Diary of a Wolfeman

I am now greatly familiar with every single bump on the road from Beaverton to La Center.

We have a client there with an aging NT 4 domain controller we’ve been having some difficulty replacing – seems the security settings are bolloxed somehow, and it won’t give up control to another server, no matter how we try to coax it. I went up an hour after our lead tech to deliver the replacement.

I got there, and we found out the plan he had concocted would require a copy of Windows Server 2000 – you can’t upgrade straight from NT 4 to 2003. Wouldn’t you know that is the ONE cd he did not have with him. Back on the highway to Beaverton.

Got the cd, got some lunch, back on the highway to La Center. Arrived only to get a call from the manager, asking if my presence was strictly necessary, since the shop is short-handed. Well, not necessary as such…

Back on the highway to Beaverton.

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Things my clients have learned over the past week or so:

1. When a tech tells you your three-year-old laptop is behaving strangely and you should budget for a replacement and do something about backing up your data, do so. Don’t bitch at us 6 months later when it goes tits-up and you have no backup whatsoever of your company’s financial data. You were warned.
2. When you pay over $200 for someone to re-install Windows for you due to spyware / virus damage, sit the kids down and talk to them about safe surfing habits before you let them get back on the internet. (No shit, that computer came back the very next day, completely un-usable.)
3. Do not yank on the cables connected to your computer in an attempt to remove them, or you will – complete with the connectors they are screwed down to.
4. The purpose of a UPS unit is to keep your servers powered-up long enough during an outtage for you to shut them down safely after saving your data – not so you can blithely continue working. Had your brand-new, less than two-week-old server been powered down and had your UPS not been completely drained when the spike came back up the line, it probably would have survived. Now I have to replace almost the whole thing.
5. No, that is not covered by the warranty.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, January 11th, 2006 at 12:41 am and is filed under Work. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.