Calling all System Administrators!!
We are excited for SysAdmin Day on July 28th! To celebrate, we are compiling the best SysAdmin stories from our community. We would love the opportunity to showcase your heroic tales of crazy problems you solved to keep the tech world going in our upcoming blog piece.
Comment below or message us before Friday July 21st at 12pm PST to have your story included.
We are excited for SysAdmin Day on July 28th! To celebrate, we are compiling the best SysAdmin stories from our community. We would love the opportunity to showcase your heroic tales of crazy problems you solved to keep the tech world going in our upcoming blog piece.
Comment below or message us before Friday July 21st at 12pm PST to have your story included.
5 Comments
Had a user complain that their PC just stopped working. Checked the usual suspects like power lead & plug fuse. Opened up the case to find a fried mouse!
Active today
I once had a call from a receptionist of a small accounting firm I looked after, complaining that their Internet stopped working. After taking almost 5 minutes to get her to open a command prompt and type "ping google.com" , I went the next step and talked her through doing the following;
After about 10 more minutes on the phone, she begged I visit their office and get the problem fixed because "the boss was getting cranky".. No problem says I, so I jumped in my car and drove the 20 minutes or so to their suites. Upon arriving at their suites, I headed straight for her desk and jumped underneath to investigate while she trotted off to make me a nice hot cuppa.
Doing my best to ignore the smell of feet and pushing aside all the spare shoes cluttering the space under her desk, what did I find? The power plug for the modem had been kicked out of course! I plugged it back in, accepted the praise about what an IT genius I was, finished drinking my cuppa and headed back to my own office.
Upon returning, I raised the following invoice.
I was expecting the owner to query me on that bill, but it got paid without a single complaint. Go figure :)
Yes, this is a true story!
- Make sure the modem was on (they kept it and their server under her desk of all places, where it was easy to accidentally kick out the plugs) - Yep, it's on!
- Reboot the modem by turning it off, waiting 30 seconds and turning it back on - Nope, that didn't help!
- Verifying which lights on the modem were on with her - Yes, all the lights that should be on are on!
After about 10 more minutes on the phone, she begged I visit their office and get the problem fixed because "the boss was getting cranky".. No problem says I, so I jumped in my car and drove the 20 minutes or so to their suites. Upon arriving at their suites, I headed straight for her desk and jumped underneath to investigate while she trotted off to make me a nice hot cuppa.
Doing my best to ignore the smell of feet and pushing aside all the spare shoes cluttering the space under her desk, what did I find? The power plug for the modem had been kicked out of course! I plugged it back in, accepted the praise about what an IT genius I was, finished drinking my cuppa and headed back to my own office.
Upon returning, I raised the following invoice.
- Emergency call out to repair Internet connection. Resolved by plugging modem back into power point.
I was expecting the owner to query me on that bill, but it got paid without a single complaint. Go figure :)
Yes, this is a true story!
Active today
There are also lots of admin stories here:
http://www.computerworld.com/blog/shark-tank/
http://www.computerworld.com/blog/shark-tank/
Not sure if this really counts, because I wasn't the SysAdmin in this scenario; instead, I was the problematic user! But here goes: back when I was a student at CalPoly, we had access to the school's UNIX system for things like our email. I had taken the C and UNIX class, so I knew my way around the command line enough to do more than just use PINE to check my email. I also really liked the SETI @ Home project, so I got the UNIX version of the client and installed it on my account on the school's system and would just let it run.
I think maybe I had it going for a month and I have no idea what sort of resources it was taking up. I imagine it wasn't really all that bad, but eventually, a SysAdmin did shut it down and told me not to do that again...
I imagine college SysAdmins have to deal with a lot of shenanigans like that! :-D
I think maybe I had it going for a month and I have no idea what sort of resources it was taking up. I imagine it wasn't really all that bad, but eventually, a SysAdmin did shut it down and told me not to do that again...
I imagine college SysAdmins have to deal with a lot of shenanigans like that! :-D
Recommended Posts
Browser Tips Update
Further to my last post about testing a variety of browser performance statistics, I've recently discovered something that I think may be of use to other EE members.
When using Google Chrome as my default browser along with a variety of different AdBlocking extensions, visiting a page like this one: https://www.dailymail.co.uk/ returns the following error after about 36 ads have been blocked. All further reading is prevented unless the site is whitelisted.
However, visiting the same page with the Brave Browser I can view the site and read any articles on there without ads and without triggering the Ad Blocker warning.
The site (along with a few others I've stumbled across) does not appear to recognize the built-in AdBlocker in Brave. How long that will remain to be the case I'm not sure.
I've also confirmed (from my own tests) that Brave is by far the quickest browser to use on Social Media sites like Facebook. Nowhere near the number of slowdowns that I experience with Google Chrome (or other browsers) that I've tested so far.
Further, using this extension (credit to McKnife for finding it) you can also leave Google Chrome as the default browser if you want to, yet easily send links to the Brave browser when needed. Works a treat here :)
I hope this little tidbit of information helps you out.
Regards, Andrew
Further to my last post about testing a variety of browser performance statistics, I've recently discovered something that I think may be of use to other EE members.
When using Google Chrome as my default browser along with a variety of different AdBlocking extensions, visiting a page like this one: https://www.dailymail.co.uk/ returns the following error after about 36 ads have been blocked. All further reading is prevented unless the site is whitelisted.
However, visiting the same page with the Brave Browser I can view the site and read any articles on there without ads and without triggering the Ad Blocker warning.
The site (along with a few others I've stumbled across) does not appear to recognize the built-in AdBlocker in Brave. How long that will remain to be the case I'm not sure.
I've also confirmed (from my own tests) that Brave is by far the quickest browser to use on Social Media sites like Facebook. Nowhere near the number of slowdowns that I experience with Google Chrome (or other browsers) that I've tested so far.
Further, using this extension (credit to McKnife for finding it) you can also leave Google Chrome as the default browser if you want to, yet easily send links to the Brave browser when needed. Works a treat here :)
I hope this little tidbit of information helps you out.
Regards, Andrew
Microsoft Access Query is Corrupt errors.
Earlier this week, Microsoft released several Security Updates that caused update queries in Microsoft Access database applications and programs storing data in Microsoft Access databases to fail.
An erroneous Query is Corrupt message appears.
Affected Programs
This impacts
Detailed Article with Multiple Workaround Suggestions
Our customers encountered this confusing error, and our team investigated and published an article to explain the issue and how to mitigate it. Microsoft announced they will fixed this in the next security update in December. That's hardly acceptable for applications that were running perfectly fine on Monday. Hope this helps.
Microsoft Access Query is Corrupt Error 3340
Earlier this week, Microsoft released several Security Updates that caused update queries in Microsoft Access database applications and programs storing data in Microsoft Access databases to fail.
An erroneous Query is Corrupt message appears.
Affected Programs
This impacts
- Microsoft Access 2010, 2013, 2016, 2019 and Office 365
- 32 and 64 bit versions of Access
- Applications that use the Access Database Engine (ACE) such as those written in Visual Studio .NET, VB6, and even web solutions that update Access databases.
Detailed Article with Multiple Workaround Suggestions
Our customers encountered this confusing error, and our team investigated and published an article to explain the issue and how to mitigate it. Microsoft announced they will fixed this in the next security update in December. That's hardly acceptable for applications that were running perfectly fine on Monday. Hope this helps.
Microsoft Access Query is Corrupt Error 3340
