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[VXL V6]

Pet IT hates, this could be a long one....

Sysadmins who think they know what they are doing, but clearly dont.
Emails with 'text speak'
How every problem is a server issue, until the server teams prove otherwise
Inappropriate email subject headings
Idiots who forward chain emails
Why many people in IT can't handle change - anything new is worse than previous generation


Oh, I could go on and on and on and......

How very very true!

Followed by 'What are you doing to our application down there in IT?' or 'There's something wrong with the network.'

This from users who insist that you send a techy upstairs to deal with their urgent printjob (which wouldn't be urgent if they'd printed it two days ago rather than 15 seconds before a meeting) only to find out they either a) haven't turned their PC on b) haven't turned the printer on or c) haven't got any paper in the printer......

Somebody stop me!!!!  

[Kevin Wood]

Pet IT hates, this could be a long one....

Sysadmins who think they know what they are doing, but clearly dont.
Emails with 'text speak'
How every problem is a server issue, until the server teams prove otherwise
Inappropriate email subject headings
Idiots who forward chain emails
Why many people in IT can't handle change - anything new is worse than previous generation


Oh, I could go on and on and on and......

How very very true!

Followed by 'What are you doing to our application down there in IT?' or 'There's something wrong with the network.'

That's because the only pieces of IT infrastructure the average d1p5h1t user is aware of are their PC and the "server". The really bright ones know there's a third item, called the "network" that connects the two.

 

Kevin

[Taxi_Driver]

Heres one to try to wind users up  

When i worked in an IT dept.......if i had an annoying customer.....i used to send them an email along the lines.......

"Dear Restaurant

Can I please have two bacon butties (4 rashers/white bread)

I'm starving so would appreciate delivery within 1/2hr.

Im in IT room xxx

Many Thanks"

Normally would get an email back within minutes from the customer saying you sent me this by mistake and how come you can get food delivered from the resturant and whats their email address.

I used to reply thanking them for pointing out my mistake and telling them i wasnt allowed to divulge the resturant email address  

The resturant didnt have an email address or deliver food.......but was a good wind up  

[VXL V6]

Pet IT hates, this could be a long one....

Sysadmins who think they know what they are doing, but clearly dont.
Emails with 'text speak'
How every problem is a server issue, until the server teams prove otherwise
Inappropriate email subject headings
Idiots who forward chain emails
Why many people in IT can't handle change - anything new is worse than previous generation


Oh, I could go on and on and on and......

How very very true!

Followed by 'What are you doing to our application down there in IT?' or 'There's something wrong with the network.'

That's because the only pieces of IT infrastructure the average d1p5h1t user is aware of are their PC and the "server". The really bright ones know there's a third item, called the "network" that connects the two.

 

Kevin

 

Strange that some of our users are absolute experts (they've got a PC at home you know) and still don't know how to reboot a computer when you ask them too - they turn the rather screen off and back on!

Sorry I really must  

[Kevin Wood]

Strange that some of our users are absolute experts (they've got a PC at home you know) and still don't know how to reboot a computer when you ask them too - they turn the rather screen off and back on!

Sorry I really must  

Oh, yes, and they assume that everything with a windows GUI on it is as simple as entering their trumped-up expenses claim into Excel and printing it out. So, knocking out a multithreaded C++ application in Visual Studio must also be as trivial as writing a letter because it "looks a bit like word". Don't know why us developers ever left the command shell.  

Kevin

[Martin_1962]

Pet IT hates, this could be a long one....

Sysadmins who think they know what they are doing, but clearly dont.
Emails with 'text speak'
How every problem is a server issue, until the server teams prove otherwise
Inappropriate email subject headings
Idiots who forward chain emails
Why many people in IT can't handle change - anything new is worse than previous generation


Oh, I could go on and on and on and......

Quite often the new is inferior to the old

eg Win98 vs WinME
Netware 5.1 vs Netware 6
XP or 2000 vs Vista

Thankyou Martin Imber, I was relying on you to prove my point...  

Sorry only been an IT professional for 19 years

[Martin_1962]

Dealing with numpty developers is another issue

I have spent a good few hours checking all the VO code looking for leaks, some people have been forgetting to close their files on exit.

I also managed to half the code size of a reporting engine.

Yes I am too lazy to rewrite something 10 times if I can do it once.

Only one module did I screw up and that was using the wrong method for closing the files, mind you one of my first Windows apps

[TheBoy]

Dealing with numpty developers is another issue

I have spent a good few hours checking all the VO code looking for leaks, some people have been forgetting to close their files on exit.

I also managed to half the code size of a reporting engine.

Yes I am too lazy to rewrite something 10 times if I can do it once.

Only one module did I screw up and that was using the wrong method for closing the files, mind you one of my first Windows apps

Due to your/your company's slow migration to keep anywhere near up to date with modern technology, you're making all the same mistakes everyone else was making 15yrs ago.  Which brings me back to one of my earlier points

[Martin_1962]

Dealing with numpty developers is another issue

I have spent a good few hours checking all the VO code looking for leaks, some people have been forgetting to close their files on exit.

I also managed to half the code size of a reporting engine.

Yes I am too lazy to rewrite something 10 times if I can do it once.

Only one module did I screw up and that was using the wrong method for closing the files, mind you one of my first Windows apps

Due to your/your company's slow migration to keep anywhere near up to date with modern technology, you're making all the same mistakes everyone else was making 15yrs ago.  Which brings me back to one of my earlier points

Our only real problem was since we had the best DOS application in our industry was getting all the features into our windows version.

Still have work to do - I need to do the price uplift module over the next week or so.

[Martin_1962]

Oh we have already had a few customers not want to upgrade as they like the older DOS applications!

[TheBoy]

Dealing with numpty developers is another issue

I have spent a good few hours checking all the VO code looking for leaks, some people have been forgetting to close their files on exit.

I also managed to half the code size of a reporting engine.

Yes I am too lazy to rewrite something 10 times if I can do it once.

Only one module did I screw up and that was using the wrong method for closing the files, mind you one of my first Windows apps

Due to your/your company's slow migration to keep anywhere near up to date with modern technology, you're making all the same mistakes everyone else was making 15yrs ago.  Which brings me back to one of my earlier points

Our only real problem was since we had the best DOS application in our industry was getting all the features into our windows version.

Still have work to do - I need to do the price uplift module over the next week or so.

Resting on your laurels, never good in business....

[TheBoy]

Oh we have already had a few customers not want to upgrade as they like the older DOS applications!

Most likely they are fitting the mentaility of because its different, they can't use it.

[Martin_1962]

Dealing with numpty developers is another issue

I have spent a good few hours checking all the VO code looking for leaks, some people have been forgetting to close their files on exit.

I also managed to half the code size of a reporting engine.

Yes I am too lazy to rewrite something 10 times if I can do it once.

Only one module did I screw up and that was using the wrong method for closing the files, mind you one of my first Windows apps

Due to your/your company's slow migration to keep anywhere near up to date with modern technology, you're making all the same mistakes everyone else was making 15yrs ago.  Which brings me back to one of my earlier points

Our only real problem was since we had the best DOS application in our industry was getting all the features into our windows version.

Still have work to do - I need to do the price uplift module over the next week or so.

Resting on your laurels, never good in business....

Not really it was mainly a lack of staff and me trying to learn when the day was full of support and adding new features.

Ended up learning VO about 3 years ago and going slowly from there, I did try using Alaska XBase++ but that was not really practical, our best descision was to keep my boss away from look and feel and to concentrate on getting something working and something users would be able to understand - from there we just managed to convert most of our system.

A lot of back end code I passed through a programme to VOise it replacing Clipper aliases with VO Objects eg seeking in a file went from Order->(DBSEEK(cKey)) to SELF:dbOrder:Seek(cKey).

We now have two more staff and I still get all the crap thrown at me

[Martin_1962]

You may notice that we remained in the XBASE world, and we use a XBASE format client server engine, but rely on C for the really machine intesive jobs

[Martin_1962]

This is what we used to use

http://www.grafxsoft.com/clipper.htm

This is what we tried and use for a couple of small applications

http://www.alaska-software.com/

This is what we use now

http://www.grafxsoft.com/2vo28.htm

This is our database

http://www.sybase.com/products/databasemanagement/advantagedatabaseserver