• (cs) in reply to Aristotle Pagaltzis

    “Out of paper on Drive D:”

    What - you guys never used Paperdisk?
    http://www.paperdisk.com/

    nonDev

  • Jeff Eaton (unregistered)

    I'll give you one better. It popped up while troubleshooting (you guessed it) Oracle.

    [image]

  • (cs) in reply to procyon112
    procyon112:
    Um... Of the 12 machines in my office, only 2 have keyboard, mouse and monitor.  The others are all SSH.  I have a keyboard in my desk solely to get around this message should it occur (in case I forgot to shut it off in the bios, or there was no option.)  I have some computers that completely annoy me because they refuse to boot without a video card, so I have cheap video cards inserted in them for that purpose only.  Machines that assume someone will always be sitting in front of them are annoying because in my world, chances are they are shoved on a rack somewhere with no one ever around unless there is a drive failure.


    Well, you're going to need a video card if you RDC or VNC. Surely there are times when you need to use the GUI?
  • (cs) in reply to Joshie
    Joshie:
    You know, when I first saw the windows one, I thought: "this has to be fake". It has been years since I have owned a computer with windows on it, however. Now that I think about it, it's probably a good thing that windows protects your computer from Windows Explorer


    Actually, "Data Execution Prevention" is a useful feature that prevents buffer overflow exploits by refusing to execute the content of memory that's declared as data (such as the stack). A similar feature exists for Linux, but is not activated by default because some compilers create code that requires the stack to be executable - so this is in fact embarassing for Linux rather than Windows.

  • (cs) in reply to dhromed
    dhromed:
    procyon112:
    Um... Of the 12 machines in my office, only 2 have keyboard, mouse and monitor.  The others are all SSH.  I have a keyboard in my desk solely to get around this message should it occur (in case I forgot to shut it off in the bios, or there was no option.)  I have some computers that completely annoy me because they refuse to boot without a video card, so I have cheap video cards inserted in them for that purpose only.  Machines that assume someone will always be sitting in front of them are annoying because in my world, chances are they are shoved on a rack somewhere with no one ever around unless there is a drive failure.


    Well, you're going to need a video card if you RDC or VNC. Surely there are times when you need to use the GUI?


    This is true for Windows only. Linux boxes can run VNCserver without a video card, because VNCserver does not necessarily shows a copy of the local desktop, but rather creates virtual desktops without any connection to actual video hardware.
  • Wang (unregistered) in reply to rsynnott

    rsynnott:
    foxyshadis:
    Anonymous:
    And let's not forget the classic "Keyboard not found- Press F1 to continue"...

    That does make sense, since there's no point in using a computer (pre-mouse) without a keyboard. It doesn't usually work these days, but it used to be you could just plug the keyboard in (or switch it on or whatever) and hit F1 and be good to go.


    Headless machines are, of course, a figment of someone's deranged imagination, yes? At work, we have a room full of machines. It lacks any keyboard. Or monitor. If there's a SERIOUS problem, one can be dragged in.


    And I'd just like to point out the best list of errors ever (you'll have to copy-and-paste; I never did figure out how to reliably make links in this thing): http://paul.merton.ox.ac.uk/computing/c-errors.html

     

    Curiously, that error is usually generated as a result of a setting - the user wants to be told the keyboard is not attached.  The curious part of this - the wtf if you like - is the lack of domain knowledge amongst such exalted critics as yourself...

  • (cs) in reply to Wang
    Anonymous:

    rsynnott:
    foxyshadis:
    Anonymous:
    And let's not forget the classic "Keyboard not found- Press F1 to continue"...

    That does make sense, since there's no point in using a computer (pre-mouse) without a keyboard. It doesn't usually work these days, but it used to be you could just plug the keyboard in (or switch it on or whatever) and hit F1 and be good to go.


    Headless machines are, of course, a figment of someone's deranged imagination, yes? At work, we have a room full of machines. It lacks any keyboard. Or monitor. If there's a SERIOUS problem, one can be dragged in.


    And I'd just like to point out the best list of errors ever (you'll have to copy-and-paste; I never did figure out how to reliably make links in this thing): http://paul.merton.ox.ac.uk/computing/c-errors.html

     

    Curiously, that error is usually generated as a result of a setting - the user wants to be told the keyboard is not attached.  The curious part of this - the wtf if you like - is the lack of domain knowledge amongst such exalted critics as yourself...



    I've seen many computers where this "setting" was the default behaviour, and I'm not sure if it could be changed in the bios setup. Even if it was possible, you cannot expect that everyone who buys a computer has good knowledge of such vendor specific bios features.
  • (cs) in reply to ammoQ

    On the subject of headless machines, almost all computers (even Linux ones) will need a keyboard and monitor attached to them at some point - if only for configuration purposes.  Of course, you might be able to unplug the keyboard and monitor when you've done that, but considering they're cheap these days you could just leave it in, for example in case your network card goes wrong and the computer is unable to communicate via VNC.

  • (cs) in reply to johnl

    We have computers around that cannot have a keyboard or monitor attached. Your standard NAS appliance is likely to be running Linux, is likely to have a web server for confoguration, and is likely not to have a keyboard or graphics port.

    Similarly for the network switch (except for a proprietary OS instead of Linux.)

    Now, if you're thinking of PC-style computers, then you'd be right. But that's a very narrow point of view when some washing machines now have more computing power than the Apollo space program.

  • Suomynona (unregistered) in reply to dhromed
    dhromed:
    Well, you're going to need a video card if you RDC or VNC. Surely there are times when you need to use the GUI?

    He doesn't use Windows, he uses an operating system.

  • (cs) in reply to johnl

    On the subject of headless machines, almost all computers (even Linux ones) will need a keyboard and monitor attached to them at some point - if only for configuration purposes.

    Nope.

    I'm looking at a rack full of Netras and I don't see a single machine with a keyboard connector. Serial console, don't you know. And video cards? what the fuck would I want with a video card in a server?

    So, as long as by "almost all computers" you mean "a small minority of computers", your statement is correct.

    Simon

  • Binsky (unregistered) in reply to tufty

    I really loved an Eudora error I once received, though I've probably got the wording wrong by now...

    I was offered the chance to do some auto-archiving or something, so I thought what the heck, why not!

    Then Eudora comes back at me with the following message:

    Sorry, but this operation is no longer supported. We've just left the option in here for geeks only!

    I was quite amused...

  • Suomynona (unregistered) in reply to Suomynona

    As you can imagine, the quoting worked fine in the Preview.

  • (cs) in reply to rsynnott
    rsynnott:
    Headless machines are, of course, a figment of someone's deranged imagination, yes? At work, we have a room full of machines. It lacks any keyboard. Or monitor. If there's a SERIOUS problem, one can be dragged in.


    Hang on while I go take a look at my router. Funny, there's no VGA port on it. Oh, it must have a DVI port. Let me go confirm...


    Oh, nope. No DVI port either.

    Odd - you say no headless machines exist.
  • Raw (unregistered) in reply to Richard Nixon

    Being the one who (probably at least) mentioned the "Keyboard not present, press F1 to continue" first here, I can clarify that by mentioning that it was at least 10-12 years ago.

    In fact, it was about the same time as when I got this gem:

    "Not enough memory to shut down Windows"

    When you don't have enough memory to shut down, then you know you are in trouble. At least, those computers had a real power switch...

    Another gem is in one "Tip of the day", in some old version of MS Office if I recall correctly:

    "Did you know... ...That if you turn the volume of your car stereo high enough, no one can see you?"

    Anyone who want to guess what some employee encountered on his way to work?

  • Suomynona (unregistered) in reply to Wang
    Anonymous:
    Curiously, that error is usually generated as a result of a setting - the user wants to be told the keyboard is not attached.  The curious part of this - the wtf if you like - is the lack of domain knowledge amongst such exalted critics as yourself...

    Actually, if you had ever used a computer apart from your Gameboy, you would have noticed that a) this is the default on many PCs, and b) a simple 3 second pause would have been enough to inform "the user" (who allegedly wants to see this), no need to interrupt the boot process indefinitely until some has managed to fetch a PS/2 keyboard (typically), thank you.

  • Mr. Wumpus (unregistered) in reply to Raw

    "Being the one who (probably at least) mentioned the "Keyboard not present, press F1 to continue" first here, I can clarify that by mentioning that it was at least 10-12 years ago."

    The error is still shown, at least on AWARD BIOSes.

  • (cs) in reply to Suomynona
    Anonymous:
    As you can imagine, the quoting worked fine in the Preview.

    But of course. Sadly, though Alex himself does a very nice job, sadly the same can't be said of the forum software which nicely refutes the Microsoft line that only proprietary software shows innovation.

    If you use a real phpBB board, then you'll know just how bad this knock-off is.

    (Oh, and I have a World of Warcraft Night Elf named Suomynona.)

  • (cs) in reply to Mung Kee

    <font size="3">I happen to know that message appears if you press the 'validate' button. The idear is that the DTS sends the your sql to the remote data source for validation.  Granted a smiley-face or thumbs-up icon would have been more appropriate.</font>

  • Asd (unregistered) in reply to tufty
    tufty:
    > On the subject of headless machines, almost all computers > (even Linux ones) will need a keyboard and monitor > attached to them at some point - if only for configuration > purposes.

    Nope.

    I'm looking at a rack full of Netras and I don't see a single machine with a keyboard connector. Serial console, don't you know. And video cards? what the fuck would I want with a video card in a server?

    So, as long as by "almost all computers" you mean "a small minority of computers", your statement is correct.

    Simon

    I think we can safely say that when a poster on this board says "computer" they are not referring to embedded devices. And if you really believe that servers outnumber desktops then you are totally delusional. Maybe if you venture outside of the server room and take a peek at where everyone else works you might get a better idea of what the majority of computers are.

  • (cs) in reply to Asd
    Anonymous:

    I think we can safely say that when a poster on this board says "computer" they are not referring to embedded devices.

    Why not? The majority of computers (defined as anything that has a CPU) are embedded.
    And if you really believe that servers outnumber desktops then you are totally delusional. Maybe if you venture outside of the server room and take a peek at where everyone else works you might get a better idea of what the majority of computers are.

    While this might be true, you should consider the following:
    a) only a few people actually ever see inside the server room, while everybody sees the desktops
    b) many organisations, especially large ones, replace desktop PCs with thin clients connected to a terminal server
  • (cs) in reply to Asd

    @Asd:

    So how did you set those machines up? How did you even get the hard drive detected? Unless they were straight out of the box, in which case the manufacturer had a keyboard and monitor plugged in at the factory.

    I never said you had to have the damn thing in all the time. In fact, I specifically said the opposite. But some configuration options just need to have a keyboard and monitor.

  • (cs) in reply to ammoQ
    ammoQ:

    Why not? The majority of computers (defined as anything that has a CPU) are embedded.

    ...

    While this might be true, you should consider the following:
    a) only a few people actually ever see inside the server room, while everybody sees the desktops
    b) many organisations, especially large ones, replace desktop PCs with thin clients connected to a terminal server


    You're contradicting yourself. If you define "computer" as "anything that has a CPU", then a thin client most certainly qualifies. And you'd have to be pretty delusional to believe that overall servers  number even one tenth the number of desktop or notebook computers... unless, of course, you define "server" as "anything that has a process listening to a network port".
  • (cs) in reply to Bellinghman

    Bellinghman:
    sadly the same can't be said of the forum software which nicely refutes the Microsoft line that only proprietary software shows innovation. If you use a real phpBB board, then you'll know just how bad this knock-off is.

    It goes both ways. Most of FOSS stuff is a clone as far as I can tell. No less, Telligent did have a good idea as far as combining Blogs, Forums, and Galleries. But the quality of implementing the idea is pretty low ... beta quality at best.

    And good news, I fixed the obnoxious preview issue. No more Preview Button! :-)

  • WWWWolf (unregistered) in reply to John

    "We need more of these types of "honesty in labeling" type dialogs."

    My favorite was in some version of Nautilus (probably shortly after it went from Eazel to GNOME).

    "Are you sure you want to forget the history? If you do, you're doomed to repeat it."

    Regrettably, I think they changed it back to some boring message before the next major release. Was fun while it lasted!

  • (cs) in reply to johnl
    johnl:
    @Asd: So how did you set those machines up? How did you even get the hard drive detected? Unless they were straight out of the box, in which case the manufacturer had a keyboard and monitor plugged in at the factory. I never said you had to have the damn thing in *all the time*. In fact, I specifically said the opposite. But some configuration options just need to have a keyboard and monitor.


    Read and learn about the magic behind TIP:

    http://www.sun.com/products-n-solutions/hardware/docs/html/817-2698-12/connecting.html#71772

    And in case you still don't get it, just believe me (and Asd) that indeed computers exist, where you will never need to connect a keyboard and monitor for any configuration. (In fact, some of them don't even have connectors for such hardware, see page 3 of http://www.sun.com/products-n-solutions/hardware/docs/pdf/817-3904-11.pdf )

    BTW: Sun's Netra is just one example of many, as is the TIP solution. And why do you need a keyboard to detect harddrives?

    cu
  • RJ (unregistered)

    I always liked the standard 'An Unexpected Error Occurred...' messages. You know - as opposed to those built-in errors that we knew were gonna popup. Nothing better than pessimistic software.... ;-)

  • (cs) in reply to brazzy
    brazzy:
    ammoQ:

    Why not? The majority of computers (defined as anything that has a CPU) are embedded.

    ...

    While this might be true, you should consider the following:
    a) only a few people actually ever see inside the server room, while everybody sees the desktops
    b) many organisations, especially large ones, replace desktop PCs with thin clients connected to a terminal server


    You're contradicting yourself. If you define "computer" as "anything that has a CPU", then a thin client most certainly qualifies.

    definitely correct ;-) Anyway, most embedded computers are not desktops.

    And you'd have to be pretty delusional to believe that overall servers  number even one tenth the number of desktop or notebook computers... unless, of course, you define "server" as "anything that has a process listening to a network port".

    No, I do not believe that and I have not claimed that. But the previous posting said "look around" and that is obviously not the right way to determine the numbers.
  • (cs) in reply to johnl
    johnl:
    @Asd: So how did you set those machines up? How did you even get the hard drive detected? Unless they were straight out of the box, in which case the manufacturer had a keyboard and monitor plugged in at the factory.

    A lot of pc manufactirers, if not most, don't install the os by hand. they either load an image on the hard drive themsleves before putting it in a new machine or have the hard drive made with the image already present.
    Of course if they're any good they should test they thing before they ship, but I sometimes wonder if that step is becoming optional.
  • Dhericean (unregistered) in reply to Alex Papadimoulis

    A couple of interesting message/error things that I have heard about for .Net (from the dotNetRocks show) are:

    1. According to Bill Vaughn in show 106 (~51:30) early builds of dotNet did not have error messages but instead simply reporting "S**t Happens" (they smear the first word in the recording).

    2. According to Brad Abrams in show 126 (~1:14:30) one of the dotNet 1.0 developers was asked to throw an Exception to deal with a problem that was causing a crash (due to very strange programmer behaviour).  Originally he added a new public "YouMoronException" to the Base Class Library (ha ha ... very funny ... rip it out).  Boy there are times I wish that was still there.

    Just thought it worth sharing this with the list.

     

    Dhericean

    Gamma Testing - Where testing is extended to the entire user community (AKA shipping the product)

  • mattei (unregistered)

    hilarious :)

  • htimsh (unregistered) in reply to Aristotle Pagaltzis

    my absolute favorite when i was beta testing XP was an svchost error that would occur occasionally. It was a restart dialog that would popup that said "your computer will restart in 1 minute. there is nothing you can do, you are screwed"


  • (cs) in reply to John Smallberries
    John Smallberries:
    Doesn't anybody proofread these?



    Sure, but only programmers.   I work with two green card programmers (form Pakistan).   They do ok as programmers, but since they proofread each others work, the messages where interesting... 

    It is better now that a few native American (the English seem to refuse to have anything to do with what we speak even though it is nearly identical) speakers work here too.   Still, most of the proofreading is done by programmers, so ...  ick.  I often know it is bad without having a clue of how to correct it.

    P.S.  I always found the preveiw to work just fine, so long as you don't try to do HTML.
  • (cs) in reply to hank miller
    hank miller:
    John Smallberries:
    Doesn't anybody proofread these?



    Sure, but only programmers.   I work with two green card programmers (form Pakistan).   They do ok as programmers, but since they proofread each others work, the messages where interesting... 

    It is better now that a few native American (the English seem to refuse to have anything to do with what we speak even though it is nearly identical) speakers work here too.   Still, most of the proofreading is done by programmers, so ...  ick.  I often know it is bad without having a clue of how to correct it.

    P.S.  I always found the preveiw to work just fine, so long as you don't try to do HTML.


    Excuse me, but as a non US resident, I have been told that native american are indians. You know, the guys that beat Columbus there. And thus native american as a language ought to be whatever they spoke? :P

  • (cs)

    My personal favorite is a Linux bash error, relating to the fg/bg commands. Generally you use them to give yourself some multitasking functionality on the command line, rather than openening a dozen different terminal sessions.

    I was switching between two tasks once, and I must have had too many nestings or something because the app choked and killed off all my extra sessions.

    The error message was:

    "The dungeon collapses. You die."


  • (cs) in reply to Ulvhamne
    Ulvhamne:
    hank miller:
    John Smallberries:
    Doesn't anybody proofread these?



    Sure, but only programmers.   I work with two green card programmers (form Pakistan).   They do ok as programmers, but since they proofread each others work, the messages where interesting... 

    It is better now that a few native American (the English seem to refuse to have anything to do with what we speak even though it is nearly identical) speakers work here too.   Still, most of the proofreading is done by programmers, so ...  ick.  I often know it is bad without having a clue of how to correct it.

    P.S.  I always found the preveiw to work just fine, so long as you don't try to do HTML.


    Excuse me, but as a non US resident, I have been told that native american are indians. You know, the guys that beat Columbus there. And thus native american as a language ought to be whatever they spoke? :P



    Native american as a "language" is still what they spoke.  Try doing business anywhere in the world with it though.  I bet you're better off learning "unbroken English."
  • wang (unregistered) in reply to Suomynona

    Anonymous:
    Anonymous:
    Curiously, that error is usually generated as a result of a setting - the user wants to be told the keyboard is not attached.  The curious part of this - the wtf if you like - is the lack of domain knowledge amongst such exalted critics as yourself...
    Actually, if you had ever used a computer apart from your Gameboy, you would have noticed that a) this is the default on many PCs, and b) a simple 3 second pause would have been enough to inform "the user" (who allegedly wants to see this), no need to interrupt the boot process indefinitely until some has managed to fetch a PS/2 keyboard (typically), thank you.

    Well, given that the options in the bios tend to be constructed to give you the choice (at least on most pc bios' -esp award bios which we are discussing here) of halt on all errors, halt on keyboard errors, or not to bother with it, then whatever the _default_ setting, fundamentally it comes down to whether a user chooses to set it up to halt or not. Personally I would prefer to have to hit the key rather than wait the best part of 10 minutes for the machine to finish booting at which point I would then discover the mistake spend another 5-10 shutting down and another 10 rebooting.  Brilliant way to spend a nice half hour.

    What does suck badly is the server demanding a key press to continue booting past a failed disk (in a mirror ffs)...but again thats probably just a config problem.

  • (cs) in reply to wagemonkey
    A lot of pc manufactirers, if not most, don't install the os by hand.
    True, but I'm not specifically talking about the OS.

    But hey, if you want to spend thousands on machines that have just being slammed together and shoved out the door without someone even so much as giving the BIOS a once-over, that's your business.

  • (cs) in reply to johnl

    The quoting thing seems to have gone a bit strange. The

    this is a quote
    stuff hasn't worked in a few of my posts lately

  • (cs)

    Reminds me of my favorite error message from old versions of Apache Tomcat. A page would display the following when the server was up, but your webapp was undeployed.

    "The application (The application is currently unavailable) is currently unavailable."

    Between the parenthesis was supposed to be the name of the application. Good thing it wasn't recursive.

  • (cs) in reply to johnl
    johnl:
    Oh, and one of our map-generation tools has the best error message of all time. It's a shame I don't have a screen shot at the moment, but I'll try to describe it to you. While the map data is processing, at various points, a message box with an OK button will appear. The text consists of a single, lonely comma. Clicking ok lets the program continue happily.


    That's perfectly reasonable. A comma is used to specify a pause.
  • (cs)

    LOL,  especially the Outlook Anihilation (Paula had a job at Microsoft ? [:D])

  • (cs) in reply to nonDev
    nonDev:

    “Out of paper on Drive D:”

    What - you guys never used Paperdisk?
    http://www.paperdisk.com/

    nonDev

    <FONT face="Courier New" size=2>i can't tell if this is a joke, or if this was written in the mid-90's.  there's almost too much information there to be a joke.  too much dedication.</FONT>

  • (cs) in reply to emptyset
    emptyset:
    nonDev:

    “Out of paper on Drive D:”

    What - you guys never used Paperdisk?
    http://www.paperdisk.com/

    nonDev

    <font face="Courier New" size="2">i can't tell if this is a joke, or if this was written in the mid-90's.  there's almost too much information there to be a joke.  too much dedication.</font>



    Oh, it was real, and it beat the living daylights out of trying to figure out whether you needed 7N1 with Kermit or 8E2 on y-modem at maybe (just maybe) 1200 real baud IF the guy at the other end had a modem that was REALLY Hayes-compatible. ATDT 1800THSSCKS
  • (cs) in reply to Ulvhamne

    Ulvhamne:


    Excuse me, but as a non US resident, I have been told that native american are indians. You know, the guys that beat Columbus there. And thus native american as a language ought to be whatever they spoke? :P

    <FONT face="Courier New" size=2>wow.  programming under the influence of peyote.  what will they think of next?  too bad babelfish doesn't support navajo translations.</FONT>

  • (cs) in reply to Stan Rogers

    Stan Rogers:


    Oh, it was real, and it beat the living daylights out of trying to figure out whether you needed 7N1 with Kermit or 8E2 on y-modem at maybe (just maybe) 1200 real baud IF the guy at the other end had a modem that was REALLY Hayes-compatible. ATDT 1800THSSCKS

    <FONT face="Courier New" size=2>ah, the memories of trying to setup doom modem games.  one of my best friends (and still is after all these years!) tried rather unsuccessfully to communicate with modems using his voice.  i wonder if there's a freak (phreak?) out there who could pull it off.  that certainly merits, uh, something awesome.  at least a footnote somewhere... </FONT>

  • (cs) in reply to emptyset
    emptyset:

    Stan Rogers:


    Oh, it was real, and it beat the living daylights out of trying to figure out whether you needed 7N1 with Kermit or 8E2 on y-modem at maybe (just maybe) 1200 real baud IF the guy at the other end had a modem that was REALLY Hayes-compatible. ATDT 1800THSSCKS

    <font face="Courier New" size="2">ah, the memories of trying to setup doom modem games.  one of my best friends (and still is after all these years!) tried rather unsuccessfully to communicate with modems using his voice.  i wonder if there's a freak (phreak?) out there who could pull it off.  that certainly merits, uh, something awesome.  at least a footnote somewhere... </font>



    I could tell modems to disconnect, and send them into some wierd loop. :P And I have a friend who could tell a fax to print a paper that said "hello" :) We do have too much free time during our first 12 years of school here in sweden. :P
  • (cs) in reply to Ulvhamne

    Ulvhamne:

    I could tell modems to disconnect, and send them into some wierd loop. :P And I have a friend who could tell a fax to print a paper that said "hello" :) We do have too much free time during our first 12 years of school here in sweden. :P

    <FONT face="Courier New" size=2>the only things i know about sweden i learned from a cult movie (i want to say from something weird video) about swedish youth in reckless abandon, and also, that snow monster movie with the HUGE yeti.</FONT>

  • Chris (unregistered)

    At least none of the messages ended with the "error box exclamation mark" wich seems far too common - "Drive empty!" "File not found!" and so on.

    For some reason it always grates, it's like the program (well developer) was suprised by the error.

  • Matt (unregistered)

    <font color="#ff6633" size="2">How about this website: http://www.budtempchi.org/errorhaiku.html

    This one seems appropriate

    </font>

    <font color="#ff6633" size="2">Errors have occurred.</font>
    <font color="#ff6633" size="2">We won't tell you where or why.</font>
    <font color="#ff6633" size="2">Lazy programmers.

    </font>
    :D

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