Got to love teenagers and PC's

[99Flake]

Hehe, having much the same at my work at the moment! We have a school laptop scheme coming into place and the kids have a choice between buying a scheme laptop (comes with a 3 year warranty and we will fully support it) or if they can use their existing laptop (as long as it was bought before the end of 2006 and they put their names down before the end of 2006).

It is the non-scheme ones that give us such a headache, proven by the following scenario:

Boy walks in with laptop, I go to do the necessary to it, i.e install sophos anti-virus, connect it to the domain and then do windows updates before putting the posturing and dot1x stuff on it.

Whilst doing the update the windows validation tells me that the copy is a blocked VLK license. Therefore I call him in and tell him that I can't do anything until a legitimate copy of XP pro is on the machine.

Pupil walks away looking rather rejected and then comes back two days later saying he has sorted the problem but behold upon doing the validation check it still says it is a VLK license that has been blocked! So I call him back in and show him the screen and have the following conversation:

Me:Your copy of XP can't be validated, I need you to put a legitimate copy on it and put the license sticker on the bottom

Pupil: But it is legal sir! I can prove it I took a screenshot saying it was validated yesterday

(Proceeds to show me some random screenshot and then trys to validate it the "way he did it" and still it says it is not genuine)

Pupil: I don't understand! I am using the license off of the bottom of father's PC and that one is legitimate and works!

I explain to him the finer points of licensing and send him on his way.

Grrrrrrrr, just a one of a number of stupid things I come across every day.

[Brucelles]

We had a 'techspert' at xxx bank in Switzerland who screwed up the entire core position-keeping system for 24 hours because he decided to 'optimise' a piece of Sybase code no-one had asked him to. He was a security administrator and thus had the access to screw up most stuff if he so chose.

The thing about this bank, xxx, is that they have a genuine 24.7 global presence; you can do an internet trade of dollars vs yen at any time of day or night anywhere in the world and the positions will be updated instantly. This is really impressive technology and unique AFAIK. The downside is that this global position-keeping system is a primary feed into xxx bank ATMs, so when the POS system is dead, so are the ATMs, your cirrus card, your ability to transfer money by Internet, etc. Another couple of hours and the bank would have been closed down by the Swiss regulators.

The reason this kid decided to do this (without telling anyone)? He had just been on a Sybase course and thought that he could prove his worth, and justify asking for a promotion, if he improved a live system. A live system written by people like me with literally decades of experience and qualifications coming out of our ears. A live system that had been designed by a team of 8 people, 7 of whom have Ph.Ds (I was number 8 ), and written by a team of around 200 people, under the control of 40 business analysts and 20 project managers.

The kid was fired so fast his jacket is probably still hanging on the back of his chair.

[schmunk]

xxx bank in Switzerland

Sounds like my kind of bank...

[Brucelles]

Sounds like my kind of bank...

I think I'm still bound by confidentiality agreements, but I can tell you it wasn't a sperm bank.

[finlay666]

I think I'm still bound by confidentiality agreements, but I can tell you it wasn't a sperm bank.

xxx bank...i'd hope it wasnt sperm!!!

Now what interest rate will you give me on a collection of Jenna Jameson dvd's? Are we talking a gonzo film or a full on production each year here?