Navigation

User login

LUG Meetings

Meet up with Montana Linux people on IRC. We currently gather at the #ubuntu-montana room on the freenode network. Stop in and say "hello" or even ask/answer some questions. Don't have to be a Ubuntu user either. Or use the web-based chat client.

BillingsLUG
The BillingsLUG hasn't had a meeting in a while but they are hoping to start back up real soon. Really.

BozemanLUG
The BozemanLUG meets on the FIRST Thursday of the month at 7PM

MSU-Bozeman
EPS Building, Rm 259
Bozeman, MT
Used to be the LAST Thursday, but we changed it.

HelenaLUG
The HelenaLUG is currently on hiatus.

MissoulaLUG
The MissoulaLUG is currently on hiatus but a few individuals are working in the background to change that ASAP.

If you want to help get the BillingsLUG, HelenaLUG, or the MissoulaLUG started again, be sure to visit us in IRC.

Events

Upcoming events

no upcoming events available

Auto Reboot after Update!?

Submitted by Worzie on Thu, 2006-12-14 12:22. rant | Windown

Damn those company computer guys! ;-) I came into work this morning about 10 and load up my VMware Player running FC5 via USB and fire up CAD or other work apps as usual. I tinkered around in a report program called LogPlot that generates graphical logs of dill logs. I hadn't done more than a half hours worth of work and I notice a window popup showing a progress bar and two buttons: Reboot Now and a disabled Reboot Later button (Similar to shown but this one is from a more recent one). Not thinking much of it for probably 30 seconds, I decide "well I better start shutting VMware down just in case as you never know." Besides I wanted a clean shutdown since this runs off my USB drive.

The progress bar got to the end and I half expected the "Reboot Later" button to become available but it didn't and I started seeing the usual flickering of icons disappearing. Crap! I'm pissed! This wasn't critical but could have been. So I decided to send IT a bitch email:

I just want to respond to whomever rolls out the workstation updates
that I lost about a half hours work just now because I was unable to
choose the "Reboot Later" button as it was disabled. Yes I briefly saw
the message and assumed it was doing the installs and that the reboot
later button would become available after the install. The lost work
was not critical and can be redone quickly, but my point is that you
need to loosen the grip and give us the chance to save. We are not all
sitting at our desks to see these things just pop up out of the blue.

Thanks for your consideration,

Normally they are quick to respond but not this time. Will see what if any response they might have. IMO, they behave as if IT is what makes the company our primary business. I know company IT guys often get brushed off as not important, but in my position as a CAD guy, I generally look up to my superiors being scientists and engineers, not the IT guy. I'll have to blog again to give a better insight as to why I have such a bitter stance with my own company's IT guys later.

» Worzie's blog | login to post comments

More Insult to Injury

Submitted by Worzie on Fri, 2006-12-15 10:32.

Well I now have my reply from our IT guy. Hey that rhymes! So it seems I'm the only lame brain to have fallen victim to their split second decisions. An apology for may have been a better spice to have thrown in here too. Here is the reply:

Warren -

I rolled out the updates yesterday do to a security patch that need to be applied to Remote Desktop Connection. We use this windows application to connect to all our corporate users.

As the Systems Administrator I determined that this patch was of the critical nature so it was issued immediately.

Most patches are not issued with in normal business hours. If we determined that a security patch for an application falls within our "CRITICAL" category it will be issued immediately.

Overall information security is one our top priority in the IS group.

If we determined that there may be a security issue within our corporation IT infrastructure we will take the immediately action NO MATTER WHO IT MAY EFFECT!

It is not our practice to interrupt our client environment in any way during business hours. Also since you are the only client that we have heard from in a community of over 1000 users, well I think that speaks volumes.

Also thanks for the advice, but we'll determine how tight our grip is.

Hope this clears things up for you.

Well! Isn't that special. Man o' man! All I wanted is the option to buy myself more time to reboot. I don't remember how much time that countdown was but I will say that I do have some CAD drawings that take a considerable amount of time saving back out to the network. Oh well... I'll stop my bitching right about now.

Warren

» login to post comments

Sometimes it is how you say it and not what you say

Submitted by Scott Dowdle on Fri, 2006-12-15 11:15.

Well, I can see their point. They wanted to update everyone ASAP. Who knows if it really needed a reboot but so many things in Windows say they do when they really don't.

I run into this same thing with Windows side of my labs machines (they are dual boot)... but our guys give us the option of rebooting later.

I think they should have said:

Usually we do it after hours but for this particular update we thought it needed to be applied immediately. You shouldn't run into that too often and sorry for your lose of work time.

That would have been so much better than pointing a finger at you and saying that you are the only one who complained so you must have a problem, etc.

It just goes to show that IT people (including you and I dude), aren't really good at interpersonal communications. In fact, computer people are notorious for being picky hot heads. Over the span of my IT life, there have been many times when I've had to back off of something that made me mad... and just let it go.

[About two years ago] Prior to a group meeting, I called an individual to resolve an issue and that individual told me he was happy and that the issue was resolved. To my surprise, that individual brought up the very issue at the meeting and exclaimed how unhappy he was. I was like... dude... I called you yesterday to resolve this issue and you told me everything was fine... and then you bring it up here? He said he only agreed with me during our previous conversation because he was too busy at the time to really discuss it. ARGH. Anyway, I pretty much made an ass of myself at that meeting... because I got so angry... but I did try before hand. :)