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Submission + - How do you diplomatically avoid after-hours tech support? 1

An anonymous reader writes: At the end of a typical day I often come home from my Windows/Linux DevOps job annoyed that I've had to work around another bunch of Microsoft bugs, or figure out how something works contrary to the MSDN documentation, to be greeted with someone asking "Can you help me with my [Windows|Internet Explorer|Printing] problem?"

My wife does accounts payable for a living — if somebody wants help with debt collection or a tax return they don't ask her to help, they call a debt collection agency or an accountant. My father-in-law sells pipes and fittings to industrial/manufacturing businesses — if taps are leaking or a toilet is broken nobody asks him to help, they call a plumber. My brother-in-law and sister-in-law are both serving police officers — if someone sees an abandoned car or there's a loud party after 10pm they don't call on them to sort it out, they call the local police station.

So why is there an expectation on people like us of "Oh you're into computers, why can't you help me with this?" Why do people think you're an asshole if you say no?

Obligatory XKCD reference.

Comment Re:Virtual Machines (Score 1) 212

Fortunately RS232 is still well supported via PCI-e cards and USB, so you can just run the old system in a virtual machine on modern hardware to avoid many of the problems associated with maintaining old gear.

Apparently you've never actually used a USB Serial Adapter or you'd know what a pain in the ass it is to get one that works properly, even with simple things like the Console port on a Cisco ASA router. We gave up after trying about six different types from various suppliers and instead revived an ancient Dell notebook that had a physical RS-232C port on it. Lord help us if the Dell one day decided to go belly-up.

Comment Re:For charity? (Score 2) 232

+1

Folding@Home and SETI@Home have been popular with people wanting to advance science, I'm sure that mining for charities (i.e.: BitCoin@Home) would take off with the OxFam-style crowds. I'm dead against companies building mining into software that's supposed to be doing something else - that takes the decision away from users and is nothing better than a botnet for scammers/spammers.

Comment Re:Serial and calling home (Score 3, Insightful) 687

This, plus if you're intending to limit the number of concurrent installs for your product *also* allow for a given install to be DE-registered:

  1. provide a de-register menu/setting using the same "call home" service - people periodically upgrade or replace their machines, or
  2. using a web interface on your site to delete a registration - sometimes machines crash and can't be restored from backups.

Comment Re:Is it fixed? (Score 1) 247

These companies have a responsibility to the people whose information they hold.

Yes, they have a responsibility but that doesn't make them responsible.

This is exactly why I don't buy anything any more from sites that don't support escrow services. This happened about ten years ago, but... a couple of weeks after using my visa card to buy a book on Xbox hacking my card details were used to buy about US$500 worth of stuff from the Harvard University book store. It took me about 9 weeks to get my money back from the bank, I had to cancel my card, etc.. Being my only credit card at the time it was a huge inconvenience and I was still liable for interest on the funds despite it being a fraudulent purchase (wtf?). Nowadays if a site requires a credit card to purchase something I'll shop elsewhere. And forget about putting correct birth dates and tax file numbers online.

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