BOFHJournal - February 1999

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March's Journal

27/02/1999 (Special Edition!) Hurrah! Finally fixed the annoying Javascript/HTML error that was messing up the links on BOFHcamCo-LARTers. Many thanks to Aerial for pointing out that uppercase names might not copy well from Windows to Linux. Damnit!

26/02/1999 Blimey! Friday already. I already know what this weekend has in store. Saturday morning is another round of 'How fast can you install Windows 95, plus favourite applications?'. Currently I'm down to 1 hour and 23 minutes dead. Update on Monday as to how this one goes. (Note: this isn't my machine, I'm still running 3.11) Must finish the documentation today and try to wipe the memory of installing Windows NT on two POS Packard Bells yesterday. You know it took 8 screws and two pieces of plastic removed until I could get into their cases and add a 3Com Etherlink III adapter. At least I didn't have to do much helldesk.

25/02/1999 Damn. Helldesk day today. I get the feeling there'll be lots of calls today. Another thing, I'm now part-time Windows NT Core Technologies primer for people in the Institution. Oh the ignominity! Today is Patch Panel Awareness Day: be aware that your patch panel needs tidying, or suffer the problems...

24/02/1999 I was here at the Institute until 21:45 last night so I took the chance for a sleep in, this morning. As such I'm here at 9:00, still before Him. Curious really. Last night wasn't so much difficult as time consuming. I had to go round and turn off all the accounting terminals so that there was no chance the roming profile would be caught on one of them while I was updating. That's 25 machines, dotted over six floors. Once that was done I had to coe back down here, log on as the accounts user, set up the account, log off, go back up stairs, make sure each machine has Netscape on it, come back down stairs, lock down the profile, lock down the machines and the user with a policy editor, wonder if I should go and check all the machines, decide not, cycle home, go to bed. Now, today is another documentation day. Won't that be fun? It looks like I should get a good chunk done today, barring interruptions by lusers. On another note, still no word whether my boss is leaving on not yet, but the secretary is leaving, which is a shame. She's nice. Quiet week still on the luser front. More news as it breaks.

23/02/1999 Today is documentation day. Documentation, documentation, documentation. This means I get to sit down for most of today. It also means I might not get much material for the next PFY story. I'll live, I think. Today is probably the day He gets a job offer from somewhere else and leaves me and Her in the lurch and prone to be absorbed more into the site-wide Borg collective. Hurrah! Another 32Meg go into Luggage. That makes 160Meg. Shame really as there was a 'spare' 64Meg DIMM hanging around. Beggars can't be choosers I guess.

22/02/1999 The weekend's over, it's time to face the music. Yes, Monday once again. I have a cold, actually it's more like the flu. But I've still come in. I had a good weekend but it turns out I have to start paying back that old student loan soon. I've been deferring it for long enough according to the people with the power. Buggers. Other than that, as of 10:00am it seems I may just have a permanent job here now (those of you who didn't know, I'm still on a paid-by-the-hour-one-day's-notice-on-either-side contract with the temporary employment agency, useful if NT begins to gall too much). More news as it breaks here at BOFHcentral. I imagine there'll be enough material generated here for another PFY story soon, keep an eye out here, on the PFY page and in the Scary Devil Monastary for signs of life. [18:00] Noticed another change to the JenniCAM site. A quick bit of hacking and there we have it. A new "LART!" link from the main page. I have plans for this in the future, so be sure and check here as soon as I've learned some perl and/or C, cgi-scripting and some common sense. [20:40] My first efforts at cgi-scripting are up now. Follow the "LART!" link from the main page and then the dodgy looking button at the top of the page.

19/02/1999 I'm not here today, I'll set the camera to view Him and Her more fully so I can see what they're doing while I'm at home, and you're not all bored sillier. New images in the gallery (4 and 5). Don't forget to save any images of me, Him, Her, the BBTFH or anyone else you see and send them in if you want them included in the gallery. See you (or you'll see me) on Monday.

18/02/1999 Ow! Hi, there. Ow! Here's a hint. Ow! Never try to remove (ow) a PII chip without checking all the clips are undone. It saves you 10 minutes of fruitless pulling and (ow) stops your fingers from being sliced by the razor sharp heatsink monstrosity on the side. Remember kids (ow), fingers need looking after. Other than that, it's helldesk afternoon again today, so expect no me in your resizable window this afternoon, but plenty of Him, Her and possibly a visitor. Hopefully I'll have the day off tomorrow to recuperate and get ready for the social event going on late into the Friday night.

17/02/1999 All hail me! I've been handed a Kodak DC220 Digital Camera, allegedly for putting pictures onto the magnacard we have here for negotiating our way round chez BOFH, but really so I can fill out the upcoming section of the BOFHcam. Sorry, you'll have to wait till it's online to see it. It's farily easy to use (although I'm not sure a less technical person would get it straight off). I have to write a quickstart guide for the receptionists who'll be doing the snapping. Until then it's mine, mine!, MINE! BUHAHAHAHAHAHAHA. Ahem. Anyway, other than that I seem to be spending far too much time at work. No recovery on the horizon for me at the moment. [16:55] Major update in keeping up with the 'Jennis'. May I introduce a slightly shoddy BOFHcamCo-LARTers! Please point out spelling mistake via email.

16/02/1999 It's that kind of day when you want to take your SPARC laptop outside and try that IR link you've been setting up. It's lovely outside and I'm stuck inside. What I'm trying for atm is a font close to what Jenni's using on her Co-Stars page so I can do my parody as close to, without copying her style. Looks like most of the Institution is back on its feet today with just a few outlying areas still isolated. Ah, one wonders if a fire alarm shouldn't cut the power to the machine room, so much as allow any UPSes to gracefully allow the machines to close down. Apparently the power cut made one of the RAID5 controllers in the primary mailserver eat itself. Which can't have been nice. Additionally, a number of routers died nastily also. Remember kids, if you're running routers, try to remember to save your running-config to startup-config.

15/02/1999 Well, another Monday. Looks like this morning will be spent sorting out network connectivity as it seems the Institution and environs is isolated for a few hours. Well, that'll give me time to correct some of the splling mistakes pointed out to me by the illustrious members of the world's foremost brains trust on recovery from syadminship, the Scary Devil Monastary. Many thanks for the email from those of you who enjoyed PFY03. I couldn't have done it without the stunning support of the lusers here. "Thankyou, thankyou..." The weekend was fairly good. However, it turns out that most of the City's routers died somewhat horribly during the night of Sunday 14th so I doubt many people will be reading this till much later today. It's now much later in the day and we seen to have world-wide access back, such as it is. In 'keeping up with the Jennies' today I 'ave bin morstly working on resizable remote windows. I imagine tomorrow will involve doing something suitably BOFH-like with BOFHcamCo-Larters. But that's something for another day.

12/02/1999 Just been told that it was in fact Chizel, not mnemosyne and Splange who suggested the name change for the old FAQ. Thanks then Chizel (-: Yesterday on helldesk was fairly boring, luckily. Three calls, two for other people one which I logged and assigned to someone else. The rest of the time I tidied the whole area, including their workshop area (found some things they didn't know they had). Exciting eh? New PFY story should be up in Justpfy. Remember I'm not making any of this up. This is 'as it happens' (or nearly) transcriptions of life here at the Institution. Try to stay focused, and remember, it's down, not across.

11/02/1999 I just read something at Star Bridge Systems that makes me wonder whether we're either looking at a very elaborate farce (lots of text) or whether Intel and Co. are about to be pushed out of the market. Permanently. Other than that, it's helldesk day today. That means this afternoon's BOFHcam viewing will be limited to him, her and a visitor, from the 'outside' (oooooooo!). Don't panic. I should be back by around 17:00 GMT. Oh yes. Mustn't forget the wonderfully clever people at NTK who give me something to laugh about every Friday. It's worth subscribing to the email distribution list. [11:20] Wargh! FREAKY! I just got an early valentines message from someone using my institution's internal mail system with a nice, but slightly freaky message inside. I'd like to believe it, but my minds says "Stalker!". See what you think in the BOFHcamGallery.

10/02/1999 Hmmm. Many small updates to the site. Thanks go to Splange and mnemosyne for suggesting I change the Frequently Asked Questions to a more BOFH-like Luser Type Questions. Now I still look mostly like Jenni's site, but with a more BOFHish tinge. Other things of note: The Gifted, a wonderfully drawn comic strip (with a woefully slow page addition time), Dilbert (of course) and User Friendly. But you knew all of them anyway.

09/02/1999 Welcome to the BOFHJournal. It is here that you'll see whatever I'm doing laid out in text. There's not much here atm. I guess I'll put it in reverse chronological order so's you can see the newest stuff at the top. Other things I might add are what I'm doing that day, links that I found, or my comments on the news (tech or otherwise) and stuff like that. What the hell; it's something to do.

BOFHcam went on-line in its current incarnation at about 15:00 on 09/02/99