Marilyn is still floating around the Pacific Ocean in a container with Custard, they should be here in the next couple of weeks.

It was something like that here today too. Come to think, most days this time of the year are much the same, although this summer we've had quite a few cooler rainy days. Most of this week has been evening electrical storms, and if the vegetation wasn't so green from recent rain we'd be having firestorms as well.


Btw if any of you win the lotto, I want to be adopted. ;)

Currently 6 degrees F with a -7 windchill in beautiful Northern Ohio.

Well, the sun ain't up yet but I am...Good Morning.

Pretty sure if you want to win, you gotta at least buy a ticket. It increases the odds from zero to as close as you can get to zero without actually being zero.

Hi guys. It's pretty cold here this morning. I'm ready to bug out to anyplace warm!

Hey Azzy, welcome home!

I hope your P-car kids arrive unscratched and in good shape.

Today is Windows update install day on all the computers here. I am really hoping Microsoft fix the problem with last month's update. Last month Outlook suddenly started running ONLY in safe mode. I dug around on the internet and could not find a cure. Safe mode sucks. My home computer had the same problem. The update fixed it back to normal mode. I guess there is but one way to find out. Time to update.

Whooo Hoooo

Outlook is fixed. Microsoft broke it and now they fixed it. No more safe mode. :D

The safe mode is crippled with no access to the fonts I set up, the tool-bar add ons are gone and other announces.

Back to normal, or as normal as I ever get to be.

I will share with all you Stijners. Free Porsche GT3 to all. In Hot Wheels size! Kidding, kidding.

I figure I have about as much change as everyone else but will come out ahead if I win because I don't buy tickets, therefore someone will have bought the winning ticket for me. I will be $1.00 ahead.

We had that discussion about the cloud when we were changing our Clinicals software.

"But we have a fast connection" "It is browser based" (Like THAT helps things).

They forget about latency. "Why does it take longer to respond to generate a report?" "We get that circle thing a lot more now, how come? The software is supposed to be better?"

Me: Duh.

I have to compose another best practices memo again. Why do people call the support number that pops up to tell them they have a virus instead of IT? It was a pop up ad and she would have been fine had she not called and had them remote into her computer. Glad we have a decent firewall and AV software. I guess I need to install ad blockers on all the computers now. One thing MS did OK was GPO. I can deploy a lot through GPOs and not have to deal with the people.

At first of year I was made Project Manager to use the training department to teach people not to click on things in email or web browers, and don't call for help outside of the IT dept and don't try to install nothing not installed by IT.

Oh boy eh?

morning all. off to play nice with others.

I got one of the phone calls from some low life scammer in India claiming my computer emailed them and reported a problem.

I told him to hang on while I plug it in. I waited a while and then I started shuffling around some paper and said where is that dang boot floppy. I finally found it and said OK it is booting. Then of course he asked me to go to the internet and do something. I said OK, I will have use my modem and I only have the one phone line so I will have to hang up and dial up AOL. Then I called him several names and told him he is a low life scammer and I hung up.

We tell them this all the time. They panic because they were somewhere they weren't supposed to be. This was a simple pop up ad with an insert your internet provider here form letter. Much easier than writing a virus. She only called me because they wanted $99 to fix it.

At one of our management meetings our HR director told all of us how she uses her work laptop to watch movies that are still in theaters. That was an uncomfortable, for her, conversation.

I have a few people here that I have made local admins on their computers because they have good general knowledge and good security habits. Others I allow on the computers only because they are required to to perform their jobs.

Working in IT would be so much easier if it weren't for end users.

Mom just tells them her son is an IT director and will take care of it. They hang up on her before she finishes the sentence. I tell her to tell them she has an older version of Linux that her grandson put on, Damien or Debra or maybe it was red cap or something, and it has been acting off a bit lately, could that be why?

One of my friends got that same call. He just started preaching about how evil the internet is and computer are the tools of the devil and the caller was going to hell for doing the devil's work!

Some telemarketers I am polite to because they are just trying to do a job but those guys I don't mind leading along and playing with for a while.

I first say "No thank you." If they try to continue then it is open season on them.

The security training I am the project manager for is a video series being produced by Kevin Mitnick, the hacker from the 90's. In the videos he states a company hired him to see if they could be hacked AFTER taking his seminar and says he was able to hack them? I'm thinking it's a wast of money.

Sometimes I get those calls at work, usually to update information for a free magazine or something we get. I say no thanks, they say it is free, I say I don't read it so it doesn't matter, they say it is free so if they could just get my info, I so no thanks and I am going to hang up now and they keep on and on as I hang up.

I try to screen them but sometimes switchboard calls me then transfers them right away so I don't know who it is until it is too late. Sometimes I let switchboard leave a message and I will call them right back because they pull this stuff.

Those calls are where all that industry/job specific "opt out" spam comes from.

We get the constant calls from people wanting to save us "a lot of money" if we will switch to their CC handling system. I just just lie and say we don't take credit cards. Then they start the hard sell. I tell em we are not interested and the sales BS pegs out. I finally tell them we only accept cash, gold, pigs, chickens or goats. No cows, they are too big.

Then I hang up. We do three or four CC payments per month. If it were not for the occasional government job we would quit taking CC payments. All governments and universities seem to prefer CC payments.

My favorite is our phone company calling to tell us that their company can save us money over our current company. I tell them that would be great and it all goes downhill when I tell them the name of our current company.