Well, its been the @#$^%@#$ week from h377

and it's one of these weeks....

I REALLY HATE COMPUTERS RIGHT NOW! I REALLY HATE COMPUTERS RIGHT NOW! I REALLY HATE COMPUTERS RIGHT NOW! I REALLY HATE COMPUTERS RIGHT NOW! I REALLY HATE COMPUTERS RIGHT NOW! I REALLY HATE COMPUTERS RIGHT NOW! I REALLY HATE COMPUTERS RIGHT NOW! I REALLY HATE COMPUTERS RIGHT NOW! I REALLY HATE COMPUTERS RIGHT NOW! I REALLY HATE COMPUTERS RIGHT NOW! I REALLY HATE COMPUTERS RIGHT NOW! I REALLY HATE COMPUTERS RIGHT NOW! I REALLY HATE COMPUTERS RIGHT NOW! I REALLY HATE COMPUTERS RIGHT NOW! I REALLY HATE COMPUTERS RIGHT NOW! I REALLY HATE COMPUTERS RIGHT NOW! I REALLY HATE COMPUTERS RIGHT NOW! I REALLY HATE COMPUTERS RIGHT NOW! I REALLY HATE COMPUTERS RIGHT NOW! I REALLY HATE COMPUTERS RIGHT NOW! I REALLY HATE COMPUTERS RIGHT NOW! I REALLY HATE COMPUTERS RIGHT NOW! I REALLY HATE COMPUTERS RIGHT NOW! I REALLY HATE COMPUTERS RIGHT NOW! I REALLY HATE COMPUTERS RIGHT NOW! I REALLY HATE COMPUTERS RIGHT NOW! I REALLY HATE COMPUTERS RIGHT NOW! I REALLY HATE COMPUTERS RIGHT NOW! I REALLY HATE COMPUTERS RIGHT NOW! I REALLY HATE COMPUTERS RIGHT NOW! I REALLY HATE COMPUTERS RIGHT NOW! I REALLY HATE COMPUTERS RIGHT NOW! I REALLY HATE COMPUTERS RIGHT NOW! I REALLY HATE COMPUTERS RIGHT NOW! I REALLY HATE COMPUTERS RIGHT NOW! I REALLY HATE COMPUTERS RIGHT NOW! I REALLY HATE COMPUTERS RIGHT NOW! I REALLY HATE COMPUTERS RIGHT NOW! I REALLY HATE COMPUTERS RIGHT NOW! I REALLY HATE COMPUTERS RIGHT NOW! I REALLY HATE COMPUTERS RIGHT NOW! I REALLY HATE COMPUTERS RIGHT NOW! I REALLY HATE COMPUTERS RIGHT NOW! I REALLY HATE COMPUTERS RIGHT NOW! I REALLY HATE COMPUTERS RIGHT NOW! I REALLY HATE COMPUTERS RIGHT NOW! I REALLY HATE COMPUTERS RIGHT NOW! I REALLY HATE COMPUTERS RIGHT NOW! I REALLY HATE COMPUTERS RIGHT NOW! I REALLY HATE COMPUTERS RIGHT NOW! I REALLY HATE COMPUTERS RIGHT NOW! I REALLY HATE COMPUTERS RIGHT NOW! I REALLY HATE COMPUTERS RIGHT NOW! I REALLY HATE COMPUTERS RIGHT NOW! I REALLY HATE COMPUTERS RIGHT NOW! I REALLY HATE COMPUTERS RIGHT NOW! I REALLY HATE COMPUTERS RIGHT NOW! I REALLY HATE COMPUTERS RIGHT NOW! I REALLY HATE COMPUTERS RIGHT NOW! I REALLY HATE COMPUTERS RIGHT NOW! I REALLY HATE COMPUTERS RIGHT NOW! I REALLY HATE COMPUTERS RIGHT NOW! I REALLY HATE COMPUTERS RIGHT NOW! I REALLY HATE COMPUTERS RIGHT NOW! I REALLY HATE COMPUTERS RIGHT NOW! I REALLY HATE COMPUTERS RIGHT NOW! I REALLY HATE COMPUTERS RIGHT NOW! I REALLY HATE COMPUTERS RIGHT NOW! I REALLY HATE COMPUTERS RIGHT NOW! I REALLY HATE COMPUTERS RIGHT NOW! I REALLY HATE COMPUTERS RIGHT NOW! I REALLY HATE COMPUTERS RIGHT NOW! I REALLY HATE COMPUTERS RIGHT NOW! I REALLY HATE COMPUTERS RIGHT NOW! I REALLY HATE COMPUTERS RIGHT NOW! I REALLY HATE COMPUTERS RIGHT NOW! I REALLY HATE COMPUTERS RIGHT NOW! I REALLY HATE COMPUTERS RIGHT NOW! I REALLY HATE COMPUTERS RIGHT NOW! I REALLY HATE COMPUTERS RIGHT NOW! I REALLY HATE COMPUTERS RIGHT NOW! I REALLY HATE COMPUTERS RIGHT NOW! I REALLY HATE COMPUTERS RIGHT NOW! I REALLY HATE COMPUTERS RIGHT NOW! I REALLY HATE COMPUTERS RIGHT NOW! I REALLY HATE COMPUTERS RIGHT NOW! I REALLY HATE COMPUTERS RIGHT NOW! I REALLY HATE COMPUTERS RIGHT NOW! I REALLY HATE COMPUTERS RIGHT NOW! I REALLY HATE COMPUTERS RIGHT NOW! I REALLY HATE COMPUTERS RIGHT NOW! I REALLY HATE COMPUTERS RIGHT NOW!

NO REALLY, HONESTLY I REALLY HATE COMPUTERS RIGHT NOW! I REALLY HATE COMPUTERS RIGHT NOW! I REALLY HATE COMPUTERS RIGHT NOW! I REALLY HATE COMPUTERS RIGHT NOW! I REALLY HATE COMPUTERS RIGHT NOW! I REALLY HATE COMPUTERS RIGHT NOW! I REALLY HATE COMPUTERS RIGHT NOW! I REALLY HATE COMPUTERS RIGHT NOW! I REALLY HATE COMPUTERS RIGHT NOW! I REALLY HATE COMPUTERS RIGHT NOW! I REALLY HATE COMPUTERS RIGHT NOW! I REALLY HATE COMPUTERS RIGHT NOW! I REALLY HATE COMPUTERS RIGHT NOW! I REALLY HATE COMPUTERS RIGHT NOW! I REALLY HATE COMPUTERS RIGHT NOW! I REALLY HATE COMPUTERS RIGHT NOW! I REALLY HATE COMPUTERS RIGHT NOW! I REALLY HATE COMPUTERS RIGHT NOW! I REALLY HATE COMPUTERS RIGHT NOW! I REALLY HATE COMPUTERS RIGHT NOW! I REALLY HATE COMPUTERS RIGHT NOW! I REALLY HATE COMPUTERS RIGHT NOW! I REALLY HATE COMPUTERS RIGHT NOW! I REALLY HATE COMPUTERS RIGHT NOW! I REALLY HATE COMPUTERS RIGHT NOW! I REALLY HATE COMPUTERS RIGHT NOW! I REALLY HATE COMPUTERS RIGHT NOW! I REALLY HATE COMPUTERS RIGHT NOW! I REALLY HATE COMPUTERS RIGHT NOW! I REALLY HATE COMPUTERS RIGHT NOW! I REALLY HATE COMPUTERS RIGHT NOW! I REALLY HATE COMPUTERS RIGHT NOW! I REALLY HATE COMPUTERS RIGHT NOW! I REALLY HATE COMPUTERS RIGHT NOW! I REALLY HATE COMPUTERS RIGHT NOW! I REALLY HATE COMPUTERS RIGHT NOW! I REALLY HATE COMPUTERS RIGHT NOW! I REALLY HATE COMPUTERS RIGHT NOW! I REALLY HATE COMPUTERS RIGHT NOW! I REALLY HATE COMPUTERS RIGHT NOW! I REALLY HATE COMPUTERS RIGHT NOW! I REALLY HATE COMPUTERS RIGHT NOW! I REALLY HATE COMPUTERS RIGHT NOW! I REALLY HATE COMPUTERS RIGHT NOW! I REALLY HATE COMPUTERS RIGHT NOW! I REALLY HATE COMPUTERS RIGHT NOW! I REALLY HATE COMPUTERS RIGHT NOW! I REALLY HATE COMPUTERS RIGHT NOW! I REALLY HATE COMPUTERS RIGHT NOW! I REALLY HATE COMPUTERS RIGHT NOW! I REALLY HATE COMPUTERS RIGHT NOW! I REALLY HATE COMPUTERS RIGHT NOW! I REALLY HATE COMPUTERS RIGHT NOW! I REALLY HATE COMPUTERS RIGHT NOW! I REALLY HATE COMPUTERS RIGHT NOW! I REALLY HATE COMPUTERS RIGHT NOW! I REALLY HATE COMPUTERS RIGHT NOW! I REALLY HATE COMPUTERS RIGHT NOW! I REALLY HATE COMPUTERS RIGHT NOW! I REALLY HATE COMPUTERS RIGHT NOW! I REALLY HATE COMPUTERS RIGHT NOW! I REALLY HATE COMPUTERS RIGHT NOW! I REALLY HATE COMPUTERS RIGHT NOW! I REALLY HATE COMPUTERS RIGHT NOW! I REALLY HATE COMPUTERS RIGHT NOW! I REALLY HATE COMPUTERS RIGHT NOW! I REALLY HATE COMPUTERS RIGHT NOW! I REALLY HATE COMPUTERS RIGHT NOW! I REALLY HATE COMPUTERS RIGHT NOW! I REALLY HATE COMPUTERS RIGHT NOW! I REALLY HATE COMPUTERS RIGHT NOW! I REALLY HATE COMPUTERS RIGHT NOW! I REALLY HATE COMPUTERS RIGHT NOW! I REALLY HATE COMPUTERS RIGHT NOW! I REALLY HATE COMPUTERS RIGHT NOW! I REALLY HATE COMPUTERS RIGHT NOW! I REALLY HATE COMPUTERS RIGHT NOW! I REALLY HATE COMPUTERS RIGHT NOW! I REALLY HATE COMPUTERS RIGHT NOW! I REALLY HATE COMPUTERS RIGHT NOW! I REALLY HATE COMPUTERS RIGHT NOW! I REALLY HATE COMPUTERS RIGHT NOW! I REALLY HATE COMPUTERS RIGHT NOW! I REALLY HATE COMPUTERS RIGHT NOW! I REALLY HATE COMPUTERS RIGHT NOW! I REALLY HATE COMPUTERS RIGHT NOW! I REALLY HATE COMPUTERS RIGHT NOW! I REALLY HATE COMPUTERS RIGHT NOW! I REALLY HATE COMPUTERS RIGHT NOW! I REALLY HATE COMPUTERS RIGHT NOW!

Now a few thousand time more of this, and I may have vented enough.

But right now, I REALLY REALLY REALLY REALLLY REALLY REALLY REALLLY HATE COMPUTERS.

Fair warning on spelling.

I am a horrible speller. Always have been, always will be. It's one of those things that I've just had to accept and live with.

Go figure, I can remember from 1981, on an Apple ][e computer, under DOS 3.3, that executing these commands would turn off the checksums, which was useful if your disk had an error on it, and you needed to recover that data. The part of the disk with the error would usually read in 90% of what you needed, the rest would be garbled. Repairing the garbled part was much easier than trying to recreate the entire file.

CALL -151 [RETURN]
B942:18 60 [RETURN]
BAAA:00 [RETURN]
CTRL-C [RETURN]
LOAD {FILENAME} [RETURN]

** In these days, the [ENTER] key was still called a [RETURN] key. Remember, you know, the days of typewriters, teletypes, etc? The return key was for a "carriage return", meaning the print head, or the carriage that held your paper to return to the start position, usually advancing your paper by a line.

Well, I guess that has successfully dated myself hasn't it?

Now try and answer this. I can remember this code from over 20+ years ago, yet I still have to fight to try and come up with the word "aproprate" (heck, even here it's spelled wrong) Editor's note: Sorry, I cannot help myself - I have to at least post that I appropriately noticed the spelling error.

So I will apologize now, in advanced, and from now on, we won't mention it again. I'm sorry that I'm a horrible speller!

Now before you go, ERRRRG, ARRRGH, SPELLCHECK you DORK!!! Spell checks are useful, but if you can't get close enough to the word, a suggest spelling doesn't help! It's even worse with a dictionary. Ahh, the trials and tribulations of a BAD speller.

You may have noticed on the sidebar, there is a katiecee. She is my savior when it comes to my spelling. She has been kind enough to run through my rambling and correct what she can. And at time that can be the *HUGE* undertaking. Thanks BIG time sweetie! Love ya always!

So I will be getting some new stuff posted in the next while soon. Perhaps a bit more on the technical side of things.

Till then, Cheers!

Introduction - A little about me.

I've been working with computers now since about 1977, and they have been one of the passions of my life. I've worked from a simple first line helpdesk position, which in all reality isn't that simple as one may think (this is where one really learns to hone their people skills) through to 4 line support (or as a direct liaison with the software vendors technical/engineering staff.)

From there I've worked in various systems admin positions ranging from desktop admin, server admin, to network admin. Of all of these, working with Microsoft's Systems Management Server (SMS) was probably one of my most loved yet hated positions. SMS provided a platform where one could manage the enterprise's computers via single console (if desired.) All those security patches we hear about could be deployed automatically throughout the enterprise without having to visit each desktop. A very powerful tool to say the least. One had to be sure what they were deploying since it has the ability to affect things enterprise-wide.

Only once did I have a huge "OOPS." One could argue that it wasn't my fault, but at the same time, one could argue that I didn't push back hard enough on management and make them understand that things weren't ready to be deployed.

It's interesting how management will never listen to your professional opinion when it contravenes with their particular political agenda. After all, it was they who made the choice on my "expertise" out of all the applicants for my position.

Regardless, the OOPS was a vast learning experience.

• I learned to push back on management and document what issues would arise (after all, these days in the corporate world, there are NO PROBLEMS, only "Issues to be resolved"), and get documented signoff that management is willing to assume the risks of lost productivity.


• Management learned to trust my "professional opinion" and since brought me in on planning and deployment meetings. Issues could then be identified and ironed out before they became so interwoven into the process and direction that would made resolving them impossible.
  

It is ironic that some of our best learning comes out of issues. I've learned far more from things going wrong, than things going right. When things go wrong, you have to analyze where things went wrong, how things went wrong, why things went wrong, and figure out how to prevent it from happening again. When things go right, things are status quo, you don't learn anything additional from it.

Now don't get the idea that I always want things to go wrong. I don't. I want days to be smooth sailing. I want to be able to stop and smell the roses, I want to be able to look at the scenery and just enjoy things going well. It's then about how we handle things when they go wrong. We can panic, try to lay blame, and panic some more or we can accept the situation has happened and learn from it. Taking the second approach is, by far, taking a more positive approach.

It's a real shame that this particular learning process had to come at such a corporate cost. Not just the lost in productivity, but also the loss faith in the IT department as a whole. It was a tricky time, with some pretty quick damage control. I was already working on a work-around the moment that the "OOPS" was ordered to happen.

So what's it all mean?

"It was the best of times, it was the worst of times; We love our computers, we hate our computers."

We've all encountered this before, perhaps not this particular rendition, but I'm sure we can all identify with it. I have quite a history with computers both on a personal and corporate level. I've loved them, I've hated them. I've had my share of the best and the worst.

If I can share some of my history and past experiences, work-arounds and solutions, perhaps we can share some of the learning and prevent the situation.

"Those who don't learn from history, are doomed to repeat it"

Let's share our history and learn from one another. I certainly don't have all the answers and I welcome any comments or solutions you may have to add. Agree with me, disagree with me, like it, or hate it, at minimum we will see a different point of view; and observing things from a different point of view is called learning.