HP Support tech: “Upgrade your firmware, it might fix the molten diffusor”

Yes, so we had this problem with a printer. It did not work very well. Keen on finding the problem ourselves, we disasembled the printer slightly to find the diffusor was physically molten.

Since there is a service agreement on the printer, we decided to call HP Support. The solution we were presented left us speechless.

AA: “Hello, our printer is broken, the diffusor has molten, as in plastic deformed due to high heat”
HP: “Hmm, okay, have you tried a firmware upgrade? This solves alot of common problems”
AA: “uhm, did you hear that the diffusor is molten? nevermind…”
dut…dut…dut

Who is training these monkeys? It seems like the standard behaviour when contacting tech support most places: “Uselessness”

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Why you should ALWAYS wear the seatbelt during flights.

After 6887 hours in a flight simulator toying with VATSIM in an old A2A Boeing 377 plus the regular trips to the cockpit of real life Airbus 320’s and also piloted airplanes myself, I believe I gained some knowledge about turbulence and flying Airplanes. Yes, I am abusing Cialdini’s authority principle on purpose.

EGKK-Gatwick Airport, South Terminal. AngryAdmin at the helm! Airbus A319

You should always wear your seatbelt during flights. This story is pretty self-explanatory when you consider the link in the bottom of this post.

Turbulence, or “air holes” can force an airplane to drop several 100 feet (aproximately 33 meters), VERYVERY quickly, when the airplane looses lift due to low pressure zones, gravity takes over and accelerates the plane brutally downwards at 9,82m/s/s – remaining lift as we are not in a vacuum. This can be very brutal, if you are not wearing a seatbelt, the airplane will plummet away under YOU unless you are wearing a seatbelt to keep you in your seat.. That means you will take off from your seat (fly in the air), bump your head on the ceiling and injure your neck and spine. When Lift is restored, (higher air pressure) the forces will switch dramatically. The airplane will stop dropping, but now it is your turn to drop back down into your seat. (Brutally)

Always remain seated with seatbelt on! Even if it is uncomfortable. It is not cool to refuse to wear it even though you might think it is.

http://www.abreakingnews.com/new-york/american-airlines-flight-diverted-after-hitting-turbulence-14-injured-h300404.html

Feedback is welcome
Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/angryadmean

 

Why emails and facebook messages do not work well for important time sensitive issues (“Drop and pray” someone reads it in time)

TL:DR Use voice-call, not facebook.

Sometimes the driver walks to meetings. The distance he has to walk is 3,5 km’s it takes around 40 minuttes. In winter it is cold but that just means you have to walk faster and generate more heat. You arrive at the set location for a meeting, you arrive 5 minuttes early, which in my book is already 5 minuttes too late. No one is present. Turned out, facebook, email or other form of “drop and pray someone will read it in time” messaging was used to cancel the meeting.

Drop and pray means, you send an email to your driver stating you are sick. Your driver of course rushes into the office and quickly starts checking emails and notices that you won’t be around due to illness.

The driver also checks his emails before he wakes up with the intention to see if he has to wake up to be on time for a scheduled meeting…. Since the walk to the meeting takes 40 minuttes, and most people of course check their facebook accounts before they wake up, a combined total of 80 minuttes and 7 km’s of walk has been conducted, and wasted, because… someone cancelled the meeting using an email or facebook message.

Emails do not work very well as form of communication in companies or organizations important messages like cancellations are at risk of being overseen. Time is wasted, people get anoyed, deadlines are not kept.

Show some consideration for your environment, people could be waiting for you, and since people are busy, they do not check their facebook account every 5 minuttes.

The driver used to do the same but realized it is absolutely not the right way of doing it.

Emails should only be used to transfer data that has previously been agreed on verbally, not to cancel meetings

The easter bunny is hiding something!

Ok, there are so many conspiracy theories out there that I want to make one myself. It is about something as cute as Rabbits.

In latin, Rabbits are Called Lagomorphia.

We all know that “morph” is changing something. Like in photoshop when you morph something into something else.

Lago is a misinterpretation and a terrible spelling mistake made by the ancient latin-language creating people, so a translation from langoliers became lago instead of lango.

This explains how a single rabbit can devastate an entire garden with tulips and other greeneries in just one night! They made my mon cry many times during my childhood. They simply ate all her flowers!

This essentially means, that Rabbits are shape-shifting Langoliers that eat flowers.

This is what they turn into while they are eating your flowers at night. They are very shy and will instantly morph back to rabbit shape a millisecond before anyone sees them. Very deceptive beings.

Gnags: De vilde Kaniner
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-fk8fXTiAAo

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How to deal with irrational people

Yes, don’t you love those kind of people who attempt to take control over your actions by attempting to force you into rejection? Irrationality can be amplified greatly by doing drugs or alcohol and withdrawal psychosis, but it can also persist in people who are perfectly sober. And that is what I would classify as a clear case of Borderline Personality Disorder (Diagnostic manual for mental disorders). Sadly these people usually attach themselves to deeply good hearted people and create tremendous amounts of chaos and stress in good peoples lives. I have been there, I have experiened this on my own body and I let it happen. They weave a web of lies to gain allies to fight you. Wether the threat they percieve is real or not.

So, now a look back in time, aproximately 1 month.

I was at a gathering with friends and I start to talk to this girl, she asks me where I am from. I am the kind of person who does not see country borders as a definition of where I am from. I am from Earth. However, jokingly I told the girl I was from Russia. I actually thought everyone knew that I am a Danish citizen, but at that time I was learning the Russian language. After a while I said I was from another country, again jokingly. Apparantly, the girl has absolutely no humor and cannot handle that joke, and percieved it as a rejection of her persona. She responded: “Why are you lying to me? I thought we were friends..” At that time, I knew that person and her entire childhood, her school experiences and well, her internal workings. 30 minuttes total time spread out over 1 month, that is how much contact we had. That is a quickly established friendship.

The next thing that happened told me everything I needed to know about this person. She was not drunk, and she started rejecting me intentionally. People with BPD do that when they are sober and undrugged. It is a persistent pattern.

They reject you so that you have to fight back to get them back into your lives, if you are a good person, you might want to straighten out the problems and be at peace again. Not possible. Their behaviour will continue in this pattern untill they realize they have these problems.

I guess “aprox 1 hour” was too long time for this guy to wait for me to reply. He needed an appartment right here, right now, at 00:10 AM

So this person writes me on facebook. He needs an appartment. He is living together with someone at the moment, and I am fairly certain that this person is feeling the “heat” of this persons personality disorder. It is sad.

I am a writer, if you are reading this, you obviously noticed that. When I have an idea I MUST put it down RIGHT here RIGHT NOW! Not in 30 minuttes and not tomorrow. When I was done writing the two articles #1 and #2 I turned back to the person with intention of posting a facebook status, stating that this person needs an appartment, according to his specifications. I wanted to tag him in the post so that people with free apartments to let could contact him, but I was not able to tag him. I was wondering why? Was I mispelling his name? I went back to the chat conversation I had with him on facebook and found he had unfriended me.

I hope the person living with this guy realizes that it is better to move away, sooner rather than later. Do NOT let him destroy you. He has the capacity to do so! These are not Neutrons, these are “electrons” and absorbers (eg. not fissile),  If you kick an electron out of your life you will become positive:

Two hydrogen atoms walk into a bar.
One says, “I think I’ve lost an electron.”
The other says, “Are you sure?”
The first replies, “Yes, I’m positive…”

How to deal with a person like this? They are abusing you, they are boxing you in attempting to control you. EVADE….EVADE…EVADE, AVOID AVOID AVOID. Never go back! Remember that drunk people can end up in temporary state like this, look at their sober state. Do NOT fall for their crap. They are vicitmizing themselves.

There can be no relationship without confidence, and no confidence without integrity. -Samuel Johnson
This person lacks all 3 and thus cannot have meaningful relationships.

Read more about BPD here:
http://www.amazon.com/Stop-Walking-Eggshells-Borderline-Personality-ebook/dp/B004DNXGFQ

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What is all that junk inside your trunk?

Well, people usually commented on my trunk, whenever i opened it. Yes, its the trunk of a car, if you thought about something else, I am sorry to disapoint you.

The junk inside my trunk is called “Proactivity”
Other people would call it: Oil, water, servo fluid, brakefluid, gaskets, brakepads, oil lines, fuel filters, spare tire, hydraulic jack, 4x jack stands etc..

Many times I heard people say, why don’t you clean up that trunk of yours? it a big mess. They are wrong! Cleaning it up means reorganizing and moving the items from one place in the trunk to another place in the trunk. The items I put there MUST be there. So.. moving them around in the trunk just to move them around, does not make much sense! Hence they stay there.

I have a nice little curtain hiding it all anyway!

Yes, I carried a vast array of spareparts in the trunk of my car. I am a driver if I stop driving I stop being what I enjoy to be. Then I become a mechanic. Without the junk in my trunk, I could also end up just being in “wait-state” which is something I really dislike. While I wait someplace for assistance, nothing else can be done. Time is wasted.

Apply proactivity to every aspect of your life and alot less time will be wasted. Sure, I cannot carry that much cargo in the back. But hey, who does that in a Supra anyway?

Manage your time efficiently.

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Lost your cellphone and recovered it?

Well, I have done so 3 times this year. For some reason it keeps coming back to me. My Sony Sola is a boomerang phone… No doubt about that! I am guessing native australians would find it particularly usefull as a hunting tool…

This is all good and fine, but what you do with it when you reaquire your phone may not be so fine!

First of all, it has been out of your hands. Who has had it in their hands, what did they do with it? Did they install spyware?

Whenever you recover your phone, do NOT connect it to your regular PC straight away and do not sync it.

What I would do, and what I always do in such situations is the following:
-I do NOT connect it to my laptop with USB cable. (Threats on the phone could get to more of your important data)
-Connect it to a temporary windows installation, or Linux (preferred) copy the data out that you REALLY need. (stop malware from spreading)
-NOT synch it with google, facebook, twitter, drop box and whatever else. (Your private data could be at risk)
-Hard reset the phone with disregard to lost contact information/data. If you cloud synched your contacts, they will return.
-Never store anything important on the phone that is not in duplicate form someplace else.

Now your phone may work faster, your battery may last long, your privacy is (more) secure and you got those important pictures from your last holiday on a USB stick or a temporary OS installation.

If you need elaboration on the topics presented above, please read more here for a quick breakdown: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mobile_virus

Feedback is welcome
Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/angryadmin
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How to sacrifice the health of students by running a Dorm

I visited a dorm in my old hometown recently. I was at an afterparty and used the bathroom. I looked up, I do that often, but what I saw was sad. Black spots of mold and fungus on the ceiling.

Please notice, this picture is NOT from the respective bathroom. Starting to take pitures of other peoples bathroom without permission is crossing the line 🙂

The paint peeling of the walls and the ceiling was the first indicator.

What we are dealing with here is most likely Aspergilus. A mold found in damp rooms such as the bathrooms in the dorms of HK and UK respectively.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aspergillus_versicolor

This can lead to terrible healht problems such as aspergillosis.onychomycosis
This can lead to tuberculosis, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease and other lung problems. These can take YEARS to get rid of after you move out… (This fungi has been mentioned in House M.D. several times)

I wonder how responsible adults like those of the Dormitory office in my old hometown can allow such hazardous neglect!

Demand from the responsibles that this gets addressed NOW!
Why has noone done anything about this in the last 7 years? And NO, it does not help to just peel the paint of and apply a new layer each time a new student moves in! Of course, I suspect they (the dormitory office) believe the students are bewildered about fungus and mold and won’t react to it. And I guess they are right. So, take charge over your health, go complain or move out asap 🙂

Greetings to the new IT-Contractor who has been ruining the K64 network for aproximately 2 years now. Another clear case of ignorance and neglect from the daily “leaders”. Considering we fixed the “load” issues now depicted by yellow notes on doors stating “please limit your download in peak periods” K64 Tech fixed that in 2011… problem recreated by GIdion IT-Support and KK May 2013. The problem can be fixed using “traffic shaping”

Let us just let that hang there for a moment while we serious re-evaluate our options and resign from the jobs you were not supposed to  do… it is NOT free, you pay more than 2 years ago for alot less!

 

Sincerly,
AngryAdministrator

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Covey’s time management matrix meets Cialdini’s Influence

This is largely how I manage my time. If you have any comments, let me know. It is a constant reminder of how to act.

Sources/Inspiration:
http://www.amazon.com/Influence-Psychology-Persuasion-Revised-Edition/dp/006124189X
“The 7 habits of highly effective people” Stephen R. Covey

6 mistakes entrepreneurs make with their initial IT-Infrastructure.

So you had this great idea to start a company. You don’t know where to start and all you have at present time is your laptop.

Hold it right there! This is not going to work. Were you not going to start a company that would grow in size?

Don’t let your IT limit you.
-Accounting
-Customer relationship management
-Human resource management
-Salaries..
-Document handling
-Supply chain management
-Emails
-Backup
-Virtualization
-Cloud backup
-Collaboration
-storage subsystems.

Are you going to do this in excel? Then copy a backup manually to a USB stick? How about dropbox? It was hacked before, so that is surely a safe bet!

How are you going to share this data with your employees should you get some, and that is your plan right? You do want a business that is in continual growth right? That requires employees.

Get the correct IT-hardware.
There is no such thing as overdressing in your IT-environment. You need redundancy, you need your systems online 24/7 even if some of the hardware you have obtained is failing. If the IT-system is down it is bad for your business. Ask yourself, what does 1 day of downtime cost?

Refurbished HP or IBM servers are the way to go. Stay away from Dell, they make servers from Hell! Actually everything they make is crap. Fujitsu servers are usually made of plastic and I am not a particularly big fan of their servers either.

Stay away from Fujitsu laptops aswell, they are horrible! Get Lenovo/IBM those guys know what they are doing and their products are very reliable.

You can get 6 refurbished servers for the price of 1 new server. They use more power, but you can distribute your data onto several servers. Your applications will be run by 2 or more servers simultaneously. Should one physical server fail, there is failover. If you bought 3 servers, well then you still have 2 and the failed one can stand there for another week untill the IT-guy comes by and replaces it. The server can be replaced in a matter of minuttes all the while the remaining IT-infrastruture supports your business and you work like nothing ever happened.

ZFS – Next gen. system!
On the storage side. Use ZFS or waste time and money!

You want value adding IT infrastructure? For small and medium and even large businesses there is no replacement for ZFS. ZFS can not grow in # of disks in an array, which we from now on will call a pool of disks, however, you can replace 1 existing drive at a time with a bigger drive, when all drives in the array have been replaced one by one, with bigger counterparts the available dataspace will increase automatically.

So, as an example, a customer has a 6 drive server. 6x1TB disks, Raid6 yielding 4 TB available place.

The customer runs out of space. What do you normally do? You buy a bigger server or replace all 6 drives at once with bigger ones and now you have to copy data for several days……. NONO! That is not how you do it!

You take out ONE of the 1TB drives and replace it with a bigger 4TB drive and wait for the pool to sync ONLY the data that was on the original 1TB drive. This is fast.

When disk one is synched you replace the next drive in line and continue untill all 6x1TB drives are out of the server and there are now 6x4TB drives. No downtime, no nothing and the pool will automatically expand in size to 16TB total space.

I actually wonder why this is not the default filesystem in all hosting centres around the world.

Need even more space? You can create nested pools (nested raid) and add pools to pools to create bigger pools.

What is the coolest thing about all this? You do not need dedicated hardware raid controllers to use ZFS. ZFS is quick and efficient. If you really need alot of speed, get ALOT of disks. With ZFS you can Create a Raid6e type of system with 3 redundant disks. At this point, 4 drives would have to fail simultaneously before you loose any data. Data synching is ultra fast aswell compared to regular raid systems. They usually need to resynch the entire array in order to continue functioning after a disk has been replaced. This is terrible on the performance side 🙂

With ZFS, data is always consistent on disk.

Please watch this video before implementing any storage subsystems anywhere in your organization: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QucASjuGAWY

Get the correct software.
As mentioned above, alot of business activities can be handled in software systems designed specifically for that purpose.

Get a full blown ERP system, they can be obtained for free. I personally have been using Odoo.

Odoo is scalable and can handle very large amounts of users, data, projects, accounting… everything you need.

Odoo is free and is now released in version 7.0

Pay the right price
IT-companies want to make money, I do not think that is a secret. You very often pay way too much for their services.
If you go with open source software you will remove the largest price-tag of your system.

Do backup! Repeat, DO BACKUP!
5 years ago, I attended entrepreneurial ventures. People had this funny idea that they do backup on USB sticks and services such as dropbox. This requires repetitive manual actions that you will not do! I know you won’t – you know you won’t so stop lying to yourself and get a proper backup solution before you start crying.

Real men do make backup’s, they don’t want to have to deal with their wife if the holiday or family photos vanish because you forgot to copy them to your USB stick

I can recommend Ahsay Offsite backup. You can install it on minimum hardware and have the data replicated from your in house server to your “home server” and a 3rd server at your parents house. That way, should your company burn to the ground you have 2 other locations where all your data is stored. All the operating systems you normally use and the applications are also backed up. Restoring a system like this takes hours, not days. All it requires is new hardware and you are good to go.

Data is encrypted with Ahsay so they are safe from theft aswell. Just do NOT forget your encryption key. There is NOTHING we can do for you if that happens.

Make sure to test your backup often. If you think you are backing up but you are really not, that would be catastrophic.

Create an IT-strategy.
With the above tools in hand, it is time to create a structure in your chaotic amounts of data. Your IT-Guy will be able to assist you with that. He knows how to handle data and how to store it effectively. At least he should!

If you are not consistent about where you save your data, documents, contracts, contact data etc.. then your employees will have a hard time obtaining the required information, this slows down your business. Don’t let that happen.

If you need advice on what kind of system would suit your need, please feel free to write me a comment.

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