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Admin
The person that wrote this blog would probably write a text editor like this.
ARE YOU TRYING TO HIT THE UPPERCASE A BUTTON? yes|no
ARE YOU TRYING TO THIS THE UPPERCASE B BUTTON? yes|no
Interrupts? What are those?
Admin
Holy. Jesus.
Admin
MS wrote an entire OS feature that way It's called Windows Vista UAC
Admin
hehe, I'd also stop showing up at work..
Admin
This reads like a joke, but I have the sick feeling in the pit of my stomach that it isn't.
...
The most infuriating part is that there are dozens if not hundreds of prominent blog "engines"/backends that people actually thought through and designed well, many of which are even free (in both senses of the word). Why anyone would continue to use this hodgepodge of horseshit is so far beyond me it gives me a headache just to think about it.
I know CAPTCHA posting is frowned upon, but this is too good: I got "vern", and the system does sound like something Ernest P. Worrell might have designed.
Admin
Someone install Wordpress, quick!
Admin
While I would like to send condolences to Rob on the death of his sanity, I suddenly feel much better about my job.
Admin
Rob should not complain. He actually had good documentation that apparently was kept up to date when new information was received. If only all software was this well documented.
And that's the only good thing I can say about this.
Admin
Needs more MS Access.
Admin
Needs more wooden table.
Admin
Rob here,
It's not a joke, and it wasn't free.
However, it's a corporate thing, a decision that may have been good several years ago but isn't now, and changing it would involve too much paperwork.
Admin
And some XML.
And possibly a wooden table.
No quack.
That about cover it?
</sarcasm>Admin
Ah yes...I'm sure we've all been there before. Paperwork in triplicate requiring God's signature I'm sure.
Admin
...
Admin
At least it was documented by somebody who had to actually maintain it.
I don't know which would be worse:
Admin
Assuming the users don't know these secrets, they must be totally baffled by the formatting changes that occur once they publish to the mysterious machine. "Wow, that's some crazy software that takes a picture of my table and inserts it back into the post".
Admin
That is one mother of a WTF. It pains me to think about it, especially since we had a pretty WTF content management system at my last place of work. This one takes the cake though.
Admin
I like how he depends on an obvious security vulnerability to get his job done.
Admin
I wanted to delete the program directory for a program I had uninstalled that hadn't actually bothered to remove any of its data. So I browse to Program Files, and delete the folder. This causes the following:
I can't help but think that similar thinking to that "you're about to be asked to allow this action you've already OKed once" created the blog software generated.
Admin
The real WTF is the gender change of the user in question in the instructions.
Admin
That's an added-on feature. It costs extra.
Admin
Well done sir. Nice catch.
Admin
Was the company name in the last paragraph supposed to be anonymized?
Admin
Maybe there's some arbitrary third person who comes by with the sole function of selecting "published".
Admin
I don't think so, since Akamai is one of the biggest mirror-server farms on the 'net.
Admin
Er.... synch up the CSS files?
Admin
I see that type of writing all the time - better than the "he/she"; "his/her"; "s/he"; "(s)he" alternatives that get used.
Admin
Nah... too much paperwork...
Admin
AHHAHAHAHA.... dying... laughing...
Admin
Needs more cow bell
Admin
Admin
Seeahmess? What is this see-a-mess?
But seriously, it sounds like all they needed was something like this.
That and a course in website design, of course, and perhaps some basics to drill in the idea that computers are meant to make work /easier/, not harder.
Admin
That's why you don't ask, you just do. Push a new improved system into place and document how to use it as part of a "service maintenance release to address critical security issues".
Problem solved and no one asks questions - anyone who does you simply point to the bit about critical security issues, which from the way this system appears to be designed would be honest. After all, you have a legal requirement to protect the company from security vulernabilities (and the truth about how you fixed them if being honest prevents it).
Then, pretend everything continues to work the old way and sit back and enjoy all the new free time.
Admin
Yeah, the editor's patience, at that point.
Admin
Bravo! Thats what I would do! :D overnight preferably.
captcha: slashbot - not
Admin
Funny MS Ninja and Vista comment. This poor guy obviously cracked after years of dealing with imbeciles and resorted to this. Ha Ha...dreadlocks captcha!
Admin
Even as some will complain about the missing code... Nice story. I had a good laugh already when reading about the ROR. The Accounts & Passwords stuff was a nice introductory triple-WTF, although it's stuff we readers have seen all too often (and some of these things actually remind me of my workplace sigh).
When reading "Publishing Articles", I had a serious headdesk moment and felt dizzy for a while. Even if this metaphor is overused around here: This must be the blog system from Hell. And the thought of being the "Global Editor" for this... thing... makes me wonder whether being tormented with a pitchfork for all eternity is really that bad. "Troubleshooting" then provided a nice lead-out with auxiliary WTFs. Aristotle would have been proud.
Admin
When it comes to gender-unspecific pronouns, I like "s/h/it".
Admin
Brillant!
Admin
That's not a WTF: It's a feature!
Admin
Long story short, it's a long chain that's completely out of my, and everybody else's hands. :(
Admin
That's what I'd call a reaaaaaaaally "Distributed System" and a company that likes to enable Collaboration as much as possible...
Admin
"Rob"?....sure you mean "Alex" 80)
Admin
Shit. Steal an old PC from out in the hall somewhere, install a web server and some open source blogging software, tell everybody to start using that instead.
Admin
I suspect this may be a (overly) politically correct americanism? I much prefer "they".
Admin
Proposal of new gender-neutral pronouns:
hos = he or she hoh = him or her hohs = his or hers
Would save so much time writing!
Admin
Bah. You have to train everyone what these weird new (and ugly) words are. Far easier to just loosen up on they/their to allow it as a gender-neutral singular as well as a plural.
'hohs' is horseshit. Not to mention that 'hos' already has far more mindshare as the derogatory ebonics word for prostitutes (or women in general, depending on your speaker).
Admin
I know someone who is doing this at this very moment. Part of his job, a big part, is to collate a bunch of data and create some nice graphs for the weekly reports that get done. I helped him with a script to deal with the tedious data collection and graph generation. Now he just runs the script and adds some comments to the report about the weekly data and then surfs the net for 2 hours. Everyone knows he has used scripts to speed up his work but no one has realised a 4 hour job now takes about 10 minutes.
Admin
The real wtf was that this entry was an awesome wtf. I've seen it happen! Propped so hard.
Admin
I would issue all the users with a digital camera, they could then write thier blogs in Word (or whatever), take a picture of the screen and then post that.
Would save a lot of hassle.