Best posts made by Carnival Boy

You didn't notice thousands of dollars of unexpected transactions on your bank statements? How rich are you?

That's how I picture Americans - if there's something you don't like, shoot it.

@ajstringham said:

I had watched his house for him while he was out-of-state

http://www.visualphotos.com/photo/2x4715361/businessman_looking_out_window_through_binoculars_u16588000.jpg

QA=Quality Assurance

I still can't believe how much you slag off your employer on a public forum (and on your blog). I think it's only a matter of time before you get caught and fired.

Came across this shop whilst on holiday in Shropshire earlier this week and thought of this thread:

Dear Carnival Boy

I've used up all of my 5GB iCloud storage. My phone is full of work photos that I need backing up. Please resolve.

Regards

A. User

AFAIK, there is no corporate iCloud option, is there? So my options are:

1. Logon on to his iCloud account and use a company credit card to buy an annual iCloud plan for his personal use.
2. Get him to do it, using his own credit card, and reclaim on expenses.
3. Use an alternative backup system.

On my own phone, I've tried using OneDrive to backup my photos. It started ok. Then hung. Now the app just crashes everytime I open it. Par for the course, with Microsoft apps. I need something reliable, that works in the background.

I'm thinking about using Google Drive. Any good?

The problem is, iCloud is very good. It's reliable and I like the fact that when their phone breaks, I can just restore from iCloud onto their new device and they're away.

Advice please.

@thanksajdotcom said:

"I understand 2014/2015 doesn't look good, but I was born into a religious cult and this was the period during which I escaped. I am now trying to put my life back together." It seems like a sound idea. Thoughts?

I don't like that. I'd never mention "religious cult" in any job application. I also don't like the term "trying to put my life back together", as that implies your life isn't currently together. It might be true, but surely you want to give the impression that the past is the past and you are now completely over it and perfect?

"Travel and personal development" is better. I'm not convinced by it, but something bland along those lines is definitely the right approach IMV.

A member of my IT tech support team is moving to another part of the country. Rather than losing him, I'm hoping to let him work remotely, with the occasional on-site visit if required (maybe once or twice a month).

Although my company has lots of home and remote workers already, this is the first time I'll have managed one. Do you have any tips on how to make the arrangement as productive and pleasant as possible, in terms of how to manage him, what tools to use to communicate with him (eg slack), and how to keep him motivated and feeling part of the team. I know a number of you work from home, and some of you manage staff remotely (eg @Minion-Queen )

I'm looking forward to it as it'll give us a chance to really utilise a few online tools like Slack, Trello etc etc that are currently under-used because the team is sitting directly opposite each other and so often finds it easier to just open their mouths and talk.

@ajstringham said:

They'll never see it but yeah, true.

You sure? ML is indexed by search engines. Someone Googling "A J Stringham McAfee" may well end up here and that could be bad news for you.

Anyway, congrats on your new job.

Sounds good. In the UK there is no way to stop them legally (as far as I'm aware).

I keep getting called by Adobe in Egypt trying to get me to upgrade to Creative Cloud. It makes me laugh:

Week 1: We have a special promotion but it only runs for 4 weeks.
Week 2: There is only 3 weeks left to benefit from our special promotion. After that it will be very expensive.
Week 3: Hurry, there is only 2 weeks before the price goes up.
Week 4: 1 week left. You must buy now or you'll regret it!
Week 5: Silence
Week 6: Silence
Week 7: We have a new promotion which is even better than our last one. But hurry, it only runs for 4 weeks.

My biggest gripe is shows like CSI where they view a really low-res CCTV image of the bad guy, and someone says "zoom in right there" and they zoom in a 1000% and can suddenly view a high-res image of a box of matches the bad guy is holding with the name of a bar on it or something. I just end up screaming "You can't zoom an image like that!"

I like arguing with people on here that live in different time zones. I'll come up with a pithy reply and have to wait 8 hours for them to wake up and answer me.

Hate 'em. Either send me a proper card that is hand-signed or don't bother.

/rant

@Carnival-Boy said:

@scottalanmiller said:

No, NOTHING extra is going to Spain. Nothing. Even our clothing has to be cut down to the absolute bare necessities.

Post like crazy and then get a job at NTG. That's what most people on here seem to do

I'm not lying! Honest!

It depends how you define failure. Take a common stat like "80% of ERP projects fail" (I made that stat up, but I hear similar ones all the time).

How do we define failure there? For me, I ask the following questions:

1. Was there any down time when the system went live?
2. Did we lose any customers?
3. Did we lose any revenue?
4. Did it go live more than a few months of the original stated go-live date?
5. Did it go over 20% of budget?
6. Did anyone get killed?

If the answer to all those is 'no', I treat the project as a success.

Whereas the CEO might ask:

1. Did we realise all the benefits the ERP salesmen promised us in his original proposal?

If the answer to that is no, he will treat it as a failure.

Different people, different definitions. Failure depends on what you set as your expectations. I generally have low expectations from life, so am often pleasantly surprised

But if, as a friend of mine did once, you give up your well paid job and spend two years of your life developing an app and then sell about 100 copies, by anyone's definition you have failed. It doesn't make you a failure, but it makes your project a failure.

I've lost count of the number of times I've said this to a user. They see "Free" and assumes it means "Free Everywhere", whereas more often than not it is only free for non-commercial use.

I suspect that a lot of companies ignore this point, and use the software anyway. After all, there is nothing to stop them. I expect they are unlikely to prosecuted, as the software houses are often pretty small (compared with the likes of Adobe and Microsoft etc etc).

I'm talking about things like MalwareBytes and RealVNC that are free for home use but not for commercial use.

How do you deal with this when your bosses or your clients are wanting to use "free" software on their business PCs?

I wish there was an easier way of paying than credit card. Credit card payments aren't easy for me.

@scottalanmiller said:

Often these are my own quotes because I have a huge ego

Deciding what not to do is as important as deciding what to do - Steve Jobs

@scottalanmiller said:

People ask me before using them and they don't even need to do that because I license them for certain use.

< considers where to post picture of @scottalanmiller in his pink, fluffy unicorn costume >

@RamblingBiped said:

Looking to brighten the light at the end of the tunnel. Any advice is appreciated...

Working full time in a challenging job and doing a degree is really, really hard! Once you've finished your degree things might look a lot clearer. I'd hang on in there until then.

Maybe you just need a holiday to recharge your batteries? At the very least, you need to take your foot of the gas for a month or two to prevent burnout and plan a few relaxing weekends with friends and family.

I wouldn't ask a parachuting question on Mango Lassi. By the time Scott and Dash are done arguing about some trivial point compleltey unconnected to my question I'd have hit the ground and died.

I wouldn't bother posting anything other than a very specific technical question on here, because so often you have to spend days justifying your entire career before some posters will even answer the question. If I have a Windows error, I don't want to have to write a 10,000 word dissertation justifying why I'm running Windows instead of Linux and why I'm not, actually, a complete idiot, I just want to fix my Windows error and move on with my life. I still enjoy reading other people's threads though

@DustinB3403 said in Why is VMWare considered so often:

So the Backup API's are magically installed if you upgrade your key from "ESXi Free" to "ESXi Essentials"? I thought they were completely removed from the installation.

Just not there, and to get them you had to install the Essentials ISO to your host.

I thought there was only one version installed and the licence key determines which features are unlocked. When you first install you get all features in a 60 day "evaluation" period, don't you?

One thing I would like to do is have 6 weeks summer holiday when my kids are off and go travelling. But my company doesn't really like anyone taking more than 2 weeks off in a row, and we only have 5 weeks in total for the year.

When I was a kid, my dad was a University lecturer, so had 2 months over summer, and we'd travel round Europe for 4 or 5 weeks every year. Time of my life. Although he seemed to find both the cost and his annoying kids fairly stressful at times....

I put everything in as I find it a useful log of my time. It's also useful to know that it's the 37th time Sue from Accounts has forgotten her password in the last 10 years.

@Dashrender said in Microsoft Teams:

Thanks for this post - my early googles didn't land me on anything, but this morning got lucky.
https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/office/change-participant-settings-for-a-teams-meeting-53261366-dbd5-45f9-aae9-a70e6354f88e?ui=en-us&rs=en-us&ad=us

A good example of what's wrong with Teams. It's so complicated that even someone like you can't always figure it out. Bob the Sales Manager has no chance.

I've never understood how Microsoft manage to make products so convoluted. Then someone like Zoom comes along and shows how simple things can be.

Ikea

On the plus size, in exactly half-an-hour I'll be meeting my wife and kids in the beer garden of our local pub and enjoying some real ale and sunshine.

@ajstringham said:

So a couple months ago I updated my LinkedIn profile page so that it didn't, well, suck. It was pretty deplorable before but now it's quite good. I have a link to a Youtube video of my presentation at Spiceworld Austin 2013, a scanned in copy of one of my letters from the President's office at Staples and tons of other stuff. It has been working, as far as people noticing. A large number of the job recruiters who contact me find me on LinkedIn. I didn't used to see the value in it but, as of late, I have. Has anyone had any amazing experiences because of it? I actually am focusing on keep it looking good and adding as much as I can to it.

If anyone wants to connect, here's me: https://www.linkedin.com/profile/view?id=165398934

Connection request sent. I don't use LinkedIn but am interested in any tool that can get me a better job, so need to look into it. I really don't know what @scottalanmiller's beef is. Social networks adapt and evolve. Facebook was originally a way to connect Harvard students together, it's now a way for Coca Cola to advertise to farmers in Namibia. Who cares? If you don't like what's it become why don't you just delete your profile? I don't get it.

As an introvert, social networks really don't appeal to me - business or social. I've never had someone offer me a job on LinkedIn and most of the connection requests I get are from people trying to sell me something, which has no appeal whatsoever.

Any tips on making it work for me would be most appreciated. I guess you need to join a few groups? I joined a virtualisation one, but it was pretty poor compared with the Spiceworks forum, so never bothered with it.

Regards

Carnival Boy
Son of Chartered Accountant, Author and University Lecturer 1972-2014 (42 years).

@scottalanmiller said:

Single spacing just seems sloppy, still.

Double spacing just seems weird.

Apart from anything, consider the wasted time. You've written over 2.8 million words on your blog, right? Let's say an average of 10 words per sentence. That's 280k extra spaces you've typed. Let's say an average of 120 spaces per minute and that's almost 40 hours of your life that you've wasted. 40 hours hitting the space bar, for no reason at all.

Life's too short!

Netscape Navigator FTW

That video would be improved if the empty desk then became filled with six monitors a la AJ's setup.