Monday, September 26
Monday Monday
(The Mammas and the Papas to start the week)
Ok, didn't have to drop the boy at school today. Got up a little later than usual, 6:00 AM. Had a shower. Forgot to shave in the shower. Shaved in the sink.
Rounded up my gear and hit the road about 7:10 AM. Not sure what to expect for traffic. It was really foggy, but traffic was quite light. Got to work in 30 minutes.
There is a sticky note on the door from one of our customers, they want us ASAP to set their network back up for them. I know that they share a suite with another of our customers, so I grab come coffee and down my bran muffins and head out.
Broke a USB software dongle on one of the systems as I was putting it back under it's desk. The guy who knows how to get a new one won't be in till Tuesday. I was able to put the key back together and get the user working, but still felt stupid.
After about 2 hours I had both customers back up and running.
Back to the office. Have three new tickts. One is down on the second floor, they can't log into their server. Went down. Looks like we changed thier Admin password and didn't tell them. Gave them the new password and didn't bill them for my time.
Next ticket is on the third floor. The customer cannot log into their server. This time it is because they are typing the password wrong. They are a customer that does not believe in upgrading, ever, so their server is NT 4.0 with Exchange 5.5 and all their desktops are old Compaq Deskpros with NT 4.0 Pro. It took a long time to troubleshoot all their problems, but finally figured out that Norton A/V and Exchnage 5.5 are not playing nice together. Band-aided the problem. Opened a new ticket to follow up on this problem later. Also opened a ticket to run by the company owner's house later in the day to check out his home computer.
Next ticket. A local retail store has a Linksys router that has been crapping out for months, and it looks like the sucker finally died from the hurricane power surges. Picked up a new D-Link router from stock and headed out to the customer site. Took about an hour and a half to figure out all the router settings, as no one before me had done a good job of documenting the configurationl.
It's about 1 PM, and I need lunch. Stopped at the Galleria and ate at Chick-Fil-A. Forgot school is out today, there are kids running around all over the place.
After lunch I headed to that customer house to check things out. Lame ticket, but it was a billable hour that only took 15 minutes. Everyting there was just fine.
Next, headed out to my customer whose home office was in New Orleans. Two of their computers cannot attach to their server from New Orleans or their accounting application. I rebooted them, and after the login scripts ran, they worked fine. Another lame ticket, but another billable hour that didn't take an hour.
Back to the office for some time entry. As I was leaving I noticed one of the guy's keyboards needed some adjustment, as I owed him for something he did a couple of weeks ago. So, with the aid of an additonal keyboard, I set the top row of keys to read, "CARLOSYOUSUCK" instead of "QWERTYUIOP[]\". One of the other guys had a digital camera at the office, so I should have a picture to post here soon.
Headed home about 6 PM. Checked the mail, we didn't get mail delivered Thur-Sat, so I was expecting an onslaught of mail. Only three items. Guess we will get more later in the week.
Had frozen burritos and guacamole with chips for dinner. Downed another of those Miller High Life beers. Watched the King of The Hill and Simpsons and Lost from the Tivo. Played a little Halo 2. It's 11 PM now, I'm going to take a shot of insulin and hit the sheets. Wonder how much shit I will get done tomorrow.
Ok, didn't have to drop the boy at school today. Got up a little later than usual, 6:00 AM. Had a shower. Forgot to shave in the shower. Shaved in the sink.
Rounded up my gear and hit the road about 7:10 AM. Not sure what to expect for traffic. It was really foggy, but traffic was quite light. Got to work in 30 minutes.
There is a sticky note on the door from one of our customers, they want us ASAP to set their network back up for them. I know that they share a suite with another of our customers, so I grab come coffee and down my bran muffins and head out.
Broke a USB software dongle on one of the systems as I was putting it back under it's desk. The guy who knows how to get a new one won't be in till Tuesday. I was able to put the key back together and get the user working, but still felt stupid.
After about 2 hours I had both customers back up and running.
Back to the office. Have three new tickts. One is down on the second floor, they can't log into their server. Went down. Looks like we changed thier Admin password and didn't tell them. Gave them the new password and didn't bill them for my time.
Next ticket is on the third floor. The customer cannot log into their server. This time it is because they are typing the password wrong. They are a customer that does not believe in upgrading, ever, so their server is NT 4.0 with Exchange 5.5 and all their desktops are old Compaq Deskpros with NT 4.0 Pro. It took a long time to troubleshoot all their problems, but finally figured out that Norton A/V and Exchnage 5.5 are not playing nice together. Band-aided the problem. Opened a new ticket to follow up on this problem later. Also opened a ticket to run by the company owner's house later in the day to check out his home computer.
Next ticket. A local retail store has a Linksys router that has been crapping out for months, and it looks like the sucker finally died from the hurricane power surges. Picked up a new D-Link router from stock and headed out to the customer site. Took about an hour and a half to figure out all the router settings, as no one before me had done a good job of documenting the configurationl.
It's about 1 PM, and I need lunch. Stopped at the Galleria and ate at Chick-Fil-A. Forgot school is out today, there are kids running around all over the place.
After lunch I headed to that customer house to check things out. Lame ticket, but it was a billable hour that only took 15 minutes. Everyting there was just fine.
Next, headed out to my customer whose home office was in New Orleans. Two of their computers cannot attach to their server from New Orleans or their accounting application. I rebooted them, and after the login scripts ran, they worked fine. Another lame ticket, but another billable hour that didn't take an hour.
Back to the office for some time entry. As I was leaving I noticed one of the guy's keyboards needed some adjustment, as I owed him for something he did a couple of weeks ago. So, with the aid of an additonal keyboard, I set the top row of keys to read, "CARLOSYOUSUCK" instead of "QWERTYUIOP[]\". One of the other guys had a digital camera at the office, so I should have a picture to post here soon.
Headed home about 6 PM. Checked the mail, we didn't get mail delivered Thur-Sat, so I was expecting an onslaught of mail. Only three items. Guess we will get more later in the week.
Had frozen burritos and guacamole with chips for dinner. Downed another of those Miller High Life beers. Watched the King of The Hill and Simpsons and Lost from the Tivo. Played a little Halo 2. It's 11 PM now, I'm going to take a shot of insulin and hit the sheets. Wonder how much shit I will get done tomorrow.
Number of people who will never get their time back from reading this page:
