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Looking For Quacks In The Pavement

Day: December 12, 2003

  • Past, Present, Future – Round Forty-three

    PAST: What would you consider your first real accomplishment in life? We’re talking about something you put real, conscious effort into, here.

    PRESENT: What are you working on now that you’re hoping to have accomplished soon?

    FUTURE: What accomplishment would you like to be remembered for? (Hint: This is where you could get away with making up something delightfully improbable.)

    And I feel better for having accomplished this round of the PPF while under considerable stress. Huzzah! Comment so we know you were here, please? And as always, link back using the handy-dandy always-updated permalink below. Thank you!
    http://greyduck.net/ppf/

  • Of Windows, Phone Equipment And Troubleshooting

    The fun and excitement of the Enco situation this week has obscured another interesting technical situation. We ordered some new studio telephone equipment that arrived late last week, and today (at long last) we tried to configure its hub.

    Telos’ 2101 “hub” is a computer designed to manage remote phone sets. (This is the machine we thought was blue-screening last week, for those of you who’ve been following along at home.) It’s running Windows NT “Embedded,” which I’ve never seen before.

    So we tried to configure it over the network, which is the only way provided to configure one of these machines. After sorting out some subnet issues we were able to ping the box, but not talk to it via the provided configuration utility.

    “Oh,” Telos’ tech support says, “You have to authenticate to the box first.” Turns out we have to search for the machine by IP address through Windows networking, connect with username and password, then the configuration utility is allowed to do its job. Hmm. We didn’t see that anywhere in the documentation.

    Then things took a turn for the weird. See, it turns out that the provided utility is known for doing weird, bad things to the device it configures. Well, we don’t want that, do we? So we attempt to download updated software via the utility. And we attempt, and we try, and we try, and we attempt, and we try some more. All is for naught, however, and we can’t figure out why. One clue is that the reported software version on the 2101 is more than two years old. It is, in fact, almost the first “released” version of the 2101’s software. This baffles Telos’ tech support guy.

    In an attempt to figure out what’s going on (here comes the cool part) I’m instructed to fire up Netmeeting and use it to connect to the 2101… and upon connection I’m given a desktop to control! That’s right, folks. I was looking at an NT desktop via a Netmeeting instance designed to allow last-ditch system administration on a box that lacks keyboard and video display (but does provide the hookups therefore, go figure).

    To wrap up, it turns out that the software we were trying to connect to and update wasn’t even running on the computer. Telos is going to prep a new CF card with the most-recent software revision and “all that,” which we should receive next week. Supposedly we can just drop that CF card into place and ship them back the one we have, and then we’ll be able to use the web-based administration and (gasp!) actually have working, running software when we boot the device.

    Wow. I’m really glad I didn’t go home immediately after we finished up the Enco project today…

  • How’s your hair? Fine!

    I was in the shower the other morning and for the first time in the years I’ve been using the stuff decided to actually read the instructions on my bottle of Senscience shampoo.

    Now, most of the instructions are fairly normal, but one of the things they want me to do seems… odd. Let me show you. (My commentary is parenthetical.)

    DIRECTIONS: Wet hair thoroughly. (Okay, I’m with you so far.) Apply shampoo. (To the hair, I assume?) Lather well and rinse. (Gotcha.) Repeat if necessary. (It never has been, but I’ll keep that in mind.) Available exclusively at fine salons. (You said WHAT? You want me to get out of the shower right now, head to my nearest “fine salon” and buy a bottle of something I already have? Dripping wet naked? Are you people insane?)

    See what I mean?

    For the record, that last instruction is clearly before the paragraph break, and it shows up at the end of each language’s set of instructions. “Exclusif aux meilleurs salons,” and also “De venta exclusivamente en finos salones de belleza.” I am not making this up, as Dave Barry is wont to say. Bizarre, I tell you.

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