It has been a while since I have had a customer rant on here, I have tried to be “professional” but this one ended up tapdancing on my last nerve. We are talking two days dealing with a ten minute task.

We have one customer who requires a SSL Certificate on their website, but like to try and save money and get their own certificate instead of paying for one of ours. They then pay us to install it for them. This normally ends up when you add our install fee, plus their certificate fee, a saving of around £10. But it is still a saving (Normally). 

So our fun starts on a Monday morning, at one minute past our phones going live for the day, when we received an email.

Customer “OUR SITE HAS BEEN DOWN FOR AGES, I HAVE EMAILED YOU. INSTALL OUR CERTIFICATE!!!!”

Now, as a pointer to you all, this is never the best way to get anyone in IT to do what you want. We IT people tend to be a special kind of person who will move annoying people to the bottom of the work queue. Read the BOFH before dealing with IT people. This counts double so for a Monday morning, especially if you have not emailed in any requests, or you only just sent it and it has not reached its destination yet.

Me “Oh, we have no email from you yet, did you just send it?”
Customer “Our site has been down for days. We urgently need the certificate installing”
Me “ok, I can see an email from you. I will install that now”

 Well. Not only did he email with a subject line of URGENT, and was phoning up chasing up his request that he had only just sent. And if their site is so important, why wait until the certificate runs out before replacing it.

But, I am nice (shut up! I try) so I go to install the certificate and find out they only sent a windows certificate for a Linux server.

Me “can you send the PEM apache certificate and key”
Customer “Sent”
Me “No, you just sent a PEM certificate. We also need the key”
Customer “here you go”
Me “No, that is just the certificate with a different name”
Customer “Try these”
Me “again, that is multiple zip files all containing the certificate with different formats. we need the key you signed the request with”
Customer “what is a key?”

This back and too went over several dozen emails, and phone calls. I even had to explain how certificate requests are created. I explained the software used, and eventually I got enough files in different formats I was able to generate a certificate and key. So I install it, check the site and report it is up.

Customer Phones  “OUR SITE IS STILL BROKEN!!!”
Me “Really? I can see it is running fine.”
Customer “The certificate is not installed. re do it!”
Me “I can see your website is live and certificate works.”
Customer “NO IT IS NOT!!! IT IS AFFECTING US!!!!”
Me “What are you seeing? I can see it is fine, I can also see you got a three month free certificate, so we will need to install a new one in three months.

At this point the customer emails me a screenshot showing the certificate errors he is getting. And I can see that he is on a different site, a subdomain that is not their website.

Me “That is not your website. That is a subdomain you need to install the certificate on that. We only look after your website”
Customer “Here is a copy of the certificate, install it”
Me “That will not fix that site, we only host your www website.”
Customer “This is affecting our business. Fix the pointers and certificate”
Me “We do not manage your DNS, we do not manage your domain, we do not host or manage your subdomains, we only host your public facing website which is working.”

I figured that was the end of it.

Tuesday morning, while checking my work emails I see several from the Customer yelling that their company is being strongly affected by this issue, their site is still down and it is affecting them. He has even copied another IT company in to offer us help fixing the certificate issue. I email to ask in what way is his site affected, I can see it is ok. 

Customer “The certificate is still broken. the other IT company says to check your pointers”
Me “What pointers? your public website is fine.”
Customer “The site is down we need this fixed now, it is damaging our business!”
Me “is this your public facing website or the subdomain site?”
Customer “The public site is fine. You need to check the pointers. Godaddy says the certificate is not installed, and the site is down”
Me “we do not manage your DNS. we do not manage your pointers. we do not manage your email. we do not manage your domains. we do not manage anything other then your public facing website.”

 Two full days I have been dealing with this guy, trying to get him to understand that his issue is nothing to do with us, has never been anything to do with us, and he needs to talk to whoever manages that for them.

I swear there is stupidity, but this level needs a need classification. 

Uber-Stupidity!

When its a Bully.

The Internet is full of terms and names that date way back into the mists of Internet-Time, when all these sites were tree’s and the Internet Denizens roamed and grazed in peace. A Time when you could use a term like “Hacker” or “Spod” or “Newbie” and people would know exactly what it meant.

But alas, we now live in a time where the Net has been bulldozed down to make way for cheap malls, and playgrounds, The Denizens have scattered and hide in reservations trying to maintain and uphold the rich history of their land.

But keeping hold of the True meaning of Net-Speak, Terms and names is getting harder and harder as the general media keep doing poorly researched articles misusing Net-Terms. And then the newer Net-Denizens think that’s the real meaning of the terms, and Ignorance of the poorly researched articles is propagated.

Reporters, stop jumping on terms for the wow factor to increase the affect of your poor articles. Take for instance the term “Hacker” it used to mean something, a badge of respect implying a certain level of knowledge or skill, but now? All the press have been on about for the last year or so is the “Phone Hacking Scandals” Hacking? Some people dialled the voice-mail phone number and listened to recorded messages, something anyone can do because no one ever sets their password. Really you think someone who can’t use a computer but who can make a phone call is a Hacker?

Learn the meaning of the words you use….

Now we have loads and loads about “Trolls” Now the Denizens will tell you something along the lines of someone posting a comment/message/etc in the attempt to catch someone into a fight, flame war, or to simply hijack a legitimate thread/conversation. (Based on the term “Trolling”: Trolling may describe the fishing technique of slowly dragging a lure or baited hook from a moving boat”), the best way to deal with these people is to ignore them because without attention the go away, hence the oft used phrase “do not feed the trolls”

But, the popular press has decided the name Troll relates to anyone bullying others on-line. So if someone gets a death threat they are being trolled, Err. No, they are being bullied and threatened and the person doing the threats should be hit with the full force of the law for bullying or threatening behaviour!

There are calls for new laws to be made to deal with “trolls” but WHY? we already have laws against people making threats? ignore the fact its online, deal with the base crime as if the person had sent them a note with the threat. Giving the Bullies the name Troll is making it seem like a lesser crime, as if “Oh they only threatened them online”

Its like stealing a car and driving it around really fast damaging the car, we call it “Joy Riding”? that makes it sound fun and ok. It should be called “theft, vandalism, etc”

WORDS HAVE POWER

So can we please start referring to things and people for what they really are, and stop trying to mutate existing net-terms because it makes better print in a newspaper story?

They are not Trolls.

They are Cowards, Bully’s.

They are guilty of threatening behaviour.

Lets stop giving them a badge of honour. I have heard people boast “Oh I trolled X good”

Lets call them what they are, Lets hold them up to the light of day and say “you are a bully” and deal with them accordingly.

P.S.

DO NOT FEED THE TROLLS.

Reposted, because with the state that Social Media and the Internet have gotten itself into, it needs to be resaid.

Trolls are just cowardly bullies. If you find yourself being bullied online:-

Speak out! – Tell Someone – Failing that, reach out to me on any Social Media, I will happily help.

Every so often I like to dip my toe into the world of IT Support, to remind myself how glad I am that I do not work in that field.

I recently checked the support departments ticketing system and spotted someone with email issues. I checked into the issue and found the following.

Company has two domains, one with us and one with someone else. Now one person at that company is trying to send emails from Domain 1 (Not with us) using Domain 2 (with us) domain servers.  I let them know, and sat back happy to have done my good dead for the year.

Only the Company did not understand, so emailed back asking for more information, I explained again using smaller words. They still did not understand, so they got their IT company to contact us. (I get to play now). Now their IT person simply demanded that we reset everything how it used to be when it just worked.

I explained that nothing had changed our end, we do not support their email client setup, and again stated what the error was.  This confused their IT person who then over 12 emails kept stating he understood but there was an email issue now that did not used to exist, so I needed to reset it back to how it used to be.

I looked up the IT guy, and he worked for an actual IT Company that advertises that they are experts in all fields of IT, and especially in cyber attacks, fighting off hackers, recovery from hacks, everything. So I tried again and used really small words. that the customer was sending emails from a domain we have nothing to do with through our servers which does not work. They need to send emails from the server associated with their domain. I then spent the next half hour laughing loudly when this super qualified IT expert responded.

“To clarify my customer does not have to use an email server as they using 365”

I had to explain to an IT expert that 365 setup on outlook still uses servers, Microsoft email servers. And if they send the emails with the Microsoft 365 servers, and not ours then the emails will work.

Do modern day IT experts get their knowledge and qualifications in the bottom of a cereal box, like we older ones got our Cap’n Crunch whistles?

After four years in the role of Provincial Webmaster, I have decided to stand down for the position.

It has been a fun four years, I got the Province onto Twitter, YouTube, etc. I wrote a new website for the Province, and spread our news over Social Media increasing the good publicity for the Province. It has been a fun four years, but it is now time for a new challenge. 

So I have stepped down from the role.

I can now officially announce the news that I am now the New Webmaster for the Provincial Grand Lodge of North Wales.

The previous Webmaster reached out to me a short while ago to test the waters on if I was interested in taking over the role from him. He had been looking after the site, since he fire wrote it a LONG-LONG-Time ago. After discussing the requirements of the role, and the amount of work involved, I agreed to put my name forward.

So an interview was arranged with the Provincial Grand Secretary, and the current Webmaster, the interview went well. I knew it had gone well because it ended at the bar with the Provincial Secretary getting the drinks in.

And now, it is all official, I have formally accepted the role and have taken over the running of the sites.

It will be 100% official at the Provincial AGM when the PGM thanks David for all his work, and welcomes me as part of the team.

I thought I would take a minute out of my busy hectic day to give a shout out to all my fellow under-appreciated systems administrators out there in their dark offices on this the 16th Annual System Administrator Appreciation Day.

Consider all the work your sys.admin does behind the scene, keeping your network connection running, your email not being overly flooded with spam, your IM’s running at a decent speed, and being there to fix a server outage at 3am just so some people can go look at the funny picture you uploaded.  Consider how often this creature gets thanked on his day to day fight against spammers, hackers, lUsers, Software Updates, etc Consider this, then be happy that this IT Hero gets one day a year when (s)he gets appreciated.

So everyone, go take a coffee, cake, or gift to your sysadmin now. or at least drop by their hidy hole to say thanks.

For more information on this IMPORTANT festive day go read THIS SITE

For those about the Insane Asylum Myself & Demopengu are fond of Cake, Beer, & Chocolate (Oh and anything with glowing blue LED’s) !!!

P.S.

Consider this as well. Your Friendly SysAdmin has access to your email, they know what you have been doing and to who. They see all the packets of data traveling back and forth from your machine, seeing when you are working and when your just browsing ebay/facebook/etc, They know what websites you’ve visited (and can change your history to show you been looking at p0rn in the office), Stuff you may not want made public.  They control your password, your login name, your email address, how much of the networks bandwidth you can use, what IM clients are banned, and a million other things that help you through the working day.  Consider this well, and remember, “Its only one day a year!“

*Phone rungs*

Me: “Good afternoon, Insane Asylum!”

Caller: “Hi. can I speak to Joan Crawshore please.”

Me: “Who? Sorry no one of that name here.”

Caller: “Sorry it’s who I have down as a contact there, well who can I talk to about changing your power supplier.”

Me: “Humm. that would be a Dave Jones”

Caller: “Can I speak to them please?”

Me: “Sorry, He’s on holiday atm. He’ll be back in 2 weeks.”

Caller: “Thanks, I’ll call back then.“

Two weeks later :-

*Phone rungs*

Me: “Good afternoon, Insane Asylum!”

Caller: “Hi. can I speak to Dave Jones please.”

Me: “Who? Sorry no one of that name here.”

Caller: “Sorry it’s who I have down as a contact there, well who can I talk to about changing your power supplier.”

Me: “Humm. that would be a Thomas Evens”

Caller: “Can I speak to them please?”

Me: “Sorry, He’s on holiday atm. He’ll be back in 2 weeks.”

Caller: “Thanks, I’ll call back then.“

Two weeks later :-

*Phone rungs*

Me: “Good afternoon, Insane Asylum!”

Caller: “Hi. can I speak to Thomas Evenss please.”

Me: “Who? Sorry no one of that name here.”

Caller: “Sorry it’s who I have down as a contact there, well who can I talk to about changing your power supplier.”

Me: “Humm. that would be a Susan Jenkins”

Caller: “Can I speak to them please?”

Me: “Sorry, She’s on holiday atm. She’ll be back in 2 weeks.”

Caller: “Thanks, I’ll call back then.“

This may have been going on for several months now….

I’m slowly running out of made up names.

So the other day the Support Guys were a bit confused over a request in the Ticketing system.

Subject: Website URL’s

Please could you set the following websites to point to IP 192.168.123.2

www.******.co.uk
www.******.co.uk
www.******..co.uk
www.******..co.uk
www.******..co.uk
www.******..co.uk

******= to protect identity.

The more observant amongst you will have noticed that is a Local IP address, and if Websites are pointed at it they will not work for anyone else in the world. So We queried the IP, and asked them to double check.

Imagine our surprise when they responded telling us that was what their IT company was saying needed to be done, or they would not be able to create email accounts on the exchange server.

Yes. Apparently an IT form needed websites pointing to a 192.168. Local address before they could create new accounts on an Exchange server on a different IP range/network.

This leads us to a conflict of interest.

Professionalism V “The Customer is always Right”

When its a Bully.

The Internet is full of terms and names that date way back into the mists of Internet-Time, when all these sites were tree’s and the Internet Denizens roamed and grazed in peace. A Time when you could use a term like “Hacker” or “Spod” or “Newbie” and people would know exactly what it meant.

But alas, we now live in a time where the Net has been bulldozed down to make way for cheap malls, and playgrounds, The Denizens have scattered and hide in reservations trying to maintain and uphold the rich history of their land.

But keeping hold of the True meaning of Net-Speak, Terms and names is getting harder and harder as the general media keep doing poorly researched articles misusing Net-Terms. And then the newer Net-Denizens think that’s the real meaning of the terms, and Ignorance of the poorly researched articles is propagated.

Reporters, stop jumping on terms for the wow factor to increase the affect of your poor articles. Take for instance the term “Hacker” it used to mean something, a badge of respect implying a certain level of knowledge or skill, but now? All the press have been on about for the last year or so is the “Phone Hacking Scandals” Hacking? Some people dialled the voice-mail phone number and listened to recorded messages, something anyone can do because no one ever sets their password. Really you think someone who can’t use a computer but who can make a phone call is a Hacker?

Learn the meaning of the words you use….

Now we have loads and loads about “Trolls” Now the Denizens will tell you something along the lines of someone posting a comment/message/etc in the attempt to catch someone into a fight, flame war, or to simply hijack a legitimate thread/conversation. (Based on the term “Trolling”: Trolling may describe the fishing technique of slowly dragging a lure or baited hook from a moving boat”), the best way to deal with these people is to ignore them because without attention the go away, hence the oft used phrase “do not feed the trolls”

But, the popular press has decided the name Troll relates to anyone bullying others on-line. So if someone gets a death threat they are being trolled, Err. No, they are being bullied and threatened and the person doing the threats should be hit with the full force of the law for bullying or threatening behaviour!

There are calls for new laws to be made to deal with “trolls” but WHY? we already have laws against people making threats? ignore the fact its online, deal with the base crime as if the person had sent them a note with the threat. Giving the Bullies the name Troll is making it seem like a lesser crime, as if “Oh they only threatened them online”

Its like stealing a car and driving it around really fast damaging the car, we call it “Joy Riding”? that makes it sound fun and ok. It should be called “theft, vandalism, etc”

WORDS HAVE POWER

So can we please start referring to things and people for what they really are, and stop trying to mutate existing net-terms because it makes better print in a newspaper story?

They are not Trolls.

They are Cowards, Bully’s.

They are guilty of threatening behaviour.

Lets stop giving them a badge of honour. I have heard people boast “Oh I trolled X good”

Lets call them what they are, Lets hold them up to the light of day and say “you are a bully” and deal with them accordingly.

P.S.

DO NOT FEED THE TROLLS.