Naxxfish

Yeah, Jenny from mah block!

Uhh, no.

Ah, time for another happy installment.

• User: Hi, are you a helpdesk person?
• Me: Yes ….
• User: There’s a wasp in Level 2 Computer room … can you get rid of it for me?
• Me: Um.  I’ll call security.

• User: Hi are you IT support?
• Me: Yes ….
• User: My the tap in my kitchen is leaking.

In a feedback form:

• User: The noise level in Level 4 Extension is unacceptable!  I can’t concentrate, it’s  like a discussion area!
• Supervisor: Level 4 Extension *is* a group discussion area.

• User: My document isn’t coming out in colour!
• Me: (looking at their print history) that’s because you printed it to a black and white printer.  There’s 2 colour printers, colour2 and colour3.
• User: Oh.  Can I get a refund?
• Me: Because you sent it to the wrong printer?  No.

• User: My document didn’t print
• Me: (looking at print history) that’s because you don’t have enough credit.  And you’re not likely to either
• User: What?
• Me: Unless you happen to have £13,000 in pound coins on your person.

(turns out they had put the pages they wanted to print into the copies section, and so were ordering something like 242,526 copies of a 60 odd page document. )

**UPDATE**

Had to squeeze this one in:

• User: I’ve tried to print a document in colour and it’s not coming out.
• Me: (looking up the job) Ah well, that’s because you printed it on a black and white printer.  In a computer room on the other side of campus.
• User: Oh.  Can I get a refund?
• Me: Uhh, no.

(I eagerly await the day when someone accidentally prints something on another campus, and then they ask me where the printer is)

Oh, OrCAD.  If it weren’t for these little gems of error messages, I’d throw it out the window.

Some of the wonderful questions I get asked at helpdesk:

Hi, I just got a printer with my laptop and it doesn’t work.  Does it have anything to do with the University Website?

(In the Library)
Where are the books?

• User: Printer 1 is jammed!
• Me: Um, no it isn’t.  What’s your username?
• User: ***
• Me: Right, well, it’s definitely not jammed because you didn’t print anything – you don’t have any printer credit left
• User: Credit?
• Me: Yes, you have to pay for printing.  Sometimes your Department will give you an allowance but if you go over that you have to pay it yourself.
• User: What, I have to pay for it?  Out of my own money?
• Me: … yes.
• User: Psh, screw that.  I’m using Printer 2 instead.
• Me: … you have to pay for that one as well.
• User: What about the one in Rutherford?
• Me: Yes, you have to pay for ALL of the printers around campus, unless you’re an Electronics students and their printers are free
• User: Oh, how do I become an Electronics student?
• Me: I think changing your degree over a 50p document may be a little extreme.

After being told to plug their console into the network so we can register it

• User: I’ve plugged it in like you said, what’s next?
• Me: Um, you’ll need to turn it on as well.

At 1800, just as the office is closing

• User: Hi, I need an appointment because I can’t get on the Internet. I need it TODAY
• Me: Well, I’m sorry, but I’m just about to lock the office up now. I can book you an appointment for tomorrow though.
• User: No, no, it’s got to be TODAY. I have an assignment in tomorrow
• Me: *sigh* What’s the problem?
• User: Mah laptop won’t turn on.
• Me: Well, I’m afraid we can’t help you with that, you’ll need to see a computer repair shop. I can give you a list of places who could help …
• User: Nah nah, they won’t be open will they?
• Me: No, they won’t – for the same reason we’re not!

There will be more.

This is a trend I’ve noticed, mostly whilst working in the Library.

I’ve seen people talking on a mobile phone, and actually move the phone away from their ear and in front of their mouths when they speak.  I don’t quite understand what the point of this is – and it kinda spits in the face of telecoms engineers that made the GSM system full-duplex.  They are intentionally limiting their phones to half-duplex (i.e. you can either talk or listen, not both at the same time).  Also, mobile phones are designed such that the microphone is in the right place to pick up your speech at a sensible level when the phone is held to your ear.  Putting it right up against your lips just makes your voice overly loud and makes the signal clip – even when you’re speaking quietly.  Phones have compressers and limiters in them such that your voice is intelligible, regardless of how loudly you’re speaking. 

The other odd thing is that I’ve only ever seen black people doing this.  Not once have I seen any other ethnicity doing this – which in itself is disturbing (just describing it makes me sound racist). 

Most perplexing.

As I was walking home from campus today, the playlist from shuffle mode went like this:

• One – Aimee Man – A song about being lonely
• Alone In Kyoto – Air
• Radio #1 – Air
• Move Along – All American Rejects – I’m not even sure why I have this song
• Northern Birds – Amateur Transplants – an extremely derogatory song about girls from up North.

Just what I needed after a taxing Monday at uni.

Yes yes, the Lambeth Conference has been happening up at UKC, and I’ve been doing some IT support for it.

I have been working on the Help & Enquiry desk at the library. Bishops, it seems, are confusing.

We had one fellow who wanted to “send an email from here”. I explained that we didn’t give out email addresses, but he didn’t understand. He just gave me an email address that he wanted to send the email to, and expected to magically open an email account and just send it. He only wanted to send one email, he kept telling me – like that makes any difference!

I ended up pointing him at Gmail and getting him to sign up. At which point he sat at the helpdesk and started writing an email. I awkwardly asked him to go use another machine, as it looked like he was working there.

Then there was the person who wanted to get the name and addresses of some of the bishops he met. I got him logged on, at which point he started fiddling with the mouse like he’d never used one in his life. Then my replacement turned up and I ran for the hills.

One of the other helpdeskers working in the press office (which, by the way, is not “as far away from the conference as possible”, in fact it’s as close to the conference as possible.  Oh and the fence isn’t 10 foot high.) got a mention in The Times Online.

So, yes. Fun times.

My uni’s union is doing an online vote for their elections this year. They seem to be doing it through a third party called SurveySwift. SurveySwift need a swift clip around the ear:

What exactly it expects me to input as my “preference” I really don’t know – but the above page submits successfully. Quite how they plan to count the votes I’m not sure; I’m so confused.

It appears CCP, the designers of EVE Online have opted for a new way to localise their website. Rather than the more traditional method of guessing where the client is and picking an appropriate localisation for things like dates and currency, it uses a new method. Instead of risking getting the localisation wrong, it picks a locale at random on each view. At least it’s statistically likely to hit the right one… occasionally. For example, on reloading the downtime news page a couple of times, you see this:

Note the two completely different date formats. Whether this is a site wide issue or just the downtime news page that does this, I’m not sure.

UPDATE: They seemed to have fixed it.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Oh, maybe not.

Sreenshot from www.tfl.gov.uk.

It wants me to give the answer to a question it’s not asked me yet. Given that I have apparently forgotten my password, what’s the liklihood of remembering my secret question, let alone what the answer is?