• Hakan (unregistered)

    I used to run a BBS way back when NT wasn't around and I was running desqview on top of DOS on an 2400 baud modem... Anyway, I had an ANSI sequence sent to the user after they logged onto the BBS which simulated a crash, then a reboot with memory countdown, loading up the Maximus BBS software and resuming their connection. I got so many messages saying "I logged on and your BBS rebooted", I got bored and took it off. What I replaced with was a "press ALT-H to continue" message (which used to hang up the phone connection on most terminal emulators) to get rid of idiot users. Those were the days...

  • boog (unregistered) in reply to jrh
    jrh:
    Depends on the consultant. I mentor my way out of projects all the time. It is one of my selling points as a consultant.
    Right, it depends on the consultant. It depends on the project too. And the client.

    If you honestly and successfully hand off your projects when you're done, major kudos to you.

    In my past experience working for a consulting firm, we certainly made the same claim as a selling point. So did our sub-contractors. But it wasn't always the case. Not that it was ever deliberate; sometimes it was due to bad decisions. My point (though buried in sarcasm) was that it is unwise on the part of the client to just assume that the hand-off will go smoothly.

    Anyway, didn't mean to generalize; guess I'm still bitter.

  • mh (unregistered)

    Does nobody else bash randomly at the keyboard whenever the BSOD comes up? Like, I know it accomplishes nothing, but sometimes it's just nice to bash at something. Sigh - I haven't seen a BSOD in years (and still use Windows every day) - kinda miss them.

    TRWTF, by the way, is running an OS that people actually install software on and be productive with.

  • whiskeyjack (unregistered) in reply to Hakan
    Hakan:
    I used to run a BBS way back when NT wasn't around and I was running desqview on top of DOS on an 2400 baud modem... Anyway, I had an ANSI sequence sent to the user after they logged onto the BBS which simulated a crash, then a reboot with memory countdown, loading up the Maximus BBS software and resuming their connection. I got so many messages saying "I logged on and your BBS rebooted", I got bored and took it off. What I replaced with was a "press ALT-H to continue" message (which used to hang up the phone connection on most terminal emulators) to get rid of idiot users. Those were the days...

    I actually wrote a BBS door at one point that would simulate the BBS software crashing, and dropping you to a DOS prompt. Interpreted DOS commands (cd, dir, etc.) and even provided the ability to "type" out the contents of key system files and "format" the hard drive.

    I put a lot of work into it before wondering just who the hell would be stupid enough to fall for all that, but I'm sure it would have been entertaining either way.

  • Charles Boyung (unregistered) in reply to Anonymous
    Anonymous:
    Anon:
    So where can we get this awesome screen saver / idiot detector. I've have suspicious about some people and this seems like a good way to confirm them.
    Here: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/bb897558.aspx

    I ran that at work for a while, but it once got my machine hard-booted by one of the techies and I lost the code I was working on, so I removed it...

    Completely your fault for leaving your machine with unsaved code.

  • +++ATH (unregistered) in reply to Hakan
    Hakan:
    What I replaced with was a "press ALT-H to continue" message (which used to hang up the phone connection on most terminal emulators) to get rid of idiot users. Those were the days...

    Then there are the modems that didn't implement the standard Hayes 1 second guard bands around the +++. So a user name of +++ATH caused all these users to hang up.

  • (cs) in reply to Anonymous
    Anonymous:
    Anon:
    So where can we get this awesome screen saver / idiot detector. I've have suspicious about some people and this seems like a good way to confirm them.
    Here: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/bb897558.aspx

    I ran that at work for a while, but it once got my machine hard-booted by one of the techies and I lost the code I was working on, so I removed it...

    I tried downloading this from Microsoft, but McAfee Enterprise pitched a b*tch and deleted it right out of the zip file!

  • FuBar (unregistered) in reply to Hakan
    Hakan:
    What I replaced with was a "press ALT-H to continue" message (which used to hang up the phone connection on most terminal emulators)
    I used to trick users into typing +++ oh cr^0~~
  • Anon (unregistered) in reply to MarkJ
    MarkJ:
    Anonymous:
    Anon:
    So where can we get this awesome screen saver / idiot detector. I've have suspicious about some people and this seems like a good way to confirm them.
    Here: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/bb897558.aspx

    I ran that at work for a while, but it once got my machine hard-booted by one of the techies and I lost the code I was working on, so I removed it...

    I tried downloading this from Microsoft, but McAfee Enterprise pitched a b*tch and deleted it right out of the zip file!

    Yeah, there's a note at the bottom of the linked page that warns you about that.

    I guess this might be the part that sets off alarm bells:

    Virtually all the information shown on Bluescreen's BSOD and system start screen is obtained from your system configuration - its accuracy will fool even advanced NT developers. For example, the NT build number, processor revision, loaded drivers and addresses, disk drive characteristics, and memory size are all taken from the system Bluescreen is running on.

    Fools advanced NT developers and crappy (or is that really good?) virus scanners.

  • McAfee Sux (unregistered) in reply to MarkJ
    MarkJ:
    Anonymous:
    Anon:
    So where can we get this awesome screen saver / idiot detector. I've have suspicious about some people and this seems like a good way to confirm them.
    Here: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/bb897558.aspx

    I ran that at work for a while, but it once got my machine hard-booted by one of the techies and I lost the code I was working on, so I removed it...

    I tried downloading this from Microsoft, but McAfee Enterprise pitched a b*tch and deleted it right out of the zip file!

    So the TRWTF is McAfee?

  • ÃÆâ€â„ (unregistered) in reply to Larry
    Larry:
    SCSimmons:
    WTF?:
    I had a WTF moment with the article. I happened to double click the word "painted" and it resulted in rainbows and unicorns on my screen. Was this the real WTF?
    Heh. There's a span set up around that whole phrase that calls up a script at www.cornify.com. Which, to quote their own testimonials list, is without a doubt the gayest thing I've ever seen.
    TRWTF is that you're randomly double-clicking on words.
    No, TRWTF is that you think double-clicking is the only way to find out, just like thinking a snafu is the only way to get a BSOD.
  • Herby (unregistered)

    This reaffirms the saying: For sufficiently advanced technology, the difference between Magic and technology is difficult to discern.

    For some people BSOD's are sufficiently advanced technology! Go figure!

  • eric76 (unregistered)

    I prefer using the mouse left-handed and switching the mouse buttons even though I am right-handed.

    I went back to school in the mid 90s for another degree. In the lab computers, I would usually switch the mouse buttons around and use it left-handed.

    One evening I walked into a lab and went to the same computer I had been using the previous evening. There was an "Out of Order" sign on it.

    When I asked one of the workers what was wrong with it, he informed me that it was broken and that they were going to have to reinstall the operating system. It turned out that the "mouse buttons didn't work".

  • David Davidson (unregistered) in reply to eric76
    eric76:
    I prefer using the mouse left-handed and switching the mouse buttons even though I am right-handed.

    I went back to school in the mid 90s for another degree. In the lab computers, I would usually switch the mouse buttons around and use it left-handed.

    One evening I walked into a lab and went to the same computer I had been using the previous evening. There was an "Out of Order" sign on it.

    When I asked one of the workers what was wrong with it, he informed me that it was broken and that they were going to have to reinstall the operating system. It turned out that the "mouse buttons didn't work".

    Reinstall the OS? Real fixes aside... had they also tried simpler things like swapping out the mouse also?

    Typical lab tech solution... Lift off and nuke the site from orbit.

  • boog (unregistered) in reply to Tee Hee
    Tee Hee:
    Take a screen shot of your desktop with a bunch of windows up. Then make that shot your background, or screen saver. Ask passers-by for help, especially the heap big smoke no fire "power luser". Chortle silently so they don't pound your face.
    Some friends and I did this back when I was in high school (late 90s) in the computer labs. One morning we took a screenshot of the Novell login, then made it the background. We then moved all the desktop icons to the edge of the screen, shrunk the taskbar, and changed the monitor settings to push the icons/taskbar off the edges. Imagine what a user would see after logging in.

    The next morning the "computer expert lady" for the school was trying to troubleshoot it. She manually rebooted at least 5 times before a classmate reached over and pressed the button to reset monitor settings to default. She just froze, staring at the screen trying to figure out what happened.

    I always wondered, if she was the expert, why didn't she at least try CTRL+ESC, the "windows" button, or even CTRL+ALT+DEL?

  • fjf (unregistered) in reply to anon
    anon:
    Darth Scotty:
    Do you have the email of those consultants? I've got some unbreakable cryptography to sell.
    ROT-13 algorithm? :-)
    Triple!
  • Mostly Evil Frank (unregistered) in reply to Chris

    Same thing happened to me with the BSOD screen saver running on X-Windows on my Linux workstation in the era of Windows NT/2000. I didn't work in IT at the time but in a tech support group supporting large and very expensive manufacturing equipment. Mordac was at my desk talking to me about a problem with the network when the BSOD screen saver kicked in. He spent the next 10 minutes arguing with me that they were going to take my PC to get fixed with me saying not on his life was he ever going to touch my PC. He then started in on my boss about me overstepping bounds, that IT was responsible for all things technology, that my PC was company property and it would be wiped and Windows restored so it worked properly. My boss who was listening in on the whole exchange and knew exactly what I was up to laughed a bit and and said, "why don't you move the mouse?". The look on Mordac's face was priceless when the desktop returned and he knew instantly why my nickname was "Mostly Evil Frank". Of course the network problem never did get fixed and I had to develop a work around, but that is a story for another time.

    Chris:
    Yep, a coworker ran this screen-saver. One of the "IT Guys" was walking through the office one night, saw the screen saver, thought it was an issue, and yanked the plug on the machine. To make matters worse, the machine didn't come back up. Ever.
  • Boat Rower (unregistered)

    "Merrily, merrily, merrily!" What's with all the merrily's?

  • Doozerboy (unregistered) in reply to boog
    boog:
    Tee Hee:
    Take a screen shot of your desktop with a bunch of windows up. Then make that shot your background, or screen saver. Ask passers-by for help, especially the heap big smoke no fire "power luser". Chortle silently so they don't pound your face.
    Some friends and I did this back when I was in high school (late 90s) in the computer labs. One morning we took a screenshot of the Novell login, then made it the background. We then moved all the desktop icons to the edge of the screen, shrunk the taskbar, and changed the monitor settings to push the icons/taskbar off the edges. Imagine what a user would see after logging in.

    The next morning the "computer expert lady" for the school was trying to troubleshoot it. She manually rebooted at least 5 times before a classmate reached over and pressed the button to reset monitor settings to default. She just froze, staring at the screen trying to figure out what happened.

    I always wondered, if she was the expert, why didn't she at least try CTRL+ESC, the "windows" button, or even CTRL+ALT+DEL?

    Same at our school, the kids used to run rings around the school IT admins. Quake LAN parties in the library....Them were t'days.

  • Julian Calaby (unregistered)

    I installed the XAnalogTV screensaver on my linux workstation, (Simulates an old analog TV, complete with reception issues, interference, etc. with your desktop) which was sitting in the reception area of the company I was working for, (that WTF is for another day) went to lunch, returned and was yelled at to take the screensaver off my computer. Turns out a client had seen it, and assumed that our computers were all broken, ergo we sucked.

  • (cs) in reply to McAfee Sux
    McAfee Sux:
    MarkJ:
    Anonymous:
    Anon:
    So where can we get this awesome screen saver / idiot detector. I've have suspicious about some people and this seems like a good way to confirm them.
    Here: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/bb897558.aspx

    I ran that at work for a while, but it once got my machine hard-booted by one of the techies and I lost the code I was working on, so I removed it...

    I tried downloading this from Microsoft, but McAfee Enterprise pitched a b*tch and deleted it right out of the zip file!

    So the TRWTF is McAfee?

    Yes.

  • David (unregistered) in reply to mh
    mh:
    Sigh - I haven't seen a BSOD in years (and still use Windows every day) - kinda miss them.

    They're still there in Windows 7 - if you want one, get some faulty RAM ;-) (The replacement's arriving tomorrow.)

  • Veldan (unregistered) in reply to WTF?
    WTF?:
    I had a WTF moment with the article. I happened to double click the word "painted" and it resulted in rainbows and unicorns on my screen. Was this the real WTF?

    Thank you. After a year of reading i finally see the unicorns everyone was talking about!

  • RvW (unregistered) in reply to lyates
    lyates:
    I once saw a PC that had a Windows 3.1 screen as a screensaver...and knowing how the company operated, I actually believed that he was still using Win 3.1!!!
    How about doing it the other way around? Make a Windows 7 (or Win XP, depending on your preference) screensaver which can run on Win 3.1! Instant two-decade-worth-of-downgrade as soon as you touch the mouse. Surprise!! *evil grin*
  • Ben (unregistered) in reply to McAfee Sux
    McAfee Sux:
    MarkJ:
    Anonymous:
    Anon:
    So where can we get this awesome screen saver / idiot detector. I've have suspicious about some people and this seems like a good way to confirm them.
    Here: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/bb897558.aspx

    I ran that at work for a while, but it once got my machine hard-booted by one of the techies and I lost the code I was working on, so I removed it...

    I tried downloading this from Microsoft, but McAfee Enterprise pitched a b*tch and deleted it right out of the zip file!

    So the TRWTF is McAfee?

    I imagine that from McAfee's point of view, anything that is constantly reported as a virus may as well be a virus.

  • Bob Jones (unregistered) in reply to Satanicpuppy
    Satanicpuppy:
    200 people, and not one of them had touched their mouse or anything.

    They never do.

  • Whiplash (unregistered) in reply to Kevin
    Kevin:
    Darth Scotty:
    Do you have the email of those consultants? I've got some unbreakable cryptography to sell.
    That exists.

    Well, sure some real encryption exists: But I bet these idiots would pay just a much for Darth Scotty's ROT13.

  • Martin (unregistered)

    I walked in one morning at my first job to find my boss swearing about flat screen monitors he'd bought, and insisting he'd never buy anything off ebay again.

    What had happened is he'd walked in and noticed my computer with the XAnalogTV screensaver running

  • Xenu (unregistered)

    mmm...trade a screen saver for a few hours with a hot trophy wife... Deal...in fact, I have a whole directory full of screen savers they can have for that.

  • \ (unregistered) in reply to Anonymous
    Anonymous:
    Anon:
    So where can we get this awesome screen saver / idiot detector. I've have suspicious about some people and this seems like a good way to confirm them.
    Here: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/bb897558.aspx

    I ran that at work for a while, but it once got my machine hard-booted by one of the techies and I lost the code I was working on, so I removed it...

    The best part is that it doesn't respond to the mouse, or at least it didn't respond to my mouse.

  • (cs) in reply to Satanicpuppy
    Satanicpuppy:
    Once I was involved in a project to deploy linux terminal services to ~200 machines. Thin client, netbooted, pretty snazzy. Ran off of a couple of big honking blade servers. Still, to save cycles, we set it so that it'd only render one screensaver, and share it out to every terminal.

    You see where this is going.

    A RWTF. Blank screen or similar should be the only one used, or possibly the client logo with a simple animation. Or, depending on the situation, a slideshow of images with MOTD-type messages.

  • (cs) in reply to +++ATH
    +++ATH:
    Then there are the modems that didn't implement the standard Hayes 1 second guard bands around the +++. So a user name of +++ATH caused all these users to hang up.

    Wouldn't that only work on the BBS's modem?

    I know my university modems circa 1998 (28.8kbps, before they installed the shiny 56k modems) had that problem and including +++ATH0[newline] in a web page would hang up the user's session.

  • Nick (unregistered) in reply to David Davidson
    David Davidson:
    Typical lab tech solution... Lift off and nuke the site from orbit.
    Typically, if the SOE is set up correctly it is a lot faster and easier from a cost/benefit perspective to re-image rather than spend an hour troubleshooting. That's not to say there there shouldn't be a minimum level of troubleshooting done, which would have solved this "problem".

    Also, does no-one lock their computers when they are AFK?

  • *This (unregistered) in reply to Boat Rower

    He has only the trail version of the thesaurus it's got only one synonym per word. Actually it's got only one synonym, merrily.

  • George Nacht (unregistered)

    So the real WTF is people being incompetent, greedy, unscrupulous bastards? This is.....

    ....actually very blissful thought! :-)

  • Grumpy (unregistered)

    Fantastic comments in the source. Check out those pictures. Niiiice.... :-)

  • (cs)

    The real WTF is not only that none of my comments here ever get featured but every single comment I made on this particular article yesterday has been deleted.

  • Steve (unregistered) in reply to Cbuttius
    Cbuttius:
    The real WTF is not only that none of my comments here ever get featured but every single comment I made on this particular article yesterday has been deleted.
    Not a WTF. Posts of no value get deleted.
  • (cs) in reply to MarkJ
    MarkJ:
    operagost:
    Larry:
    TRWTF is operating systems that interact with hardware.
    Hey, we can't all run VMWare you know.
    Besides, VMWare itself has to run on something...
    Can't you run VMWare on top of VMWare?
  • Anon (unregistered) in reply to eric76
    eric76:
    I prefer using the mouse left-handed and switching the mouse buttons even though I am right-handed.

    I went back to school in the mid 90s for another degree. In the lab computers, I would usually switch the mouse buttons around and use it left-handed.

    One evening I walked into a lab and went to the same computer I had been using the previous evening. There was an "Out of Order" sign on it.

    When I asked one of the workers what was wrong with it, he informed me that it was broken and that they were going to have to reinstall the operating system. It turned out that the "mouse buttons didn't work".

    To be fair, you switching the buttons and then leaving it that way was a bit of a dick move on your part. Not that the lab techs shouldn't have been able to figure it out. Surely when you click the "left" mouse button and a context menu opens up, anybody with half a brain would think "well, if the left buttons doing what the right button usually does, I wonder what the right button is doing....?"

  • Anon (unregistered) in reply to Nick
    Nick:
    David Davidson:
    Typical lab tech solution... Lift off and nuke the site from orbit.
    Typically, if the SOE is set up correctly it is a lot faster and easier from a cost/benefit perspective to re-image rather than spend an hour troubleshooting. That's not to say there there shouldn't be a minimum level of troubleshooting done, which would have solved this "problem".

    Also, does no-one lock their computers when they are AFK?

    It's only cheaper if you ignore the lost of the users data. Unless you're backing everything up every hour.

  • Manos (unregistered) in reply to MarkJ
    MarkJ:
    Douglas:
    So I was teaching him how to create data entry screens for our database when one fine day he announced that effective immediately I report to him, and am to have no further contact with my allegedly former supervisor.

    Huhhh?

    Like, uh, how do I know this is even true? Shouldn't the past supervisor at least hand me off to the new supervisor?

    The short answer is that the consultant can't do that on his own...at least at any company I've ever worked for! Of course, some consultants, like attorneys, believe that they can make something be true just because they said it.

    Does he have the balls to put it in writing? If he doesn't, send an email to all concerned, 'confirming your conversation with him'. As high up the food chain as you dare.

  • jrh (unregistered) in reply to boog
    boog:
    jrh:
    Depends on the consultant. I mentor my way out of projects all the time. It is one of my selling points as a consultant.
    Right, it depends on the consultant. It depends on the project too. And the client.

    If you honestly and successfully hand off your projects when you're done, major kudos to you.

    In my past experience working for a consulting firm, we certainly made the same claim as a selling point. So did our sub-contractors. But it wasn't always the case. Not that it was ever deliberate; sometimes it was due to bad decisions. My point (though buried in sarcasm) was that it is unwise on the part of the client to just assume that the hand-off will go smoothly.

    Anyway, didn't mean to generalize; guess I'm still bitter.

    You are quite right with regard to assumptions in general. Especially assumptions of "smoothness" in any area of IT.

  • Xibit (unregistered) in reply to SCB
    SCB:
    MarkJ:
    operagost:
    Larry:
    TRWTF is operating systems that interact with hardware.
    Hey, we can't all run VMWare you know.
    Besides, VMWare itself has to run on something...
    Can't you run VMWare on top of VMWare?

    Yo dawg yo. I heard you liked VMWare, so we got you some VMWare, so you can VMWare while you VMWare.

  • (cs) in reply to Steve
    Steve:
    Cbuttius:
    The real WTF is not only that none of my comments here ever get featured but every single comment I made on this particular article yesterday has been deleted.
    Not a WTF. Posts of no value get deleted.

    So TRWTF is that Alex/the admins decide if our posts have "value" now... and that doesn't just mean removing obvious spam.

    The discussion we were having about BSOD'ing and the equivalent of your electricity supply getting cut if you plug in a faulty device seemed rather relevant to me.

  • FuBar (unregistered) in reply to Anon
    Anon:
    It's only cheaper if you ignore the lost of the users data. Unless you're backing everything up every hour.
    Why in the world would there be data on the local hard drive instead of on the network where you probably have at least RAID 5 storage if not a SAN? If the local hard drive crashes, your data is just as lost. Motto to live by: "Anything that is stored in only one place may not be there the next time you look for it." Don't let your users store stuff on their local drives (unless you have a backup strategy for those drives that meets the requirements of your documented RPO)
  • boog (unregistered) in reply to Cbuttius
    Cbuttius:
    The discussion we were having about BSOD'ing and the equivalent of your electricity supply getting cut if you plug in a faulty device seemed rather relevant to me.
    The article was about a screensaver, and screensavers don't work when you lose your electricity supply.

    Totally relevant! </joking>

    Actually some of the off-topic (but still barely-relevant) conversation is pretty amusing/interesting/dare-I-say-educational. If every comment was 100% focused on the article, I would probably read just the first 2 or 3 and lose interest.

  • (cs) in reply to Cbuttius
    Cbuttius:
    Steve:
    Cbuttius:
    The real WTF is not only that none of my comments here ever get featured but every single comment I made on this particular article yesterday has been deleted.
    Not a WTF. Posts of no value get deleted.

    So TRWTF is that Alex/the admins decide if our posts have "value" now... and that doesn't just mean removing obvious spam.

    The discussion we were having about BSOD'ing and the equivalent of your electricity supply getting cut if you plug in a faulty device seemed rather relevant to me.

    I'll agree with you on that one. The mods are a little heavy-handed lately but inconstistently allow some of the trolling to stand.

  • Tom (unregistered) in reply to Kevin

    Not so fast on the quantum.

  • Bart Glubstrog (unregistered) in reply to Whiplash
    Whiplash:
    Kevin:
    Darth Scotty:
    Do you have the email of those consultants? I've got some unbreakable cryptography to sell.
    That exists.

    Well, sure some real encryption exists: But I bet these idiots would pay just a much for Darth Scotty's ROT13.

    I'd sell them some of my own patented Rot13. I run the data through it twice, so it's doubly secure. That'd be a winner - yeah! Ch-ching!

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