The Power of Software

I wonder if clicking that button gives me tax-exempt status?  Maybe the same programmer could add a button for "Reveal True Nature of Reality"; I'd click that one until I had a blister!

The Ghost in the Mac Portable

Another Apple repair story! We had just gotten our first Macintosh Portable in for repair and everyone was excited to see the machine and its guts. The customer said that machine was continuously rebooting itself and, after hooking it up to the external power supply and charging it for a few hours, that proved to be the case. Once charged, I pressed the power button on the back of the machine and heard that familiar mac CHIME. Then the screen would blink twice and the machine would, again, CHIMME.

CHIME blip blip CHIME blip blip CHIME blip blip CHIME...

Well, clearly there was something wrong with it and I was going to need start pulling and replacing parts. I held down the power button on the back of the machine with no luck.

CHIME blip blip CHIME blip blip CHIME blip blip CHIME...

Next, I unplugged the power supply from the wall. I didn't figure this would immediately shut it off and it didn't. The machine had a gigantic battery in the back.

CHIME blip blip CHIME blip blip CHIME blip blip CHIME...

So, finally, I pulled the top of the back of the machine and pulled the giant brick battery from the system.

Battery was removed, just like this.

CHIME blip blip CHIME blip blip CHIME blip blip CHIME...

Wait, what?! It was... still... on... !!!

CHIME blip blip CHIME blip blip CHIME blip blip CHIME...

I called the other repair guys over to take a look at this...

CHIME blip blip CHIME blip blip CHIME blip blip CHIME...

Everyone looked at the battery, looked at the disconnected external power supply, and then each other.

CHIME blip blip CHIME blip blip CHIME blip blip CHIME...

"That's the weirdest damn thing I've ever seen, " said one of the older technicians. "I mean, how? HOW?"

CHIME blip blip CHIME blip blip CHIME blip blip CHIME...

Dwight, the repair shop manager at the time, came over and had the solution. "Mac Portable restarting?" he asked.

"Yeah, and it's getting power from the ether or something," I replied.

"Check between the hard drive and the RAM card," he said.

Digging down into the guts of the machine, I found the problem. There was a 9 volt battery down there to run the clock when the machine was off. Somehow it had routed power from the little battery to power the whole rest of the machine! As soon as I disconnected the 9 volt, the chiming stopped. Though I never got a chance to find out, I always wondered how long it would have run on that 9 volt...

(submitted by EutopiaEngineer)

Wait... where's the toilet supposed to go? And the mini fridge?

Illustration Notes:
25 - The user's eyes will sink into the head from prolonged exposure to a big-ass CRT inches away from the face.
80 - Sliding keyboard can be moved upward to allow groin access for hawtness.com viewing.
96 - Insertion point for an external blood pump to help prevent pooling in the back and rear.
105 - Poo (not shown) is extruded from the anus into small piles which will accumulate over time.
122 - The user's hair will inevitably fall out due to an acute deficiency of Vitamin D.
124 - Armpits will have special absorbent pads to negate up to 10% of the accumulated body funk.
134 - A comfy pillow will present negative pressure, trying to help eyes re-emerge from their sockets.
146 - The user's shirt will be made of blue terry cloth for comfort.
152 - Desktop cases containing cutting edge 286 CPUs are within easy head-crushing distance.
156 - A small table, made in high school shop class, will provide sturdy support for the computer, monitor, and plethora of Mountain Dew cans.

Editor's Note: This has actually been patented!  /boggle/

All ready to test that Disaster Recovery plan, I see?

 I know you're busy looking back and forth between the miasma of server gear and the ideal placement of the AC catch buckets, but...  the *tapes* man!  the *tapes*!

No no... the *other* javascript include file, duh!

Not much snarky commentary is possible here.  Whoever did this - or allowed this to happen - should be shot.

Planning meeting falls short of - then exceeds - expectations: film at 11

  I work at media/entertainment conglomerate as a .NET developer currently working on content management system.  During a recent planning meeting, the discussion took an interesting turn when it came to the topic of integrating the users' logins into Active Directory.

  I had been talking about the next steps for the project and noted that "We should also integrate the login functionality with AD so that we can simplify that piece for the users."

  Anne - the Enterprise Architect - spoke up.  "What is AD?"

  "Sorry, AD is short for Active Directory," I replied.

  "Oh, ok sure,"  she said, "Now, what is Active Directory?"

  I stumbled momentarily, stunned.  "Active Directory is a service that allows users and computers to be listed in a directory so that they can be centrally managed."

  The group launched into a brief description of AD and group policy before turning it back over to Anne.

  "Iiiinnteresting..."  Anne trailed off, her mind whirling with possibilities.  "Ok, ok, I think I get it.  In order to really leverage this asset, I'm going to need the path to the directory so I can look at the files."

  All of the developers at the table started darting their eyes around at one another so that we could assure each other that we had, in fact, heard her correctly.

  "It doesn't really work that way, Anne, there's, like, a browser for that.  You know, a MMC plugin."

  Anne's face relaxed into a state of understanding.  "Gotcha, well, I don't usually use Explorer (I'm a safari lover) but I can fire it up and I think I have most of the multimedia content plugins already loaded: Flash, Quicktime, you know..."

  Tom - the contract programmer who had recently been "end-of-lifed" - took over.

  "Sure, Anne, it's simple to get to with explorer," he said confidently, "It's the 4th channel of communication available to servers and clients, so, just navigate to img.4chan.org/b and you'll be there.  It also has some occassional conflicts with anti-virus and anti-spyware technologies, so, you'll probably want to turn those off first."

(submitted by MP)

Function waste_cycles(cyclesToWaste)

<% Function compare_strings(aszString1,aszString2)

'Declare variables
dim intresult, strtemp1, strtemp2, arrString1, arrString2

'Split string to get the individual substrings
arrString1 = Split(aszString1)
arrString2 = Split(aszString2)

'Join the elements of the array with no delimiter
strtemp1=join(arrString1,"")
strtemp2=join(arrString2,"")

'Compare the two strings
intresult=StrComp(strtemp1,strtemp2,vbTextCompare)

'Return
compare_strings = intresult

end function %>

Seriously? Seeing as how the default delimiter when you split in vbScript is a space... this function is specifically designed to compare strings where all of the spaces were typed by someone during an earthquake.

(submitted by DasUberDog)

By all means, don't engender yourself to anyone...

A snapshot from SQL management studio showing the contents of a table in our dev database:

So, was it really necessary (or even a good idea) to build a whole look up table for the gender names?  I mean...  are we going to be adding (or removing) genders any time soon?  And...  Tranny?  Really?  I can see that someone thought better of that data point and deactivated the record, but still...

(submitted by BoB)

High-Voltage Hazing

When I started in the repair shop of a Apple-Certified store, there was a training process that had to be endured.  I had done some basic PC repairs before, but had never really worked on monitors and printers.  The only monitors we repaired were from Apple and I was rapidly introduced into the joy of working with (relatively) high-voltage electronics.  Ah, discharge tool, what a valuable friend you really are.

I had just pulled apart my first Apple 13" RGB monitor, discharged the tube (with the accompanying loud *SNAP*), and removed rather large, bright red capacitor that drove the monitor.

The Capacitor with Cathode Cap attached

(they were bright red when ordered from Apple)

Having put the old parts aside, I announced to the guy (ex-fireman) who was training me that I was done and needed the replacement part.

"Good Deal," he said, "I've got one for you right here.  Heads up!"

He picked up the capacitor off of the bench and tossed it to me.  With my cat-like reflexes, I quickly reached out to grab the part with my right hand.

*POW*

"HOLY #@$*(@!!!  What the #*(#@ was that?!?!  Ooooowwwwwwww!!!"

Hazing in a computer repair facility...  who knew?  The ex-fireman had charged the capacitor using a DC power source on the bench before tossing it to me, allowing the high-voltage device to discharge into my palm.  My right hand didn't work quite right for the rest of the day!

 (submitted by EutopiaEngineer)

More like Turd party...

I was asked to set up a page that would be linked from a third party.  The page was supposed to have a login control, check the service level on the user's account, then route them back to the third party for third party services.

Well, the team that was supposed to do this, that actually has access to the user accounts, can't.  Why not?
1. Their site isn't set up to be able to establish an individual page.  Their site is a unified application, and they can't "just" put up a page.
2. The due date is a week before their scheduled release, so they "can't" do an out-of-cycle release.

Solution? Your's truly is going to put up a form that accepts the third party's data post. The page has a SINGLE BUTTON which will post fixed data back to the third party.

Another IT problem solved!

(submitted by NF)

Done and DONE!

Once upon a time, there was a large company with a large mainframe computer system.  Working in this large company were a group of full-time (dayshift only) programmers and a separate group of 24x7 operations people.  The programmers were not in a union but the operations people were union.

One of the job functions of the operations area was distribution of reports.  The programmers supplied a run book with samples of all of the reports and lists of the reports recipients.

The data for the reports was sent by "End-Users" to the operations people and was used to update files and print corporate reports.  The End-Users were sent reports by the operations people.  The End-Users also had a run book showing what reports to expect and what to do with them.

For two years, the End-User's management thought their people were doing such a good job of preparing data for submission since no error reports were sent by operations. One day someone in corporate looked at his department's section of the report and thought it looked the familiar.  Looking back, the data reported was the same for the last two years.  Hmmmm.

This triggered a series of meeting and much discussion about the problem.  After several months, the problem finally was resolved.  Here is what happened:

2 years before the management noticed, a programmer had made a change to the reports and the program aborted without an error, producing only a memory dump.  The operations people did not have a sample of a memory dump and the run book said to forwared all reports to the end users.  So they did; they forwarded all previous reports.  The end users, in turn,  received these reports and used the last one in the series as the "current run".  Per the run book, they were to look for the (non-existent) error report and file all other output. Yes, 2 years worth of memory dumps had been duly filed; each with a copy of a 2 year old report.

[So, the obvious question is...  how did these people make it to work every day?  Surely they were all stuck in the shower washing their hair over and over and over until the end of time, right?  Lather, Rinse, Repeat. -DB]

(Submitted by "EL")

Alert! Scientists locate the center of the World Wide Web

I feel like I should be trying to cut Frodo's body free of this mess.

the VERDant fields of life without CSS

*CRINGE*

<% Sub Verd(size)

   response.write "<font face=""Verdana, Arial, 
   Helvetica, sans-serif"" size=""" & size & 
   """color=""#000000"">"
end sub %>

Let's see here... if I put the opening tag of a deprecated HTML element in a vbScript function, it will keep me from having to type that over and over and it will spew lots of extra source, which will make the server slow because of context switching and make the browser slow because of large amounts of HTML 1 content that will assuredly be missing the closing tags. Perfect. Who needs CSS? Not me, thanks, I'm good.

(submitted by DB)

Join the Cult of AlottaLookupolis

aszsql = ""
aszsql = aszsql & "Select UD.SSN, UD.last_name, UD.first_name, UD.full_name,UD.Username,"
aszsql = aszsql & "UD.Age, UD.DOB, UD.Email,"
aszsql = aszsql & " Gender_lookup.Gender, group_lookup.group_name as group, "
aszsql = aszsql & " Departments.dept_name as Department ,"
aszsql = aszsql & "language_lookup.language as primary_language,groupcategory_lookup.Category_Name, "
aszsql = aszsql & "UD.currently_employed,Classification_lookup.Classification_name,"
aszsql = aszsql & "workGroup_Lookup.workGrouptype,"
aszsql = aszsql & "UD.groupLevel,UD.Last_HRappt,UD.hireYear,UD.HoursWorked,UD.rating, "
aszsql = aszsql & "tbl2.logintime, UD1.full_name as supervisorName,tbl1.CreatedOn, "
aszsql = aszsql & "II.item_title as itemText, IC.item_committment as committment,IC.itemID,IC.committmentID"
aszsql = aszsql & " FROM item_committment IC INNER JOIN"
aszsql = aszsql & " invoice_items II ON IC.itemID = II.itemID INNER JOIN"
aszsql = aszsql & " (SELECT COM.ID,COM.CreatedOn, COM.Username,workFlow_item.createdby"
aszsql = aszsql & " FROM committment COM INNER JOIN workFlow_item ON "
aszsql = aszsql & "workFlow_item.wfID = COM.source_wfID"           
aszsql = aszsql & "  WHERE wfCode = '" & wfType & "'"
aszsql = aszsql & "     AND (wfstatus = 'done' OR wfstatus = 'arch' OR wfstatus = 'inar')"
aszsql = aszsql & "     AND createdby IN (SELECT uid"
aszsql = aszsql & "  " & extraQuery & " )"
aszsql = aszsql & "   AND COM.createdon <= cast('" & todate & " 11:59 PM' as smalldatetime) AND COM.createdon >= '"
aszsql = aszsql & fromdate & "' AND COM.invoiceID = " & invoiceID
aszsql = aszsql & "   ) tbl1 ON IC.committmentID = tbl1.ID"
aszsql = aszsql & "  Inner Join UserData UD ON UD.UID = tbl1.createdby Left Outer Join (Select max(logintime) as "
aszsql = aszsql & "logintime,username from LoginLog group by username) tbl2 on tbl2.username = UD.uid "
aszsql = aszsql & "LEFT OUTER JOIN Gender_lookup ON UD.Gender = Gender_Lookup.ID LEFT OUTER JOIN "
aszsql = aszsql & "group_lookup ON UD.group = group_Lookup.ID LEFT OUTER JOIN "
aszsql = aszsql & "Departments ON UD.Department = Departments.ID LEFT OUTER JOIN "
aszsql = aszsql & "Language_lookup ON UD.Primary_language = Language_lookup.ID Left outer "
aszsql = aszsql & "Join Classification_Lookup on UD.classID = Classification_lookup.ID Left Outer"
aszsql = aszsql & " Join workGroup_Lookup on UD.workGroupID = workGroup_Lookup.ID Left "
aszsql = aszsql & " Outer Join groupcategory_lookup on UD.groupcategory = groupcategory_Lookup.ID "
aszsql = aszsql & "INNER JOIN UserData UD1 "
aszsql = aszsql & " ON UD1.uid = UD1.uid order by tbl1.ID,II.sort_order"

You see, the fact that it's all broken up into a bunch of lines makes it readable...  so very very readable.  And just in case you forgot to make it complex enough, you can add big chunks of SQL at the "extraQuery" variable.

Wow.

(submitted by "sk")

Submission Contest! Send in your IT story and you could win a shrink-wrapped copy of IBM DOS 3.30!

To try and get things going here, we're having a submission contest!  Send your IT stories to submissions@icanhasdevjob.com by Nov 30th to enter and, if your story is chosen you can win THIS FABULOUS PRIZE!!

IBM DOS 3.30, in the original shrink wrap w/ BOTH 5.25" and 3.5" Floppies!

At least she tried...?

I was working as a service technician at a store that was an Apple Certified repair center in the early 90s.  Since I had some experience with Macs, I was the 'Lead Apple Technician' - mostly because no one else wanted to mess with them.  One afternoon, I got a call from a lady who had just bought a Mac Plus from a garage sale.  I could just tell from her voice that she was some little old lady who wanted to exchange emails with her grandkids on Prodigy or something.  She was having problems getting it to come on and thought I could really tell where this was going.

So, I started with the initial obligatory question, "When you flip the switch, does it make any noise at all?"

"No."

And then moved on to the most common problem.  "Maam, is the computer plugged in?"

"Well, the keyboard and mouse are plugged in, yes," she replied.

"No, maam, is the power cable plugged into a powerstrip or the wall?"

"Well, no, because it doesn't need one,"  she said, with certainty in her voice.

"Wait, what?  Okay, well, that's the first step, it needs power."

"But it has power!" she asserted.

"What do you mean it has power, if it's not plugged in?" I asked.

"Young man, I am not stupid.  I put a fresh battery in the computer as soon as I got it home!"

Aaaahhhhh yes, I thought.  "Well, I can see how that might be confusing, maam, especially if you didn't get the power cable with the computer.  If you come in with the machine, we can sell you a cable and test the system for you."

So, what was she talking about?

Yay, Apple.  This kind of thing happened ALL THE TIME until the Mac SE put the battery on the inside...

(submitted by "EutopiaEngineer")

Insert struggling weatherman here...

  "This was the back of the racks for a new super-computer we had gotten a few years back.  The silver scoop at the end is the return air duct for a 25-ton A/C unit that only cooled that room.  You can also see the plexi-glass cover that rested on each opposing row of racks, effectively turning the backs of the servers into a wind tunnel.  We brought a wind meter in there and it clocked over 35 mph - almost tropical storm force winds!  This made it 'fun' to bring paperwork, balloons, and other light items into the room with you, of course.  To make things even better, the A/C could not be turned off, because the 'fail safe' for a cooling system loss was turn flip the breakers to the computer!  This made upgrade time extra exciting as styrofoam packing and anti-static bags were sure to be sent flying if you weren't careful."

(submitted by "Pigpen")

Server Room with Salt!

Do you like your lunches in cramped spaces featuring lots of noise and hot air?  We've got you covered!

(Submitted by "Johnny")

Development All Stars

Steve (not his real name) was telling me about how his co-worker Daniel Smith (also not his real name) had been working on an internal software project in which the user authenticates with their Windows login, then the app retrieves other info from Active Directory.

Daniel approaches Steve, saying, "I've been pouring over my code for 2 hours and I can't figure out what's going on. Can you help me?"

Steve, eager to help and having caught up on Penny Arcade for the month, agrees. "What's the problem?"

"Well," says Daniel, "there are some places in the app where it's giving me the right value, 'Daniel Smith' but there are other places where it's giving me 'Dan Smith,' which just isn't possible."

"Hmm," considers Steve. "Is it possible that it's a hard-coded value?"

"No, no way," replies Daniel. "That's not possible."

"Ok, I'll go ahead and take a look," answers Steve.

A few minutes later, Steve has hit Control-F and typed in "Dan Smith," and he finds five results where Daniel had hard-coded his own abbreviated name as a return value.

Steve shows this to Daniel a few minutes later, and it takes a few minutes more for it to 'click' with Dan why this is a problem.

EPILOGUE:

Daniel's fix was to change the hard-coded values from "Dan" to "Daniel"...Problem Solved!

(submitted by "SPISPopD")