• Skas (unregistered)

    I'm going w/ the WTF being the fact that a major company is abusing a license this terribly...and doesn't take any type of preventative measures to ensure the most recent data is backed up >.<

    captcha: ninjas...they're in the ceiling

  • (cs)

    I spent a few happy days last year explaining to a customer that his problems were not down to our web application, but rather had to do with the fact that their production database was running SQL Server 2000 Personal Edition, which has a "Workload Governor" that only allows 8 concurrent connections before degrading performance.

    And by happy days I mean endless email exchanges and phone calls, including taking screen shots and sending them back to them before they believed me...

  • (cs) in reply to phelyan
    phelyan:
    , including taking screen shots and sending them back to them before they believed me...

    Reading this I had a grand idea. Someone needs to create a screen shot application which automagically places a "wooden desk" matting around it.

  • Diggity (unregistered)

    I guess that's why there's so much money spilled into RE-insurance. Too bad. The powers that be don't seem to have enough gray matter in aggregate to contemplate a RE-design of their own thought processes.

    Regarding the way they have manipulated/interpreted the licensing of Squeal Server; My insurance data within their "production" system using a temp, desktop edition license? Saving a few dollars by introducing a whole lot of risk? Maybe starting with the word "ethical" would be to much of a leap here.

    C-A-P-T-C-H-A is yummy. Sorry, I've lost my appetite. Maybe later, Skippy.

  • Unomi (unregistered)

    I work for a company who hasn't had any real IT-manager until a month ago. So things are changing (pretty fast too).

    We don't have backups (none, repeat: NO BACKUPS).

    Second, we have a print-server wich has SBS 2003, the trial version running. For months now. You can't log in, but the services will start anyhow.

    Any now and then the people have to restart the workstation (ehm, printserver?) to be able to print again.

    Captcha: Darwin (well, it is going uphill from now on, skipping natural selection)

    • Unomi -
  • (cs)

    Reminds my of the good old days, when we had to turn back the clock just to run some shareware :)

  • (cs) in reply to shambo
    shambo:
    Reading this I had a grand idea. Someone needs to create a screen shot application which automagically places a "wooden desk" matting around it.
    That idea confuses me a little. So you, uhh, like, when you print it off and take the picture, you have a double-wood border?
  • (cs)

    I can't say I'm surprised. I live in Florida. This past December I had a sit-down with my insurance agent, and the upshot is, hooray, our premiums are only doubling; we're not getting cancelled like my in-laws.

    I asked the agent why our premiums are doubling; we haven't filed any claims and the risks haven't changed.

    "Don't you think there's been a lot of storms lately?" she asked.

    "Not really." I replied.

    Stunned silence.

    I then begin to describe Normal distributions and random variables. I draw histograms that show storm frequency. I tell her about standard deviations and "expected values."

    "Well, it just seems to me like there's been more storms lately."

    Sigh.

  • KungFu (unregistered)

    Getting a little snippy about the name change, are we?

    /tell grandma I said hi

  • Mike Dimmick (unregistered)

    If you want to use SQL Server 2000 on a Windows 2000 Pro or Windows XP machine, you have three options:

    • SQL Server Desktop Engine (MSDE)
    • SQL Server Developer Edition
    • SQL Server Workgroup Edition

    Desktop Engine has no tools and the Workload Governor, so it's really only suitable for client applications that need a database. Developer Edition is actually Enterprise Edition but is licensed only for development and test, so that's out. Workgroup Edition was added very, very late in the product's life and there's not much information about it (it's referenced on the System Requirements page, but there doesn't seem to be much information on its limitations compared to Standard Edition).

    For most production purposes you should be running SQL Server on a server computer, running Windows Server (2000 or 2003).

  • barf indeedy (unregistered)

    Hey guys... just want to let you know, that even tho I don't like the name change to worse than failure, I believe you 100% on the scenario you are describing....

    ......................I wonder why that would be.... :(

    yours truly, Someone who hopes we don't end up on the same path when that far down the road........

  • nobody (unregistered)

    The real wtf will be what the management says if Microsoft ever finds out and sues.

    Or maybe Microsoft sued already and that's why the insurance premium doubled.

  • Patrick (unregistered)

    This must be Allstate...

  • Kiss me, I'm Polish (unregistered)

    Been there, seen that. It's like a database developed for years in a pirated MS Access 2.0 (I'm not kidding you), that you discover when the Database Server (the user's desktop machine) is having a hard drive failure and you are the person that has to copy all the sensible data on the new hard drive. I don't have a job right now, but at least I stopped losing hair.

  • ObiWayneKenobi (unregistered)

    Of course nowadays the easy (?) solution is to use SQL Server 2005 Express Edition. Although I forget if that has the workload thingie. Probably.

    CAPTCHA: Gygax. Looks like this company rolled a natural '1' on its Willpower save against Stupidity.

  • (cs)

    The sad thing is that there are perfectly good SQL servers out there other than MS SQL Server, which are open-source.

    Immediately coming to mind:

    • PostgreSQL (my personal favourite)
    • MySQL
    • SQLite

    The real WTF is that if they are going to be so f---ing cheap, that they overlooked free.

  • (cs) in reply to rbowes
    rbowes:
    shambo:
    Reading this I had a grand idea. Someone needs to create a screen shot application which automagically places a "wooden desk" matting around it.
    That idea confuses me a little. So you, uhh, like, when you print it off and take the picture, you have a double-wood border?
    Making a good thing better!

    Image a barber-shop wall-of-mirrors type nesting of wooden borders...

  • (cs)

    I did this to a 'developer' many, many moons ago...

    They insisted that they just had to have a copy of SQL Server installed on their machine - even though what they where working on had nothing to do with SQL and servers. So I installed a 120 day trial edition.

    Narf!

  • David Walker (unregistered)

    Most people think that all SQL Server licenses cost thousands of dollars.

    For a small business, a SQL server 2000 server license that costs about $700 and allows up to 5 connections is probably fine.

    SQL server 2005 Express Edition is free.

  • JohnMo (unregistered)

    I wonder if they had any copies of Microsoft Access lying around. All copies of Access come with a copy of MSDE starting along about the 2000 version.

  • doc0tis (unregistered)

    Entirely believable.

    Dang, two years ago I would have called Bullsh*t, but now it's entirely believable. Naiveity, I miss you.

    --doc0tis

    CAPTCHA: muhahahaha - oh so appropriate.

  • Bet your sweet dupa, I'm Polish! (unregistered) in reply to David Walker
    David Walker:
    Most people think that all SQL Server licenses cost thousands of dollars.

    For a small business, a SQL server 2000 server license that costs about $700 and allows up to 5 connections is probably fine.

    SQL server 2005 Express Edition is free.

    Problem is, some people are still too cheap for the $700 invoice although that trip they took last week got expensed and approved for at $6,512.36.

    They probably think they're pulling something over on Micro$oft. They are actually financially screwing everyone else who wishes to properly use the same product.

    <soapbox> I think everyone that actually pays what they owe are also paying for all of those unproperly licensed and unlicensed copies out there. Product misuse must be part of any software company's business plan; predicting and managing the exact amount of "shrinkage"/loss. Thus, these losses are baked into the price we all pay for all of this software. Insurance companies also have the same issue with lots of uninsured "pirates" out there for which we all pay the price. Those premiums will simply double, triple, quadruple, quintribble! </soapbox>

    BTW, what's up with displaying the captcha text in replies?

  • (cs) in reply to Bet your sweet dupa, I'm Polish!
    Bet your sweet dupa:
    BTW, what's up with displaying the captcha text in replies?
    Yeah, I've often wondered that, myself. Would anyone like to let the rest of us in on this?
  • JohnB (unregistered) in reply to Bet your sweet dupa, I'm Polish!
    Bet your sweet dupa:

    [snip]

    BTW, what's up with displaying the captcha text in replies?

    You must be new here. People only do that when the captcha has some bearing on the content of the original message or to the reply.

    Captcha: howdy (Indeed!)

  • fallguy (unregistered)

    I can believe it. I've seen such stupidity in my own job. Nothing that horrible, but bad enough.

    I'm waiting for the axe to fall on my neck when they find out I replaced an aging AppleShare IP install with Ubuntu Server instead of pirating OS X Server...

  • (cs) in reply to JohnB
    JohnB:
    Bet your sweet dupa:

    [snip]

    BTW, what's up with displaying the captcha text in replies?

    You must be new here. People only do that when the captcha has some bearing on the content of the original message or to the reply.

    Captcha: howdy (Indeed!)

    Yep like this one he posted, you are new here and his captcha just greeted you. Whenever there is synchronicity in captchas people tend to post them, sometimes the relevance is forced, others may take it to far, but this is the idea.

  • (cs)

    I don't think that many of us said we'd stop reading because of the name change. I think we just tried to drive home the point that you're an idiot because "Worse Than Failure" doesn't work over a beer like "The Daily WTF" does. Word of mouth, word of mouth, word of mouth. Ok, who cares, you're not listening.

  • A Nonny Mouse (unregistered) in reply to JohnB
    JohnB:
    Bet your sweet dupa:
    BTW, what's up with displaying the captcha text in replies?
    You must be new here. People only do that when the captcha has some bearing on the content of the original message or to the reply.

    Captcha: howdy (Indeed!)

    ok seriously. can you people fuck off with your captchas? nobody cares!! (or should that be failure off)

    re: the actual topic - i totally believe this story. how many times have i seen the people upstairs refusing to pay for stuff, like new production servers, because "the old one works fine and we don't have £600 lying around". when in fact the old one doesn't work fine and they've wasted a helluva lot more than £600 with us poor saps trying to tweak performance... i guess they'll never learn (thankfully i am no longer with that company!)

  • (cs)

    What the fuck kind of book is this?

    1. It's upgradeable? "Upgrade this book for $11.99 more, and you can read, search, and annotate every page online. See details"

    2. Where do these "Key Phrases" come from? "Key Phrases - Statistically Improbable Phrases (SIPs): (learn more) salesreps table, empl num, update salesreps, business analysis queries, procedure dialects, sqlvar array, largest maximum length, statement syntax diagram, search condition yields, legal data values, group search conditions, one row for each table, required dynamic parameter, salesreps where, query results column, quota column, dynamic query processing, rep integer, system catalog views, unmatched girls, exec sql delete, versioning architecture, salespeople whose sales, set membership test, row data type"

    I don't know what Amazon is trying to accomplish with this, but the phrase "unmatched girls" certainly caught my attention..

  • (cs) in reply to Nandurius

    ^^ huh?

  • BA (unregistered) in reply to fallguy

    When I started my current job, my computer was the old server that had a trial copy of Windows Server 2003.

  • Michael (unregistered) in reply to Bet your sweet dupa, I'm Polish!
    Bet your sweet dupa:
    <soapbox> I think everyone that actually pays what they owe are also paying for all of those unproperly licensed and unlicensed copies out there. Product misuse must be part of any software company's business plan; predicting and managing the exact amount of "shrinkage"/loss. Thus, these losses are baked into the price we all pay for all of this software. Insurance companies also have the same issue with lots of uninsured "pirates" out there for which we all pay the price. Those premiums will simply double, triple, quadruple, quintribble! </soapbox>
    Actually it's not, the price of a piece of software is based on the maximum profit that can be gained, that is: $ profit = # of copies sold * price per copy

    Now you can argue that piracy causes the # of copies sold to decrease, thus raising your cost to maintain the profit level, and you have a point there. However, it is the fact that you and others are willing to pay that price before switching to an alternative that has the most impact on the price per copy. Consider these situations:

    1.) If everyone who pirates SQL Server instead switched to MySQL, your price would not change because it would not change the profit level.

    2.) If everyone who pirates SQL Server instead purchased a legal copy at the same price you are willing to pay, your price would not change because the profit level would have found a new maximum.

    3.) If people who had legal copies of SQL Server switched to MySQL, your price would drop because the maximum available profit would be lower at the current price per copy than it could be at a lower price per copy.

    So it's time to get off your soapbox and reconsider what SQL Server is really worth compared to the competition.

    Note: The use of MySQL here is an example, any free or lower cost database would have the same effects.

  • (cs) in reply to Skas

    I was assured by a nice looking man on television that the whole thing was "so easy, even a caveman could do it."

    Apparently not.

  • Freddy-Bob (unregistered) in reply to Bet your sweet dupa, I'm Polish!

    [quote user="Bet your sweet dupa, I'm Polish!"][quote user="David Walker"]software. Insurance companies also have the same issue with lots of uninsured "pirates" out there for which we all pay the price. Those premiums will simply double, triple, quadruple, quintribble!

    I'm curious. How do you pirate insurance?

    [/quote]

  • peon (unregistered) in reply to A Nonny Mouse
    A Nonny Mouse:
    JohnB:
    You must be new here. People only do that when the captcha has some bearing on the content of the original message or to the reply.

    Captcha: howdy (Indeed!)

    ok seriously. can you people fuck off with your captchas? nobody cares!! (or should that be failure off)

    I might care if they were even mildly funny or clever. They are just not so. Why would you think somebody would find that "Indeed!" remark worth reading? Why, why why?
  • Bet your sweet dupa, I'm Polish! (unregistered) in reply to Michael
    Michael:
    Bet your sweet dupa:
    <soapbox> I think everyone that actually pays what they owe are also paying for all of those unproperly licensed and unlicensed copies out there. Product misuse must be part of any software company's business plan; predicting and managing the exact amount of "shrinkage"/loss. Thus, these losses are baked into the price we all pay for all of this software. Insurance companies also have the same issue with lots of uninsured "pirates" out there for which we all pay the price. Those premiums will simply double, triple, quadruple, quintribble! </soapbox>
    Actually it's not, the price of a piece of software is based on the maximum profit that can be gained, that is: $ profit = # of copies sold * price per copy

    Now you can argue that piracy causes the # of copies sold to decrease, thus raising your cost to maintain the profit level, and you have a point there. However, it is the fact that you and others are willing to pay that price before switching to an alternative that has the most impact on the price per copy. Consider these situations:

    1.) If everyone who pirates SQL Server instead switched to MySQL, your price would not change because it would not change the profit level.

    2.) If everyone who pirates SQL Server instead purchased a legal copy at the same price you are willing to pay, your price would not change because the profit level would have found a new maximum.

    3.) If people who had legal copies of SQL Server switched to MySQL, your price would drop because the maximum available profit would be lower at the current price per copy than it could be at a lower price per copy.

    So it's time to get off your soapbox and reconsider what SQL Server is really worth compared to the competition.

    Note: The use of MySQL here is an example, any free or lower cost database would have the same effects.

    Good points!

    <imho> One issue I have though is that "the higher ups" really don't like to think about "free stuff". They worry about liability (i.e. being able to place blame on the vendor). They typically don't trust their own associates within the company but rely on paid consultants to tell them what's up. My guess? If the VPs and CxOs pay for someone's servcies and receive advice to start using "free stuff", they could possibly go for it.

    Also, taking away the price of consultants and maintenance, the ROI is nearly impossible to calculate on initial purchase alone (DIV BY ZERO error? Huh?). Even though the maintenance over the coming years should be more important, the initial purchase of $0.00 looks like a big, fat, red clown nose for which no manager enjoys explaining to their bean-counting, P&L responsible VP. Now, including maintenance, you'll run into the same DIV/0 problem when attempting to divide it by the initial purchase price. </imho>

    <rant> For some reason, simply communicating on a human level, person-to-person, doesn't work. The know-it-all VP wants to see certain numbers in certain columns so they can calc their spreadsheet and yell PASS or FAIL; monkey-bars-accounting at it's best.

    It seems I'm the one who needs training in communications even though they're responsible, they're the leader, they're degreed, and they're experienced. I'm supposed to look up to these yahoos as mentors?

    Sorry. I apologize. It's all my fault.

    I shouldn't properly engineer solutions using hardware and software, off-the-shelf and hand-rolled. I need to "communicate more effectively". I guess I need some seminars with Stephen Covey and Suze Orman to show the way. </rant>

  • Bet your sweet dupa, I'm Polish! (unregistered) in reply to Freddy-Bob

    [quote user="Freddy-Bob"][quote user="Bet your sweet dupa, I'm Polish!"][quote user="David Walker"]software. Insurance companies also have the same issue with lots of uninsured "pirates" out there for which we all pay the price. Those premiums will simply double, triple, quadruple, quintribble!

    I'm curious. How do you pirate insurance?

    [/quote][/quote]

    From what I hear (FWIH), you're a pirate if you do NOT have insurance. You are a thief that must hand over a portion of your hard-earned money to Micro$oft, uhhh, the insurance company. That way, everyone will get their "fair share".

    I dunno. I think I'm just having a bad day today. Please ignore any further utterances from my euro-descended pie hole.

  • Bill (unregistered) in reply to Freddy-Bob

    [quote user="Freddy-Bob"][quote user="Bet your sweet dupa, I'm Polish!"][quote user="David Walker"]software. Insurance companies also have the same issue with lots of uninsured "pirates" out there for which we all pay the price. Those premiums will simply double, triple, quadruple, quintribble!

    I'm curious. How do you pirate insurance?

    [/quote][/quote]

    It's easy. Even though most states have laws requiring proof of insurance to get a car registered or inspected, an entire cottage industry of people getting insurance on an installment plan, getting a card good for 6 months, then not making any payments has sprung up. So..... these folks are driving around uninsured. If you get in a wreck with them, good luck getting their company to pay.

    captcha: withheld by request ;)

  • (cs)

    i really don't think you have any room to be smug about the name change. most people here are still reading in spite of the name change, because we know the name doesn't affect the content. it still grates on me though. we're trying to be gracious about it but you need to not rub it in our faces.

  • muttonchop (unregistered) in reply to peon

    This reminds me of my current job. I have to use a specific IDE plugin, but it's been taking forever to get purchase approval for a license. As a result, every 30 days I get to install a trial version on a new VM image.

  • (cs) in reply to Bet your sweet dupa, I'm Polish!
    Bet your sweet dupa:
    Michael:

    Taking away the price of consultants and maintenance, the ROI is nearly impossible to calculate on initial purchase alone (DIV BY ZERO error? Huh?). Even though the maintenance over the coming years should be more important, the initial purchase of $0.00 looks like a big, fat, red clown nose for which no manager enjoys explaining to their bean-counting, P&L responsible VP. Now, including maintenance, you'll run into the same DIV/0 problem when attempting to divide it by the initial purchase price. </imho>

    <rant> For some reason, simply communicating on a human level, person-to-person, doesn't work. The know-it-all VP wants to see certain numbers in certain columns so they can calc their spreadsheet and yell PASS or FAIL; monkey-bars-accounting at it's best.

    Sorry. I apologize. It's all my fault.

    I shouldn't properly engineer solutions using hardware and software, off-the-shelf and hand-rolled. I need to "communicate more effectively". I guess I need some seminars with Stephen Covey and Suze Orman to show the way. </rant>

    The trick is to use the time it takes to download as the initial cost. Multiply by your hourly rate, then add the bandwidth cost and the estimated electricity costs. If it's not expensive enough, then add in the time it took you to install it and / or burn it onto a CD. Maybe you should print off a PDF manual at 5 cents a page.

    Then there's something to put into the "before" column. Instead of a /0 error, the ROI looks fantastic. (You're looking at somewhere between $20-$100 to start the system, and you're saving 5-10k over 2 years.)

  • Michael (unregistered) in reply to Bet your sweet dupa, I'm Polish!
    Bet your sweet dupa:
    <imho> One issue I have though is that "the higher ups" really don't like to think about "free stuff". They worry about liability (i.e. being able to place blame on the vendor). They typically don't trust their own associates within the company but rely on paid consultants to tell them what's up. My guess? If the VPs and CxOs pay for someone's servcies and receive advice to start using "free stuff", they could possibly go for it.

    Also, taking away the price of consultants and maintenance, the ROI is nearly impossible to calculate on initial purchase alone (DIV BY ZERO error? Huh?). Even though the maintenance over the coming years should be more important, the initial purchase of $0.00 looks like a big, fat, red clown nose for which no manager enjoys explaining to their bean-counting, P&L responsible VP. Now, including maintenance, you'll run into the same DIV/0 problem when attempting to divide it by the initial purchase price. </imho>

    I've often heard people say they can't convince management to use software that is free. Fine, I believe them, but if that is the case there are plenty of people and companies willing to sell you a free product, some even give you a support contract in return (MySQL AG will sell you MySQL if you ask them to).

    Even if there isn't a company that will do this, start your own and then sell the free software to your boss. They get to empty their expense account before the end of the year, you get to fill your checking account, everybody wins.

  • Michael (unregistered) in reply to Freddy-Bob
    Freddy-Bob:
    Bet your sweet dupa:
    software. Insurance companies also have the same issue with lots of uninsured "pirates" out there for which we all pay the price. Those premiums will simply double, triple, quadruple, quintribble!
    I'm curious. How do you pirate insurance?
    My state requires that everyone carry insurance on any tagged vehicle. Additionally, they require that you carry "Uninsured Motorist" insurance to cover the people who don't.
  • someone (unregistered) in reply to wizzard

    actually, you still sound like a whiny schoolkid

  • Jonh Robo (unregistered)

    heh

    CAPTCHA: [email protected]

  • Wene Gerchinko (unregistered) in reply to peon
    peon:
    A Nonny Mouse:
    JohnB:
    You must be new here. People only do that when the captcha has some bearing on the content of the original message or to the reply.

    Captcha: howdy (Indeed!)

    ok seriously. can you people fuck off with your captchas? nobody cares!! (or should that be failure off)

    I might care if they were even mildly funny or clever. They are just not so. Why would you think somebody would find that "Indeed!" remark worth reading? Why, why why?

    So, you're from Slytherin, huh? Definately not Ravenclaw. CAPTCHA = xevious (indeed) "the arcade game you can't play at home."

  • NM (unregistered)

    Had it been suggested, the suits would have complained about it not being professional enough, or something.

  • Mr Steve (unregistered) in reply to Jud
    Jud:
    I don't think *that many* of us said we'd stop reading because of the name change. I think we just tried to drive home the point that you're an idiot because "Worse Than Failure" doesn't work over a beer like "The Daily WTF" does. Word of mouth, word of mouth, word of mouth. Ok, who cares, you're not listening.

    yeah alex, no shame in admitting your mistake and just changing it back

    i'll even buy you a beer a mate

  • (cs) in reply to JCM
    JCM:
    "Don't you think there's been a lot of storms lately?" she asked.

    "Not really." I replied.

    I'm not sure who to be more annoyed with:

    • The insurance agent for purposefully glossing over the fact that Florida was essentially hurricane-free in 2006.

    • JCM for purposefully ignoring the concept of "above average".

    Florida hurricanes in 2005: Arlene, Dennis, Katrina, Rita, Wilma

    Florida hurricanes in 2004: Charley, Frances, Ivan, and Jeanne

    2004 was the first year since 1886 four hurricanes hit one US state in one season. It happened again in 2005. I'm not sure how this could not be defined as "a lot of storms".

  • Corey (unregistered) in reply to KattMan
    KattMan:
    JohnB:
    Bet your sweet dupa:

    [snip]

    BTW, what's up with displaying the captcha text in replies?

    You must be new here. People only do that when the captcha has some bearing on the content of the original message or to the reply.

    Captcha: howdy (Indeed!)

    Yep like this one he posted, you are new here and his captcha just greeted you. Whenever there is synchronicity in captchas people tend to post them, sometimes the relevance is forced, others may take it to far, but this is the idea.

    This being custom software, though, the captcha words tend to often relate to our discussions, e.g. "enterprisey".

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