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

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TragicMonkey said:
My big peeve like that is that there is no universal standard on whether to put an "Okay" button on the right or left of a "Cancel" button. Every day to remote into work I have to trigger a program on my computer then verify myself on my phone; the former has the Okay on the right and the latter on the left. I've had to redo the process many times because I click Cancel by mistake. If I were doing either action by itself it wouldn't be a problem, but seconds apart it's too close. We need a universal agreement to put those two in the same order everywhere.
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And to have a standard for binary choices. Having two boxes (Yes - No), one with white bold text and a black background, the other with black bold text and a white background, and toggling between the two, does not tell me which box is active. It's also a problem for me on some multiple choice menus where it's only text that changes color, but being color-blind the choice does not stand out.
 
The standard in our application screens is to use PF1 for "back," while mainframe standard is PF3. Apart from some horrible utility which occasionally demands you type a full stop to exit a thing.
 
That's why I hate playing Switch games with my wife as a (mostly) Xbox player.

Game Prompt: "Press B"
Me: "Immediately presses wrong button."
 
Oh, my. Somebody foolishly questioned the accuracy of my data, because it didn't match their boy Kevin's data. So we had a call.

My turn: Here is my data summed up. This is the logic behind the query, what's included and what's excluded. These subsequent tabs list all the values for each of the parameters for inclusion. The next tab is the 671,229 rows of individual line item detail that comprise the data. Every piece of data with all its necessary unique identifiers, that can be used to tie each piece into every other piece of data in the entire system. Now: does anyone see any mistakes? Anything I'm including I shouldn't, or anything I'm omitting I shouldn't?

Kevin's turn: Oh, I got my data from the [mumbled] tool, it's uh, the same parameters as the other thing, um, I think I might have included different things. Um. Uh. Um. I think [pause] [pause] um, I'll look into it and get back [inaudible].

I think people make the mistake of thinking because I'm a ridiculous monkey on 99% of everything that my work data can be questioned. My work data is in that 1% of things that I'm surprisingly good at, incredibly anal and OCD about, and hold as the most critical jewel of my entire CYA drive. I never send datum one without a hidden arsenal of complete proof and justification behind it, ready to unleash upon any who presume to question it.
 
TragicMonkey said:
My big peeve like that is that there is no universal standard on whether to put an "Okay" button on the right or left of a "Cancel" button. Every day to remote into work I have to trigger a program on my computer then verify myself on my phone; the former has the Okay on the right and the latter on the left. I've had to redo the process many times because I click Cancel by mistake. If I were doing either action by itself it wouldn't be a problem, but seconds apart it's too close. We need a universal agreement to put those two in the same order everywhere.
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I get around that by using Enter for OK and Escape for Cancel, which is universal.
 
TragicMonkey said:
Oh, my. Somebody foolishly questioned the accuracy of my data, because it didn't match their boy Kevin's data. So we had a call.

My turn: Here is my data summed up. This is the logic behind the query, what's included and what's excluded. These subsequent tabs list all the values for each of the parameters for inclusion. The next tab is the 671,229 rows of individual line item detail that comprise the data. Every piece of data with all its necessary unique identifiers, that can be used to tie each piece into every other piece of data in the entire system. Now: does anyone see any mistakes? Anything I'm including I shouldn't, or anything I'm omitting I shouldn't?

Kevin's turn: Oh, I got my data from the [mumbled] tool, it's uh, the same parameters as the other thing, um, I think I might have included different things. Um. Uh. Um. I think [pause] [pause] um, I'll look into it and get back [inaudible].

I think people make the mistake of thinking because I'm a ridiculous monkey on 99% of everything that my work data can be questioned. My work data is in that 1% of things that I'm surprisingly good at, incredibly anal and OCD about, and hold as the most critical jewel of my entire CYA drive. I never send datum one without a hidden arsenal of complete proof and justification behind it, ready to unleash upon any who presume to question it.
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Smart boy, Kevin
 
Hey brains trust. I've just encountered a really weird problem.

One person in the pilot group for the next major Windows update has a reported a problem where if he restarts the computer, it fails to connect to the corporate network. It can be fixed if someone on Service Desk uses Remote Assistance to make a connection to the computer. It doesn't matter if they accept or deny the request, it immediately connects the Corporate Network. No-one else in the pilot group is affected as far as I can tell.

We have someone from the SOE team looking at it, but I wondered if anyone here had encountered anything like this before.
 
arthwollipot said:
Hey brains trust. I've just encountered a really weird problem.

One person in the pilot group for the next major Windows update has a reported a problem where if he restarts the computer, it fails to connect to the corporate network. It can be fixed if someone on Service Desk uses Remote Assistance to make a connection to the computer. It doesn't matter if they accept or deny the request, it immediately connects the Corporate Network. No-one else in the pilot group is affected as far as I can tell.

We have someone from the SOE team looking at it, but I wondered if anyone here had encountered anything like this before.
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First guess would be something network related; specifically something with any static network routes or default gateway settings if the system is on multiple networks. It may be trying to go out the “wrong” interface to initiate a connection. When the remote comes it, it creates a dynamic back-link to the network on the correct interface that works?

Just guessing, but seems like it might be worth looking at.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 
Hellbound said:
First guess would be something network related; specifically something with any static network routes or default gateway settings if the system is on multiple networks. It may be trying to go out the “wrong” interface to initiate a connection. When the remote comes it, it creates a dynamic back-link to the network on the correct interface that works?

Just guessing, but seems like it might be worth looking at.
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Yeah, sounds plausible. Unfortunately I don't have the kind of technical knowledge to be sure about anything. I'm a customer service guy, not a tech. But it was a weird problem, nothing like anything I've ever run into before.
 
arthwollipot said:
Yeah, sounds plausible. Unfortunately I don't have the kind of technical knowledge to be sure about anything. I'm a customer service guy, not a tech. But it was a weird problem, nothing like anything I've ever run into before.
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Handball to network team. Easiest ticket today.
 
I've had a few odd network problems caused by Win 10 caching domain controllers etc. locally.

ipconfig /flushdns is my goto for that kind of error.

In theory, that should slow the computer down, because it has to rebuild the local DNS cache, in practice, whenever I've run it, it has sped up network operations for me, because the local cache is full of cruft.
 
novaphile said:
I've had a few odd network problems caused by Win 10 caching domain controllers etc. locally.

ipconfig /flushdns is my goto for that kind of error.

In theory, that should slow the computer down, because it has to rebuild the local DNS cache, in practice, whenever I've run it, it has sped up network operations for me, because the local cache is full of cruft.
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May be worth checking the arp cache also. If it’s a problem along the lines I was thinking if, that’s where you’d see evidence.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 
Blue Mountain said:
After much reading of this thread and TalesFromTechSupport [Reddit], I was ... inspired ... to write this.

Call IT!

If your computer isn't working, call IT!
If your network's not connecting, call IT!
----If it's plugged into a wall,
----Is electronical at all,
If your "On" light's on no longer, call IT!

Has your browser jumped the shark? Call IT!
Has your smartphone gone all dark? Call IT!
----If it's plugged into a wall,
----Is electronical at all,
If your phone's no longer phoning, call IT!

If you cannot keyboard well, call IT!
Or change a spreadsheet cell, call IT!
----If it's plugged into a wall,
----Is electronical at all,
If you cannot read instructions, call IT!

If you can't find the power buttons, call IT!
Or manage basic functions, call IT!
----If it's plugged into a wall,
----Is electronical at all,
Or are just computer helpless, call IT!

If your fax machine's not faxing, call IT!
If your TV's not receiving, call IT!
----If it's plugged into a wall,
----Is electronical at all ... !
... Or the power has gone out, call IT!
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Works really well to the tune of 'if you're happy and you know it'....
:D
 
Ever since my company rolled out its "all-in-one!" password management system, changing our passwords has been a complicated ordeal. First you change it in the "all-in-one!" tool. Then you have to make the same change in the terrifying "red screen" on the computer itself, the one that permanently bricks your computer if it gets screwed up. Then you have to use another tool to sync them up. Then you have to change it in AD because the "all-in-one!" tool doesn't do that even though it's supposed to because that's the main point. Then you have to change it individually in Teams because for some reason Teams doesn't sync to Windows password changes. Outlook does, but only if you log into Windows with your old password, lock the screen, then unlock it with the new password. Restarting doesn't have that same effect even though you'd think it would. Then you get a Citrix popup demanding a password but it won't accept your old one or the new one, you just have to hit "Cancel" until it goes away. It doesn't seem to affect anything. And god help you if you have anything on your phone.

It does improve security greatly though, because it keeps people out of their applications and thus they couldn't do anything nefarious in them.
 
TragicMonkey said:
Ever since my company rolled out its "all-in-one!" password management system, changing our passwords has been a complicated ordeal. First you change it in the "all-in-one!" tool. Then you have to make the same change in the terrifying "red screen" on the computer itself, the one that permanently bricks your computer if it gets screwed up. Then you have to use another tool to sync them up. Then you have to change it in AD because the "all-in-one!" tool doesn't do that even though it's supposed to because that's the main point. Then you have to change it individually in Teams because for some reason Teams doesn't sync to Windows password changes. Outlook does, but only if you log into Windows with your old password, lock the screen, then unlock it with the new password. Restarting doesn't have that same effect even though you'd think it would. Then you get a Citrix popup demanding a password but it won't accept your old one or the new one, you just have to hit "Cancel" until it goes away. It doesn't seem to affect anything. And god help you if you have anything on your phone.

It does improve security greatly though, because it keeps people out of their applications and thus they couldn't do anything nefarious in them.
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I thought one of the advantages of Active Directory was it served as a central repository of "truth" for the domain. But Outlook isn't not syncing? Are you using Exchange, or another email server that can't consult an LDAP database for authentication? I can see Teams having poor integration with AD, given that it's web-based. I don't know if Microsoft's 365 family integrates with AD at all.
 
Blue Mountain said:
I thought one of the advantages of Active Directory was it served as a central repository of "truth" for the domain. But Outlook isn't not syncing? Are you using Exchange, or another email server that can't consult an LDAP database for authentication? I can see Teams having poor integration with AD, given that it's web-based. I don't know if Microsoft's 365 family integrates with AD at all.
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We have two separate repositories of Truth for our network. One of them is AD, the other is HR. We have a heck of a time synchronising them sometimes.

This week they've got me doing smartcards. Which is nice since it became by appointment only. The process of taking the photo, programming the card, and setting everything up takes about five minutes when I'm fluent. Trouble is that I haven't done smartcards in over a year, and while I was pretty good back then, I was doing it with the guy who's been doing smartcards forever (the chatty one, remember?) so I had a repository of all knowledge of my own over my shoulder. This week I had one day of refresher and today I'm on my own. I'm across all of the standard processes but I hope that nothing weird crosses my desk.

Ah well. It's only half the day, and the other half just flies by, so I'm not about to start complaining. My 0945 appointment was a no-show, by 1000 showed up a few minutes early, and 1015 is my official 15min break, so I've really got nothing to do until 1030.
 
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