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

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novaphile said:
I feel your pain, in at 7am, out at 8pm, be glad when this **** is all done and dusted.

Meanwhile, to my amazement, I'm also a long term user of Logitech Trackman track balls.

But also bought an MX Ergo recently, because my Trackman had died and I wasn't able to get a replacement quickly. (I like it but I like the Trackman more)

It's odd that so many of us would use them, there are very few of them at work.

(Two the last time I went looking)
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TV Trivia: The character Timothy McGee on NCIS used a Trackman at the beginning of the series, and for quite a while afterwards. Not sure if he still does. I haven't noticed it recently.

I always wondered if that was a choice made by the Prop. Dept. or if Sean Murray chose it himself.

They are a bit addictive. I know that once I got used to my Trackman I never had any inclination to go back.
 
JoeMorgue said:
My wife literally reverses the mouse.

No, she doesn't reverse the mouse controls, she reverses the mouse itself. As in puts the mouse on the mousepad with the cord (or where the cord would be on a wireless) updside down.

Yes, she's a monster.
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I am left handed, and mouse left handed, but I don't reverse the buttons. My preference is a plain mouse, preferably on the small side (allows the hand to rest on it in a non-strained position). The trouble with most "ergonomic" mouses and trackballs is that they are made to be used right handed. Left handed models may be available, but stores don't generally stock them.
 
CORed said:
I am left handed, and mouse left handed, but I don't reverse the buttons. My preference is a plain mouse, preferably on the small side (allows the hand to rest on it in a non-strained position). The trouble with most "ergonomic" mouses and trackballs is that they are made to be used right handed. Left handed models may be available, but stores don't generally stock them.
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This is certainly true, even egregiously true of the Trackman.

And I am quite severely right-handed. But over time I have found myself using my Trackman left-handed often enough (for sundry short-term reasons) to have become relatively comfortable using it that way.

You're correct, left-handed trackballs are scare in stores, although non-handed varieties may be less so, but there is a fairly good selection on-line.

It's a bit like guitars (and quite a few other things), left-handed models are available, but the selection in the average store isn't much to write home about. They'll cheerfully order you one when southpaw versions are to be had, but that isn't a lot different from buying on-line these days.
 
Back in the day our first laptops at work - nice beige Toshiba 486s - had trackballs that clipped onto the right-hand side of the machine. Brilliantly, if they got disconnected, which they often did because of clumsiness, they weren't recognised if you reconnected them. You had to reboot the machine. This was... irritating.
 
I'm left-handed as well but have always moused right-hands because on my first exposure to mice on workstations in 1991 the mouse was always on the right hand side of the desk and there wasn't enough cable to swap it over. Since then the opportunity has always been there to mouse left-handed but it feels really odd.

Similarly I've always played guitar right-handed because that's what we always had at home. About 20 years ago I did buy a left-handed Strat but I never got on with it and soon went back.
 
quadraginta said:
This is certainly true, even egregiously true of the Trackman.

And I am quite severely right-handed. But over time I have found myself using my Trackman left-handed often enough (for sundry short-term reasons) to have become relatively comfortable using it that way.

You're correct, left-handed trackballs are scare in stores, although non-handed varieties may be less so, but there is a fairly good selection on-line.

It's a bit like guitars (and quite a few other things), left-handed models are available, but the selection in the average store isn't much to write home about. They'll cheerfully order you one when southpaw versions are to be had, but that isn't a lot different from buying on-line these days.
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Perhaps a bit of a derail: It used to be true of fishing reels that you generally had to special order left handed (right hand crank) models, as stores didn't carry them. But, quite awhile ago the fishing reel manufacturers got smart and started making most reels such that you could switch the handle to the other side if you wanted to. I'm not sure it would be feasible to make mouses and trackballs convertible, though.
 
Today I found records in our database where the key is prefixed with lower case characters. I found them idly scrolling from the beginning. I went past the spaces (in the key!), then to the ones... except they're not ones, they're lower case L's. You can't key on to them using the tool to interrogate the data, because that converts lower case to upper case when you press enter.

For pity's sake
 
Filippo Lippi said:
Today I found records in our database where the key is prefixed with lower case characters. I found them idly scrolling from the beginning. I went past the spaces (in the key!), then to the ones... except they're not ones, they're lower case L's. You can't key on to them using the tool to interrogate the data, because that converts lower case to upper case when you press enter.

For pity's sake
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Awesome!

Can you enter a search key inside quotes? Long shot...

(If you can, the tool might also be used for an injection attack possibly...)
 
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Filippo Lippi said:
Today I found records in our database where the key is prefixed with lower case characters. I found them idly scrolling from the beginning. I went past the spaces (in the key!), then to the ones... except they're not ones, they're lower case L's. You can't key on to them using the tool to interrogate the data, because that converts lower case to upper case when you press enter.

For pity's sake
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I recall stories from long ago of secretaries switching from word processors to using computer and causing problems as they often typed "l" instead of "1" as touch typing positions a finger on "l".
 
Wudang said:
I recall stories from long ago of secretaries switching from word processors to using computer and causing problems as they often typed "l" instead of "1" as touch typing positions a finger on "l".
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I think, also, that some typewriters didn't have a separate '1' character, so the 'l' was what had to be used.
 
m's and r's also affected

We do send an error message, but it's ignored. Things aren't coming through on the right key straight after, so I assume someone's just thinking, "that didn't work," and doing it manually
 
quadraginta said:
That's, umm ... nice.

I'm not sure why you bring it up though. I guess because of the product name of the new Logitech trackball.
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I had no ulterior motive in bringing it up other than to mention that my choice of mouse is endorsed by my physio.

quadraginta said:
That's not why I like them, though. Although they do have some ergonomic advantages of their own, shared by all trackball types. Mainly, you don't have to move your wrist at all, unlike any mouse style pointing device.
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I haven't tried using a trackball long-term but it seems to me that it would strain my thumb more than a regular mouse would strain my wrist, and that I would have less precision with my thumb. I have a genetic essential tremor that makes my hands less than steady, and I very much doubt that my thumb by itself would have sufficient control of my mouse over three large screens.

But mouses are a very personal thing. What might work for one person might not work for another. You like the trackball. You're entitled to like the trackball. When my WHS assessment was done, one of the options that was offered to me was an Oyster Mouse. This, by the way, is also the answer to whoever it was asking whether an ergonomic mouse could be configured to use either hand. :) I liked the look of it, but I went with the vertical mouse because I've used it before and I know that it works. I probably could have come to enjoy using the Oyster Mouse over time, but given that I won't be in a position to easily swap it out if it doesn't work, I went with what I knew.

CORed said:
I am left handed, and mouse left handed, but I don't reverse the buttons. My preference is a plain mouse, preferably on the small side (allows the hand to rest on it in a non-strained position). The trouble with most "ergonomic" mouses and trackballs is that they are made to be used right handed. Left handed models may be available, but stores don't generally stock them.
Click to expand...
In my experience the left-handed versions aren't carried by the big chain stores like Target and Officeworks, but you can always get them from ergonomic office supply stores online, and there exist in a few places actual brick-and-mortar stores that specialise in ergonomic office equipment. I'm hoping to get myself a new gaming PC after Christmas, and this is where I'll be going to get the mouse and keyboard.
 
quadraginta said:
This is certainly true, even egregiously true of the Trackman. And I am quite severely right-handed. But over time I have found myself using my Trackman left-handed often enough (for sundry short-term reasons) to have become relatively comfortable using it that way.

You're correct, left-handed trackballs are scare in stores, although non-handed varieties may be less so, but there is a fairly good selection on-line.

It's a bit like guitars (and quite a few other things), left-handed models are available, but the selection in the average store isn't much to write home about. They'll cheerfully order you one when southpaw versions are to be had, but that isn't a lot different from buying on-line these days.
Click to expand...

I think you must be thinking of a different product.

The Trackman is symmetrical along the long access, it can be placed in any position you like and does not in any way have a 'handedness'
 
Here's something infuriating. We have a task that the T2 on the late shift is required to do once a week. We check in on all our staff who are posted overseas to make sure they've logged on within the last 30 days. If they don't, their account is automatically made inactive and it's a pain in the bum for them to get it reactivated.

So far so good. Last logon is an attribute that is tracked in Active Directory. Look them up, open their Properties, and wait! the Attribute Editor tab is missing!

We have to go to their Member Of tab, open their Role Group Properties (assigned according to their position in the org structure of the department), close the user's Properties, check the Members tab of the Group Properties, double click the user there to reopen the user's Properties and now we can see the Attribute Editor tab.

That's crazy. Any other AD users have something like this?
 
arthwollipot said:
Here's something infuriating. We have a task that the T2 on the late shift is required to do once a week. We check in on all our staff who are posted overseas to make sure they've logged on within the last 30 days. If they don't, their account is automatically made inactive and it's a pain in the bum for them to get it reactivated.

So far so good. Last logon is an attribute that is tracked in Active Directory. Look them up, open their Properties, and wait! the Attribute Editor tab is missing!

We have to go to their Member Of tab, open their Role Group Properties (assigned according to their position in the org structure of the department), close the user's Properties, check the Members tab of the Group Properties, double click the user there to reopen the user's Properties and now we can see the Attribute Editor tab.

That's crazy. Any other AD users have something like this?
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The advanced tab in ADUC only shows if you browse to the object; it’s not there if you open properties via search.

That being said, that procedure could be automated with one or two lines of PowerShell code, then you don’t have to do it at all. Use get-aduser, filter based on last login time, return user ID and last logon time. You could have it do the disable automagically, too. Assuming overseas accounts are identifiable by an OU or attribute.

Even if they aren’t, you could set up the PowerShell to take in a list of ad account names to run against: text file, CSV, XML, whatever.

There are easier options, I promise :).

My current job is an info security engineer for our Identity and Access Management, so this is the kind of thing I do all day. It’d be 15 to 30 minutes, maybe, to write a quick script. PM me if you’re interested and let me know some basics, like if it needs to look in a specific OU or take an input file. I don’t need specifics like OU names or account names or anything that might be sensitive, just generalities. I can whip something together and send it for you to adjust and play with.


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So we have a big problem with prices of purchases.
To cut a long story short, we get "provisional" prices, and later we have to compute the final prices based on totals of some aggregates of goods.
Of course you could, once you have calculated the final prices, enter them line by line, but that is tedious (talking about potentially 200+ items).

So yesterday I wrote a short script allowing the person in charge to:
1. Download a well structured Excel file with the list of goods and dedicated columns where he can do the necessary calculations and enter the correct prices;
2. Upload the file.

Pure genius!

I sent the person in charge an email, explaining the procedure, and in attachment, as an example, the file he can now download from the application.

Yesterday evening the person in charge called to thank me, and said all went well.

This morning I checked the logs and it appears:
1. He didn't download the file;
2. He didn't upload anything.

Why are users lying?
 
*Bangs head against wall over and over*

If you call me with a problem and I show up... just show me what your problem is.

Do not sit there and walk me through every single step of your workflow. Get to where the problem actually is.

Why do so many of my users have this weird obsession with showing me their routines?

"Okay I sit down, I login, I first open this, then I open this..."
 
JoeMorgue said:
*Bangs head against wall over and over*

If you call me with a problem and I show up... just show me what your problem is.

Do not sit there and walk me through every single step of your workflow. Get to where the problem actually is.

Why do so many of my users have this weird obsession with showing me their routines?

"Okay I sit down, I login, I first open this, then I open this..."
Click to expand...

Because it is the one and only magic spell that they have learnt and they know it doesn't work unless you follow the magic spell to the letter.
 
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