Re: Well, that's unexpected (Speedball reboot)

On 11/5/2024 7:53 AM, Spalls Hurgenson wrote:

On Tue, 5 Nov 2024 09:32:10 -0000 (UTC), vallor <vallor@cultnix.org>
wrote:
 

On Mon, 04 Nov 2024 10:34:44 -0500, Spalls Hurgenson wrote:
>

On Sun, 3 Nov 2024 16:27:15 -0800, Dimensional Traveler
<dtravel@sonic.net> wrote:
>

On 11/3/2024 2:33 PM, Zaghadka wrote:

On Sun, 03 Nov 2024 10:39:13 -0500, in comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.action,
Spalls Hurgenson wrote:
>

I never had such fun experiences. It was always the usual nonsense;
program crashes with error (but never bother to read what the error
message said), or problems caused by malware, or dead hardware.
Usually the worst was when the user fucked himself (who needs
c:\windows\system32 anyway?) but it was all pretty ordinary in its
stupidity.

>
I think my most memorable support experience was a woman in accounting
(or was it HR?) who was complaining that her column of numbers, from a
database import, wasn't summing in Excel. I banged my head against the
wall for 10-15 minutes trying the usual stuff until it occured to me
to ask her to click the column header and check the "Format..."
dialogue. Sure enough, the entire column was formatted as "text."
(*facepalm*)
>
YOU CAN'T SUM STRINGS.
>
To this day, I don't know if it was the import software or PEBKAC.
>
My boss said, "I never would have thought of that."
>

When in doubt its PEBKAC.  That said Excel can be very difficult to use
sometimes.  It simply has too _much_ functionality, it can do so many
things that 99.9% of users would never even think of using let alone
actually try.  So sometimes it makes it difficult to use the simple
everyday functions.

>
It's not just that it has so much functionality, it's that Microsoft
made it so easy (comparatively) to use that even a high-school intern
can create a script that (mostly) does what it needs to. And then those
hacked-together scripts -after years of use- suddenly become essential
business logic.
>
     [It's sort of the business equivalent of XKCD's dependency
      meme (https://xkcd.com/2347/) except nobody actually maintains the
      project or even has any idea its there. And there are a lot more of
      them than the one]
>
Eventually, one of these scripts breaks and nobody has any idea how the
data it output was created (because nobody remembers the script, or
whose Excel spreadsheet runs it) and when you do find it, nobody knows
exactly what it's doing or why.
>
And that's even before you get into the fact that waaaaay too many
business "databases" are just oversized lists in Excel...
>
But if you really want to bitch about tech support, I just got one word
for you. But be prepared: it's a very, very scary word.
>
>
PRINTERS.

>
Aaaah!  Halloween is over! ;)
>
Seriously, though -- that's mainly a Windows problem.  Printing
is fairly pain-free on Linux and Apple, thanks to CUPS.  Just check
the compatibility matrix, and make sure you have a printer that announces
itself with Bonjour/Avahi/Zeroconf/Aloha/whatever it's called now.

 It's not just Windows. Modern printer hardware is absolute shit.
They're cheaply made and all those thin-plastic bits can break just
looking at it.
 But I think even blaming Windows isn't entirely fair. The default
drivers that come with Windows are usually fine. It's when you install
the bullshit OEM drivers (you know, the ones that now weigh in at
gigabytes) that you really start seeing problems. Of course, these
drivers are almost always Windows-only, so Windows gets the blame.
 And all that before you get into the OEM shenanigins, like DRM on ink
cartridges, or forcing you to buy a whole new tray of cartridges if
you're just out of black, or nonsense like HP's attempt at ink
subscription plans.
 

Scanners, now.  That can be challenging.  I bought a wifi scanner
without first checking for SANE support, and discovered I can only
scan from it with USB.  (Not _that_ big a deal because it replaces
another USB scanner, but I was hoping for the wifi.)

 Too many printers these days -especially to SOHO customers- are
multi-function scanner/printer/fax machines, so often you'll have the
fun of printers and scanner problems all in one machine!
 

Oh, you do NOT want me to get into all the functions our office "copiers" have.  Scanner/printer/fax is just the _start_.
--
I've done good in this world. Now I'm tired and just want to be a cranky dirty old man.