mcbeen.com

Once again, I hit a wall when trying to integrate all my databases here at work. This time, I was stymied by the fact that even though Cisco CCM runs it’s database on MS SQL server, the system does not use native date/time formats. Instead it decides to use the industry standard… number of seconds since January 1st, 1970. So I have a huge long integer. No problem right? I’ll just put it through Crystal’s formula engine. Except I get an error telling me the year is out of range.

Turns out the Crystal Date functions are based upon DAYS, not seconds. and the base date is 1900, not 1970. So, in order to make this work, I need to convert our integer from seconds to days, and then offset our number by 70 years. So what’s the solution?

CDateTime ({call manager date value}/(24*60*60)+(Date (1970, 1, 1)-Date (1900, 1, 1)))

You are welcome.

So… there is this really bad nasty out there right now. Fortunately, the researchers have been busy and have found a couple ways to help dealing with this bad boy… but they forgot one small detail. How in the hell are you going to get registry changes out to the thousands of hosts on your network? Well, here you go. it is a GPO extension that allows you to push registry changes out to all of your machines. You will need to install a client GPO extension on each machine, but this is done through a GPO as well. You can find the client extension in the program files folder after you install the admin software on your machine. I have deployed it here on a mixture of xp and 200o machines without trouble. No reboots either. Drop in your changes and a couple hours from now you can rest a little easier.

Seems Dell has taken the most interesting step of deleting their online forums. The Register has a great quote related to the fiasco:

Part of the problem seems to have stemmed from Jeff Jarvis, a columnist on the San Francisco Examiner, who summed up his anger in a letter to a Dell VP, saying: “This machine is a lemon. Your at-home and complete care service is a fraud. Your customer service is appalling. Your product is dreadful. Your brand is mud.”

I could not sum it up better. And I have evidence to back it up… Just search my Blog.

Well, this stint was short lived. The iPod photo, with it’s lovely features and wonderful screen… is once again going back to it’s creator to work out some serious stamina issues. I was hopefull when it first came back in the mail that it was working better, but a few days with it has shown the same bizzare battery drain issues as before. I called Apple to work things out with them, and they feel it could possibly be a defect in the unit, rather than the battery. That would explain the constant drain problem, and while the playtime is not what it should be. I can’t even get through an 8-hour work day. It looks like the unit will be replaced this time through. I wish they would have spent more time with the unit, or called me when they could not find a problem when they had it last time. They did offer to replace it at a local Apple store, but unfortunately, there are no local stores. 🙁

I had quite a little scare here that I forgot to write about. I bought an iPod photo last month for my trip to china in august. Unfortunately for me… the battery started acting up two weeks after I got it… I started to freak out thinking that maybe my car adaptor was frying batteries or something. It would charge ok, but the charge would only last for 6-8 hours, and if I left it over night it would be deadthe next day. I sent it off to Apple to see what they could come up with. I was quite concerned when the dispatch showed up as returning the original item. But the pack arrived today, and my ipod was inside, fully charged. Yea! Maybe I messed up the charging profile or something. I’m just happy to have my iPod back!

I discovered today, and confirmed with Symantec tech support, that there is a problem running Symantec Client Security (antivirus) on windows XP. Starting a week ago, we began to notice here that random machines were showing up with 20 or more “disconnected” drive letters. I’m not talking about the normal disconnected drives we have had since Windows 95. These phantom drives go no where, and cannot be disconnected or remapped. And they are not nice enough to stay off “normal” drive mappings. If a mapped drive letter is “taken” by this bug, you cannot get it back. And If all driver letters are taken, then you are truly screwed. Attempting to “net use /delete” results in an error telling you the resource cannot be found. Trying “net use \\server_name\drive” results in an error telling you the resource is in use. Fun fun fun.

We tried service packs, hot fixes, deleting profile, and creating new users. No luck what so ever. Luckily, after some brainstorming, I decided to try removing Symantec Client Security v10. This corrected the issue.

Symantec at this point does not know why this problem is occurring, or when a fix may be found. The current estimate is for MR1 in 4-8 weeks.

The Red Ferret Journal seems to have broken a story that showed up on slashdot earlier last week. It’s the printer I have always dreamed of building… only better and crazy fast. This thing is a monster. Some quick math by Bad[k] comes up with a consumption of about 1 liter of ink per hour… and that come to about 9000-12000 pages of full color prints.

DPReview has an interesting article today about a news lens tech. I still don’t fully understand what they are doing, but it looks like an active/dynamic lens. Their description leads me to believe it’s transmition rate is not wonderful.

I got THREE customer surveys in the mail today. JOY! Apple, dell, Veritas… Where to begin. Lets start with dell shall we? I rated the overall call highly, but added this in the comments:

Tech support most of the time is very knowledgeable. The problem is getting anything fixed. I’m treated as though my problem does not matter, or that they simply cannot authorize repair even though I am under warrantee. To add on top of it, most of the time I get used/broken parts that make the problem worse. I buy a new machine, and then when I get a problem a week later, I get used parts. Why would I want to be given parts that failed for someone else? It would be different if I was out of warrantee and was paying on my own dime. In my cases I find it extremely insulting. I have stopped using Dell service parts because of failures after repair. Most parts fail within months after installation. I will not purchase from Dell in the future, and I highly recommend that others avoid them as well until these issues are corrected.

Veritas was a little different because while they are very helpful on things they understand, they are evasive on issues they do not. I still have yet to get satisfaction on my issue related to cataloging my tapes… after being told to delete my catalogs. They have not seen the issue before, and have been slow to admit they have no idea what to do about it. I hated them neutral

Apple was a perfect example of how to handle tech support. I called them as you know about my dead iPod. They referred me to the RMA site for iPods. I filled out the paperwork. They mailed me a box. I mailed it back. Then I waited… About 5 days after I sent it in I got confirmation of receipt. Then I got notification of work. Then I was told a new unit was being ordered. That was last Thursday. Today, I have a brand spanking new iPod. Beautiful. I then receive a survey. Pretty sweet. This is how dell USED to be and how HP is TODAY.

I have yet to have a problem with HP/Compaq tech support. Considering how often I call them it is amazing. Server, Network, PDA, Desktop support is all good with them. I don’t know about consumer though. Never tried that line.

So, I called up dell to complain about the part they sent me. I am sill very concerned about the condition of the replacement drive they sent me. Their explanation was rather odd.

You see, there was this lawsuit relating to warrantee repair. Some guy was sent parts that were supposed to be new, but he felt they were not ‘new’ because they had set on the shelf for a while. So now we label everything as refurbished.

This might have held water, except for a few facts. The drive supposedly came direct from the manufacturer, but it was not sealed in plastic or enclosed in a static shielding bag. The drive was dusty, and showed physical signs of use.

dell swears up and down that they do not send out parts that have not been recertified by the manufacturer. I might be a little more understanding if this same thing had not been going on for years now. This company needs to wake up and stop cheating and lying to its customers. If I had the authority here, I would get an attorney. So far my employer does not want to deal with it. At least we stopped purchasing from them.

As of today, the drive is still online.