Do what I mean, not what I say.

On Fri, 08 Jun 2007 22:55:56 +0000, Jeff Liebermann sez:

Oh, you wanna swap stupid hardware stories? Back when I started working for my current employer about 15 years ago, we were a small shop with maybe a dozen 386/486 boxes hooked up on a LANtastic network. At least once a day, the server would shut down, which, with LANtastic, meant that any unsaved work was lost forever because the application (usually WordPerfect) would lock up trying to access the drive on which it was hosted.

The server was located behind the receptionist's desk under the table where they had the fax machine. After some investigation, we discovered the problem: One employee who didn't like to bend down when she sent a fax would always kneel on the floor in front of the fax machine, and as often as not her knee would bump up against the rocker switch on the front of the server. Power off, there goes the network. She was always good about turning it back on, but not before the damage had been done.

Then there was the time our Christmas tree lights overloaded the same circuit our training lab was on, and I lost 15 hours of a data conversion project that had been running overnight.

Since I always nail down, err...mount outlets strips with screws, I cover the rocker switch with a half moon 2" diameter grey PVC conduit strap.

"Peter B. Steiger" hath wroth:

Sure, but this is a wireless internet newsgroup. Horror stories should be about wireless, wireless internet, or something related. There are plenty of other places to post support horror stories.

This mornings horror story arrived a few hours ago. Customer has an existing 2Wire all-in-one box with DSL modem, router, and wireless. Customer wants to improve coverage in the garage and yard area. He buys an identical 2Wire conglomeration on eBay, plugs it in, and calls me for help setting it up. At no time does he mention that he now has

1. Chocolate cake melts when placed on top of the router. Coffee and keyboards are magnetically attractive.
2. Any live demonstration of Netstumbler or Kismet will always display a obscene or inappropriate SSID to the audience.
3. When giving a live demonstration, the wireless in the laptop will either be stuck on or refuse to turn on. It also cannot be reliably controlled by the function key combination, hidden switch, control panel application, BIOS, or client manager.
4. What are the odds of the system administrator changing the VPN passwords, not testing it, and leaving for the day, just before I give a demo of his system?
5. Many overhead projectors will do really weird things when fed with

1. Demonstrating wireless requires far too many wires most of which I left at the office or in the car.
2. Live WEP cracking demos fail about half the time. The larger the audience, the greater the chances of failure.
3. With wireless, traffic is measured in acronyms per second. Every time something new appears, it is accompanied by a deluge of acronyms.
4. A sign labeled "do not touch" is not sufficiently specific. It should say "do not break" as someone always touches and usually breaks things.
5. Avoid eating pickles, onions, and garlic sandwitches before wireless demonstrations.

"Danger - Electrical Shock" seems to keep the curious from touching the forward mounted optics on the static display attack helicopters at airshows.

But in the litigious world of the public...it can open a whole can of worms.

I use the radiation warning sign.... Interestingly enuf, I had it painted on the side of my van, and when I park in a lot, I usually come back and find a whole lot of empty parking spaces around it... :)

"Peter Pan" hath wroth:

Doesn't work. The problem is that anyone younger than 50 years old doesn't have a clue what radiation is all about. It's just not taught in the skools these daze.

I had a "Thallium Stress Test" some years ago. Basically, I walk like hell on a treadmill. Just before I fall over from exhaustion, they inject some radioactive goo. After about an hour, I get to play dead for 20 mins on a giant scintillation counter, which produces incredibly fuzzy and expensive pictures of my insides. I also get to walk around belching sub-atomic particles for several hours. So, after the test, I drag out my Korean War era Geiger counter (complete with civil defense sticker) and try to impress my friends. I show up at a nearby business, fire up the Geiger counter, and pass the earphone around. The meter goes full scale and the earphone belches continuous rattling noises. Anyone over about 50 immediately jumps back when they hear all those clicks. Most people under 50 would just ask "what's that noise". So much for nuclear physics education in the skools.

I also was asked "why do you have a Geiger counter" by several people. I couldn't figure out why they would ask, until I realized that they suspected I was conducting experiments with radioactivity at home in my spare time.

If I put a "danger radioactivity" sign on my truck and nothing would happen. If I put it on my props, someone would probably lean over it, fondle the device, drop it clumsily, and then ask if it's safe.

Leaving a dead camera on the roof of my van and a video surveillance sign on the side keeps things clear , seem like people have things to hide ?

And for anyone that has used a Geiger counter, the clicks are very recognizable as to the pattern, etc.

ANyone who has watched bad scifi movies from the 60's would know .)

| > And for anyone that has used a Geiger counter, the clicks are very | > recognizable as to the pattern, etc. | | Anyone who has watched bad sci-fi movies from the 60's would know .)

I rented a bunch of those (b grade Sci Fi flicks) a few weeks ago and the grand kids couldn't stop laughing long enough to notice any of the 'small stuff'

On Wed, 13 Jun 2007 06:12:14 -0400, NotMe sez:

I made my teens and their friends watch the old Ohio DPS drivers training films to scare them into safe driving.

WARNING: disturbing, albeit grainy, images of corpses in car wrecks:

On Fri, 08 Jun 2007 22:55:56 GMT, Jeff Liebermann wrote in :

Better to replace the wireless router with something more suitable for a commercial environment. ;)