Culling of the Morons

Sometimes I wonder why it's illegal to kill the idiots of the world. I wish it was as easy as flicking a finger to get rid of that ONE flaw in our gene pool. I'm certain that I am not the only BOFH wishing that it be legal to sort out such little "problems"...
We have this one guy here, let's call him Phil, that just...well don't play well with others. Upon starting here, he was given a Laptop to do his work. Yeah, I know that laptop wasn't one of the best, and I know it wasn't made of titanium, but What transpired - was unacceptable...PERIOD.

A Year later we get the laptop back - and THIS is what we get:


The Hinges are Broken - and the Plugs in the front of
the laptop is toast....


The Left Hinge is Broken open, and the metal Inside is Torn & Beant...but HOW?

A Few Other Shots of the Manhandled Machine:


Now, I know I'm not the only one, but who WOULDN'T want to kill the moron???

Sad day...

Yeah I know. I'm probably the last person to find this out, but one of my favourite actors passed away a while ago.

Don S. Davis, better known as General George Hammond from Stargate SG1, passed away on the 29th of June 2008. He was one brilliant actor and I believe an even better person. During the 7 seasons of Stargate SG1 that I got to know him, I got very attached to his caracter and just as attached to him. With this I want to thank him, albeit in his absense, for his contribution to SG1. He made the show what it is today.


Rest in Peace...Hammond of Texas...

Insomnia

So, it's 2am and I'm still awake. I realize once again while playing with SMARTY and PHP that afternoon naps should happen much earlier. While coding, and browsing, I came across this cute little cartoon. Was quite hillarious. All copyright go to the authors at www.xkcd.com. (Click on the image for the full version)


Also - Here a few more random poems. If you are an evil BOFH and a fan of the ever so popular Lord of the Rings - then enjoy:

For the NetAdmins:
One Ping to rule them all,
One ping to find them,
One ping to bring them all,
And in the Network Bind them...

For the coder - working against a deadline:
A coder is never late, nor is he early.
He compiles presisly when he means to.

Random...

IF a packet hits a pocket on a socket on a port,
And the bus is interrupted as a very last resort,
And the address of the memory makes your floppy disk abort,
Then the socket packet pocket has an error to report!

IF your cursor finds a menu item followed by a dash,
And the double-clicking icon puts your window in the trash,
And your data is corrupted 'cause the index doesn't hash,
Then your situation's hopeless, and your system's gonna crash!

You can't say this? What a shame sir! We'll find you, Another game sir.

IF the label on the cable on the table at your house,
Says the network is connected to the button on your mouse,
But your packets want to tunnel on another protocol,
That's repeatedly rejected by the printer down the hall!

IF your screen is all distorted by the side effects of gauss,
So your icons in the window are as wavey as a souse,
Then you may as well reboot and go out with a bang,
'Cause as sure as I'm a poet, the sucker's gonna hang!

IF the copy of your floppy's getting sloppy on the disk,
And the microcode instructions cause unnecessary RISC,
Then you have to flash your memory, and you'll want to RAM your ROM.
Quickly turn off the computer and be sure to tell your MOM!

Quiet...

Yes, I admit and apologize. This was a very quiet month on the blog. Nothing has gone on here, and I know it's bad for business. I hope to change that very soon.

The last month has been very busy and included a short 7 day holiday next to the fishing waters for me and the wife. That was of course very relaxing, and not getting a single work-related phone call made it so much the better.

Mrs. BOFH out-caught everyone on the bank, and took the "prize" with a 7.18kg Common Carp. For those wondering, no - I am not jealous, I am in fact - VERY proud. Runner up was me, with a Common Carp of 6.86kg. This was the biggest one coming up 5 days after we got there.

I also want to make a request for some interesting bofh stories if there are any. I would love to hear some stories, and will post them if appropriate.

Thanks to the few faithful ones that kept coming back!

Administrative Hell

I have once again reminded myself why I have always said that Technical and Admin staff should not mix. At best it's a very volatile combination.

Every day my boss walks into the office and makes some kind of excuse for why he "doesn't feel too good". This is accompanied by lots of annoying sniffing and coughing. Next is usually when he sits in front of his computer and calls out work to everyone in the office. This is annoying EVERY time, as when he calls you out, reads about a million pages of SOMETHING while completely ignoring you. When he finishes at some stage he asks you something, to which the reply 99% of the time is "Well, that's problem." to which he replies "Then sort it out for me". This is all fair and well, but I must say that I don't think it's nice when it is in NO way work related, or when I'm already busy with other work...

Yes, it's round about at that point that the VERY volatile combination gets shaken just a little too much...*POPS*

**sigh** yes, I know, he's the boss. Yes, it sucks bigtime...

Self Righteous Ex-Luser

So there is this luser that decides to quit and get a new job, which is great for me as she was a difficult client even at the best of times. She decides to stop work at the end of last week (4 days ago). I Scheduled a data-transfer of all her stuff to the replacement secretary's computer.

So this morning, after my good cuppa java, I quickly changed all E-Mail, Internet & Intranet settings and deleted the ex-luser's information. I start the moving process, sit back and wait. About halfway through the process:

*Phone rings*
me : "BOFH Hello"
Ex-Luser : "Hi there BOFH, it's Ex-Luser. You shouldn't move my things I'm coming in and I'm not done yet"
me : "But that means that the new person can't work and that YOU are messing up all my planning!"
Ex-Luser : "I'm sure that *YOU* have more things to do and the new secretary can go on as she is now until *I'M* done."
me : "whatever"
*Slams the phone down*

So at this point in time my tolerance for this Ex-Luser is down in the negatives and NOT climbing. So I leave the poor new lady in a semi state of panic and the Ex-Luser's new computer in a million confusing pieces and head back down to the privacy of my new office.

A few hours later whilst blissfully browsing:

*Phone rings*
me : "BOFH Hello"
Ex-Luser : "Hi There Bofh..."
*instantaneously pops a vein*
Ex-Luser (Continues) : "...I just want to say that it's not *MY* fault that your planning didn't work out!"
*PAUSE*
So there I sat, blood boiling and blood pressure quickly rising. How can SHE phone in, mess up all my work and planning and then have the audacity to phone me and tell me that it was NOT her...???
*UNPAUSE*
me (Stunned) : "Excuse me?"
Ex-Luser : "Yes, I told everyone that I am coming in today and I refuse to be the bad guy in this story"
me : "I see, but that doesn't fix anything"
Ex-Luser : "That doesn't matter to me"
Me : "Bye"
*Puts the phone down*

Upon a bit of further investigation I found that the above mentioned Ex-Luser only left a sticky note telling the new secretary that she'll be in and said nothing about work or using her computer at all.

So I'm sitting here, boiling, so excuse me while I go chop a hole into the side of a certain ex-luser's cute little Citroen C2...

Lazy Lusers

We all know them, have them & somehow need to work with them. Yep, it's the Lazy Luser. The one or two that just won't budge a finger to get their way. This is a call to all the Lazy Lusers out there. Read and learn (even if you are too lazy)

I know I'm not the most energetic and/or athletic person you can get, but I definitely am not too lazy to do my bit to get things done. Picking up the phone to order something, or sending an E-Mail to remind someone of something is not that bad. I can do it, and I'm pretty sure everyone else can too.

Is it REALLY too much trouble to send an E-Mail with a request for something? If so, why then is so easy to sit around and send hundreds of cute, funny and useless chain-messages around every single day? I know - it's no trouble quickly sending it to a few people in you address book? Guess what - that's the same thing you do to send an E-Mail to the support staff idiot!

Why exactly is it so hard for you, as Luser, to help me, as support staff, to help..YOU. I mean - if my math isn't wrong, it is after all YOU that want something from ME. So, if i'm not mistaken - you kind of need to be nice to me.

So in short, all that I want to yell at you, you lazy couch potato, is to get off your ass, do your bit for us, yourself and society in general. Stop sitting there and using up oxygen & start putting it to use more productively!

Evaluation Version, 1

Issue 1

You hate it. You despise it. You dread the crushing reality of your favourite program expiring.
Yes! It's the evaluation version!

Starting today, I will routinely take one program and see if their evaluation version protection really guards against anything.
And before you ask, I will not take on big name companies, I hate getting sued this early in the century.

The target of today is my pals over at InfoSoft Global with their amazing product Fusion Charts.

FC is a set of Flash-based charts for statistical views, from bars to pies to doughnuts and what ever else.

Background Story

While working on an obscure Open Source project (yes, its a shameless plug), I began searching for a better stats system.

Google led me to FusionCharts and I started celebrating... until I saw the results!

As you can see, the chart looks nice, but that ghastly text block has got to go!

By now I already dropped FC, no way I'm putting that thing on the project, and being the law-abiding citizen that I am, the license didn't allow me to.

But this caught my eye:

Higher up they claim the software is fully functional. But now it can't be deployed on any website? That does seem a bit at odds.

• Why not?


• What would happen?


• Is it really a full version deep down?


• If so, how do they know when its not "licensed"?

The answer hit me. They check the URL of course.

chart = new FusionCharts("../Charts/MSLine.swf", "ChartId", "600", "350", "0", "0");

That's normal JS for embedding one of the charts, but editing it just ever so slightly...

var chart = new FusionCharts("../Charts/MSLine.swf?=fusioncharts.com", "ChartId", "600", "350", "0", "0");

Removes the restriction immediately!

So much for that protection!

Fix

Without the actual source code, this is a guessing game.

I'm assuming somewhere they just check the URL for the existence of the words "fusioncharts.com". Which is stupid since I clearly show how easy it is to overcome it.

Instead, what they SHOULD be doing is just get the domain part, and check that...

http://www.yourdomain.com/chart.swf?=fusioncharts.com

This gives you www.yourdomain.com, and nope, so Eval it

But then you might ask what about sub domains?

http://fusioncharts.com.yourdomain.com/chart.swf
just get the REAL domain part!

So, InfoSoft Global, great product you have there.

But please fire the moron that coded the evaluation protection.

That is all.

The Cocky (L)User

So, There it happened again. A user phoned – Seriously – what possesses them to do that to themselves??

{phone rings}
me : BOFH Hello?
(L)User : Hi, This is *blanked out*. When are you going to send someone up to fix my internet and E-Mail?
me : *bzzzzzt…..pop* sorry, Who’s this?
(L)User : This is Ben. Will you be fixing my internet anytime soon?
me : yes, sure, just hang on a moment. What’s your username & password? *clicks over to admin interface*
(L)User : It’s [blah blah blah blah].
me : *deletes all records of the user in the employee database and fixes internet* There ya go…all done…
(L)User : Thank you.
me : It’s a pleasure. Really it is…
{puts phone down}

No really now, I honestly don’t know why users have to be so…cocky. Why can they not be like the rest of us? Normal.

Our internet was down a bit today as we had a techie work on the lines here (I would have slapped him if it did not start working again). So the users start getting cocky – and I must be totally honest with you that there is nothing more frustrating, and nothing in this whole world that get’s me angrier (or angry quicker) than a user being cocky with me.

One of these days I’m afraid that I’m gonna pop my top, switch of all servers, change all passwords, enable self-destruct and go away for a week. Then maybe they’ll just start being nice to me.

License to err.

To the untrained eye, the computer is a scary device. It sits there, maliciously waiting to inflict agonizing errors at the unsuspecting user. This is the view of many users that I have come across.

But so are cars. You make one wrong move, and you've killed a couple of people (and hopefully yourself too). At least with computers it is usually only yourself that feels the pain.

I have come to the conclusion that most people are not fit to "drive" a computer. They are a danger to the people around them and the well-being of any network is threatened by their mere proximity to anything remotely computer-like.

Some would argue that a computer is just a tool. It is JUST a means of getting something done. It is JUST a box standing there. So why learn how to operate it? Again we can use the car as a metaphor. Let me but it in perspective:

A car is JUST a tool... Yeah, one that is dangerous if mishandled.
A car is JUST a means of getting something done... Yep, getting from point A to B at a very fast pace.
A car is JUST a box standing there... Weighing a ton or two with (mostly) idiot drivers in them.

There is NO excuse for not learning how to use a computer properly. Even if you just use one thing, LEARN IT.
The amount of damage the untrained user can do on a computer is devastating.
Sure they're not killing somebody (not directly, think virus-spreads-to-heart-monitor) but is that any reason to let it slide?

Ofcourse not.

I believe that users should have a point system. Every mistake they make gets a point deducted from their PC license. When there are no points available they are suspended from using a PC until they've re-taken the pc literacy tests.

Repeat violators should be banned until further review.

Let me know what you think?

Liar Liar (L)User on fire!!!

I have come to the conclusion that all users think that we, systems administrators, are totally stupid. Yes, they think that they are in control and can feed us any bunch of lies, and that we will just believe them...

Yeah, right. If there is a user reading this, please take out your notebook and take notes, I am only saying this ONCE:

SYSTEMS ADMINISTRATORS ARE NOT IDIOTS.

For Example:

{Phone Rings}
me : BOFH Speaking, Hello?
(L)User : Hi, How are you?
me : Fine, you?
(L)User : Fine. Listen, I am trying to send an E-Mail to my team leaders with our program for the next 13 weeks, and they are not recieving it.
me : How many team leaders do you have? *opens admin console and checks Outbound Mail Que*
(L)User : I know I cannot send an E-Mail to more than 10 people at the time, so I sent 6 E-Mails as I have approximately 60 team leaders.
me : *sees that he's lying throught his teeth and that there is ONE E-Mail with 50 (counted them) reciepients*

**PAUSE**

So, now what do I do? Accept that I'M in the wrong and that I'M an idiot? Nope...

**UNPAUSE**

me : Sir, there is nothing on my servers or anywhere to be found. The problem is not at MY side. *delete's message from mail que**
(L)User : ok, thank you.
me : it's my PLEASURE...
{puts down phone}

Who's the idiot now? Who's the Stupid one now? Honestly, don't take me for useless...

Some Reading Lessons Please!!!

So this day started quite well. The padawan, the 'boss' the everyone decided to leave me alone, so I have had a good morning...and then the phone rang...

Yes, that old annoying thing came and spoiled my day brilliantly - as per usual and right on schedule.

{Phone rings}
[me] - {answers} BOFH speaking, how can I help you?
[voice on the line] - Hi, I cannot log into the intranet, and I tried all my passwords.
[me] - Have you tried the password that I gave you, the one on the little credit-card sized piece of paper, and the password with title "Intranet/TMS Password" as was indicated you should use ON the Intranet page?
[voice on the line] - No, I thought I should use my Internet password. It's what I have been using all the time?
*bzzzt...POP*
[me] - Well, that's nice, but tell me why I would have given you the password on a handy little card, and tell you on a page which password you should use to log in if I wouldn't set it up that way?
[voice on the line] - Uhm....
[me] - That's nice, now please leave me alone...
{puts down the phone and pop over to the blog}

I don't know about the rest of the population, but when *I* need to use something, I READ what I should do, especially if I don't manage on my own...

But now, A little laughter from a fellow BOFH:

Attempt to get an email password from a helpdesk tech:

[Tech] - "Hello"
[Me] - "Hi! This is [name] from [company], I'm calling in regards to [email address]. Could you please reset the password?"
[Tech] - "You would need to submit such a request in writing."
[Me] - "Oh really? that's a shame, I'm trying to setup Outlook. What is the current password?"
[Tech] - "I can give you that, but first I need to ask some questions for security"
[Me] - "Go ahead" *opens a webbrowser*
[Tech] - "What is the address of [company]?"
[Me] - *yellowpages.co.za* "It is [address]"
[Tech] - "And the phone number?"
[Me] - *clicks* "It is [number]"
[Tech] - "Thank you, the password is [password]"
[Me] - "Thanks! Bye"
-- The End --

How's THAT for some impressive security. I bet no one could think of something like that...Honestly - some people just shouldn't be anywhere NEAR a computer, or worse - any kind of administration interface...

Action or Comedy???

So today I got my claws on a golden oldie. Watched the first episode of it, and I couldn't help but wonder if an action series of 20+ years ago could have become the comedy of today... Of course, I am talking about the series named Knight Rider...

A hit of an action series a couple of years ago, a hit of a comedy series now :P

I am a Systems administrator, and I know technology quite well. I know about special effects as my friend does special effects, animation and all that. This was just hilarious.


David Hasseholff was never one of my favorite actors, and I know why all over again.

Back there he's younger than I am now, which is just scary. I don't quite know where I liked him less, in Knight Rider or in Baywatch...


Upon seeing the so-called technology burst out laughing at everything. I can't think how all this was state of the art, but it was - no matter what I'm thinking. I especially like the two black & white CRT monitors inside of K.I.T.T


This was really a trip down memory lane, and I must say that although I was never old enough to actually REMEMBER any of this. I will always hold on to this bit of a treasure, and when I feel nostalgic, I think I'll watch another Episode.

An Introduction

So, here I am...

This little blog thingie of mine, well, it's just to inform the public out there of the wonderful things we as Sys Admins encounter on a day-to day base. Yes, believe it or not we encounter strange, interesting things, and it's not just on a monitor.

One of the most interesting things that I have came across, is people asking dumb questions...Example:

{The Secretary's phone rings and I answer...}
[me] - Hello?
[voice on the line] - Hi, is the secretary there?
*snaps*
[me] - Well, if the secretary was here, then why would *I* be doing HER job?
{Puts the phone down}

I mean, what's up with that? Honestly, I won't be answering someone else's phone if they are there...