Nice People Thread No. 15, a Cyber Summer

Yorkie1

bugslet wrote: »

My mother was named Alma after a realtive that fought in the Batle of Alma in the Crimean War.

I think she was even less impressed as a bridesmaid when the local paper printed her name as Miss Lama Gxxxxx.

:rotfl:

Our IT at work has got steadily worse over the last few months. Partly to do with a server having to be moved unexpectedly, and probably also to do with a replacement service contract which we're saving money on ... and don't we know it.

Today, I was trying to copy a large number of files from one folder to another. I know there were a lot of them, but that shouldn't be relevant as it does one at a time in sequence.

Anyway, do you remember dial-up modems? Their maximum speed was 52 kbps.

I achieved the giddy heights (depths) during this file transfer of 9.85 kbps :eek: (yes that was the slowest I saw, and it did speed up a bit at times).

How on earth it is a) acceptable to have such poor IT in an environment which wishes to be digital by default, and b) cost-effective to pay me and my colleagues to sit around working at greatly reduced efficiency because we're twiddling thumbs waiting for IT to do something or simply stop crashing all the time, I shall never know. It's beyond a joke. Grr! :mad:

michaels

Yorkie1 wrote: »

:rotfl:

Our IT at work has got steadily worse over the last few months. Partly to do with a server having to be moved unexpectedly, and probably also to do with a replacement service contract which we're saving money on ... and don't we know it.

Today, I was trying to copy a large number of files from one folder to another. I know there were a lot of them, but that shouldn't be relevant as it does one at a time in sequence.

Anyway, do you remember dial-up modems? Their maximum speed was 52 kbps.

I achieved the giddy heights (depths) during this file transfer of 9.85 kbps :eek: (yes that was the slowest I saw, and it did speed up a bit at times).

How on earth it is a) acceptable to have such poor IT in an environment which wishes to be digital by default, and b) cost-effective to pay me and my colleagues to sit around working at greatly reduced efficiency because we're twiddling thumbs waiting for IT to do something or simply stop crashing all the time, I shall never know. It's beyond a joke. Grr! :mad:

We now have new IT but for 3.5 years I was using a PC with 512k of ram trying to use large spreadsheets and databases. It would have cost me about 20 quid to upgrade the memory to a useable 2GB, no doubt it would have cost about 100 through IT procurement but it would have saved me on average 2 or 3 hours a day and at my daily rate that would have paid for itself in less than 1 day.

3.5 years, we were not allowed to just buy and install the memory ourselves, not surpisingly such shocking inefficiency was not happening in the private sector....

GDB2222

michaels wrote: »

We now have new IT but for 3.5 years I was using a PC with 512k of ram trying to use large spreadsheets and databases. It would have cost me about 20 quid to upgrade the memory to a useable 2GB, no doubt it would have cost about 100 through IT procurement but it would have saved me on average 2 or 3 hours a day and at my daily rate that would have paid for itself in less than 1 day.

3.5 years, we were not allowed to just buy and install the memory ourselves, not surpisingly such shocking inefficiency was not happening in the private sector....

If you had bought and installed the new memory yourself, how would they have known? And, if they had found out, what would the repercussions have been?

ukmaggie45

We watched The Great Sport Relief Bake Off the other evening, and thought the Smoked Salmon Roulade sounded really good, so OH made it for lunch today. Yum!

Smoked Salmon Roulade by Maggie, on Flickr

The recipe's online here.

We've eaten maybe a quarter of it, it's very filling! Might have to donate some to the neighbours as even if we have same size portions tomorrow there'll still be half of it left! :rotfl: We're desperately trying to eat all the fish from the freezer as the fridge freezer seems to be rather f**k*d and keeps tripping the power. I am not a happy bunny as it was a very expensive one. Grrr. I'd mention the make but think maybe better not?

Anyway, that's how come we had a huge amount of smoked salmon to use in the roulade!

kabayiri

GDB2222 wrote: »

If you had bought and installed the new memory yourself, how would they have known? And, if they had found out, what would the repercussions have been?

I wrote a program at one place I worked at, which copied itself on to each machine on the network; then scanned the build of the machine to match against the inventory database; and looked for any local databases or spreadsheets which had the customer id stored locally (there were quite a few different ways of id'ing the customer).

All machines were left on at night, and it sent all logs of the scans back to my network share.

Technically, there shouldn't be client data held on local PCs in a persistent form, but hey those pesky users eh?

The program did find some e-books on one machine, mostly software related, but there were a couple of these "how to pick up girls in 21 days" books that get advertised in the tabloids. It made me chuckle, probably a techno nerd (sorry "software architect") !

CKhalvashi

michaels wrote: »

We now have new IT but for 3.5 years I was using a PC with 512k of ram trying to use large spreadsheets and databases. It would have cost me about 20 quid to upgrade the memory to a useable 2GB, no doubt it would have cost about 100 through IT procurement but it would have saved me on average 2 or 3 hours a day and at my daily rate that would have paid for itself in less than 1 day.

3.5 years, we were not allowed to just buy and install the memory ourselves, not surpisingly such shocking inefficiency was not happening in the private sector....

We don't run the latest stuff (a lot of our office computers were bought in 2010), but I've tried to go with the logic of doing it properly first time and not having to re-buy a few years down the line.

Also, most of the office stuff is Mac, which are overpriced at the best of times, but do keep their speeds well and certainly are robust enough not to have to replace every few years. Average computer cost of probably £1500, averaged out over 6 years is no worse than a Windows PC at £7-800 replaced every 3 years and IME is still more efficient. I have no intention to replace them until they become obsolete, so hopefully there are a few more years in them yet.

GDB2222

I'm still using a PC which dates from 2008 and cost just over £200. It's had some extra RAM, and I replaced the HDDs with SSDs a few years ago. It works perfectly well for office work, emails and browsing.

michaels

GDB2222 wrote: »

I'm still using a PC which dates from 2008 and cost just over £200. It's had some extra RAM, and I replaced the HDDs with SSDs a few years ago. It works perfectly well for office work, emails and browsing.

Which too me is the whole point of a PC - it is inexpensive and straight-forward to make upgrades to prolong longevity and why sticking with equipment that slows everyone down in their jobs is such a false economy...

Doozergirl

Would someone recommend somewhere I can take the kids and doglets in the first week of the easter holidays? In England.

They are a bit older now; 15 and 11. I want them occupied if I am having to work, so facilities for them nearby.

Any ideas?

There's one place we've been quite a bit but phone reception is almost non-existant and hard to work there.

GDB2222

Doozergirl wrote: »

Would someone recommend somewhere I can take the kids and doglets in the first week of the easter holidays? In England.

They are a bit older now; 15 and 11. I want them occupied if I am having to work, so facilities for them nearby.

Any ideas?

There's one place we've been quite a bit but phone reception is almost non-existant and hard to work there.

CenterParcs. Our young teens really enjoyed it there. I think they take dogs in some areas.