Richy's Random Ramblings

As I’m in the process of slowing shutting down other sites I’ve worked on (due to time constraints), I’m reposting them here. Here’s an article from “Behind The Frontline” which was going to be a cross between I Work With Fools, Worse Than Failure and Dilbert.

Category: Just plain dumb. Author: Web Site Submission

Sometimes I feel like we need to teach our customers how to use their eyes! The conversation with the customer went something like this:

Me: Are you logged in:
Him: Yes
Me: Ok, what do you see.
Him: I just see your logo
Me: Ok, do you see anything else?
Him: No
Me: Nothing at all?
Him: Well, I see some words and pictures
Me: Ok, can you see the labelled picture “Mail”
Him: No, but I can see “Upload”
Me: Ok, that’s good. Look to the right of the “Upload” picture – what do you see?
Him: A picture labelled “Databases”
Me: You’ve gone too far – have a look between Upload and Databases. Can you see “Mail”
Him: No, but I do see “System status” (which is the icon below Mail)
Me: No, have a look above “System status”
Him: I see my email address
Me: Ok, look ABOVE System Status, but BELOW your email address – what do you see.
Him: Just Upload again.
Me: Ok, just read me the icons from left to right starting with Upload
Him: Upload, Mail, Data…
Me: What was the second one?
Him: Mail
Me: That’s the one you are after!
Him: Thank you so much! I couldn’t see it there!

How did he continually miss it???

As I’m in the process of slowing shutting down other sites I’ve worked on (due to time constraints), I’m reposting them here. Here’s an article from “Behind The Frontline” which was going to be a cross between I Work With Fools, Worse Than Failure and Dilbert.

Category: Just Plain Dumb. Author: Myself.

*Ring Ring*

Me: Hello, tech support.
Peon: I’m just trying to set “X” up on my system
Me: Yes
Peon: I put the new domain name in the box labelled “domain name”
Me: Yes…
Peon: It then automatically put something in the box labelled “Directory”
Me: Yes…
Peon: So I emptied that box.
Me: Ok…
Peon: But what do I put in the box labelled “Directory”
Me: Whatever the system automatically put in there.
Peon: Ok. Thank you.

Why didn’t he just leave it as it was?

As I’m in the process of slowing shutting down other sites I’ve worked on (due to time constraints), I’m reposting them here. Here’s an article from “Behind The Frontline” which was going to be a cross between I Work With Fools, Worse Than Failure and Dilbert.

Category: Tech Scares. Author: Myself.

Plusnet’ed (PLUS.net.EDD) v. – an operator error which results in loss of significant amounts of customer data.
Origin: The loss of 700Gb of customers emails from Plusnet’s mail servers in July 2006 (Source: The Register)

Today, I thought I’d setup a new backup solution for our customers with the aim being to be able to offer them a sort of “instant rollback” style service. So we install additional hard drives into all the servers – no problem.

Now just to format (prepare them for use) and “mount” them (make the computer recognise them). No problems.

Hang on – what’s this beeping noise on the monitoring systems? Why is my screen turning red? Oh, the monitoring system says a test page on the server is down, not to worry, it’s probably a false alert. I’ll just check it manually.

“404 Not Found”

That’s odd. Let’s double check that link, yep, it’s correct. Let’s try another page. Still not found. Worrying.

Let’s check the server. Login. “cd /home/” (move to where all the customer data is) and ls (list files). Nothing.

Crap. Where has all that data gone and am I know 100% certain I’ve wiped and formatted the correct drive. (at this point, panic sets in).

Let’s just reboot to be sure. Reboot. Still no /home/ data. Crap. But no other data is affected, so let’s just try unmounting home (tell the computer to “forget” about it) and remount it. There’s the data! Why did the computer start thinking the data should be on the new blank drive?!?

I really really started thinking that I had made a major mistake and wiped nearly 200Gb of customer data: and since it was a backup system going into operation, the old backup system had been taken offline a while earlier.

It’s now 2 hours later and my pulse is only now beginning to stablise!