The Daily WTF: Curious Perversions in Information Technology

2011-04-01 Reply Admin

Indeed. In fact, that eSATA port is also a USB port. Seriously, try it out.

Note: Not an April Fool's joke.

2011-04-01 Reply Admin

Severity One:
The story about the floppy is still relevant today, although in a reverse/roundabout way. The other day, I was installing Solaris 10 on our virtual infrastructure. I wasn't quite happy with the installation, but couldn't for the life of me figure out how I could get the thing to boot from the virtual DVD instead of the equally virtual hard disc. Turns out I needed to go into the virtual BIOS of the virtual machine (with real blue and yellow colour scheme on the virtual screen) and change the boot order. Now who would have thought of that...

Errr... anyone with a brain? It's exactly what you have to do on a physical box so why would it be any different on a VM? Virtualisation ain't tricky, it works just like the real thing - that's the whole point.

2011-04-01 Reply Admin

fritters:
Errr... anyone with a brain? It's exactly what you have to do on a physical box so why would it be any different on a VM? Virtualisation ain't tricky, it works just like the real thing - that's the whole point.

Because you don't expect that VM have a BIOS? We are used to that text interface when booting the system, but just after adding a disk with menus and open dialogs, it is not intuitive to 'press F1 to configure BIOS'.

hoodaticus · 2011-04-01 Reply Admin

erat:
fritters:
Errr... anyone with a brain? It's exactly what you have to do on a physical box so why would it be any different on a VM? Virtualisation ain't tricky, it works just like the real thing - that's the whole point.
Because you don't expect that VM have a BIOS? We are used to that text interface when booting the system, but just after adding a disk with menus and open dialogs, it is not intuitive to 'press F1 to configure BIOS'.

How is that not intuitive? Let me put it this way: do you think a VM could work without a VBIOS?

hoodaticus · 2011-04-01 Reply Admin

smxlong:
Meh:
smxlong:
I wouldn't be so hard on the person who stuck a thumb drive in a USB-to-PS/2 dongle. Seriously, the thing fits in there, why shouldn't it work?
There's a huge gap between "stupid" and "non-technical" and it's sad that so many technical people don't realize that.
And a nail will fit into a power socket.

A nail doesn't look as if it was designed to fit into a power socket.

A nail file on the other hand...

hoodaticus · 2011-04-01 Reply Admin

allison:
So what _would_ happen if you plugged a thumb drive into a PS/2 port?
/curious, but would rather not try it myself

Unless the thumb drive was designed for that, nothing at all.

hoodaticus · 2011-04-01 Reply Admin

Billlllllll:
hoodaticus:
Okay, I've had this one happen three times now - and for the record, I am NOT tech support.
... lo and behold - she's got the filter set to "Unread Messages". Naturally, when she opens an email, it disappears. TRWTF there was that she lied to me and knew damn well she was getting her emails - the problem was that they were disappearing on her.
Since you're NOT in tech support, I'll cut you some slack. But rule one of tech support is users always lie. Sometimes they don't mean to lie, but they will anyway. They literally cannot see that warning that popped up. The finger hits the mouse before comprehension hits the brain.

There's a real art to tricking them into observing something they usually filter. Misdirection and outright deceit is sometimes necessary.

"Sounds like we need to reboot your mouse. Unplug it. Now, before you plug it back in, hit F9. Look in the center of the screen and tell me what color the triangle icon is."

"Yellow" (admission that they can see the icon)

"Now, read me what it says just to the side of that yellow triangle."

"Printer is out of paper."

"OK, that means your printer is out of paper. You can plug your mouse back in. You're welcome."

Very nice! You remind me of Dr. House.

hoodaticus · 2011-04-01 Reply Admin

ca1977a:
boog:
Zolcos:
What kind of CD drive isn't completely enclosed?
One in a desktop computer from around the year 1998 or so, according to the story. Rather than a tray that slides out, there is just a slot for the CD.
Don't some current or recent Macs have these? EDIT: as well as the laptops, PlayStations etc. that have already been mentioned.

They are generally considered superior to tray-loaders. I want a Blu-Ray RW slot loader.

2011-04-01 Reply Admin

Power Troll:
Wow, PS/2 ports and floppies causing problems? Could have sworn the year was 2011.

I'm sure the article indicated it was long before that

blatant_mcfakename · 2011-04-01 Reply Admin

Do tech support people still get problems as dumb as "is the monitor turned on", or has the general public finally figured that out?

Well I stopped doing tech support for the public in 2006 and it really was that bad. I used to think that all the tech support stories were fictional, but it turns out you can print them out and play 'braindead bingo' with the list. When you get them you can just tick them off (yes, even the 'it won't come on andsee to check the connections because there's a powercut' classic). The lowest point of the job is being on whichever line hammering the '1' button on the phone takes you to, because you not only have people who can't use a computer they also can't take instructions or use a phone either.

My personal favourites are:

the bloke whose computer caught fire several times. - I had hundreds of callnotes detailling his rantings to the letter and I still don't fully know what happened, so don't ask

2)the woman who asked me 'what is a safe distance to stand away from your PC whilst scanning for viruses.

the loud, self-important bloke who shouted at me 'ahh so you're tech support eh? I bet you get all kinds of fking stupid wkers, can't plug them in, can't turn them on'

'I do get some problems like that sir, yes... but today I'm interested in yours. What is your problem'

'No dialtone error when trying to get online'

'okay... now I apologise for this, but for the reasons you've mentioned I need to check a few things. what does it say on the port you have the phone cable connected to on the PC?'

'LAN..... [long pause whilst I try not to laugh and figure out a diplomatic response]... I'm one of those w**kers aren't I?'

and my very last call ever (before I quit and returned to uni to do a comp sci degree) ended with a woman screaming at me in chinese, I said 'and what does that mean?' at which point she screamed'F**K YOU!' and slammed the phone down... so business as usual until the very end.

The worst thing I ever did though was when I was being monitored for promotion. every call was being screened and I was talking to a lady about cabling for her home cinema system.

'Is a big one better than a small one?' she asked, at which point her husband started laughing in the background.

so... at this point being monitored, there's a payrise on the line here so it's time to be careful. EXTREMELY careful. so what did I say?

'If you go back to you local store madam I'm sure the man behind the counter would be happy to show you a good length'. I instantly realised what I'd said at the exact moment it became too late, and her husband collapsed in a fit of laughter.

2 days later my manager came up to me, looking stern and said 'so... did she get a good length then?' and after an agonising pause started laughing and said 'cheer up you miserable git - you got it!'

Where in the world did those customers come from? :)

2011-04-01 Reply Admin

That thumbdrive image reminds me of playing Sonic & Knuckles.

2011-04-01 Reply Admin

hoodaticus:
C-Octothorpe:
hoodaticus:
Okay, I've had this one happen three times now - and for the record, I am NOT tech support.
I had an executive call me to tell me he wasn't getting any emails. Since I knew this wasn't so, I logged into his email account and, sure enough, no new recent emails were in the inbox. A LOT of deleted items though. I basically called him back and told him to look in his deleted items folder.

"Oh. Okay, they're there. [click]"

This happened with another executive a month later. Same resolution.

That same month, I got the same issue - no new emails showing up. This time, it wasn't an executive. I went into this lady's Outlook Web Access and checked the deleted items - nothing. Then I go back to the inbox and lo and behold - she's got the filter set to "Unread Messages". Naturally, when she opens an email, it disappears. TRWTF there was that she lied to me and knew damn well she was getting her emails - the problem was that they were disappearing on her.

Solving the problem was enough for these users. Some users, though, get all bitchy with me and copy their managers and their managers' managers. (In the corporate world, this is known as a declaration of war.) They have some misimpression that I don't report directly to the CTO and CEO, and that their lowly managers can actually pressure me to do anything at all, I guess. Depending on the p[bitc]H concentration of the conversation, I often end up humiliating the lot of them.

If the parties involved had enough clout, I would probably send them to a bureaucratic hell of my own creation, but I haven't needed to do that yet.

... and this is EXACTLY why I contract. I can't stand this kind of posturing/office politics bullshit.
I hate it too; however, I'm also pretty damn good at it.

Nice... I'd be terrible at that sort of stuff; too short tempered and I really hate the whole hierarchy structure (you must kiss someones ass, even though they're a complete moron, and really loud about it, because they're your bosses-boss). Fuck that noise...

2011-04-01 Reply Admin

Sudo:
vt_mruhlin:
I'm curious. Do tech support people still get problems as dumb as "is the monitor turned on", or has the general public finally figured that out?
I left a job last year after finally having enough of it. One of the things that eventually drove me insane was the fact that I shared an office with two photocopiers. (Two of three copiers in an entire school).
The machines went into standby after ten minutes or so to save power, and needed to be powered on again before use. Every couple of hours I would have to show someone how to turn it on (by pressing the giant power button) - the same people, day after day - most of them teachers. (Those who can't, teach).

The other "fun" thing that I had to persevere on a daily basis was that fact that it turns out about 20% of the staff in that place can't operate anything more complicated than a piece of chalk without actually describing it to themselves - aloud. So a lot of my day would be accompanied by the drone of "A4... portrait... paper from drawer... two?... is that two?... no, one... drawer... one... 40 copies... green for go... there, done."

It was like that film Groundhog Day, except there were retards, and nobody was laughing.

every couple of hours you would have to train people on how to switch on a photocopier? Did it never occur to you to just make a sign?

2011-04-01 Reply Admin

blarg:
Sudo:
vt_mruhlin:
I'm curious. Do tech support people still get problems as dumb as "is the monitor turned on", or has the general public finally figured that out?
I left a job last year after finally having enough of it. One of the things that eventually drove me insane was the fact that I shared an office with two photocopiers. (Two of three copiers in an entire school).
The machines went into standby after ten minutes or so to save power, and needed to be powered on again before use. Every couple of hours I would have to show someone how to turn it on (by pressing the giant power button) - the same people, day after day - most of them teachers. (Those who can't, teach).

The other "fun" thing that I had to persevere on a daily basis was that fact that it turns out about 20% of the staff in that place can't operate anything more complicated than a piece of chalk without actually describing it to themselves - aloud. So a lot of my day would be accompanied by the drone of "A4... portrait... paper from drawer... two?... is that two?... no, one... drawer... one... 40 copies... green for go... there, done."

It was like that film Groundhog Day, except there were retards, and nobody was laughing.

every couple of hours you would have to train people on how to switch on a photocopier? Did it never occur to you to just make a sign?

Rule One of support: People don't read signs and never read instructions, especially if there is a real person sat nearby that they could ask instead.

If you think about it, you'll probably recall one or two situations where you've done that yourself.

2011-04-01 Reply Admin

erat:
fritters:
Errr... anyone with a brain? It's exactly what you have to do on a physical box so why would it be any different on a VM? Virtualisation ain't tricky, it works just like the real thing - that's the whole point.
Because you don't expect that VM have a BIOS? We are used to that text interface when booting the system, but just after adding a disk with menus and open dialogs, it is not intuitive to 'press F1 to configure BIOS'.

Of course VMs have a BIOS - they are emulated computers!!! Some virtualisation technologies actually use stripped down versions of the standard Award / American Megatrends BIOS that you get in 90% of real boxes. The BIOS doesn't even realise it's running on a virtualised platform. I fail to comprehend the level of misunderstanding that would make you think a VM doesn't have a BIOS, it's just plain stupid!

Nook Schreier · 2011-04-01 Reply Admin

I'm not sure he thought there was no virtual BIOS... I believe the confusion was why he needed to start and connect to the VM to get to those settings, rather than being able to change hardware settings from outside of the virtual environment.

Of course, I could be wrong.

2011-04-01 Reply Admin

The PS/2 USB adapter is absolutely not a WTF. We brag about how UNIVERSAL USB is (hey, the clue is right there in the initialism!) Users learn that any USB device can be put into any USB socket. I bet the adapter had always been in that socket. I expect the customer had already seen a USB mouse, or keyboard, or both, plugged into a socket that looks like that in the past. It is sitting there pointing upwards, asking to be plugged in to. The plug fits perfectly (it also fits perfectly into an RJ45 socket, but that's another matter). How would we expect an ordinary, modern user to know about the legacy socket for a plug that she may never have seen?

OK, not trying another socket was a bit lame.

2011-04-01 Reply Admin

Severity One:
The story about the floppy is still relevant today, although in a reverse/roundabout way. The other day, I was installing Solaris 10 on our virtual infrastructure. I wasn't quite happy with the installation, but couldn't for the life of me figure out how I could get the thing to boot from the virtual DVD instead of the equally virtual hard disc. Turns out I needed to go into the virtual BIOS of the virtual machine (with real blue and yellow colour scheme on the virtual screen) and change the boot order. Now who would have thought of that...

Uh... everyone?

2011-04-01 Reply Admin

hoodaticus:
They are generally considered superior to tray-loaders. I want a Blu-Ray RW slot loader.

They are, until a disc gets stuck in one.

In response to the purple and green color scheme for keyboard and mouse plugs, I like this one: half purple, half green dual purpose PS/2 port (with url pointing to example which akismet says is spam, but it's not). Okay, go to Newegg.com, search for the MSI H55M-E21A motherboard, look at its dual purpose PS/2 port.

hoodaticus · 2011-04-01 Reply Admin

Machtyn:
hoodaticus:
They are generally considered superior to tray-loaders. I want a Blu-Ray RW slot loader.
They are, until a disc gets stuck in one.
In response to the purple and green color scheme for keyboard and mouse plugs, I like this one: half purple, half green dual purpose PS/2 port (with url pointing to example which akismet says is spam, but it's not). Okay, go to Newegg.com, search for the MSI H55M-E21A motherboard, look at its dual purpose PS/2 port.

ROFL! Are they selling it as a feature?

For the young and naive: PS/2 ports can serve either a mouse or a keyboard. It doesn't matter what color they paint the plug. They can also server other devices if they were designed for it.

2011-04-01 Reply Admin

fritters:
Of course VMs have a BIOS - they are emulated computers!!! Some virtualisation technologies actually use stripped down versions of the standard Award / American Megatrends BIOS that you get in 90% of real boxes. The BIOS doesn't even realise it's running on a virtualised platform. I fail to comprehend the level of misunderstanding that would make you think a VM doesn't have a BIOS, it's just plain stupid!

Most of the settings you'd change in a bios should be accessible from a management app outside the VM - no reason to actually touch the virtualized bios.

2011-04-01 Reply Admin

hoodaticus:
ROFL! Are they selling it as a feature?
For the young and naive: PS/2 ports can serve either a mouse or a keyboard. It doesn't matter what color they paint the plug. They can also server other devices if they were designed for it.

I have had keyboards that have failed to work when plugged into the mouse port and mice fail when plugged into a keyboard port. Granted, this was a long time ago, and I don't know why, but they would not type nor move correctly.

2011-04-01 Reply Admin

Sudo:
It was like that film Groundhog Day, except there were retards, and nobody was laughing.

I must be missing something. Could you explain how that's not exactly like Groundhog Day?

2011-04-01 Reply Admin

The USB PS/2 mixup reminds me of my own similar mini-story.

A few years ago I was at the university library, and someone was having issues connecting their USB thumb drive to the computer next to me. I ended up having to help them. The drive was jammed into a serial port (9-pin or LPT, don't remember) on the back of the computer (no front-side USB). Somehow they'd gotten it on two pins so that it really felt snug. Moving it to one of the computers acutal USB ports fixed the problem, though.

2011-04-01 Reply Admin

Not to sound racist or anything but... is anyone surprised that the first incoherent email is from someone with a distinctly Indian-sounding name?

I encounter this all the time in dealing with Indians; seriously, not to paint the entire ethnicity with that brush as I've met some very intelligent ones as well, but many of them are just clueless like "Prashant P." here.

CAPTCHA: dolor - what I felt reading that email.

2011-04-01 Reply Admin

blarg:
Sudo:
vt_mruhlin:
I'm curious. Do tech support people still get problems as dumb as "is the monitor turned on", or has the general public finally figured that out?
I left a job last year after finally having enough of it. One of the things that eventually drove me insane was the fact that I shared an office with two photocopiers. (Two of three copiers in an entire school).
The machines went into standby after ten minutes or so to save power, and needed to be powered on again before use. Every couple of hours I would have to show someone how to turn it on (by pressing the giant power button) - the same people, day after day - most of them teachers. (Those who can't, teach).

The other "fun" thing that I had to persevere on a daily basis was that fact that it turns out about 20% of the staff in that place can't operate anything more complicated than a piece of chalk without actually describing it to themselves - aloud. So a lot of my day would be accompanied by the drone of "A4... portrait... paper from drawer... two?... is that two?... no, one... drawer... one... 40 copies... green for go... there, done."

It was like that film Groundhog Day, except there were retards, and nobody was laughing.

every couple of hours you would have to train people on how to switch on a photocopier? Did it never occur to you to just make a sign?

Oh if only life were that simple! No, you see, in a school all teachers work on the basis that signs are there for the kids, and not for them. Even in a staff-only work area. There were many signs around about how to operate various pieces of machinery, but as the teachers knew they were better than a sign, they thought it was best to stop me from working and get a personal lesson.

joeyadams · 2011-04-02 Reply Admin

At the lab, I of course placed it flat on one of the tables, hooked it up and pressed the power button. I heard a crunching, a bang and then noticed my arm bleeding, before I could even react to turn the thing off.

[image] (xkcd)

This is nothing. Welcome to 2011.

lrucker · 2011-04-03 Reply Admin

Nook Schreier:
I'm not sure he thought there was no virtual BIOS... I believe the confusion was why he needed to start and connect to the VM to get to those settings, rather than being able to change hardware settings from outside of the virtual environment.
Of course, I could be wrong.

If it's a VMware VM, you definitely can - or rather, you can set values that get pushed into the virtual BIOS at the next boot. You can't change it from outside the virtual environment any more than you can with a non-virtual one; they weren't designed that way.

2011-04-03 Reply Admin

did you change the structure of the comment system? i don't know if i am doing this right. i'm on the couch, on drugs, and need to comment on this article...can you fix it?

2011-04-04 Reply Admin

vt_mruhlin:
I'm curious. Do tech support people still get problems as dumb as "is the monitor turned on", or has the general public finally figured that out?
My favorite recurring tech support problem in the 1990s was all the CD-ROM drives that had a line out jack built into them (that of course only played the audio from audio CDs and not any other system sounds).
"Did you plug it in?" "Yes." "OK, is it plugged into the sound card, or the CD-ROM drive?" "How should I know?" "Front or back of the computer?" "Front" "ok, find the plug in the back." "Still doesn't work" [walk to their office] [it's in the line-in hole, not the line-out]

I'm not blaming the users on that one, but it was frustrating as all hell at the time. Glad more modern drives don't have that stupid jack on them.

2011-04-04 Reply Admin

Sudo:
vt_mruhlin:
I'm curious. Do tech support people still get problems as dumb as "is the monitor turned on", or has the general public finally figured that out?
I left a job last year after finally having enough of it. One of the things that eventually drove me insane was the fact that I shared an office with two photocopiers. (Two of three copiers in an entire school).
The machines went into standby after ten minutes or so to save power, and needed to be powered on again before use. Every couple of hours I would have to show someone how to turn it on (by pressing the giant power button) - the same people, day after day - most of them teachers. (Those who can't, teach).

Tell them: "If you did your students homework for them they would never learn anything. Figure it out yourself."

The other "fun" thing that I had to persevere on a daily basis was that fact that it turns out about 20% of the staff in that place can't operate anything more complicated than a piece of chalk without actually describing it to themselves - aloud. So a lot of my day would be accompanied by the drone of "A4... portrait... paper from drawer... two?... is that two?... no, one... drawer... one... 40 copies... green for go... there, done."
It was like that film Groundhog Day, except there were retards, and nobody was laughing.

Too optimistic. Most of them can't write with a piece of chalk without saying the words out loud.

2011-04-04 Reply Admin

You might think some of these crazy stories are juts made up, or at best a vaguely remembered punch lines recalled as past experience. After working 14 months in tech support, however, I would believe darn near anything. I once spent 15 minutes trying to calm an irate ISP customer before, with much bowing and scraping, telling him that while I was very, very sorry, I had to follow a script and ask him if the modem was plugged in to the phone jack. The last words I heard were "HELL YES IT'S... oh. <click>".

I never would have believed this if it hadn't happened to me.

P.S. This followed a 5-minute diatribe concerning the guy's impresive technical pedigree which a mere call center jockey (never mind the CS degree) could never comprehend.

2011-04-04 Reply Admin

One phrase really should be taught to everyone who does any kind of tech support:

"Would you mind checking if the [device] cable has worked loose?"

This allows people to plug the expletive deleted [device] in and announce it works, without losing face. It's not at all fair to blame the wire for the customer's stupidity, but the wire will never complain!

2011-04-04 Reply Admin

C-Octothorpe:
[snip]
Are you telling me that the average user DOESN'T know about IOC, bit-shifting, and all the other bits of knowledge that it takes your average software development professional half a lifetime to amass?

LOL @ IOC, in my day we just used to call it 'turning the keyboard upside down'.

C-Octothorpe:
:P

Mmmm, free food.

2011-04-04 Reply Admin

caper:
slotin drive ?

Is that one which fatally irradiates you when your screwdriver slips during installation?

SQLDave · 2011-04-05 Reply Admin

"...Turns out, there was a broken CD in the mother-slotin drive...."

FTFY

2011-04-05 Reply Admin

boog:
Never thought to put broken CDs in it. I would have had I realized it'd make for such an effective weapon.

No need to break CDs before putting them in. The drive manufactureres found out the hard way that spinning a CD faster than 52x tends to tear it apart, especially if it has flaws to begin with.

A way to go faster is to use multiple laser beams, but AFAIK this was only available from one manufacturer (Kenwood?) and disappeared from the market before I could get my hands on one.

2011-04-05 Reply Admin

neminem:
Power Troll:
Wow, PS/2 ports and floppies causing problems? Could have sworn the year was 2011.
Perhaps you should read the actual article, then. Specifically, the part where it said:
the article:
Around the year 1998 or so, I worked in a large insurance company as tech support
So I'd say the year was 1998 or so. There's this thing called "telling stories about the past" that people like to do sometimes.

What a crazy idea! It's like when I took history classes in school. They'd give us tests where they asked about things that happenned before I was even born! How was I supposed to know?

2011-04-05 Reply Admin

SCSimmons:
neminem:
Power Troll:
Wow, PS/2 ports and floppies causing problems? Could have sworn the year was 2011.
So I'd say the year was 1998 or so. There's this thing called "telling stories about the past" that people like to do sometimes.
Ah, yes, that reminds me of the time when I got a call from a panicked user who'd dropped his box of punch cards just as he was about to feed them into the machine. Like he'd never heard of an IBM-80! What a maroon!

... so I said, I see your problem, Ada. One of the gears on this computer is misaligned. And she said, Oh, okay, I'll have to talk to Chuck about that ...

2011-04-05 Reply Admin

ContraCorners:
Christian Riesen:
There was a size able scratch on my arm, but nothing that needed more than to wipe it clean. Curious what the hell that was, I opened it up.
Seriously? You opened your arm, right there in the support lab?

No, the flying CD fragments opened his arm.

2011-04-06 Reply Admin

Herby:
If you want some interesting Tech stories, go to http://www.techtales.com/tftechs.html. Always good stuff. Recently "reactivated".

*Good* enough to be featured on THIS site, thanks to the "<button onclick="window.location='/tftechs.php'; return false;">" style of linking... >:-P

2011-04-08 Reply Admin

If you take a look at the EXIF code of the photo - you can see that the iPhone which took it has embedded the GPS co-ordinates of the location where the picture was taken.

It may be an idea to remove the picture or clean out the EXIF

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Somewhat Unclear, Maybe it's the drugs, and More Support Stories

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