• (cs) in reply to Joshua Ochs
    Joshua Ochs:
    I'm more than a bit skeptical of this. Given that I have an old Dell server (with an incredible TWO 400Mhz Pentium II's! And 256MB of memory!) next to me that runs Windows 2000 quite well, this guy sounds a bit incompetent. Reload the OS, move it out into the hallway if necessary, and get to work.

    We've seen some major WTF's, but here I'd say it's Lee and his inflated hourly.

    And so on, down the line.

    Good points, however. If this was me, I'd (a) suggest "re-branding" it as a Linux system (assuming you can find a Linux distro that works for the hardware) (b) failing that, wipe the system and start from scratch with a new Windows installation (c) chop the extremities off anybody who even ventures to suggest Windows Server. (Nothing wrong in general with that, but surely a bad choice for this hardware.)

    Nobody here has yet mentioned the potential discrepancy between being billed at $300/hr and being paid $300/hr. I'd be very surprised if Lee B. was making any more than $40 or $50. Which brings up an interesting question:

    Would you rather be billed at $300/hr for pissing around whilst earning $50/hr, or would you rather be billed at $100/hr whilst earning $35/hr and actually doing the goddamn job?

  • PublicLurker (unregistered) in reply to dpm

    You're right that that is the real WTF. when you are paying someone $300 an hour, you do not want to have them wasting time on such trivial things as waiting for someone to open the door for them.

    Over 2 weeks, he probably lost at least 10 hours of productivity dealing with the castoff computer. A decent computer costs a whole lot less.

    This reminds me of a place I worked at where management was not willing to upgrade our version control system. We were finally able to convince him that paying a dozen engineers to drink coffee while syncing up their projects cost him a lot more.

  • vdragon (unregistered)

    I had that happen at a school... I took over a job as a netadmin and the server would die every night around 7pm... Turns out the lights were coming on outside at 7pm and the server would 'brown out'... The bonus was that the board was old and not really functional. The old admin had to have known as it was missing the second processor (adding it killed the server) and the board had blown caps.

    When I asked to purchase the new server I was told that one was working fine and was only a couple of years old!! It was 2000 server with sp2 with one 800 chip and 512 megs of ram that was the primary domain controller for the entire school... Dont even ask about antivirus! It was horribly broken too.

    I was told to just make it work... They never did have a budget for IT.

    Stay away from any school called Beta Tech, Tidetech, TidewaterTech, Centura Institute or Centura College. They are not really schools and courses are a joke.

  • (cs)

    WTFahrenheit?

  • oldgeek (unregistered) in reply to MindChild

    Sorry, the only SunOS 2.6 machine I've had to log into recently didn't have the extra baggage of emacs or nano. It's vi or ed.

  • (cs) in reply to KattMan
    KattMan:
    These days, 256MB of memory is needed just for the OS leaving almost nothing for the user.
    What, someone managed to load Vista on that thing? Doubtful. Even in XP you can at least run office in 256M unless it's loaded down by something else.
    I know, I know, back in the old days we had to code in the snow, uphill, both ways, with no boots on. And we liked it!
    Though things were occasionally tight when running with 128MB of RAM, my computer's quite happy with 256M at the moment. In fact it's considerably slower than the computer mentioned in the article yet more than sufficient for everything I do except games. More likely the computer in the article was struggling under Norton or some other such monster.
  • (cs) in reply to Konamiman
    Konamiman:
    If you can open Visual Studio 2005 alone with 64MB, you are either God or Chuck Norris. :-)

    Chuck Norris doesn't boot his computer, let alone start Visual Studio. He just roundhouse kicks Bill Gates in the head until the project meets his specs.

  • (cs) in reply to Corona688
    Corona688:
    KattMan:
    These days, 256MB of memory is needed just for the OS leaving almost nothing for the user.
    What, someone managed to load Vista on that thing? Doubtful. Even in XP you can at least run office in 256M unless it's loaded down by something else.
    Vista isn't an OS, Vista is a work of art describing the futility of man with pretty colors posing as an OS.
    Corona688:
    KattMan:
    I know, I know, back in the old days we had to code in the snow, uphill, both ways, with no boots on. And we liked it!
    Though things were occasionally tight when running with 128MB of RAM, my computer's quite happy with 256M at the moment. In fact it's considerably slower than the computer mentioned in the article yet more than sufficient for everything I do except games. More likely the computer in the article was struggling under Norton or some other such monster.

    See, told you we liked it, and apparently you still do. :)

  • Russ (unregistered) in reply to KattMan
    KattMan:
    Corona688:
    KattMan:
    These days, 256MB of memory is needed just for the OS leaving almost nothing for the user.
    What, someone managed to load Vista on that thing? Doubtful. Even in XP you can at least run office in 256M unless it's loaded down by something else.
    Vista isn't an OS, Vista is a work of art describing the futility of man with pretty colors posing as an OS.

    I have followed the mainstream opinion that Vista sucks. I have, however, recently installed Vista X64, and I'm sorry to report that I'm pretty happy with it. It supports my 6GB of ram and actually works better then XP x64 or Windows 2003 Server R2 X64. Other then the need for crazy amounts of ram (which are getting dirt cheap now), what is everybody's problem with Vista?

  • tapatio (unregistered)

    Dude, you should have purchased a server for them with some of the money they paid you.

    You can pick up a decent computer for $600 bucks.

    I know you weren't paid to purchase hardware but that would have been the right thing to do, instead of leaving them with the right software running on the wrong computer.

  • (cs)

    So why didn't he just put something over the air vent so it wasn't blowing up his pants?

  • (cs) in reply to FredSaw
    FredSaw:
    U mite of well faze the fax: you can't never stop there looser madness.

    There, fixed it for you.

  • Alexander (unregistered)

    1Gh and 256Mb RAM? It's overkill for this task, if you use something like FreeBSD in terminal mode only. You even can install apache on it and make web-reports. For the 300$ houly i will bought a +1Gb of RAM and install it, it will cost approximately 100$.

  • iogy (unregistered) in reply to Konamiman
    Konamiman:
    $300/hour!!! For this money I would agree to develop a Windows Vista clone for the NES!

    While this is a fairly awesome idea, I think a SNES would work better if you also wanted Aero to work on it, with Mode 7 and transparency and all that.

  • daniel-kun (unregistered) in reply to snoofle

    Yeah, that's the way to look at the bright side of it! I think that, whatever the task may be*, with $300/hour you always win. *) ok, there are some minor restrictions that apply to sewer-work, etc.

  • (cs) in reply to MindChild
    MindChild:
    Especially on contract, you have to be able to deal with cruddy situations. This is why you emacs/nano folks should still know vi. You never know when you have to telnet into a SunOS 2.6 machine where that is the only editor you have.

    Tramp mitigates this problem. If I can telnet to the machine, I can edit the file without dealing with the shittiness of the remote environment.

  • (cs) in reply to Russ
    Russ:
    It supports my 6GB of ram and actually works better then XP x64 or Windows 2003 Server R2 X64. Other then the need for crazy amounts of ram (which are getting dirt cheap now), what is everybody's problem with Vista?
    Them's fighting words!

    Doesn't the constant whining get on your nerves?

    "Delete" "Are you sure?" "Yes" "Really?" "Yes" "You don't look sure" "Just do it" "No need to get cranky, I'm just making sure" "Delete the file!" "I checked your horoscope and it says you shouldn't be deleting stuff this week" "Godammit!"

    and so on and so forth...

  • Jim Cooper (unregistered)

    FAZE!!!

    And, unlike JFruh, I'm not sorry to shout about it!

  • EV (unregistered) in reply to Jfruh

    Hear hear.

  • Shinobu (unregistered)
    1. I have one of those 1GHz machines and it ran Office just fine on 256MB. (I plugged in some more later to make it run a game I bought.) Now I use OpenOffice, which it also runs fine, thank you very much. It can even run two operating systems simultaneously without problems.
    2. Even I spotted the spelling error, or perhaps I should say that it spotted me and tazed me. English isn't even my native language.
    3. I'm not even going to touch on the ° thing.
  • Mark (unregistered)

    Let me fix that for you...

    We'll send him crappy hardware The worst ever made For Lee says when you get lemons You make lemonade Now if you're wondering how he beat the cold And other science facts Just remember it's a WTF You should really just relax For Daily W. T. F. Three thouuusaaannndddd

  • (cs) in reply to Jfruh

    Don't faze me, d'oh!

  • (cs) in reply to Josh
    Josh:
    TRWTF is that they were using Windows as a monitoring tool.

    What's going to watch the watcher?

    What monitor is going to make sure that your monitor comes back online after its requisite weekly reboot?

    The real WTF is that you got lost. Find your way back to the script kiddie sites, will ya?

    Oh, wait! I've got it! You're just a moron who isn't smart enough to stay up with current events!

    Or maybe you're just jealous of the people who can.

    Seriously, you Windows bashers need to update your material. Windows is fine for using as a monitoring system OS, and hasn't needed to be rebooted weekly for a decade now. In fact, I've got several Windows systems that run for months at a time, and only get rebooted when an update requires it.

  • (cs) in reply to Anonymouse
    Anonymouse:
    directly above a vent that pumped 50° air into the room (and up Lee's pant leg)

    The real WTF is using a measurement system only a hand full of countries use without specifying so. (Is a simple 'F' really that hard?)

    Here we go again... Another pedantic jackass.

    I really don't think the 'F' was required, do you? I mean, the story was talking about an air conditioning vent, right? And if it was Celsius, that would make the air temperature 110° F, right? And obviously, 110° F air would be a little warm for an air conditioning unit to be sending through the vents, right?

    Moron.

  • Wyle_E (unregistered)

    A gigahertz box with 256MB really did have trouble running Office? I'd always heard the Office was a bloated monstrosity, but I never suspected that it was that bad.

  • MFD sucks (unregistered) in reply to KattMan

    God knows MFD could use material, it isn't hard to improve on awful.

  • the real wtf fool (unregistered) in reply to KenW
    KenW:
    Seriously, you Windows bashers need to update your material. Windows is fine for using as a monitoring system OS, and hasn't needed to be rebooted weekly for a decade now.
    Ever heard of windows 98 and ME?
    KenW:
    In fact, I've got several Windows systems that run for months at a time, and only get rebooted when an update requires it.

    While XP (and 2K) can keep running for a while now, I find that if I keep the XP desktop running all the time it will fall over in a matter of weeks. The bare O/S will be OK if you don't touch it but as soon as you start adding drivers, heavy application usage, hibernate cycles into the mix NT is still not that solid.

  • Anon (unregistered) in reply to daniel-kun
    daniel-kun:
    *) ok, there are some minor restrictions that apply to sewer-work, etc.

    Meh, even $300 buys an AWFUL lot of bars of soap, $24k for 10 days working in a sewer would still be a more than acceptable deal.

  • Russ (unregistered) in reply to DOA
    DOA:
    Russ:
    It supports my 6GB of ram and actually works better then XP x64 or Windows 2003 Server R2 X64. Other then the need for crazy amounts of ram (which are getting dirt cheap now), what is everybody's problem with Vista?
    Them's fighting words!

    Doesn't the constant whining get on your nerves?

    "Delete" "Are you sure?" "Yes" "Really?" "Yes" "You don't look sure" "Just do it" "No need to get cranky, I'm just making sure" "Delete the file!" "I checked your horoscope and it says you shouldn't be deleting stuff this week" "Godammit!"

    and so on and so forth...

    took me about 10 minutes to turn off UAC. Now behaves just like XP.

  • JoeKendallAnythingbetterThanYouCan (unregistered) in reply to Jfruh
    Jfruh:
    This is unrelated to the content but ...

    It's faze. Faze. FAZE. As in "That didn't faze him." Not phase. Faze.

    Sorry to be a pedant, but this shows up on TDWTF (which I love) all the time. Just thought maybe I could stop the madness?

    Last time I looked it was feeze. Faze would be american?

  • Xangis (unregistered) in reply to Jfruh

    Sorry, they're using the geek version of "faze", which is "phase". You can thank Star Trek for that one.

  • (cs) in reply to JoeKendallAnythingbetterThanYouCan
    JoeKendallAnythingbetterThanYouCan:
    Last time I looked it was feeze. Faze would be american?
    You may be right... this does sound British.
  • Erzengel (unregistered) in reply to snoofle
    snoofle:
    For $300/hour, I'd wear a parka, snow pants, heated socks, gloves, and happily sit in the mens room if necessary.

    Ok, it was an aborted effort, but he made a nice chunk of change in a short time, and on his resume, he can put stuff like:

    - performed hardware performance analysis as part of network capacity planning
- recommended server upgrades to support projected usage
- verified that the climate control system in the server room was right-sized
- tested and validated secure-access mechanisms to network facilities
- engineered methodologies to maximize throughput with limited hardware facilities and budgets

    Lee wins!

    Dude, can I have you write my Resume?

  • (cs) in reply to BlisteringSheep
    BlisteringSheep:
    snoofle:
    Ok, it was an aborted effort, but he made a nice chunk of change in a short time, and on his resume, he can put stuff like:
    You wouldn't be interested in a resume/performance-review preparation gig, would you? I've always had a hard time translating what I actually do (make sure everything works and everyone knows how to use it) into buzzword-compliant or manager-friendly bullet points.
    You /do/ realize that most people who do the hiring would see those buzzwords and not even bother with the first interview, right? At least, most people at any place that you'd want to work...
  • FIA (unregistered) in reply to JoeKendallAnythingbetterThanYouCan
    JoeKendallAnythingbetterThanYouCan:
    Jfruh:
    This is unrelated to the content but ...

    It's faze. Faze. FAZE. As in "That didn't faze him." Not phase. Faze.

    Sorry to be a pedant, but this shows up on TDWTF (which I love) all the time. Just thought maybe I could stop the madness?

    Last time I looked it was feeze. Faze would be american?

    I'm British, an have heard of 'Faze' but not 'Feeze', however they do seem to be related according to chambers.

    Mind you in my head fazing someone sounds like the reaction of a stoned hippy when asked to do some work, whereas 'feeze' sounds a little more animated.

    You do learn something new every day though. :)

  • anon (unregistered) in reply to the real wtf fool
    the real wtf fool:
    KenW:
    Seriously, you Windows bashers need to update your material. Windows is fine for using as a monitoring system OS, and hasn't needed to be rebooted weekly for a decade now.
    Ever heard of windows 98 and ME?

    Umm... It's 2008... A decade is ten years... so obviously you're incapable of either comprehending what you read or you suck at math.

  • Neil Ferguson (unregistered) in reply to Jfruh

    Thank you for saying what was trembling on my lips. Faze. Exactly. I would have said it, but I really like feeling that thing trembling my lips. Hnenh.

  • (cs) in reply to Joshua Ochs
    Joshua Ochs:
    Reload the OS, move it out into the hallway if necessary, and get to work.

    You've obviously never worked at a bank. You don't reload the OS when you work at a bank. You put in a support ticket, 1 week later the machine gets taken in for 2 days, when you get it back you realize that tech support "re-imaged" your machine from Windows 2000 to DOS or Windows 95, you then find you can't do anything because they gave you a standard "bank teller" image where everything is locked down, so you repeat the process. 6 weeks down the road you finally have the combination you need, just in time for some new manager completely unfamiliar with any of the project to come around and say "Hi there. Why don't you tell me about your project."

    Subprime mortgages aren't the only reason banks are having a tough time right now.

  • Mr (unregistered) in reply to Anonymous
    Anonymous:
    The real WTF is an $300/hr-consultant having trouble to send an e-mail with "only" 256 MB of RAM. Seriously, I've programmed and surfed with a quarter of that.

    I used a similary specced machine, with almost half the GHz. It was a Pentium III 600MHz with 256MB ram. It not only ran Excel/Outlook fine, but also JBuilder. An upgrade to 512MB RAM helped a lot, but if it was only running as a server it would be capable for many tasks.

    I've also had a 486 with 8MB RAM that ran Windows 95 (including Word etc.) just fine.

    And don't get me started on my Amiga 500. I've actually seen web servers running web shops using Amiga 500. So think of the stuff a PC 20 years younger could do

  • Mr (unregistered) in reply to Konamiman
    Konamiman:
    (Well, actually, running Windows 95 with 16MB was quite "funny")

    My old 486 with 8MB RAM ran Windows 95 just fine. (used mostly for games, Word and Netscape/Internet Explorer). It all depends on what you use your computer for. Some programs can't have enough memory and CPU.

  • Mr (unregistered) in reply to dpm
    Dan:
    But anyone I hire for $300/hour better be at least as capable as I am of making do with what amounts to an inconvenience at best.
    If I have to pay $300/hour to someone, and that person says that his work takes longer because the computer works slowly, I would buy a new computer. Or at least more memory.
  • Shawn (unregistered) in reply to Jfruh
    Jfruh:
    This is unrelated to the content but ...

    It's faze. Faze. FAZE. As in "That didn't faze him." Not phase. Faze.

    Sorry to be a pedant, but this shows up on TDWTF (which I love) all the time. Just thought maybe I could stop the madness?

    Only proving the point, English is a dumb language and needs to be subjected to more torment. I say keep using phase as faze till the dictionaries correct their misspellings and artifacts faze in place of a unified phase.

  • Saajid (unregistered) in reply to Former Jr. Programmer
    Former Jr. Programmer:
    I don't get that last sentence in the article.

    I didnt get it either, and still don't get it. Can someone please explain...

  • Steve Parker (unregistered)

    There are a lot of comments here about whether web-surfing is even possible with 256Mb RAM. Windows98 was quite capable of graphical web surfing, and would have loved 256Mb.

    The discussion then goes on to "Modern OSes" requiring far more than that, just to run. I can run most modern Linux distro's on my old 128Mb laptop (433MHz Celeron) slowly, but quite adequately. The tuned Linux distro's (even bloated stuff like Xubuntu) run more than happily, with GUI features approximately as "pretty" as OSX/Vista/etc.

    TRWTF is that WTF only ever seems to discuss Windows programming, which (some may suggest) is a WTF in itself...

    CAPTCHA: "decet" (missing the "n" out of "decent" on purpose, perhaps?)

  • (cs) in reply to Saajid
    Saajid:
    Former Jr. Programmer:
    I don't get that last sentence in the article.
    I didnt get it either, and still don't get it. Can someone please explain...
    The OP worked there for 2 weeks (40 hours/week) for $300/hour, so he earned $24000, which is 12000 $2 ATM fees.
  • Magnus Persson (unregistered) in reply to KattMan

    Uhm, my parents are today still using a machine with 192 MB to surf the web, so you're clearly wrong. Even works with a few (not more) separate tabs in FF. And this machine is actually updated, it used to have only 64 MB until a couple of years ago. That was what it was delivered with in '98 (circa), when the web already had lots of images already.

  • ndc (unregistered) in reply to Jfruh

    To be perfectly pedantic, he probably wasn't phasing because of it either, so it didn't phase him OR faze him.

  • Sylver (unregistered) in reply to Herohtar
    Herohtar:
    Shivering and miserable, Lee sent an email to Clark. This took a while because, unfortunately, the system apparently did have a hard time running Office.
    TRWTF is using Office to write an email!
    Oh, you mean you shouldn't use Outlook to send emails?

    Get real.

  • Arkady (unregistered) in reply to Jfruh

    Are you sure it didn't shift his waveform along its direction of travel?

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