Month: November 2005

Fifth Third in the dark ages (again)

I can’t believe what I’ve just been told by a banking advisor with Fifth Third – apparently you can’t send money from a Fifth Third account to another more up to date bank in the US via electronic payment. I’d love to know how money is meant to be moved from one account to another. Having asked to speak to a manager I get the same person on the phone telling me to do enter details that just do not exist on the website……And I thought the Royal Bank of Scotland Idiots was bad!

Symantec Updates are not so silent…

I was at a client site this afternoon and discovered that installing the latest patch as per the instructions doesn’t give the silent install that is meant to happen. You need to ensure you read the whole set of instructions first as otherwise you follow the steps and when you get to step 17 after setting the install off you then realise that the vpremote.dat needs editing FIRST! At this point you discover the silent install is extremely loud and colourful as the swearing echoes around the room as pc’s start to reboot with no warning whatsoever.

Exchange and Avaya voicemail

Whilst the server was down we also took the time out to prove the fact that if a voicemail message is left on the avaya IP Office system whilst the mail server is unreachable, then the user NEVER gets the voicemail. The voicemail box fails to queue the voicemail for delivery at a later date -something that the tech’s didn’t acknowledge as a problem. The fact that users could end up not receiving voicemails or have any trace of them yet the caller knows they left it seems a pretty major bug to me. I’m looking forward to bringing *that* up at the wrap up meeting.

The newest house owner in Ohio?

I think we’ve just purchased a house! Kristen saw a really nice house yesterday and I went back with her last night to look at it and it really was as good as she was raving about. We put an offer in that was accepted an hour or so ago and Monday we go back to the realtor for yet more paperwork. We also need to organise the inspection, title people, mortgage people and bank people and all that stuff (and find a ride on lawnmower) so its going to be a very busy week next week.
One of the best things about the house is that Kristen and I have agreed on the choice of houses all along – we’ve not had the stress of one of us liking one house and the other hating it – just shows how much alike we are and how perfect we are for each other….now onto some less sappy stuff 🙂

I’m actually surprised I’ve managed to blog this before Kristen has, but she has got more excitement lined up as she is now looking for a car!

Yet another hotfix requested

In the 2 months I’ve been working I’ve had to request 3 different hotfixes which is pretty amazing seeing as though I think I’ve only ever requested 2 in the past 10 years!
The latest is to fix a patch where you can’t set folder redirection and customize the Internet Explorer settings via group policy on an xpsp2 machine. If you try, then you get the message “The Group Policy client-side extension Internet Explorer Branding failed to log RSOP (Resultant Set of Policy) data. Please look for any errors reported earlier by that extension.” (event id 1091)
The hotfix is documented in kb article 888254 and I’m waiting for Microsoft to pick up the phone so I can request the hotfix.
Eventually the phone was picked up and I spent 10 minutes painfully talking to someone who actually sounded just like one of those automated phone systems. All the accents were on the wrong syllables and it was just painful. Still I’ve got the hotfix.