost 25 days is more or less what the doctor ordered right now anyway. . . . it's ticking away, slowly but surely. Oddly enough, I've got 3 rank 2 skills in Engineering that I could be doing instead and they'd probably have more immediate effect upon my actual gameplay once I'm back in the game and they'd take the same amount of time as this 1 skill alone, but... I'm doing it anyway. If I eventually want into a Marauder-class ship, but won't train anything over a Rank 2 or 3, then I'll never get there since AWU is rank 6 and any of the battleship skills are rank 8. Of course I'll also need to train Torpedoes for a Golem and Large Energy Turrets for a Paladin. Fortunately, though... I have perfect capacitor skills now, finishing my shield skills is those 3 Engineering skills I mentioned, and I've got perfect (self) armor tank skills and will be perfecting my remote rep capabilities soon enough as well, so.... once I'm in a Marauder the defenses won't be a problem, at least. Too bad I'm only minimally competent with their weapon systems yet, eh?
For a change of pace, I also reinstalled Vanguard a couple of days ago. I'm trying out a Blood Mage this time. It felt kinda weak before level 4, but then got the "hurt them, heal me" spell and it's been smooth going since then. I started it in the high elf racial starting area since I'm most familiar with that one and I don't have to get level 10 crafting and diplomacy plus do a group quest in order to leave the newbie area. Don't get me wrong, their newbie island is really a nice chunk, but I don't like being locked onto it... unless they changed that requirement since it came out, anyway.
Biggest thing I'm not liking about the Blood Mage right now is that each level I get new spells I seem to get 4 or more, so trying to figure out where to put them on my hotbars and such is kinda interesting. The other thing is that the last time I tried the game I installed a custom UI and I remember liking it better, but currently I'm using the default UI and finding it less than stellar, but given my past history of uninstalling the game after a short time, I'm hesitant to take the time to install a new UI, get used to it, and then delete the game again, ya know? Especially since I barely even remember that I previously used a custom UI. As it is... I am questing merrily away, but think I need to run up into Leth Nurae and buy a horse. Running is so frelling sloooooooooooooow.
In the computer stupidities department....
Lady calls and says "I moved things around on my desk and now I can't print anymore!"
Various questions later we find out that she unplugged her printer from the wall and it has no power. She hadn't even LOOKED at the printer, just assumed it was a problem on her pc from moving it.
Next: Lady gets new PC with dual monitor setup, but complains she can't get her mouse to move on to the 2nd monitor. I remote in, right-click the desktop, hit personalize, display settings, click on monitor #2 and check the "use this as primary" box and voila! She's fixed!
Good gravy, I knew how to fix display issues when I was 16 and I hated windows then and still liked to use dos commands at the time. . . . Of course... on the one hand, I wish people'd be a little more proactive on fixing their own machines, yet when they do and mess it up worse then we complain that the know nothing users shouldn't be poking around on their machines, so.... guess I can't have it both ways, plus if they don't do that and then let me fix it then I have job security, right?
Still and all, I do kinda wish I could post some signs like this around here:
Too much?
CCP announced DUST 514 at the EU Game Developer's Conference earlier today. Apparently to be console-only. I'm not real big on FPS games and my console is a PS1 (yes, *1*), so I'm not sure if this will be something I'll get into. But I may, since it looks pretty nice and I will admit that at my last job it was kinda fun to play 4 player free for alls in Halo on the Xbox. So.. we'll see.
Currently reading The Magicians and Mrs. Quent. It's all right, but nothing really that earth shaking. OSC reviewed it last year sometime and indicated he felt the author was kinda playing games with the style of writing, but he loved it all the same. I'm a little more ambiguous on it, but it's certainly engaging enough.
Glenn Reynolds of Instapundit finished This is Not a Game yesterday. He simply said he enjoyed it and that it felt similar to his own book. Not having read his book, I couldn't say, but I also agree that I enjoyed it. I love Walter Jon Williams, truth be told. He's been one of my favorite authors since high school and reading Voice of the Whirlwind and Hardwired. Huh. Looks like those 2 were re-released in the past couple of years. Kewl. He deserves to be read by lots of people. Lots and lots and lots of people!
I also recently finished The Gods of Amyrantha by Jennifer Fallon. Book 2 of 4 in the series. Apparently it's completely released in Australia, but still slowly making its way to the US. Another one that's been out for a while but only recently in the US is EVE: The Empyrean Age. It was all right, and a lot of the events in the books were sorta "played out" in the game, or at least in videos CCP made, so it was kinda easy to picture scenes in my head while reading that one.
In EQ2 my mystic is level 50 now, but I'm not really wanting to adventure with him much since I just ran through the 50's level content with the dirge. The dirge is 75 (I think I mentioned that before) and I'm not really looking forward to the last 5 levels on her either, though I know I will sooner or later. Before the next expansion in February, at any rate.
In EVE I'm training my 1st "higher than rank 3" skill to level 5 -- Advanced Weapon Upgrades, rank 6. I don't really *need* it right now -- I can fit ships just fine anymore -- but since I will eventually be wanting a Golem and/or Paladin and it's a prereq for them, plus it's the last thing I need for my "Core - Elite" certificate, and IRL is pretty busy right now so letting a skill burn for almost 25 days is more or less what the doctor ordered right now anyway. . . . it's ticking away, slowly but surely. Oddly enough, I've got 3 rank 2 skills in Engineering that I could be doing instead and they'd probably have more immediate effect upon my actual gameplay once I'm back in the game and they'd take the same amount of time as this 1 skill alone, but... I'm doing it anyway. If I eventually want into a Marauder-class ship, but won't train anything over a Rank 2 or 3, then I'll never get there since AWU is rank 6 and any of the battleship skills are rank 8. Of course I'll also need to train Torpedoes for a Golem and Large Energy Turrets for a Paladin. Fortunately, though... I have perfect capacitor skills now, finishing my shield skills is those 3 Engineering skills I mentioned, and I've got perfect (self) armor tank skills and will be perfecting my remote rep capabilities soon enough as well, so.... once I'm in a Marauder the defenses won't be a problem, at least. Too bad I'm only minimally competent with their weapon systems yet, eh?
For a change of pace, I also reinstalled Vanguard a couple of days ago. I'm trying out a Blood Mage this time. It felt kinda weak before level 4, but then got the "hurt them, heal me" spell and it's been smooth going since then. I started it in the high elf racial starting area since I'm most familiar with that one and I don't have to get level 10 crafting and diplomacy plus do a group quest in order to leave the newbie area. Don't get me wrong, their newbie island is really a nice chunk, but I don't like being locked onto it... unless they changed that requirement since it came out, anyway.
Biggest thing I'm not liking about the Blood Mage right now is that each level I get new spells I seem to get 4 or more, so trying to figure out where to put them on my hotbars and such is kinda interesting. The other thing is that the last time I tried the game I installed a custom UI and I remember liking it better, but currently I'm using the default UI and finding it less than stellar, but given my past history of uninstalling the game after a short time, I'm hesitant to take the time to install a new UI, get used to it, and then delete the game again, ya know? Especially since I barely even remember that I previously used a custom UI. As it is... I am questing merrily away, but think I need to run up into Leth Nurae and buy a horse. Running is so frelling sloooooooooooooow.
In the computer stupidities department....
Lady calls and says "I moved things around on my desk and now I can't print anymore!"
Various questions later we find out that she unplugged her printer from the wall and it has no power. She hadn't even LOOKED at the printer, just assumed it was a problem on her pc from moving it.
Next: Lady gets new PC with dual monitor setup, but complains she can't get her mouse to move on to the 2nd monitor. I remote in, right-click the desktop, hit personalize, display settings, click on monitor #2 and check the "use this as primary" box and voila! She's fixed!
Good gravy, I knew how to fix display issues when I was 16 and I hated windows then and still liked to use dos commands at the time. . . . Of course... on the one hand, I wish people'd be a little more proactive on fixing their own machines, yet when they do and mess it up worse then we complain that the know nothing users shouldn't be poking around on their machines, so.... guess I can't have it both ways, plus if they don't do that and then let me fix it then I have job security, right?
Still and all, I do kinda wish I could post some signs like this around here:
Too much?
Tuesday, August 11, 2009
Games and other Computer Silliness
It's been an interesting weekend. To me, anyway ;-)
So far as games go... I got my dirge to level 75 in EQ2, but I'm a little bored of the high end content right now, so I went back to work more on my Mystic. He's my lowest level character at 46. The xp curve is, IMO, way too fast in the lower levels anymore and yet I'm loathe to turn off the combat xp either, even though killing green heroic mobs was netting me 1.7% xp per kill. 2 arrow greens were netting 1.3% and tbh I didn't pay attention to the 1 arrow or no arrow ones. I got a few more AA's and am now nearly up t the full 51 needed to "complete" the melee spec. The last 2 points to go are a minor damage upgrade to one of my CA's and the other takes the additional damage proc from 20% chance to 25%. I've got the "Chieftan" endline and it seem I'm usually in the "rage state" when soloing anymore and thus have +35 haste and 35% double attack more or less all the time.
It's kind of odd to me though.... I know the mystic is different from the inquisitor, and yet when I play I seem to keep thinking that since they're both melee priests there should be more similarities. As an example, I'm completely used to the quizzie's "steadfast" ability which prevents interrupts, so when trying to heal myself when I have 4 heroic mobs pounding on me and getting interrupted was . . .not really a surprise so much as "unexpectedly annoying." And why it should be unexpected when the biggest reason I stopped playing my fury was due to the interrupts (and furies cast MUCH faster than mystics) is beyond me.
So anyway... my mystic is now level 49 with 49 AA's. Still have to finish Steamfont Mountains and I haven't even looked at Everfrost or Lavastorm yet. I'm thinking that once I get to those zones I will shut off the combat xp and see what I get from simply questing. Since this is my only "good" healer I've been doing the Tunare deity, but I'm thinking of swapping him over to Rodcet Nife instead. Time will tell on that. I still have to play my 80's to fund everything, ya know?
So far as EVE goes, I've run a mission or 2, sold off the loot I've accumulated over the past month or so in Jita and have been practicing scanning as well. I haven't found anymore sites in hisec, only wormholes. I've gone in and scanned down sites in the interior, but since they only take 3-5 minutes to find and the WH's all have had other ships and POS's in them, I haven't felt like it would really be worthwhile to come back in a combat ship and try to solo the sites, since I'd be easily scanned out myself. I have been surprised though ... each WH I've gone through has had an afk pilot in a frigate sitting on the 0.0 side. In 1 WH there was a Curse that went though at the same time as I did, and he killed the frig sitting there and podded the pilot as well, in the other I saw no active ships, and I'll admit I was tempted to come back in a combat vessel just to get that frig kill, but by the same token.... where's the fun in popping an afk ship?
Yes, I just said that -- my goal in EVE isn't just to get killmails... it's to have fun, and killing an afk ship isn't fun, so I didn't do it.
In the computer world.... just had a call with a guy complaining his computer doesn't work. Asked him what the error was and instead of answering the question he simply kept asking if I wanted his barcode (used to ID the thing so I can remote into it). I told him that no, I didn't want the barcode yet, I wanted to know the error. Took 4 tries before he finally told me the error -- his computer is locked by someone else.
I told him to reboot it. /rolleyes
Or last night ... it's 5:00 and we get off at 5:20, but with end of day stuff and I have to take the van we use for onsite stuff back to the garage and stuff, so I normally get off the phone at 5:00, but just as I'm hitting the button to log off the phone it rings.... so I answer it. Lady says "I need to install some drivers for my new firewire card.
People..... at the end of the day, you do NOT call the helpdesk and ask to install ANYTHING! Especially when the answer to the question "Okay, do you have the card installed already?" is "no."
Because it won't work. Hardware 1st, then software.
But she didn't believe me, so I ended up having to remote in, log in with my admin rights and show her "Oh look, installation failed due to NO HARDWARE ON THE SYSTEM NEEDS THE STUFF!!!!!!!!" Complete waste of everyone's time. I did manage to get our van back to the garage before closing, at least, but it was a near thing.
I also had a fun call yesterday from the guy who "knew" he'd saved a file he'd been working on for hours in the default temp folder for email attachments, and since we're locked down hard here he couldn't get to that folder in order to open the file again in order to save it somewhere else. Of course he'd saved it in his My Documents folder which he has complete access to. . . . .
Sometimes ya just wanna reach through the phone and strangle them, ya know?
So far as games go... I got my dirge to level 75 in EQ2, but I'm a little bored of the high end content right now, so I went back to work more on my Mystic. He's my lowest level character at 46. The xp curve is, IMO, way too fast in the lower levels anymore and yet I'm loathe to turn off the combat xp either, even though killing green heroic mobs was netting me 1.7% xp per kill. 2 arrow greens were netting 1.3% and tbh I didn't pay attention to the 1 arrow or no arrow ones. I got a few more AA's and am now nearly up t the full 51 needed to "complete" the melee spec. The last 2 points to go are a minor damage upgrade to one of my CA's and the other takes the additional damage proc from 20% chance to 25%. I've got the "Chieftan" endline and it seem I'm usually in the "rage state" when soloing anymore and thus have +35 haste and 35% double attack more or less all the time.
It's kind of odd to me though.... I know the mystic is different from the inquisitor, and yet when I play I seem to keep thinking that since they're both melee priests there should be more similarities. As an example, I'm completely used to the quizzie's "steadfast" ability which prevents interrupts, so when trying to heal myself when I have 4 heroic mobs pounding on me and getting interrupted was . . .not really a surprise so much as "unexpectedly annoying." And why it should be unexpected when the biggest reason I stopped playing my fury was due to the interrupts (and furies cast MUCH faster than mystics) is beyond me.
So anyway... my mystic is now level 49 with 49 AA's. Still have to finish Steamfont Mountains and I haven't even looked at Everfrost or Lavastorm yet. I'm thinking that once I get to those zones I will shut off the combat xp and see what I get from simply questing. Since this is my only "good" healer I've been doing the Tunare deity, but I'm thinking of swapping him over to Rodcet Nife instead. Time will tell on that. I still have to play my 80's to fund everything, ya know?
So far as EVE goes, I've run a mission or 2, sold off the loot I've accumulated over the past month or so in Jita and have been practicing scanning as well. I haven't found anymore sites in hisec, only wormholes. I've gone in and scanned down sites in the interior, but since they only take 3-5 minutes to find and the WH's all have had other ships and POS's in them, I haven't felt like it would really be worthwhile to come back in a combat ship and try to solo the sites, since I'd be easily scanned out myself. I have been surprised though ... each WH I've gone through has had an afk pilot in a frigate sitting on the 0.0 side. In 1 WH there was a Curse that went though at the same time as I did, and he killed the frig sitting there and podded the pilot as well, in the other I saw no active ships, and I'll admit I was tempted to come back in a combat vessel just to get that frig kill, but by the same token.... where's the fun in popping an afk ship?
Yes, I just said that -- my goal in EVE isn't just to get killmails... it's to have fun, and killing an afk ship isn't fun, so I didn't do it.
In the computer world.... just had a call with a guy complaining his computer doesn't work. Asked him what the error was and instead of answering the question he simply kept asking if I wanted his barcode (used to ID the thing so I can remote into it). I told him that no, I didn't want the barcode yet, I wanted to know the error. Took 4 tries before he finally told me the error -- his computer is locked by someone else.
I told him to reboot it. /rolleyes
Or last night ... it's 5:00 and we get off at 5:20, but with end of day stuff and I have to take the van we use for onsite stuff back to the garage and stuff, so I normally get off the phone at 5:00, but just as I'm hitting the button to log off the phone it rings.... so I answer it. Lady says "I need to install some drivers for my new firewire card.
People..... at the end of the day, you do NOT call the helpdesk and ask to install ANYTHING! Especially when the answer to the question "Okay, do you have the card installed already?" is "no."
Because it won't work. Hardware 1st, then software.
But she didn't believe me, so I ended up having to remote in, log in with my admin rights and show her "Oh look, installation failed due to NO HARDWARE ON THE SYSTEM NEEDS THE STUFF!!!!!!!!" Complete waste of everyone's time. I did manage to get our van back to the garage before closing, at least, but it was a near thing.
I also had a fun call yesterday from the guy who "knew" he'd saved a file he'd been working on for hours in the default temp folder for email attachments, and since we're locked down hard here he couldn't get to that folder in order to open the file again in order to save it somewhere else. Of course he'd saved it in his My Documents folder which he has complete access to. . . . .
Sometimes ya just wanna reach through the phone and strangle them, ya know?
Wednesday, July 29, 2009
Warbreaker
I finished reading Brandon Sanderson's Warbreaker last night. Stayed up WAY too late, and also didn't sleep on the van coming or going to/from work yesterday in favor of reading it instead. As a result, I'm dog tired here, but it was worth it.
How's that for a crappy review? ;-)
One of my aunts died of cancer this week. Her funeral is on Friday about a 3 hour drive away. We've decided to leave early Friday morning and then spend the night there, then return on Saturday, though in theory we could go up for the funeral, visit with family for a couple of hours and come back the same day. Or we could go about 2 hours farther along to my family's cabin. We could, that is, if my cousin weren't getting married today and he and his new bride are using the cabin for their honeymoon (other side of family from the aunt who died). That could be a tad bit awkward. As it is, reception for him tonight, packing for the trip tomorrow night, and then a weekend in Idaho. Not the original plan, but... life throws curveballs.
Today's computer story is that a lady called with a laundry list of everything that's been wrong with her computer over hte last few days, though she's not currently having any trouble. The list was every email, print server, and network outage we've had all week so far. Since she's not having trouble now, why'd she call? Who knows?
Okay, one more. We finally pushed out Adobe Reader 9 since it's been approved by the higher-ups as safe for our network. As a result, anyone using it today gets a new EULA screen they have to click accept on. Had a lady call asking us to complete the installation with our admin rights. Is it REALLY so hard to read what the screen says?
That's almost as bad as a person at a former job who called, said her computer was giving her "some error" and when I asked her to read it to me, she read the 1st sentence, then started saying "blah blah blah blah blah." I asked her to actually READ the error and not give me her commentary on what it meant to her (yeah, I could be blunt with users) and so she read a 2nd sentence and again started wit hthe "blah blahs." So I very succinctly told her that while I'm aware the error means nothing to her, it means something to me and tells me exactly what's wrong and enables me to fix her pc. Even with that, it still took nearly 5 minutes to get her to actually read the thing to me. Quick google search and about 2 minutes later she was up and running again.
Help me, help you. If you want me to remote in to your pc in order to install something with my admin rights, I need your computer name. Have it ready when you call. And don't touch anything you don't need to. I run my pc at home very clean -- no bloatware. It never has ANY trouble, yet invariably if a family member is visiting and asks if s/he can check her email, within 5 minutes I'm being told that my computer either doesn't work right or is broken. And then after the visit is over I get to go uninstall all the stinking toolbars, messenger services, and other tsr's they installed in their 20 minutes of computer use. And don't get me started on the time one of them filled my hard drive with about 400 massively oversized pictures from her camera that she uploaded without asking if she could or even telling me about them -- I found them after she left and was looking around for why my performance had degraded so badly.
Yeah, I deleted them. And 6 weeks later I got a phone call asking if I could email them to her. I told her that they didn't exist anymore and if she wanted me to keep them for her she should have told me what she was using my computer for. I would have gladly burned them on a dvd for her before I deleted them, but since they were just kinda sitting there, I'd assumed she'd only uploaded them in order to view them, and that it hadn't occurred to me she'd been cleaning space on her camera.
Anyway, I'm just rambling now. I've been imaging old old old boxes for another department that wants to have some machines available for people to check their email on, and since we are now mandated that anything we image must use Vista with the current security protocols, well... let's just say it's slooooooooooow, and 1 box was simply too old. It wouldn't take Vista. The 2 HP boxes weren't terrible on their speed, though they were so dusty before I blew them out that it's a wonder they hadn't caught on fire. The Dell I'm working on right now has decent-ish specs, but it's still taking forever to do any of the commands I enter. Ah well, it's just an email machine, right? Still and all... 1 more box to go, but while I can get it started tonight since this one i'm working on is about 98% done, I doubt I'll finish the last one. Such is life.
How's that for a crappy review? ;-)
One of my aunts died of cancer this week. Her funeral is on Friday about a 3 hour drive away. We've decided to leave early Friday morning and then spend the night there, then return on Saturday, though in theory we could go up for the funeral, visit with family for a couple of hours and come back the same day. Or we could go about 2 hours farther along to my family's cabin. We could, that is, if my cousin weren't getting married today and he and his new bride are using the cabin for their honeymoon (other side of family from the aunt who died). That could be a tad bit awkward. As it is, reception for him tonight, packing for the trip tomorrow night, and then a weekend in Idaho. Not the original plan, but... life throws curveballs.
Today's computer story is that a lady called with a laundry list of everything that's been wrong with her computer over hte last few days, though she's not currently having any trouble. The list was every email, print server, and network outage we've had all week so far. Since she's not having trouble now, why'd she call? Who knows?
Okay, one more. We finally pushed out Adobe Reader 9 since it's been approved by the higher-ups as safe for our network. As a result, anyone using it today gets a new EULA screen they have to click accept on. Had a lady call asking us to complete the installation with our admin rights. Is it REALLY so hard to read what the screen says?
That's almost as bad as a person at a former job who called, said her computer was giving her "some error" and when I asked her to read it to me, she read the 1st sentence, then started saying "blah blah blah blah blah." I asked her to actually READ the error and not give me her commentary on what it meant to her (yeah, I could be blunt with users) and so she read a 2nd sentence and again started wit hthe "blah blahs." So I very succinctly told her that while I'm aware the error means nothing to her, it means something to me and tells me exactly what's wrong and enables me to fix her pc. Even with that, it still took nearly 5 minutes to get her to actually read the thing to me. Quick google search and about 2 minutes later she was up and running again.
Help me, help you. If you want me to remote in to your pc in order to install something with my admin rights, I need your computer name. Have it ready when you call. And don't touch anything you don't need to. I run my pc at home very clean -- no bloatware. It never has ANY trouble, yet invariably if a family member is visiting and asks if s/he can check her email, within 5 minutes I'm being told that my computer either doesn't work right or is broken. And then after the visit is over I get to go uninstall all the stinking toolbars, messenger services, and other tsr's they installed in their 20 minutes of computer use. And don't get me started on the time one of them filled my hard drive with about 400 massively oversized pictures from her camera that she uploaded without asking if she could or even telling me about them -- I found them after she left and was looking around for why my performance had degraded so badly.
Yeah, I deleted them. And 6 weeks later I got a phone call asking if I could email them to her. I told her that they didn't exist anymore and if she wanted me to keep them for her she should have told me what she was using my computer for. I would have gladly burned them on a dvd for her before I deleted them, but since they were just kinda sitting there, I'd assumed she'd only uploaded them in order to view them, and that it hadn't occurred to me she'd been cleaning space on her camera.
Anyway, I'm just rambling now. I've been imaging old old old boxes for another department that wants to have some machines available for people to check their email on, and since we are now mandated that anything we image must use Vista with the current security protocols, well... let's just say it's slooooooooooow, and 1 box was simply too old. It wouldn't take Vista. The 2 HP boxes weren't terrible on their speed, though they were so dusty before I blew them out that it's a wonder they hadn't caught on fire. The Dell I'm working on right now has decent-ish specs, but it's still taking forever to do any of the commands I enter. Ah well, it's just an email machine, right? Still and all... 1 more box to go, but while I can get it started tonight since this one i'm working on is about 98% done, I doubt I'll finish the last one. Such is life.
Monday, July 27, 2009
Happy Monday!
Print server's down again, people with Vista machines can't access certain parts of the LAN, people still like to create new pst files for Outlook and then call to complain that "none of my email is in it" making it so I get to go search their hard drives and personal network shares for the actual pst they wanted to connect to. . . .
Another typical day at work ;)
Weekend was pretty good. Had a BBQ at my sister's place Friday evening, my daughter got back from Girl Scout camp on Saturday, started reading Brandon Sanderson's Warbreaker and it's pretty good so far. Maybe not as good as Mistborn, but still quite engaging.
Saw G-Force over the weekend also. The kids loved it, and I thought it was fun enough as a diversion fora couple of hours. We also rented a few dvd's -- Inkheart, City of Ember, and Beverly Hills Chihuahua. The kids loved them all, but I'll admit I fell asleep during Ember and wasn't in the room when they watched Inkheart.
So, there are the movie reviews from my perspective ;-)
On the gaming front, I managed to run a few quests on the dirge in Fens, but not many... not even enough to gain an AA point. I think I got maybe 10% of an adventure level was all.
I did WC4 in EVE, though. Easy peasy once you know the aggro mechanics. Got the lovely bounties and filled the Salvacane up, in spite of accidentally deleting the bookmark for the final room. all those BS wrecks. . gone. . . :-( Even so.. full hold in the 'Cane, good salvage and over 20 million isk in bounties. Practiced scanning a bit more, but I'm still not very good at it. It will come, though. as it is -- 38 more hours and I'm "done" with all the training I want to do in the Electronics skill section. It'll be close to 5.2 million SP in the section, so I've done quite a bit of training there, but it will be worth it down the line, methinks.
Next section on the chopping block is Engineering. It will take about 6 weeks, but that's mostly due to actually training a bunch of skills to 5. Or I could finish getting all my currently known Spaceship Command skills up to 4, but that will take the same 6 weeks, and only be marginal upgrade in capability of a few ships that I don't fly often, so... less worth it. I could also look at command ships, but I'm 72+ days out of any of them. Oddly enough, that's about as far as I was back when I 1st started thinking it might be nice to fly one. I've taken maybe 20 days off the total, but focused a lot more on general support skills useful to any ship I will fly. Or I could spend a little over 4 weeks getting the last of my "base" weapon certifitcates to "Standard" also.
So much to do, and it takes so long to train. . . .
Another typical day at work ;)
Weekend was pretty good. Had a BBQ at my sister's place Friday evening, my daughter got back from Girl Scout camp on Saturday, started reading Brandon Sanderson's Warbreaker and it's pretty good so far. Maybe not as good as Mistborn, but still quite engaging.
Saw G-Force over the weekend also. The kids loved it, and I thought it was fun enough as a diversion fora couple of hours. We also rented a few dvd's -- Inkheart, City of Ember, and Beverly Hills Chihuahua. The kids loved them all, but I'll admit I fell asleep during Ember and wasn't in the room when they watched Inkheart.
So, there are the movie reviews from my perspective ;-)
On the gaming front, I managed to run a few quests on the dirge in Fens, but not many... not even enough to gain an AA point. I think I got maybe 10% of an adventure level was all.
I did WC4 in EVE, though. Easy peasy once you know the aggro mechanics. Got the lovely bounties and filled the Salvacane up, in spite of accidentally deleting the bookmark for the final room. all those BS wrecks. . gone. . . :-( Even so.. full hold in the 'Cane, good salvage and over 20 million isk in bounties. Practiced scanning a bit more, but I'm still not very good at it. It will come, though. as it is -- 38 more hours and I'm "done" with all the training I want to do in the Electronics skill section. It'll be close to 5.2 million SP in the section, so I've done quite a bit of training there, but it will be worth it down the line, methinks.
Next section on the chopping block is Engineering. It will take about 6 weeks, but that's mostly due to actually training a bunch of skills to 5. Or I could finish getting all my currently known Spaceship Command skills up to 4, but that will take the same 6 weeks, and only be marginal upgrade in capability of a few ships that I don't fly often, so... less worth it. I could also look at command ships, but I'm 72+ days out of any of them. Oddly enough, that's about as far as I was back when I 1st started thinking it might be nice to fly one. I've taken maybe 20 days off the total, but focused a lot more on general support skills useful to any ship I will fly. Or I could spend a little over 4 weeks getting the last of my "base" weapon certifitcates to "Standard" also.
So much to do, and it takes so long to train. . . .
Tuesday, July 14, 2009
Servers and whitelists and vidcards, oh my!
Work's been interesting the past couple of days. The batch of PC's that we use here on the service desk all came with refurbished FireGL 7200 ATI video cards. And they all run hot. And they all fail, and rather spectacularly when they do. And when Dell sends replacements, they don't always work either, since they're refurbished too.
This weekend was apparently my computer's turn to futz out. It's had some difficulties since I've been using it, but the occasional reboot and avoiding watching wmv files in the media player made it easy enough to not have trouble..... but the AC went out over the weekend, so it was over 90 degrees in here when we got in on Monday, and my vidcard was already more or less fried as a result.
We got a 7600 a few months ago for a different pc, but it's still sitting on the workbench since it didn't really work there. We popped that into mine to see if maybe that pc didn't like it or something, but since it's a different card I hadda get the new drivers for it from the ATI website. Installed those and got a lovely BSOD saying that my video drivers were caught in an infinite loop. Boot to safe mode, revert the driver and blah blah blah. It owuld run on an older driver, but no matter which driver I had on the machine it had nasty vertial green bars at all times, sometimes sideways line of pixellation, often random patterns of green dots in the background. Meh. I put the old card back in, and while it worked at 1st, once it heated up it began locking up.
On the bright side, I managed to get Dell's online customer service to agree to ship a replacement card. We have to do it that way in order to have a transcript of the interaction with Dell, in case you wonder. But my pc was still unusable, usually locking up while still "applying computer settings" during the boot process.
So.... off I went digging on the shelf and found an old vidcard with a DVI and a VGA output on it. another guy here said he used to use that card on his PC before we got the newer workstations with the 7200's.
Slapped that puppy in, but again. . .no driver, and looking at the card itself it wasn't labeled in any way. Fortunately the basic driver allowed me to be able to use the pc to the point I could open a command prompt and enter the debugger to access the video memory so it would tell me what kind of card it was. ATI 300XT, in case you wonder.
so... off to download more drivers, this time ATI's "all in one legacy driver set." Oooooooooo. Once installed I was able to activate the vga port on it to allow myself use of 2 monitors again, at least. And I even have my old resolution back too, though it doesn't seem to like my background image anymore. Still and all.... makes the thing usable again until the new card arrives tomorrow.
And then my TL drops another pc from upstairs on me.. reporting the same problems, etc.
Yup, it's a bad FireGL7200 card again. We know it, but... have to do due dilligence on it. That machine now has the latest drivers, updated bios, etc. And it still gives a BSOD saying there's a problem with the card or its drivers any time I do anyhting remotely graphics intensive.
New card's on the way for that one now too.
The one on the workbench....since this is supposeldy a new card as of April, Dell won't send a replacement until we can test one of the "known good" new cards in that machine... nevermind that the same problems follow the card from machine to machine and it failed most of its video diagnostics. . . . . .
Print server's been up and down several times since last Thursday. always a nice call generator: "I can't print!"
Our whole business unit had lost internet connection this morning as well. Cause was found to be a DNS white list put into effect last night by the main office that blocked all of our external ports. Oops! They reverted to the old filters and are "investigating the issue" now. and obviously I have internet back or I wouldn't be posting this, no?
Haven't actually had too many "stupid stories" today. A couple of people too blind to see the box that says "click here to run the ActiveX control" that pops down from the toolbar, but other than that... mostly people complaining they can't print or access the internet. Gotta love MUI's, no?
Beyond that.... not too much to report from my gaming over the weekend becuz I didn't do much. I did get my dirge to level 73 in EQ2, but in EVE the missions I looked at getting from my agent were all crappy, so I just declined a long string of them. I'm really kinda killing time until I can go into a wormhole with a battlecruiser outfitted with hacking and codebreaking modules, and. . . .less than 2 hours to go on Survey 5 so that I can train Archaeology to use a codebreaker. I've been able to hack for a while, but never have actually done it before. In a couple of days I may have some wormhole stories to tell. I hope so, anyway. That sounds more exciting than mission running.
Okay, actually I did 1 more thing in EQ2, now that I think about it. Tipa at WestKarana.com posted about a nice "appearance only" armor from the Station Cash store in EQ2 and when I looked at it, I *had* to have it for my ShadowKnight. So yes, I finally popped my Station Cash cherry:
I'll admit that the nose hole in the helmet leaves me a little cold, but hey... that's what the /showhelm command is for, right?
Yes, that *is* a High Elf SK. One of the 1st, actually -- created 4 or 5 days after the game launched. I like to try to break stereotypes here and there, and it seemed every high elf was going the "priest -> cleric -> templar" route at the time, so I broke the mold and made a fighter and then went evil. Admittedly, the character was initially intended to be a cleric, but once I hit level 3 and had to choose my archetype I decided I didn't want to be "normal." But then... who does?
I will admit, at level 19 I ran back through the (at the time REALLY scary) Nektulos Forest zone in order to be in Antonica when I dinged 20. I was tanking for a scarecrow grind group and when I hit 20 everyone thought I was going to be a paladin. As a result, the groupchat messages of "Gratz!" and all that quickly gave way to shocked cries of "SK? WTH?!?!?!?!?" That was a lot of fun, actually.
TBH, I kinda miss those scarecrows. . . . .
This weekend was apparently my computer's turn to futz out. It's had some difficulties since I've been using it, but the occasional reboot and avoiding watching wmv files in the media player made it easy enough to not have trouble..... but the AC went out over the weekend, so it was over 90 degrees in here when we got in on Monday, and my vidcard was already more or less fried as a result.
We got a 7600 a few months ago for a different pc, but it's still sitting on the workbench since it didn't really work there. We popped that into mine to see if maybe that pc didn't like it or something, but since it's a different card I hadda get the new drivers for it from the ATI website. Installed those and got a lovely BSOD saying that my video drivers were caught in an infinite loop. Boot to safe mode, revert the driver and blah blah blah. It owuld run on an older driver, but no matter which driver I had on the machine it had nasty vertial green bars at all times, sometimes sideways line of pixellation, often random patterns of green dots in the background. Meh. I put the old card back in, and while it worked at 1st, once it heated up it began locking up.
On the bright side, I managed to get Dell's online customer service to agree to ship a replacement card. We have to do it that way in order to have a transcript of the interaction with Dell, in case you wonder. But my pc was still unusable, usually locking up while still "applying computer settings" during the boot process.
So.... off I went digging on the shelf and found an old vidcard with a DVI and a VGA output on it. another guy here said he used to use that card on his PC before we got the newer workstations with the 7200's.
Slapped that puppy in, but again. . .no driver, and looking at the card itself it wasn't labeled in any way. Fortunately the basic driver allowed me to be able to use the pc to the point I could open a command prompt and enter the debugger to access the video memory so it would tell me what kind of card it was. ATI 300XT, in case you wonder.
so... off to download more drivers, this time ATI's "all in one legacy driver set." Oooooooooo. Once installed I was able to activate the vga port on it to allow myself use of 2 monitors again, at least. And I even have my old resolution back too, though it doesn't seem to like my background image anymore. Still and all.... makes the thing usable again until the new card arrives tomorrow.
And then my TL drops another pc from upstairs on me.. reporting the same problems, etc.
Yup, it's a bad FireGL7200 card again. We know it, but... have to do due dilligence on it. That machine now has the latest drivers, updated bios, etc. And it still gives a BSOD saying there's a problem with the card or its drivers any time I do anyhting remotely graphics intensive.
New card's on the way for that one now too.
The one on the workbench....since this is supposeldy a new card as of April, Dell won't send a replacement until we can test one of the "known good" new cards in that machine... nevermind that the same problems follow the card from machine to machine and it failed most of its video diagnostics. . . . . .
Print server's been up and down several times since last Thursday. always a nice call generator: "I can't print!"
Our whole business unit had lost internet connection this morning as well. Cause was found to be a DNS white list put into effect last night by the main office that blocked all of our external ports. Oops! They reverted to the old filters and are "investigating the issue" now. and obviously I have internet back or I wouldn't be posting this, no?
Haven't actually had too many "stupid stories" today. A couple of people too blind to see the box that says "click here to run the ActiveX control" that pops down from the toolbar, but other than that... mostly people complaining they can't print or access the internet. Gotta love MUI's, no?
Beyond that.... not too much to report from my gaming over the weekend becuz I didn't do much. I did get my dirge to level 73 in EQ2, but in EVE the missions I looked at getting from my agent were all crappy, so I just declined a long string of them. I'm really kinda killing time until I can go into a wormhole with a battlecruiser outfitted with hacking and codebreaking modules, and. . . .less than 2 hours to go on Survey 5 so that I can train Archaeology to use a codebreaker. I've been able to hack for a while, but never have actually done it before. In a couple of days I may have some wormhole stories to tell. I hope so, anyway. That sounds more exciting than mission running.
Okay, actually I did 1 more thing in EQ2, now that I think about it. Tipa at WestKarana.com posted about a nice "appearance only" armor from the Station Cash store in EQ2 and when I looked at it, I *had* to have it for my ShadowKnight. So yes, I finally popped my Station Cash cherry:
Yes, that *is* a High Elf SK. One of the 1st, actually -- created 4 or 5 days after the game launched. I like to try to break stereotypes here and there, and it seemed every high elf was going the "priest -> cleric -> templar" route at the time, so I broke the mold and made a fighter and then went evil. Admittedly, the character was initially intended to be a cleric, but once I hit level 3 and had to choose my archetype I decided I didn't want to be "normal." But then... who does?
I will admit, at level 19 I ran back through the (at the time REALLY scary) Nektulos Forest zone in order to be in Antonica when I dinged 20. I was tanking for a scarecrow grind group and when I hit 20 everyone thought I was going to be a paladin. As a result, the groupchat messages of "Gratz!" and all that quickly gave way to shocked cries of "SK? WTH?!?!?!?!?" That was a lot of fun, actually.
TBH, I kinda miss those scarecrows. . . . .
Tuesday, June 30, 2009
1st post (finally, right?)
Okay, so I only opened this blog so I would have a blogger profile so I could comment on friends' blogs. Never really had the desire to post or anything. Never really felt I had anything to say. still don't, really, but the past couple of days at work have had several shall we say interesting things going on.
And by "interesting" I mean "bang your head on the desk stupid."
For those who don't know me, I work on a help desk, providing computer support to all and sundry who call in. We also help with printers, fix hardware, and are currently in process of deploying Vista out to all our supported seats. Yeah, we tried to get management to skip it and just go to Win7 once it's released, but. . .well. . . untested software coming out and all that, it's doubtful mgmt will look at it until SP1 is released.
And now I'm rambling. I do that.
Anyway.... here are some highlights of the past few days:
Sadly, he's not the 1st, nor even the worst offender. I think my favorite was the guy who went to the google site and then searched for bing.com from it.
There was the guy today having trouble with a certain website (which we don't support since, well, it's a website). The site has a helpdesk number prominently displayed on its main page for issues using the site. He called me instead.
We're experiencing a network outage right now. Many calls are coming in to report that email can't be accessed and suchlike. This is a typical exchange:
As to the "classics" -- yes, I HAVE had the call where the person was complaining they couldn't turn on the computer during a power outage. It gets better: When I explained that computers need power to run, the rejoinder was "But the phones work!"
I also am rather fond of this one:
Anyway, I think this is rambling enough for one day, so... adios and all that stuff.
And by "interesting" I mean "bang your head on the desk stupid."
For those who don't know me, I work on a help desk, providing computer support to all and sundry who call in. We also help with printers, fix hardware, and are currently in process of deploying Vista out to all our supported seats. Yeah, we tried to get management to skip it and just go to Win7 once it's released, but. . .well. . . untested software coming out and all that, it's doubtful mgmt will look at it until SP1 is released.
And now I'm rambling. I do that.
Anyway.... here are some highlights of the past few days:
User: I can't use Bing.com to search, so I want to change my search provider.
Me: (Thinking he's referring to the search bar in IE) All right. Did you receive the email we sent out a couple of weeks ago with instructions on how to change the default search provider?
User: Yeah I did, but I didn't understand it. I called you guys the other day and he walked me through it. But it doesn't matter because it's still stuck on this stupid Bing!
Me: Huh, that's kinda weird. Let me see what's going on. (Remote connects in to the user's PC.)
Me: Oh, I see. You're using the search field at msn. That's actually a bing search. You'll need to choose a different search provider (4th wall break: we aren't allowed to "endorse" any provider, so we have to speak generically like that) and type it in your address bar above. Your search bar is also set to use google (4th wall broken again: this is probably what "you guys" did when he called last week), so if you type your search up there instead of into the website itself then it will search using that engine, rather than bing.
User: Oh, so I can't use the msn site to search anymore?
Me: No, the msn site uses bing as its search engine now. [Our employer] is blocking bing right now, so it won't work and you have to use a different search site or the search bar up in the top right of your window.
Sadly, he's not the 1st, nor even the worst offender. I think my favorite was the guy who went to the google site and then searched for bing.com from it.
There was the guy today having trouble with a certain website (which we don't support since, well, it's a website). The site has a helpdesk number prominently displayed on its main page for issues using the site. He called me instead.
We're experiencing a network outage right now. Many calls are coming in to report that email can't be accessed and suchlike. This is a typical exchange:
User: I can't get my emailOn the bright side I haven't yet had any calls during an outage like at a former employer where the person says something to the effect of "Well, it's critical I get this email out to the client. Can you fix it for just me?"
Me: We're having an outage right now. Server guys are on it, but we don't have an estimate for when it will be fixed yet.
User: Oh. Do you know when it will be back?
As to the "classics" -- yes, I HAVE had the call where the person was complaining they couldn't turn on the computer during a power outage. It gets better: When I explained that computers need power to run, the rejoinder was "But the phones work!"
I also am rather fond of this one:
User: I got my new laptop today and brought it home, but now I can't get my email."This lady wasn't too bad, though -- once I explained connectivity to her she did get it, she was simply "initially ignorant."
Me: Okay, how are you connected to the exchange server? VPN or the DID dial-up? (Yes, this was a few years back before broadband was terribly common.)
User: Connected? What do you mean? Don't these things just know what my email is?
Anyway, I think this is rambling enough for one day, so... adios and all that stuff.
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