When The Blind Leads The Blind....

I was tasked to check on an application for one ofour endusers. It's public knowledge that this so-called application is considered orphan since it has never been approved by the company, most of the functions does not really work, and lastly, the person who created it left with all the source codes. All the elements of disaster attached to it yet somehow, this application still end up being place in a semi-production environment and is used by a lot of folks.

Don't get me wrong. The application does work to a certain level. And the comfort level of the people using this application is really high. That's why we have to provide support to it even though there's no documentation nor do we have the ability to maintain it. The logic that's in place for this application was the same as it was when it was built 5 years ago. So much have change then and I think these endusers are just putting band-aids around it so they can still use this application.

A couple of weeks ago, a project was opened to make changes to the application requiring a different data source. This opened up a can of worms. I was able to get the required data in an extract file but loading it to this orphan application is another thing. It's so proprietary that I can't even create a test environment for it. The only way to test and validate the new data source is to load directly to a production environment.

After talking with the enduser on my concerns, we ended up agreeing that we will simulate a one day production update with the new data to authenticate its integrity. If it doesn't look right, we restore the last clean run from the night before. At least we have a plan in place. But it's really uncomfortable delaying the inevitable. One day, a new application will have to be created to replace this one. At least that's what I suggested the first time. For now, we have to work with what we have.

I say, if the blind leads the blind, get out of their way.

Rumpelstiltskin

The tale of Rumpelstiltskin was part of the collection of the Grimms Brothers who published it in their edition of Children's and Household Tales. The story goes that a miller lied to the king that his daughter can spin gold out of straw. The king then had the miller's daughter locked in the palace's tower so she can spin gold for three days. If she can't she would be executed.

The daughter was resigned to her fate of dying when the dwarf showed up and bartered for her necklace and ring in exchange for spinning gold for the first two nights. On the third night, she has nothing more to trade so the dwarf asked her for her first born child to which she agree out of desperation. The king was so impressed that he ended up marrying the miller's daughter.

A few years passed and the miller's daughter gave birth to her first child. The dwarf soon re-appeared to ask for his payment. Since she's the queen now, she wanted the dwarf to ask for anything else but the dwarf was keen on getting the child. At this time, the dwarf gave the queen 3 days and 3 tries to guess his name. Long story short, someone in the kingdom heard the dwarf singing his name and informed the queen about this. The queen ended up guessing the dwarf's name and keeping the child.

I think this was one of the best fairy tales I've read when I was growing up. Now, that I'm more mature, I sense a lot of trepidation on my part. What was the dwarf thinking asking for a child? Just thinking about all the diapers that has to be changed and the duties associated with caring for a child.

I think it would be funny to see the dwarf returing the child in a couple of hours.

Ebay Song

Yeah
A used ... pink bathrobe
A rare ... mint snowglobe
A Smurf ... TV tray
I bought on eBay

My house ... is filled with this crap
Shows up in bubble wrap
Most every day
What I bought on eBay

Tell me why (I need another pet rock)
Tell me why (I got that Alf alarm clock)
Tell me why (I bid on Shatner's old toupee)
They had it on eBay

I'll buy ... your knick-knack
Just check ... my feedback
"A++!" they all say
They love me on eBay

Gonna buy (a slightly-damaged golf bag)
Gonna buy (some Beanie Babies, new with tag)
(From some guy) I've never met in Norway
Found him on eBay

I am the type who is liable to snipe you
With two seconds left to go, whoa
Got Paypal or Visa, what erev'll please
As long as I've got the dough

I'll buy ... your tchotchkes
Sell me ... your watch, please
I'll buy (I'll buy, I'll buy, I'll buy ...)
I'm highest bidder now

(Junk keeps arriving in the mail)
(From that worldwide garage sale) (Dukes Of Hazard ashtray)
(Hey! A Dukes Of Hazard ashtray)
Oh yeah ... (I bought it on eBay)

Wanna buy (a PacMan Fever lunchbox)
Wanna buy (a case on vintage tube socks)
Wanna buy (a Kleenex used by Dr. Dre, Dr. Dre)
(Found it on eBay)

Wanna buy (that Farrah Fawcet poster)
(Pez dispensers and a toaster)
(Don't know why ... the kind of stuff you'd throw away)
(I'll buy on eBay)
What I bought on eBay-y-y-y-y-y-y-y-y-y

Runescape - Training in Lumbridge

New players always start from Lumbridge. This is the place where it all begins after the new player leaves the training island. They have the option of going off and exploring the Runescape world or they can stay close here and earn more experience points by utilizing the safety of this place.

There are a lot of resources outside the Lumbridge castle. There are training assistants that will provide players with training equipment like shields, swords, bows, arrows and runes. There's also a river nearby where one can fish and a lot of trees around. Just across the river is a cow pen where one can earn a lot of points for a lot of different skills. It's a question of what experience points does the player want to work on.

New players have to be wary also of other players scamming them here. Lumbridge is well known for newbies to come in so existing players come in here and try to dupe out new players. So if you're a new player and another high level player wants you to do something in exchange for something, be wary and use your common sense.

If it's too good to be true, it probably is.

Hewlett-Packard Suck!

I have always avoided HP products until about 5 years ago when I have to get an All-In-One Printer. Against my better judgment, I purchased an OfficeJet G85 printer and have used the product without any issues until a couple of weeks ago where the scanner component started malfunctioning. Turns out that the only 'fix' HP has was to re-install the drivers. Using the HP supplied uninstaller, I was able to uninstall successfully without any hitches but re-installing was another story.

When I tried re-installing the software/driver, the process always end up with a message saying that the software/driver has already been installed yet the whole OfficeJet G85 does not work in any capacity at all. So back to the HP Support website I went and it told me that I need to get the latest driver for the Product from their website. And based on the document they have, I also needed to uninstall any previous software/driver I had in my PC. HP also provided a force uninstaller on their website so I used this to clean up any traces of HP related application/drivers in my PC.

Imagine my shock when the uninstaller not only clean up all HP related applications/software but also half of my hard drive totally unrelated to he problem. Luckily I have all my data in another drive and all my other softwares' installation CDs saved safely away. I can use that to rebuild my PC if ever. So I continued to install the HP application/driver and guess what? The damn printer still wont work.

I decided to give HP support a call to see what's going on and after being passed around among their 'elite' technicians, I was told that basically they cannot provide me a free phone support due to my product being obsolete. Support could still be given though provided that I pay them $30/hour to answer my questions but they won't guarantee that it will fix whatever was going on with my printer.

Now this gets me riled up considering that it was the application from their website that deleted half the contents of my hard drive and it was their instructions that I followed. I would have been willing to pay the support cost if they can guarantee me their product will work which they can't. To top it all, the support person has the audacity to instruct me to trade in the OfficeJet G85 which I paid $245 five years ago for $5 applicable to any new HP printer they have.

What makes them think I'm getting another HP product?