Archive for October, 2008

Recycling computers is good for the environment

Saturday, October 25th, 2008

This week I got down to sorting through computers and computer parts that were literally collecting dust in the office. There must have been 6 boxes of cables, motherboards, interface cards, obsolete hard drives and miscellaneous computer peripherals. As well there were a couple of old tube type monitors.

My friend told me about an e-waste amnesty week in the municipality this week. This is what got me focused on sorting through the computer equipment to reduce, reuse and recycle. I mentioned to my brother, John, that I was doing this. He said another brother, Ed, needed a computer for their firehall lounge. They were looking for a good computer for a reasonable price and free sounded really good. So I found a case, motherboard, hard drive and other parts to make a computer for the fire fighters. I’m more than happy to give this to the fire fighters because fire fighters are the true heroes in our society. They put their lives in danger every time they respond to any emergency call.

As I was going through the stuff, I found some hard drives a customer who upgraded their systems gave me and that my friend Bob could use in his computers. As well, I tested out 4 other computers and found 3 that were older models but basically operational. So Bob offered to take these 3 off my hands. He’ll install Linux on them, add old monitors from his office and he promised to find a good home for them. He also took a KVM (keyboard, video, mouse) switch which he can use and that I no longer use. The fourth computer would not start up and after several attempts at trying various fixes, I gave up. This one will head to my friend’s for the e-waste amnesty week.

I also found obsolete network switches, broken speakers, my first cell phone, a broken modem, old hard drives that don’t work, an old calculator, an obsolete printer switch, a broken hand scanner and other miscellaneous parts that could be rendered for their scrap value. There are precious metals in some of these parts as well as toxic materials. One of the monitors will go to the e-waste site while the other will be used for the fire fighter’s computer.

So when Bob came over to pick up the 3 computers, we went out for dinner. My beautiful wife went with us and at the end of the meal, she paid for dinner. So for Bob’s effort to drive over, he not only got some free computers and peripherals, but he got a free dinner. She was more than happy to see the equipment go. We also helped to keep these items out of the landfill and worked towards a cleaner and better environment.

Posted in Computer Integration, General | No Comments »

Backups will save your business !!

Thursday, October 9th, 2008

Today, I went to see a client about cleaning up some loose ends. I had spent about 45 minutes and had one more item to resolve. I was looking forward to finishing and leaving to meet a colleague for lunch. Then one of the ladies entering information into our system said there was an error on her screen “file access denied”. I was looking at trying to resolve the issue when another person said they had a similar error. Then came a third and a fourth.  Every workstation accessing our application had a similar “file access denied” error.

In the past two weeks, one of the workstations had a virus. It was checked and virii were eliminated. The fellow responsible for the overall updates on the network and anti virus software suggested that one of the virii could have migrated to the server. He gave me a link to the latest virus definitions. We updated the anti virus program, ran the virus scan and after 90 minutes, the server came back clean.

Eventually, Mike, our senior programmer, determined that the index files in our application had become corrupted. All files are re indexed by the first user into the system on a given day.  The person who normally starts up the system was delayed getting in. By coincidence a new hire started up the system. Whether they rebooted their workstation thinking this start up re indexing looked wrong or by some other fluke, the indexes didn’t get unlocked properly.

So, Mike went to the previous day’s back up and copied all the indexes to the server, re indexed the files and within minutes everyone was up and running again. Lesson learned – make sure you have a good backup when things go wrong.

Posted in Computer Integration, Network Security | 1 Comment »

The top 20 things programmers say when their programs don’t work

Wednesday, October 8th, 2008

Mike, our senior programmer sent this to me earlier today. We’d like to add some levity to this blog because even though this is basically a technical blog, we do like to have some fun as well.

20. That’s weird….
19. It’s never done that before.
18. It worked yesterday.
17. How is that possible?
16. It must be a hardware problem.
15. What did you type in wrong to get it to crash?
14. There is something funky in your data. OR It’s a data problem, not a program problem.
13. I haven’t touched that module in weeks!
12. You must have the wrong version.
11. It’s just some unlucky coincidence.
10. I can’t test everything!
9. THIS can’t be the source of THAT.
8. It works, but it hasn’t been tested.
7. Somebody must have changed my code.
6. Did you check for a virus on your system?
5. Even though it doesn’t work, how does it feel?
4. You can’t use that version on your system.
3. Why do you want to do it that way?
2. Where were you when the program blew up?

And the Number One Thing Programmers Say When Their Programs Don’t Work:

1. “It works on my machine..”.

source: unknown

How many of these have we used on our clients? We’re not sure. You’d have to ask the clients.

Posted in Fun stuff, General | No Comments »

Planning is important in deploying software applications.

Friday, October 3rd, 2008

I spent the last three days doing work that I thought was someone else’s responsibility. Normally we’re responsible for installing one of our software applications on a network that has already been set up with servers, workstations and servers functioning properly with remote access to the head office.

When I arrived at the branch office on Tuesday, all the equipment was sitting piled in a corner. The final network hook ups had not been terminated. The electrician, who left 30 minutes before I arrived, thought that I was going to terminate the network cables. Although I could have done the final hook up, I didn’t bring my tools to do the job. My understanding, based on the head office personnel instructions, was that all of the network infrastructure was already in place. While we waited for the electrician, I went about physically locating all the equipment I could. Again not our responsibility. The electrician arrived about an hour after I arrived. He stayed and waited to make sure that all equipment was functioning on the network. After about 2 hours, we were able get down to the application.

Part of our agreement with the client was that head office and we would have remote access to each branch. This would allow them to get reports and make changes to data without traveling to the branch. It would also give us access to branch servers for software upgrades and trouble shooting support without having to be on site. Another person from head office was responsible for setting up the remote access. We didn’t have remote access.The branch was closing so I agreed to return the next day.

On Wednesday, I worked on the remote connection. Still no remote connection. So after talking to the individual responsible, we tried a few things and in the process crashed the modem to the internet. Tried a few other fixes that didn’t work. So I called Bell Business Internet. See the blog entry on resolving the crash modem at http://www.softwarestrategies.ca/blog/?cat=5 .

After getting the modem working, I went to install Ultra VNC

Posted in Computer Integration, Implementation, Network Security, Software Development | No Comments »

I want to speak to a Canadian for support

Wednesday, October 1st, 2008

Today I was at a client site. There was a problem with setting up the Bell Sympatico modem to link to the internal network. No computer on the network could ’see’ the internet. So I called the Bell business internet number. Surprise, when I choose English as my language, I was talking to a women with a heavy east Indian accent. My immediate response was to ask where she was physically located. Her answer was a suburb of Bangalore in South India.

The last time I called Bell Sympatico and an east Indian tried to help me, I spent close to 3 hours on the phone. The problem was not solved until they finally put me through to a Canadian in Canada. This time, I didn’t have that luxury of time. I said that I wanted to speak to a Canadian in Canada. She said that she could put me in the French/English queue. In about 3 minutes, a fellow came on the line and started greeting me in french and how could he help. I responded in English. He switched to English. Within 10 minutes we had the problem solved and the internet visible on all computers on the network.

Apparently, if you choose the French option with Bell, you will get a Canadian located in Canada – most likely Montreal. I spent 8 months in India and have a great admiration for the people of India. However, the Indians located in India really do not have a sense of how business operates in Canada. Until I am proven otherwise, when I call Bell business internet from now on, I will choose the french option. Don’t know if this works outside normal 8:30am to 5:00pm business hours. Perhaps it may also work to your advantage.

Posted in General, Network Security | No Comments »