If a RAID1 verify following a power failure takes 3 hours and utterly cripples the machine for the duration, to the point it is literally unusable, then using RAID is a waste of time. Even if there had been a drive problem, I could have replaced the drive and restored from a backup by now.
Love and kisses,
AngryTechnician
The XPS document format is one of the most half-baked attempts to destroy a competitor that Microsoft have ever made.
Designed to counter Adobe PDF’s dominance of the portable document market, it was introduced with Vista and has never caught on, despite the XPS Document Writer setting itself as the default printer on any new install of Windows. This is partly because the reader software for XPS is (for no good reason) a plugin for Internet Explorer, which means that when you open an XPS document, it opens your web browser. If you are one of the 34% of people in the world not using Internet Explorer as your web browser, then the plugin never runs and you can’t open the document. This has been changed in Windows 7, but it’s too little, too late.
All of this is a shame, because Adobe Acrobat is a bug-ridden and overpriced piece of junk that is more bloated than a lactose-intolerant hippopotamus after eating a metric tonne of Stilton. Microsoft Office and Windows Vista are often accused of this; Acrobat is worse than both of them. Combined. I’d be quite happy for Microsoft to crush Adobe PDF utterly, but if XPS is their answer, they are going to fail miserably.
But, I digress. Today I discovered that the XPS system in Windows not only hates anyone not using Internet Explorer, it also hates anyone not in the United States. Regardless of the locale Windows is installed using, it will always set itself to create documents using US Letter sized paper by default. Very few printer drivers have this problem, even ones made by HP. It’s a schoolboy error, and an extremely irritating one at that. Almost any printer driver made in the last 5 years will have the common decency to recognise when the user has set a locale other than United States, and set the default paper size accordingly (to A4, if you are in Europe).
You might think this would only affect you if you were stupid enough to actually create an XPS document. You would be wrong. Because it sets itself as the default printer, it affects the default page setup of a multitude of programs. In the case of Microsoft Office 2007, the problem goes deeper still. Even if your Office document is set to a different paper size, when you try to save a PDF (yes, a PDF, not an XPS document), it will end up sized as Letter paper, because the paper size is being read from the default printer. Incredibly, this even happens if you use the Adobe Acrobat PDF writer plugin, and not just the Microsoft one that comes with Office 2007.
I wasted a good 45 minutes today trying to work out why all my PDFs were coming out on Letter paper. There was much swearing and gnashing of teeth. When I discovered the cause, let us just say that I was… displeased.
Something a bit different today – some reader participation!
If you aren’t still stuck in the middle ages of Windows 2000 then you’ll be familiar with the ‘Start Panel’ – the new-style Start Menu introduced in Windows XP that, amongst other things, keeps a prominent list of which programs you use the most often.
It’s probably just me, but I find these lists to be a fascinating insight into user habits. I was amused to once find that the top three of a senior professor I know to be Internet Explorer, Word, and Solitaire (in that order, so he was at least working slightly more often than playing). So, here is today’s exercise: below are the Top 11 programs I use, as indicated by my Start Panel recently used programs list. Your task is simple: leave a comment listing your top 11 as it stands right now.
Don’t worry if there aren’t 11 by the way; the exact number differs between different versions of Windows, but on both my workstations there seem to be 11 when I include the pinned items for Email and Web browser.
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My Top 11
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So what can we take away from this? Possibly that I work too hard (tragically, the lists on my home and work computers are very similar). Also, I’ve been doing a lot of SharePoint work recently, and have been getting new client images built, hence the appearance of Windows System Image Manager. Not all that exciting, but hopefully yours will be a bit more interesting!
On the phone on my new desk is a Post-It note with a telephone number written on it. The previous Network Manager told me that this is the incoming number for my office.
After giving it out to a few people, I discovered today the number has in fact been disconnected. What’s more, the school’s receptionists have no recollection of there ever being a direct line to my office.
I have absolutely no idea what to make of this.
If you are going to sell a computer to someone with a copy of the Nero DVD creation software, it might a good idea to make sure you actually put a DVD writer in the computer.
Love and kisses,
AngryTechnician
I’ve been in my new job two days.
It’s a completely different type of school, in a different town.
The computer systems are very different.
The people are different.
The expectations are different.
However, I have already had to deal with two incidents of HP printers causing the Spooler service to fail on the computers they are connected to.
It turns out that some evils are so ingrained in our lives, we can never escape them.
IT professionals, especially in schools, are frequently asked to address problems that are not technical in nature, but that management have decided are best handled with a technical solution.
Our problem today may at first seem similar to #4, but it has a subtle difference…
“Can we change everybody’s default font in Word to Arial? We need to keep communications from the school looking consistent.”
This might look like the problem here is really that you need to just tell people that they must use the correct font, but that’s not the real problem here. The real problem is that the person who asked me to do this is a control freak. This is unfortunately a problem that is only exacerbated by technology. I lied and told him it wasn’t possible.
A few years ago, I had to do some proofreading for the school.
The material was the sixth form tutor reports that were about to be issued from our electronic reporting system for the first time. You might ask why I was proofreading them, and well you might. The teachers writing them had been asked to proofread each others, but had refused as “proofreading was not part of their job”. The position was that their own reports were perfect, so why should they have their time wasted proofreading someone else’s?
Bond’s opinion, to this very day, is that reports should be issued mistakes and all, so that the individual teachers who make the mistakes will be exposed for the illiterate morons they are. My opinion was that management should have told the teachers concerned to shut up and do their jobs. However, the school’s management, and the Head in particular, were unwilling to issue a diktat, but keen for the school not to look like it was staffed by nincompoops. This little dispute happened quite close to the deadline, so, one evening, I found myself proofreading. Read the rest of this entry »
Sometimes when someone phones with a problem, it becomes clear early on that I would do better to go to them rather than try to fix the problem over the phone. Maybe it’s an unusual problem, maybe they aren’t able to articulate its complexities, maybe they can’t get past “it’s not working” due to being dropped on the head as a baby.
What baffles me is the number of people who, once I’ve told them “I’m coming over now,” will keep me on the phone while they continue to keep trying to explain the problem, or why it needs fixing.
I’ve said I’m coming. Stop talking. Every moment you keep me on the phone is time I could be spending coming to you to fix the problem. What mental deficiency do you have that prevents you from grasping this?
Maybe there’s some reason they don’t want me to see me. I can’t imagine what it could be.
IT professionals, especially in schools, are frequently asked to address problems that are not technical in nature, but that someone has decided is best handled with a technical solution.
Our latest example comes from a staff member who has trouble distinguishing fiction from reality:
“Two laptops were borrowed from our department last week and were not returned. We have no idea where they are and would like you to put a trace on them.”
Sure. I’ll “put a trace on them”.
At least, I would, if that were not something that could only be done in movies. Here’s a better idea. Find out who took them, and ask that person where exactly they decided would be a good idea to leave them.
