Computerworld - December 5, 2011

TANK SHARK TRUE TALES OF IT LIFE AS TOLD TO SHARKY
HAL MAYFORTH
that call is still going on, a second
call comes in to the help desk
about another problem in
the same workgroup
print area. “A user
got an error while
printing an ad-
dress label,” fish
says. “Going to
the print area
to load a new
roll of labels,
the user found
an entire roll
printed and lying
on the floor, but
the information on
the labels was not
customer addresses.
The second help desk
tech turned to the first one
and said, ‘Hey, I think found the
missing report.’ ”

User calls the help desk after 5 p.m. with an urgent message — “Printing is down for all of the Southeast!” — and this pilot fish gets the trouble ticket. “I called the user, but he wasn’t answering his phone, and neither was his assistant,” fish says. “I reviewed the system activity and saw that the print subsystem was up. I tried printing a report, and it printed. I called the help desk and asked if anyone else had complained about printing, and they had no other complaints on file. Of course, it was after 5 p.m., so it was possible that no one else was trying to print. At that point, I decided to go to the user’s o;ce. I found him there complaining loudly about how his report wouldn’t print. I looked at his printer and powered it o; and back on, and then it started printing. Turned out that he thought he’d get a faster response if he said the whole region was down than if just his printer wasn’t working.”

Glad to Help Programmer pilot fish at this smallish company has to create specialized applications for some individual users — and that requires a lot of individual attention. I wrote this fairly complex piece of software for one user, with lots of calculations,” fish says. “He is regularly in my o;ce with tweaks and changes, so I was not surprised one day when he showed up complaining that something was wrong. I tore my attention away from my current project and asked what the problem was. He said, ‘This number should be the same as that number.’ Then he paused, looked at his paperwork and said, ‘ They are. OK, thanks, bye,’ and walked out.”

Some Assembly Will
Be Required
Help desk at this mortgage service
company gets a call from a user who
says he’s tried printing a month-end
report repeatedly, but it’s not com-
ing out of the printer. “The user said
he needed the report to present to
management in a meeting that was
now only minutes away,” says an IT
pilot fish on the scene. Help desk tech
asks the usual printer troubleshoot-
ing questions, but the tech-savvy
user has already confirmed that the
printer has paper, and other users
are getting their printouts. While

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1& 1 Internet . . . . . . . . . . . 13 1and1.com

CDW . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . C4 cdw.com/virtualization CenturyLink . . . . . . . . . . . 11 ultimateproblemsolver.com

&Expo. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15 citeconference.com/pa dtSearch ............. 35 dtsearch.com Hewlett-Packard . . . . . . 19 hp.com/storage/5CI Hewlett-Packard . . . . . . . 31 computerworld.com/ whitepapers/hp/tablets

IBM Non-Intel . . . . . . . C2, 7, 9 ibm.com/facts

IT Roadmap Conference & Expo . . . . 27 itroadmap.net/2011dcad Microsoft . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23 microsoft.com/o;ce365 Samsung ............. C3 Splunk ............... 25 splunk.com/goto/listen Verisign ............... 3 verisigninc.com/guard VMware ............... 11 vmware.com/whiteboard

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Framingham, Mass., and other mailing offices. Posted under Canadian International Publication agreement PM40063731. CANADIAN POSTMASTER: Please return undeliverable copy to PO Box 1632, Windsor, Ontario N9A 7C9. Computerworld (ISSN 0010-4841) is published t wice monthly except for the month of July by Computer world Inc., 492 Old Connecticut Path, Box 9171, Framingham, Mass. 01701-9171. Copyright

2011 by Computer world Inc. All rights reserved. Computer world can be purchased on microfilm and microfiche through University Microfilms Inc., 300 N. Zeeb Road, Ann Arbor, Mich. 48106. Computer world is indexed. Back issues, if available, may be purchased from the circulation department. Photocopy rights: permission to photocopy for internal or personal use is granted by Computer world Inc. for libraries and other users registered with the Copyright Clearance Center (CCC), provided that the base fee of $3 per copy of the article, plus 50 cents per page, is paid directly to Copyright Clearance Center, 27 Congress St., Salem, Mass. 01970. Reprints (minimum 500 copies) and permission to reprint may be purchased from The YGS Group, (800) 290-5460, Ext. 100. Email: computer world@ theygsgroup.com. Requests for missing issues will be honored only if received within 60 days of issue date. Subscription rates: $5 per copy: Annual subscription rates: — $129; Canada — $129; Central & So. America — $250; Europe — $295; all other countries — $295; digital subscription —

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