Frick'in Vista!!!

Truth In Advertising


Back in the day when I started this blog, it was a venue to rant and rave about all those things that drove me nuts. I have tried to progress past simply ranting over the years, but I am going to back slide here.

I have already ranted about my frustration with the level of automation comprehension in our office and how Vista is just making that worse. See this blog, or better yet, this blog, and least we forget, this blog...and last but not least there was this blog. I am sure there are going to be others.

I just got off the phone with our ITD department. No, wait. Let me retract that. A phone call is something that lasts less than 5 minutes. This was an impromptu meeting with the ITD support center staff, because this phone call lasted almost 45 frickin minutes!!!

The reason for the phone call? All my network printer drivers decided to go on strike. I couldn't print anything to any of the 5 network printers we have in the office. The solution? Forty Five minutes with 'Gabe' on the phone, restarting my computer 3 times, and running out the the printers to see if the test pages finally printed for each printer. Now that is progress for you! I can see where Vista is making a BIG difference. It is screwing my ability to get my job done, but it is giving Gabe a hell of a lot of job security.

Since the implementation of Vista in our office, we have been plagued with intermittent problems and random program failures. Add to this mix the fact that most of my co-workers are not really keen on where the power button is for their computers much less have the ability to decipher an error message and you have a slow burn to disaster on your hands.

Now we are starting to find out that beyond the infamous printer driver issues that Vista has, it is also having connectivity issues with various database drivers as well. Database applicatiosn are locking up records and not releasing blocks of memory and basically running the servers out of resources until they crash.

We can top off this cake with the fact that ITD has done little-to-no training of staff other than the minimal (the start button is going to look different / this is how to read your e-mail training) required. They have gone so far as to lock down profiles so that the user can't even delete a shortcut from their desktop without administrative privileges.

Of course, this is the same ITD Department that crashed our e-mail server and LOST a weeks worth of incoming e-mail in for the entire State Judiciary in July, 2006, so none of this should come as a shock. My days are taken up by the fact that whatever I plan to do is going to be wiped off my radar by the 'crisis of the day' (isn't that "crisis de' jour" in French?)

Less than 3,000 days till retirement.....Less than 3,000 days till retirement.....Less than 3,000 days till retirement.....Less than 3,000 days till retirement.....Less than 3,000 days till retirement........ this is my new mantra.