Rants

Teliax.com - wonderful customer service.

Voip with a high degree of customer service.
When there is a problem with your account, you should not contact the customer with a reason, you should:

1. Cut off service by blocking at your router.
2. Put up a friendly message when the customer tries to log in to find out what is happening.
The message should read something like this:

Message
Account Closed. please call xxx-xxx-xxxx to have this issue resolved

It makes more sense than any support I could dream up.

As it turns out they re-wrote the web browser interface to the account configuration.
They were too lazy to migrate customer data, so they asked customers to do it for them by having them delete there accounts and come back as a brand new customer and sign up.
Wonderful customer service.
If we change our accounting package, we should make them do something to help us out as well.
Oh, and if you are screwing over a customer, make sure to do it on a Saturday.

Life...

Life is a buzzing in my ears, and I want it to stop. Crickets are there sometimes, but not often.

Wisdom for the ages.

A polished turd does not roll uphill.

Communications is actually detrimental to an organization.
You were born with all knowledge (and all the knowledge of those around you).

Mc Che!

I'm lovin' it! - Thanks Tom Foster.

Click to see the clown.

Redmine

Redmine - The install that feels like putting your hand in a glove.
It is just that the glove is full of animal renderings and glass.

Aesthetics of a Vogon armpit.
Functionality of an AMC Pacer.

Make a ticket, create a checklist, change the tracker type pull-down - ---
Poof, your checklist is gone.

I was making better gui entry screens out of the gate in Pascal and Clipper going on 15 years ago. Jesus, web gui programming might just catch up in another 10 years or so to be the equivalent to the output of a junior maintenance programmers output of many years ago (someday).

Someone else was posting to a ticket and I was as well, and the options on save are "clobber one or the other of the posts to the ticket?" - Really?

If you are using the system to track, why not allow someone to track using the system?
If the entry of a ticket can't be done to supply all the info in one post, you are doing it wrong.
1. Open a ticket. (post)
2. Add time. (post)
3. Close ticket. (post)
I can understand the process, but as a follow up to an issue that is completed already, it seems a bit redundant.

That is what I am looking for, random failures in raids!

Seagate strikes again
Summary:

Known issues with Seagate Barracuda 7200.14 Desktop Drives
Answer ID 17241   |    Published 09/21/2012 08:04 AM   |    Updated 01/31/2013 08:28 AM
The array keeps failing drives. The controller error log shows continuous "aborted command" and/or "link failure" messages when
using Seagate Barracuda 7200.14 drives (models: ST3000DM001, ST2500DM001, ST2000DM001, or ST1000DM003). Is this a known issue with those drives? 

This information applies to the following Operating System(s): 
- This information is not Operating System specific 
Yes, there is a known issue with the Seagate Barracuda 7200.14 SATA III 6Gb/s drives
(models: ST3000DM001, ST2500DM001, ST2000DM001 and ST1000DM003) running firmware CC4G (or earlier).
They have been reported as having random failures in RAID arrays. 

Seagate has updated firmware that may help stabilize the drives. We recommend flashing the drives to
the latest firmware CC4H (or higher) provided by Seagate. 

See Seagate's Knowledgebase Article for further details regarding firmware version CC4H.
Please contact Seagate directly for newer firmware versions. 

Please also make sure that the latest version of firmware, driver, and management software is installed for the RAID Controller.
Latest versions are available for download from our Support Site.

So, when did you start that Ruby process on the server?

Ruby, not processor intensive at all

You resell our services, and we will send you a check!

I think I have heard the old reseller line before.
You might do better as a contract worker in India (or Mickey D's).

Sage 50 - some pointers

Here are some pointers:

It may no longer be a common practice to write your log files to C:\Windows

You might make it so the installer / uninstaller does not make folders in the root of C: that are read-only, hidden, and system file attributed.

It would be good to ensure your installer can actually replace files on an upgrade (not just have the end user do it later).

If you did some re-write on the installer, you might be able to hire less surly support folks.

Oh, and make sure any installs that happen after an upgrade don't work, because the install location does not recognize the updated data location!

If you allow the user to create the data share, don't insist they have it 2 sub-directories deep without informing them of that fact in the installer.

The Windows 3.11 dialog for selecting a data location is cute. I must find out how you made that work on a 64 bit install (or are you just re-using the icons). Either way, bravo on the schweet look and feel it really brings me back.

I don't know about you, but...

I don't know about you, but, if my hardware raid controller is not written in Java, I don't sleep well at night.
Steaming pile of abstractions that are some swing gui that can't or won't output meaningful info to a script, and or email on failure.