Dear Users... (A thread for Sysadmin, Technical Support, and Help Desk people)

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One of colleagues has been modding a program. It takes in a flat file, updates a load of databases, writes out a report, and commits the database after every 150 input records.

Can you spot the error?
 
Filippo Lippi said:
One of colleagues has been modding a program. It takes in a flat file, updates a load of databases, writes out a report, and commits the database after every 150 input records.

Can you spot the error?
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As a professional I couldn't possibly answer that question without a deep dive analysis of every line of code. It'll take four weeks, minimum, during which all my other work will have to be done by somebody else. Send me the files in question after you've arranged the budget. I'll have to be incommunicado for a while in order to really study the matter in complete concentration, that's why I won't be responding to emails, phone calls, or instant messages.
 
TragicMonkey said:
As a professional I couldn't possibly answer that question without a deep dive analysis of every line of code. It'll take four weeks, minimum, during which all my other work will have to be done by somebody else. Send me the files in question after you've arranged the budget. I'll have to be incommunicado for a while in order to really study the matter in complete concentration, that's why I won't be responding to emails, phone calls, or instant messages.
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Unrelated observation: Cabo San Lucas is in the same time zone as Denver, not LA.
 
TragicMonkey said:
As a professional I couldn't possibly answer that question without a deep dive analysis of every line of code. It'll take four weeks, minimum, during which all my other work will have to be done by somebody else. Send me the files in question after you've arranged the budget. I'll have to be incommunicado for a while in order to really study the matter in complete concentration, that's why I won't be responding to emails, phone calls, or instant messages.
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Who do you think I am, the UK government?
 
jimbob said:
I had a colleague once with a cleft lip and he made up his own phonetic alphabet.

B for banana, D for donkey

I swear he used K for Knee
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I remember a very old comedy routine (by Shelley Berman IIRC) where he was talking on the phone and spelling something out and used all words with a silent first letter. I remember "P as in psychiatrist".
 
CORed said:
I remember a very old comedy routine (by Shelley Berman IIRC) where he was talking on the phone and spelling something out and used all words with a silent first letter. I remember "P as in psychiatrist".
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I remember that skit too. I tried searching for it when I first read this thread. Without success. :(
 
According to my back-of-the-envelope calculation just now, approximately 15% of all calls to the Service Desk are password related. In my experience about 95% of password issues are the result of user error. They mess up typing their password and get their account locked, misremember what they changed it to, or flat out forget what it was.

We have self-service password reset facilities in place, and these are regularly communicated to the users. It makes no difference. We didn't get a significant drop in password calls when it was implemented (though I would fact-check that), and hardly anyone seems to use it.

We now have a new secure system where the only way to get a password reset is to use the self-service facility, so maybe the idea will start permeating through the user base. But not all staff use this new secure system.

What is it about people and their passwords? I haven't had to have my password reset more than twice in my 25-year career in IT. About the same rate as I forget my security pass.
 
arthwollipot said:
According to my back-of-the-envelope calculation just now, approximately 15% of all calls to the Service Desk are password related. In my experience about 95% of password issues are the result of user error. They mess up typing their password and get their account locked, misremember what they changed it to, or flat out forget what it was.

We have self-service password reset facilities in place, and these are regularly communicated to the users. It makes no difference. We didn't get a significant drop in password calls when it was implemented (though I would fact-check that), and hardly anyone seems to use it.

We now have a new secure system where the only way to get a password reset is to use the self-service facility, so maybe the idea will start permeating through the user base. But not all staff use this new secure system.

What is it about people and their passwords? I haven't had to have my password reset more than twice in my 25-year career in IT. About the same rate as I forget my security pass.
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At my work they got tired of password reset calls so they finally just this year implemented a fancy new password reset web application. The only problem with it is...

You guessed it! You need a password to use the password reset application.
 
TragicMonkey said:
At my work they got tired of password reset calls so they finally just this year implemented a fancy new password reset web application. The only problem with it is...

You guessed it! You need a password to use the password reset application.
Click to expand...
Oh bravo!

Our password reset application doesn't have a password, but you do need to pre-register before you can use it. And no-one bothers to do so until they need to use it. And then they can't.
 
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