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Two lodge members were attempting to get access to the Totem Wireless and both were having some difficultly.  After about 20 minutes of trying one threw his hands into the air saying “HPs can’t get onto the network”.  The other person who was trying to get on closed the lid of his HP and slinked away.  I helped the first person get online with some software-fu and all was right in the world.

Later, the 2nd person returned to me-
2nd person: Hey, Terry.
Me: Yeah?
2nd person: I know there’s rules on who can get online, but can you please lift the rule that stops HPs from going online?  I really need to do my homework.
Me: That makes no sense, why would I place a rule to stop certain types of computers and even if I did, I couldn’t possibly implement it, you’re re-… Yes, I will, but I’ll have to do something to your computer first.
2nd person: Ok.
Me: *Takes computer, clicks “Connect to network” in lower right hand corner of screen*
2nd person: What was the problem?
Me: A PEBKAC error.  I can’t fix it, but I made it go away.
2nd person: One day I hope I can fix them myself.
Me: Me too….

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Until I get a computer account at work the scanner that’s my current partner must be accessed by a co-worker.  The computer automatically logs after 15 minutes of use.  I tried right-clicking and going to the Screensavers tab to adjust the time and couldn’t, so I called tech support and asked if there was an alternative.  For security reasons, they apparently tightly control the log-in period.  But there’s a back-door.  Despite spending millions on setting up a Group Policy and having IT bees buzz around and secure it, I have somehow have unmitigated access to the registry.  I promptly set the key ScreenSaverActive to “0” to disengage it and started looking around.  Every major security feature can be manually disabled through the registry.

I told my manager about this problem and he began looking around in confusion until his eyes lit up after seeing the key that sets the screen saver.

Manager: So I can finally change the screen saver I’ve been forced to stare at for 5 years with a picture of [a pretty lady].
Me: Yes, yes you can have [a sequence of nice ladies] as your screen saver.  But I’ve been told it’ll reset each night as the magical computer gnomes reset the group policy.
Manager: It’s worth it.

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I jailbroke my iPhone today.  It’s the first time I’ve literally sweat using a piece of hardware.  I’ve pulled out RAM from a computer in use to prevent it from catching on fire, I’ve hot swapped drives and flashed at least 20 BIOSs.  I’ve frozen hard drive, and whacked them against tables to get actuators moving again and once dove across a room to remove a screw driver that’d fallen into a CPU fan.  Nothing compared the exhileration of possibly destroying a $550 to replace phone in the course of jailbreaking a phone so I could get an unsigned app to get rid of the stupid “Stocks” icon.  Oh, and also for the possibility of allowing me to use my phone as a wireless highspeed modem by tethering it to my laptop.  That too.

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One of the benefits of perpetual sobriety is having crystal clear memories of what your friends do while inebriated.

This incident is the delightful intersection of alcohol and technology. My brother has used Yahoo! Mail for years but has hit up against its storage limit and wanted to switch to something, after two 40s I convinced him and he tried registering but was stopped by the CAPTCHA which he fudged a key and had to try again.  Each got progressively harder until he had something like “o0Ol|1q9p” or another of its ilk that so frustrated me when I played Nintendo.

Good to know that Google has systems in place not only to stop spam-bots but also moderates the BAC of those using its services.

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This was the last time I could lord my superiority with computers over my classmates, sigh. I still salvaged these two incidents:

  1. We were given floppy disks to save our excel spreadsheets. Someone asked what they were. I responded “1.44 megabyte thumb drives”. Stunned, the person then asked when floppy drives would become widely available.
  2. A question on the test asked for the common page that pops up when you load a student web page. They wanted index.html, although my answer of “404 Page Not Found” was better.
  3. I got bored, so I stirred up trouble by creating a data sheet full of randomly generated numbers increasing the file size to about 480 megs. I raised my hand stupidly complaining about the fact that the file wouldn’t transfer so he smartly emailed the file to himself. Temple has a 500 meg inbox limit. I hope he had some stuff already in there. tee hee hee

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This was the last time I could lord my superiority with computers over my classmates, sigh. I still salvaged these two incidents:

  1. We were given floppy disks to save our excel spreadsheets. Someone asked what they were. I responded “1.44 megabyte thumb drives”. Stunned, the person then asked when floppy drives would become widely available.
  2. A question on the test asked for the common page that pops up when you load a student web page. They wanted index.html, although my answer of “404 Page Not Found” was better.
  3. I got bored, so I stirred up trouble by creating a data sheet full of randomly generated numbers increasing the file size to about 480 megs. I raised my hand stupidly complaining about the fact that the file wouldn’t transfer so he smartly emailed the file to himself. Temple has a 500 meg inbox limit. I hope he had some stuff already in there. tee hee hee

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In CIS 1055 we’ve been listening to presentations about modern topics in computing and these are the choice bits for your consumption:

  • Students often collaborate with pages called wikipedias.
  • The internet is a democratic democracy
  • In web 1.0, you could only get information from 1 source, making web 2.0 unbiased
  • Advertising in Web 1.0 was done with a DoubleClick
  • Web 2.0 is more dependent on the internet than web 1.0
  • Linux has slower audio than most other OSs
  • Posting bandwidth to the podcast can be expensive
  • Podcasting has replaced the needs for schools
  • Modern monitors can display 1024 by 768 megapixels
  • RSS feeds are often collected by news alligators

The final coup de gras of content was committed by a group playing the “When you wish upon a weinstein” song from Family Guy.

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In CIS 1055 we’ve been listening to presentations about modern topics in computing and these are the choice bits for your consumption:

  • Students often collaborate with pages called wikipedias.
  • The internet is a democratic democracy
  • In web 1.0, you could only get information from 1 source, making web 2.0 unbiased
  • Advertising in Web 1.0 was done with a DoubleClick
  • Web 2.0 is more dependent on the internet than web 1.0
  • Linux has slower audio than most other OSs
  • Posting bandwidth to the podcast can be expensive
  • Podcasting has replaced the needs for schools
  • Modern monitors can display 1024 by 768 megapixels
  • RSS feeds are often collected by news alligators

The final coup de gras of content was committed by a group playing the “When you wish upon a weinstein” song from Family Guy.

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Two groups presented case studies today in BA 4196.  For once, the humor was not from marketing majors fumbling to come up with financial justifications or accounting majors trying to explain how a solution could be sold but the instructor.  Over the semester, the number of students using laptops has continuously increased and today the teacher jumped on the bandwagon.  He spent the entire 45 minute period dicking around with his laptop, and not that dicking that’s just fudging with it while taking notes, this was hard-core screen adjustment, battery removal, USB mouse attaching and all.  He picked up nothing, and at the end of the period when he opened the floor no one said anything.  I was curious to see how he dealt with him having no information so when he looked towards me with the “you’re the fat one, you always have an opinion” glance I stared at the carpet weaving on the wall.

He began visibly sweating and eventually simply dismissed the class claiming he’d have to “look over” his notes.  I can’t wait for grades to be posted.

Update: They got a B-, I’m not sure what that’s supposed to mean, but if I think my next presentation will go poorly, I think I’ll start using a laser pointer to try to distract him.

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As payment for a KVM switch Sam agreed to come over and “fix” some computer rigs I hadn’t quite finished.  My first indicator that this was a poor idea was when a hard-drive memory test managed to destroy a motherboard.  In short order, what had been 3 functioning computers were reduced to a pile of gloried sand in a series of “problems” and “coincidences”.  I’ve ordered replacement parts but fear he may come by with a baseball bat and bash the package as it sits on my stoop.