No. You can’t have it

The perils of backing up hit hard here this week. Not us as an organisation or us as an IT team but one of our users.

Just after half past eight he came in. “Am I too early?” he asked. He looked devastated, distraught even. “ I think it’s all gone pear shaped. Please can you help.”

He passed me his Macbook and told me that it wouldn't start. It had started fine the day before but not today. What could I do to help?

So I started  trying to get it to boot into safe mode, single user mode, I reset the PRAM, all the usual stuff without success. He was sat next to me getting more and more worried so I sent him away and told him to come back again at lunch-time.

I hit Google and tried to find information about Macbooks that didn't start and just had a white screen. I read through many pages of junk and a few of interesting stuff but nothing of any use.

At one point I looked back at the Mac and it had a folder icon with a flashing question mark in it like this

It had taken a seriously long time to get to that point and I knew at that moment that things were bad for this mac! Here is the Apple Support Article

I went back to the Mac and started it from the CDROM with a system disk. It took an age to start again and I opened the disk utility to try and repair the disk. It came back with one of my favourite errors

Volume could not be repaired because of an error

A particularly useful error message that one! It was apparent that the disk was FUBAR so I called the user and told him it looked like I would have to send the offending machine off to be repaired and that he would lose his data. he asked me to find out whether it was possible for him to get his data recovered and I said it would cost and I didn't think that the IT manager would authorise it and it would probably have ot come out of his department budget. He said to find out anyway,so I called the local Apple Repair store as the Uni buys 3 year warranties with all the laptops.

They agreed with my diagnosis although I think they worded it diffferently! So we arranged to get it couriered over to them and they checked the serial number ot see if the warrranty was valid (it was) and I asked about data recovery. Oh yes they said, we can send it off to our data recovery specialists and they can analyse it for you to see if we can get your data back.

How much I said.

£125.

To get the data back?

No, just to see if they can, they will then give you a quote for hte actual retrieval. My colleague said he rememebered the last time someone had a quote it was in the region of £300 (that was after the initial analytical fee)

Thats a bit steep I said, could you just send the old disk back and I’ll give it to the user and he can go and see if someone can retrieve his data for less than that.

Sure, if you pay for the repair.

Eh?

If you pay for the repair you can have the disk back, but if you get it repaired under warranty we keep the disk.

So if I want to get the disk back to explore other options we have to pay for the repair (which I could do here although I would void the warranty) or we can get the disk replaced and the system set up for free and are only allowed to access one provider for data recovery.

Seems a bit wrong to me that they take away my users data and wont let him have it back to try and access it.

Anyway todays, yesterdays, tomorrows and every day forward the lesson is

If you do not back it up AND keep your back ups safe and check that they are ok

YOU WILL LOSE EVERYTHING

Can you risk it?

For your business?

For your photos of your babies, dogs, fish, gardens whatever

Your book, your articles, your love letters from your girlfriend

If it is important then for fecks sake

BACK IT UP

 

Reading Week – Dreary Week

The students have only been back a few weeks and already they get a week to do nothing errr sorry to read some books. It has left the place like a ghost town. Having just got used to the hustle and bustle of having the students around, the squawking and the guitar playing, the groups of smoking types and the one’s that dance, its all gone quiet.

Of course, the academic staff have used this to……………… well to dissappear actually. Not a single one have I seen all week. A couple have phoned up from home but thats about it. I know that this means that on Monday we will inundated with requests for immediate action for things which could quite easily have been done this week.

Its been dull, really dull, mind-numbingly boring in fact. I have hit a ceiling in my attempt to be the best Bejewelled person in the whole of Facebook. Thanks to Doctor Beatnik I have still yet to become champion of the world at Stick Cricket. I have read some books and done some online coursework for my next IT exam and really managed little else of note.

But I do like Windows 7 – I have spent some time fiddling about with it and getting it to do what it is that I want and must say that I am quite impressed with its ease of use and the way things just work.

I have also created a new desktop which also becomes my screensaver as well, a dig at those that moan.

Sticky Saab Dashboards

 

Its the end of the week.

Its the end of the month.

I haven’t blogged much at all. Its been busy and I have had little motivation to do so.

We bought a new car, a saab 9-3 2.2TiD, thanks to the taxman letting me save money for the past years with them, although I notice that they dont give me any interest!

They had overcharged my tax about 18 months ago or possibly a little longer and I had rung them every 3 months or so and they said either the overpayment would be taken off my current taxes or that I would get a cheque. Neither of these happened.

The next time I rang they said oh yes you will get a cheque, I dont know how much but I will send you a letter. Sure enough a letter arrived saying that I had over paid my tax and it would be repaid by me not paying as much tax. Fair enough.  In the same post there was another letter saying I had over paid my tax and they would be sending me a cheque in the next few weeks. This letter had a different amount on it but still, fair enough.  In the same post was a cheque. I opened the letters in that order too, otherwise I would have got very confused!.

As the Renault does 32 mpg and I drive about 100 miles round trip to work every day, we thought it best to find a more frugal motor. I ummed and ahed about it as usual and then one day on the way home went and test drove the saab, arriving home in it and surprising ‘er indoors who then drove it back to the garage. It had done 150,000 miles but has full service history and seemed fine and should do more than 40mpg hopefully 45, so we bought it and although we have had a few niggles it is all ok.

I spent last weekend putting in my Ipod controller and display so I can change tracks without killing myself. The electrical bit  was fine but could I get the display and the controller to stick to the dashboard? Could I hell? It disposed of the double sided stiky tabs without a second glance (or even a second). It laughed at double sided sticky tape although that did take a little longer. Double sided carpet tape went by the wayside too until I came across no more nails double sided sticky tape ready to hold 50Kg stuck to anything.

Except Saab dashboards apparently. The controller stuck fine and has stayed there but the display would not stick on the vertical surface even though it does not weigh very much. In the end I changed where I was going to put it and stuck it on the horizontal part of the dash and it is there if a little wobbly!

Oh the joy!!!!!

As the aerial was bust I had had no sound for a week in the car and to drive around with some music on was a great pleasure. I also bought an audiobook from itunes an Ian Rankin one and have listened to that on my way home most evenings and thoroughly enjoyed listening to it. Strangely, everyone I have mentioned this to has said oh no that would send me to sleep, I couldnt do that and drive. I on the other must be wired differently (yes yes I know) because I enjoyed Gravy’s adventures very much although i do like Ian Rankins books.

I had made a playlist of bouncy tracks to listen to in the morning on the way to work but by today I was fed up of it so I had alook through adn decided to listen to Pyromania

“Just when it seemed like synthesizers had taken over the airwaves, along comes Def Leppard with Pyromania, a heavy-metal album full of brawling guitars and boasting state-of-the-radio production. Steve Clark and new member Phil Collen's fat fuzz riffs and power chords are more emotionally charged than most of the synthesized disco that passes for "modern music," and Robert John "Mutt" Lange's work behind the board brings singer Joe Elliott's screaming vocals into focus.”

said Rolling Stone Magazine. and I agree

Rock Rock Till You Drop and I’ll be back

The Moon and the Clouds

 

ruined our viewing of the Perseids meteor shower.

The bastards!!

I dream of taking photos like these

http://www.flickr.com/search/?q=perseid&z=e

Unfortunately all I got was a hundred photos of black. Even with some Photoshop trickery all I got was some black images with a few white bits.

However all was not lost. We did see about a dozen shooting stars including two that travelled more than half way across the sky before the clouds came in on Tuesday.

Because the moon was rising early and was quite bright it washed out the sky meaning that the smaller shooting stars were not so visible thats what you get with a waning gibbous moon you know

Tonight we will try again. We shall take the dog to the cricket field and lie on a sleeping bag and drift away looking at all that is far away and feel very small. I look forward to it immensely

There is something wonderful about just sitting and waiting for the universe to entertain me. Without any outside influence from ‘the media’. Watching the amazing show made up of tiny little particles, the remnants of the beginning of the universe travelling behind the Swift-Tuttle Comet hitting our atmosphere at speeds of more than 100,000 miles per hours and burning to nothingness.

A joy it is to watch the sky and see nothing but stars, maybe a plane, a satelite if you look carefully or maybe one of the planets and then WHAM there it is a streak across the sky. A small one normally gets a “One over there” whilst a larger particle which leaves a long streak across the sky that can last for many seconds will get OOOO’s and Ahhhs and there is no doubt that everyone saw it.

So go out and look at the sky for a while. It is a stunning experience.

Read your email

Due to the unplanned nature of our teams attitude to upgrades or changes, nobody had thought it nessecary to inform our users that there would be changes to the way they would log onto the network and their webmail.

As we needed to do these changes I decided to send out an email to this effect :-

“We are making some changes to the wya you log onto your computers at XXXXX and your webmail over the next few weeks.

Should you find that you cannot log onto your computer follow these steps (change domain name and log on as usual and wait for me to come and sort out outlook)

Should you find you cannot log onto webmail, go to this address and type in newdomain\username and there you go.

Please print out this email or forward it to your personal email so that you can access it at the point you cannot log on.”

Simples

Oh no. Firstly can I just say that these people I am emailing are, in general, teaching degrees, masters and PhD’s. Clever folks.

I get an email (from current webmail system) saying I cannot access this new email and I really need to get at it, I can’t be without access to my email as I am in China and must keep in contact with all my students and colleagues. So I explain that she won’t be able to access the new system until her account has been migrated.

But I need access now, she says (in her email from the current webmail) I can’t wait, I need to be able to get to my emails its very important (she says in her email from the current system where she can still access her email and stay in contact)

For fucks sake – just read what I wrote – you are not stupid (I wish I had written) You HAVENT been migrated yet (so you can still access your emails the way you always have) and when you have been migrated you can use these instructions to get at your email without delay.

GRRRRRR moan wimble whinge grumble groan mutter to self about usuless stupid clever people who CANT READE

Thanks – she said – that makes it clear I understand – you are ever so helpful.

Luckily, another happy user. Me, hair pulled out, eyes glaring, need to go out for a smoke to calm down. Other users weren’t so happy tho :-(

Days of Rainy Sunshine

So summer is here and we are enjoying warm temperatures and sunshine.

Oh wait,    sh1t,   no we are stuck with days of warmish, humidity and intense rain showers.

Yesterday, for example, I went over to the part of the campus which involves walking across a field (well its quicker than walking all round the roads). It was sunny.

I finished a job installing some software and left the building. Tipping down, absolutely lashing down. So dark you almost need a torch. Unreal, so that was me sat steaming for the rest of the day, as it then brightened up.

Ain't climate change great? Where's the summers gone like 76 or was it 77. Days and days of blazing hot sun and fun. Mind you I was only 5 or 6 but remember my dad getting really badly burnt :)

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Even the professionals get like it

Goddamn fecking thing - why oh why won't you just do what I want and stop annonying me

NO I do not want xyz extra thing with its added information passing scripts sending 'anonymous' data. I just want that file/program whatever.

NO I do not want to send Microsoft an error report

NO I do not want to have to click on a prompt to install something on my own computer using my own acount which is an ADMINISTRATORS account so why do I need another feking click just to do something Grrrrr

but today I had all but given up the hope of ever accomplishing what I intended.

A simple process. Install Office 2007 on my machine so that i can get used to it before we roll it out ot everyone in a couple of months

So I point my lickle mousey over to the file share where office2007 setup lives, happily munching away on bits and bytes and double click setup.

Please wait whilst Setup is configuring. Okay tahts cool.

Then nothing. The window dissappears and there is no clue that anything is happeneing at all.

WTF

Where'd it go? Whats happeneing? Is it doing anything? I like to kno these things.

Hmmm, click setup again and it says only one instance of setup can be running at a time. funny. real funny.

Typically, the phone then rings, someone needs something, several things get opened, mainly left open then pop something somewhere goes bangpop (DCOM event viewer tells me) need a restart, which tho I don't know it yet buggers the install of 2007 because when i restart it says please repair your installation of office 2007.

OK so I click and I choose repair and it fizzes and whizzes, this time with a window tlling me it is doing stuff, which I like, it makes me feel safe and secure that things are happening in the proper way.

Cool and groovy I get to play with Office 2007 and set up outlook and it dosnt even need any input it just opens straight away (well after a few seconds of configuring) and displays all my email, a couple of shared mailboxes and calendars, my data files, global address book th works, magic, lovely great.

Automatic updates finds things for office 2007 which need a restart so i restart and when i do I open outlook and

outlook has turned into outlook2003 and can't open the files that 2007 created. What.................The.......................FECK

The installation of Office 2007 didnt remove 2003 (why should it dimwit?) So when i started outlook it started 2003 and cocked up. So i uninstalled 2007 and then i uninstalled 2003 and then with it all clean I installed 2007 again and the automatic updates came back and it needed a restart and

WHAT THE FECK

Fecking office FECKING 2003 is back FECK FECK FECK FECK

D'Oh

We have a group policy that ensures that all computers do their windows updates from our own server and that also includes the office2003 updates. It was historically used to roll out office 2003 and so whn we build up a new machine w just drag it into that OU and let it do its stuff. Obviously my machine was in that OU so I moved it out of that and it STILL didnt frigging work.

In the end I had to take the machine out of the domain and then back into the domain again for it to work

GRRRRRR - even we have our days :-)

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