Discussion on:

Sometimes it helps to be a little crazy

Albert Einstein said the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. As anyone who works in IT knows, if a computer is having a problem, sometimes doing the same thing again and again will ultimately make it work. Or at least you'll figure out what the problem is.

I outlined a case just recently playing with a Mac that I detailed in Decision Central:

http://blogs.techrepublic.com.com/decisioncentral/?p=170

What experiences do you have that are like that? And what drives you crazy about working in IT?

Here's the shake of the finger for your comment...

"I wasn?t gong to let a simple Mac beat me"... apparently not so simple after all.

And yes, I drank the six-colored kool-aid.



[Edited for misspelling]

and linux is easy to use.

Mac owners tend to like the hardware just as much as they
like the OS. Although I will admit that I also enjoy opening
the Terminal and using the command line.

I like LINUX as well and it runs nicely on the Mac.

John- try getting a cooling rack (your wife has one in the
kitchen- you cool cookies on them) and putting it under
the laptop. They are lightweight and portable and they
keep a good airflow around the machine.

It's the best $5.00 you can spend toward protecting your
laptop investment.

And I second Cupcake. Macs are not simple!

Hmmm... first time I've ever heard about using a cooling rack to run a laptop on. Interesting solution. Might be a tad uncomfortable!

Generally I use one of those wooden lapdesks for reading and writing. Usually does a fairly good job.

And I know they're really not simple. They're certainly sold like that though, aren't they? Always fun to tweak Mac users a bit over it though.

Thanks for the tip!

I have a dining room table in my home office. Space is at
a premium so my table also serves as a surface I can do
scrapbooking, other art, and sewing on. When not being
used for other things, I have an old Dell lappie and my
Mac on the home network. The cooling racks are
underneath each machine. In fact, there is a cooling rack
for every laptop in the house. The beauty of this
arrangement is that I always have one handy if I want to
make cookies.

Unlike the Targus Ice Pad, the cooling rack just facilitates
what the machine is designed to do anyway. It raises the
machine up from the solid surface by about a half inch.
That way it never grows too warm- we had a Vaio self
destruct due to constant overheating.

From you, I'll take the tweak. I know that you aren't an MS
purist and so no harm intended.

She's got you cold with the cookies. No sane man would question that rationale. Not if he likes cookies.

Where's the drooling Homer Simpson icon when you want it?

.

.

I found using a air can on the fans and openings helps older laptops release the heat problem.
Most laptops get fuzzy bunnys and get plugged after a cleaning 99% work much better

I was crazy once. They put me in a box. The box had Vista in it. I don't like Vista, it makes me go crazy! Crazy? I was crazy once. They put me in a box. The box had Vista in it. I don't like Vista, it makes me go crazy! Crazy? I was crazy once. They put me in a box. The box had Vista in it. I don't like Vista, it makes me go crazy! Crazy? I was crazy once. They put me in a box. The box had Vista in it. I don't like Vista, it makes me go crazy! Crazy? I was crazy once...

I remember when i first started out in desktop support .. I loved getting to the bottom of a problem .. fixing the problem was not enough I had to know exactly what caused it and why it was happening.

so if i did something over and over again with different results that would drive me mad.

last time i was in a desktop support position .. if a software problem took more than 1 hour to diagnose we had to re-image and re-install everything

then just roll a new image out. Why waste my
expensive time with a desktop!

but ironically we were supporting the top executives of the company so their time cost a lot more $$$ and that was the driving factor ... i was told it was cheaper to get them a new machine then waste 2 hours tinkering.

now .... i can appreciate that IT is a support role and not the bread n butter of most businesses. so sometimes what is technically the best is not the right choice

Why do some nails bend?A STEAM DRIVEN NAIL POUNDER!Sir Winston Churchill's two fingers in the air or victory sign was for his two inventions."The zipper and the lawn mower."

And from where you speak.

John, unfortunately, welched on his own premise of insanity.

Welched? I dunno about that. I think our friendly neighborhood Balthor quite nicely proves my point!

Did you post the original article just to bait him?

Pow.

BALTHOR may suspend his explorations into what makes us tick and clean your clock.

If he doesn't get around to it, I may.

Just for a second there I though it said something else....

Like your "t" at the end of "though". That compression was but a slight impediment to your meaning. My algorithm, though, is always in need of work.

I agree with the installation on cold weather. I got a problem on installing Windows XP in a "Jurassic" laptop. The laptop kept on restarting while in the middle of installation.

Solution: I open the air conditioner so the laptop won't get to heated-up.

Cheers

abuse, when I can't figure something out, I get abusive (sometimes). most of the time, the computer works fine afterward.

also threatening the computer works... since I started threatening my XP, it hasn't died since

But I'll pass it along.

Master a low, measured, deadly tone of voice.

Only, though, when you are itching to follow through to oblivion.

Hmmm... I may hafta try that. I find that cursing at the things works sometimes...

Users have a tendency to not understand when you're talking to the machines however. You have to be careful what you say when there's a user around.

http://www.etsy.com/view_listing.php?listing_id=7128646

Works 100%!

Some days the TR artice / page / forum is there, others just a 404 or unavailable. The mind boggles.

Being the only technician working for a computer services business I can tell you, it's either called insanity or just plain thinking outside the box. Technology used to be so much more easier to work on successfully, even down to the MC level. I think that a lot of the problems these days are attributable to poorly written code that we see in op.sys, drivers, patches and the like.

I was working at a bank in Addison, Texas, where the team lead was the type of megalomaniac who would tell a stale joke, laugh at it himself, and then look around to make sure that everybody was laughing in the right way, and this bit of ancient humor (the definition of insanity) was what he chose to start a regular meeting, as though nobody ever heard it before. My experience and arrogance reared up, however, and I pointed out that, in IT, mindless repetition was known as "volume testing". He took offense at my undeniable truth and my contract was very short-lived after that.

I have experienced the same situation on two older HP laptops that would crash during a Windows install. Installing first thing in the morning worked on both. Oh, and both computers worked just fine after getting the OS installed!

It's not just Macs that do it. I had similar issue with Dell D series a little while back when ghosting was quite a common occurance in the office. No end of times I had to restart the image because the machine would hang at random points. Like the article, overheating was noted and after a couple of experiments with a fan at home the resolution was to pop the drive out of the machine and stick it under the aircon in the server room for 15 minutes. Worked every time - insanity busted!

I've always told my customers that computers are usually 90% technology and 10% voodoo, but sometimes they're 90% voodoo and 10% technology. Sometimes you fix things with PFM (Pure F%#@ing Magic).

A number of times, I will fix a PC when I look at it. The user that had the problem cannot recreate it when I look at the PC or when they call me.

Those are the nicest fixes--when I don't have to do anything.

Sometimes all they need is just a trip in the car

Opening e.g. an Excel sheet for read only at the end it asks me if I want to save the changes... How could I've made changes if I'm supposed to just read and nothing else?