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

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JoeMorgue said:
New thing that is eating up too much of my time.

"We have vendor that needs to do a presentation. He has a twee hipster little laptop that only has one USB-C connector, all the projector has is a VGA and a full sized HDMI. Could you immediately manifest the necessary dongles from the aether? Oh and quickly because the presentation starts .0004 nanoseconds."
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That is the most polite way of saying "mac" that I have ever read.
 
Dr. Keith said:
That is the most polite way of saying "mac" that I have ever read.
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TBH (and I detest Apple, all it's works and all it's empty promises) there are other models (Google's Pixelbook for example) that only have USB-C.
 
In all fairness this particular one was a Windows machine, I think a Microsoft Surface.
 
JoeMorgue said:
New thing that is eating up too much of my time.

"We have vendor that needs to do a presentation. He has a twee hipster little laptop that only has one USB-C connector, all the projector has is a VGA and a full sized HDMI. Could you immediately manifest the necessary dongles from the aether? Oh and quickly because the presentation starts .0004 nanoseconds."
Click to expand...
Would a Chromecast help?
 
Norman Alexander said:
Would a Chromecast help?
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<>cast is useful, IFF both devices support it and are compatible. This is frequently not true. It's like Bluetooth.
Cables tend to 'just work'. Though in this specific case you'd need a USB-C to HDMI dongle and hope the computer can output video via USB-C.
 
JoeMorgue said:
New thing that is eating up too much of my time.

"We have vendor that needs to do a presentation. He has a twee hipster little laptop that only has one USB-C connector, all the projector has is a VGA and a full sized HDMI. Could you immediately manifest the necessary dongles from the aether? Oh and quickly because the presentation starts .0004 nanoseconds."
Click to expand...


If the vendor isn't toting around their own adapters (and let's be real, the damn things aren't expensive) then they have nobody to blame but themselves.

If they were actually professional they wouldn't need anything from the customers they were presenting to but a spare electrical outlet.
 
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quadraginta said:
If the vendor isn't toting around their own adapters (and let's be real, the damn things aren't expensive) then they have nobody to blame but themselves.

If they were actually professional they wouldn't need anything from the customers they were presenting to but a spare electrical outlet.
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True. My 'presentation bag' has a projector, speakers, gang socket, headset, VGA/DVI/HDMI cables and converters, keyboard, air-mouse, presentation remote and battery packs (just in case, the projector is battery or mains powered), amongst other stuff.
The projector is set up to work with my compact notebook or tablet, is wireless and cordless with the equivalent of an Android Stick PC inbuilt so it can run from a computer, a thumbdrive or card, or from the 'net.
I've a second bag with the big 4k projector, which us heavier and mains powered.
 
quadraginta said:
If the vendor isn't toting around their own adapters (and let's be real, the damn things aren't expensive) then they have nobody to blame but themselves.

If they were actually professional they wouldn't need anything from the customers they were presenting to but a spare electrical outlet.
Click to expand...

Or, ahead of time, the vendor should have checked that his equipment was compatible with what the client site has. On the client side I always tell any potential presenters what equipment we have and offer to check out the connection with their equipment first. I even have a standard document I send that describes it all.

Good grief.
 
catsmate said:
True. My 'presentation bag' has a projector, speakers, gang socket, headset, VGA/DVI/HDMI cables and converters, keyboard, air-mouse, presentation remote and battery packs (just in case, the projector is battery or mains powered), amongst other stuff.
The projector is set up to work with my compact notebook or tablet, is wireless and cordless with the equivalent of an Android Stick PC inbuilt so it can run from a computer, a thumbdrive or card, or from the 'net.
I've a second bag with the big 4k projector, which us heavier and mains powered.
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Really professional people don't require anything more from the client than a room to change into their exotic bird costumes, and perhaps a freezer to store the ice sculptures. I don't do a lot of presentations, but when I do they are memorable.
 
TragicMonkey said:
Really professional people don't require anything more from the client than a room to change into their exotic bird costumes, and perhaps a freezer to store the ice sculptures. I don't do a lot of presentations, but when I do they are memorable.
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:D
I gave up on bird costumes, I prefer the simple elegance of Death, complete with voice modulator and folding scythe. And I don't sculpt in ice, I prefer chocolate or gingerbread, that way you avoid the pain of sensitive teeth.
 
catsmate said:
:D
I gave up on bird costumes, I prefer the simple elegance of Death, complete with voice modulator and folding scythe. And I don't sculpt in ice, I prefer chocolate or gingerbread, that way you avoid the pain of sensitive teeth.
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The advantage to ice sculptures is that watching them melt gives you something interesting to look at while the presentation is going on.
 
Came into work this morning.

E-mail from head of HR that she sent at 6:05 this morning, so probably the second she walked in the building.

"Termination. (Employee Name). Effective immediately.

Okay so I go into active directory and disable her account.

At about 8 I get a call from... guess who. Go on guess. Take a wild guess. Yep. The "effectively immediately" terminated user complaining that she couldn't log in.

I stalled for time and contact HR.

The user's actual last day is Friday, the HR rep had just put "effective immediately" (and no other date) on the e-mail for... I dunno.
 
JoeMorgue said:
Came into work this morning.

E-mail from head of HR that she sent at 6:05 this morning, so probably the second she walked in the building.

"Termination. (Employee Name). Effective immediately.

Okay so I go into active directory and disable her account.

At about 8 I get a call from... guess who. Go on guess. Take a wild guess. Yep. The "effectively immediately" terminated user complaining that she couldn't log in.

I stalled for time and contact HR.

The user's actual last day is Friday, the HR rep had just put "effective immediately" (and no other date) on the e-mail for... I dunno.
Click to expand...

I'd disable the HR's account for a while.
 
JoeMorgue said:
Came into work this morning.

E-mail from head of HR that she sent at 6:05 this morning, so probably the second she walked in the building.

"Termination. (Employee Name). Effective immediately.

Okay so I go into active directory and disable her account.

At about 8 I get a call from... guess who. Go on guess. Take a wild guess. Yep. The "effectively immediately" terminated user complaining that she couldn't log in.

I stalled for time and contact HR.

The user's actual last day is Friday, the HR rep had just put "effective immediately" (and no other date) on the e-mail for... I dunno.
Click to expand...

Just have them speak to their manager and hope that accounting fixes the paycheck glitch sooner or later.
 
I spoke to someone a couple of weeks ago, who was complaining that she could no longer use her personal USB drive on government systems. I explained that yes, that is correct, government systems operate under a government-mandated security protocol that prevents unknown devices from being connected, and we had updated to this protocol at least a year and a half ago (link to Knowledge Base article). But she was using this device just last week. Technically, I said, that is a security breach that should be reported to the Forensic Security area to find out how it was possible. But how can I get to all my documents? she asked. I replied that we provided several methods, including email and a secure FTP service that she can apply for. Am I supposed to email my gigabytes of data? I wondered why she was carrying around gigabytes of data on a USB drive. Was she transferring the documents between her home computer and her work computer? I do that from time to time, but not for that much data. No, she replied. She didn't have a home computer.

Blink.

She didn't have a home computer. She did all of her personal and study work either on her work computer or at the library. I didn't even know there were still people like that.
 
arthwollipot said:
I spoke to someone a couple of weeks ago, who was complaining that she could no longer use her personal USB drive on government systems. I explained that yes, that is correct, government systems operate under a government-mandated security protocol that prevents unknown devices from being connected, and we had updated to this protocol at least a year and a half ago (link to Knowledge Base article). But she was using this device just last week. Technically, I said, that is a security breach that should be reported to the Forensic Security area to find out how it was possible. But how can I get to all my documents? she asked. I replied that we provided several methods, including email and a secure FTP service that she can apply for. Am I supposed to email my gigabytes of data? I wondered why she was carrying around gigabytes of data on a USB drive. Was she transferring the documents between her home computer and her work computer? I do that from time to time, but not for that much data. No, she replied. She didn't have a home computer.

Blink.

She didn't have a home computer. She did all of her personal and study work either on her work computer or at the library. I didn't even know there were still people like that.
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An external USB drive, not a thumbdrive, is usually 1 TB or bigger these days. I use one to carry my movie collection, which I watch on my 90 minute commute home.

So I can see her putting "everything" on such a device. Heaven help her if it ever got lost! :rolleyes: And yes, it is a MAJOR security breach.
 
Norman Alexander said:
An external USB drive, not a thumbdrive, is usually 1 TB or bigger these days. I use one to carry my movie collection, which I watch on my 90 minute commute home.

So I can see her putting "everything" on such a device. Heaven help her if it ever got lost! :rolleyes: And yes, it is a MAJOR security breach.
Click to expand...
She was actually talking about a thumb drive.
 
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