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!rant
Has anyone been paying attention to what Google's been up to? Seriously!
1) Fuchsia. An entire OS built from the ground up to replace Linux and run on thin microcontrollers that Linux would bog down — has GNU compilers & Dart support baked in.
2) Flutter. It's like React Native but with Dart and more components available. Super Alpha, but there's "Flutter Gallery" to see examples.
3) Escher. A GPU-renderer that coincidentally focuses on features that Material UI needs, used with Fuchsia. I can't find screenshots anywhere; unfortunately I tore down my Fuchsia box before trying this out. Be sure to tag me in a screenshot if you get this working!
4) Progressive Web Apps (aka Progress Web APKs). Chrome has an experimental feature to turn Web Apps into hybrid native apps. There's a whole set of documentation for converting and creating apps.
And enough about Google, Microsoft actually had a really cool announcement as well! (hush hush, it's really exciting for once, trust me)...
Qualcomm and Microsoft teamed up to run the full desktop version of Windows 10 on a Snapdragon 820. They go so far as to show off the latest version of x86 dekstop Photoshop with no modifications running with excellent performance. They've announced full support for the upcoming Snapdragon 835, which will be a beast compared to the 820! This is all done by virtualization and interop libraries/runtimes, similar to how Wine runs Windows apps on Linux (but much better compatibility and more runtime complete).
Lastly, (go easy guys, I know how much some of you love Apple) I keep hearing of Apple's top talent going to Tesla. I'm really looking forward to the Tesla Roof and Model 3. It's about time someone pushed for cheap lithium cells for the home (typical AGM just doesn't last) and made panels look attractive!
Tech is exciting, isn't it!?38 -
*computer fell, broken in pieces*
Me calling [Microsoft] tech support: hey can you check my warranty on this computer, I think I broke it?
Tech support: yes sir but we must first go through the troubleshooting steps,
Me: no, no I just-
Tech support: have you tried pressing F8 sir?
Me: umm… no, look I'm just -
Tech support: sir please press the F8 key sir
Me: okay… I pressed it, now can you just check my-
Tech support: sir please what happened when you pressed F8?
Me: it's broken, now if you could just check my warranty -
Tech support: sir I'm sorry sir I think you did it wrong. Please press F8
Me: no just check my-
Tech support: sir I think you do not understand, sir it is at the top-
Yup.14 -
So. My grandma (280 km away) gave me a call.
Grandma: "Hiii. I have a problem with my PC."
Me thinking "ok. Just an ordinary tech support call from granny..."
Me: "Ok. What's the issue?"
Grandma: "Windows tells me there is no space left on drive F, non-stop"
Me: "As far as I know there is no drive F on your PC"
Grandma: "Would you be so kind to have a look?"
I agreed to log on via team viewer.
To cut an already long story short, there was this April Update which sent a bug all around the globe.
This bug exposed an internal drive Windows uses to do its Windows stuff - whatever it is.
Regularly these kind of drives are hidden from users eyes...
I finally solved it by applying a rollback on Windows.
The update is gone and with the next update there will be a fix from May to hide this drives again.
Microsoft!
I do you scare grandparents all around the globe?!??12 -
Actual rant time. And oh boy, is it pissy.
If you've read my posts, you've caught glimpses of this struggle. And it's come to quite a head.
First off, let it be known that WINDOWS Boot Manager ate GRUB, not the other way around. Windows was the instigator here. And when I reinstalled GRUB, Windows threw a tantrum and won't boot anymore. I went through every obvious fix, everything tech support would ever think of, before I called them. I just got this laptop this week, so it must be in warranty, right? Wrong. The reseller only accepts it unopened, and the manufacturer only covers hardware issues. I found this after screaming past a pretty idiotic 'customer representative' ("Thank you for answering basic questions. Thank you for your patience. Thank you for repeating obvious information I didn't catch the first three times you said it. Thank you for letting me follow my script." For real. Are you tech support, or emotional support? You sound like a middle school counselor.) to an xkcd-shibboleth type 'advanced support'. All of this only to be told, "No, you can't fix it yourself, because we won't give you the license key YOU already bought with the computer." And we already know there's no way Microsoft is going to swoop in and save the day. It's their product that's so faulty in the first place. (Debian is perfectly fine.)
So I found a hidden partition with a single file called 'Image' and I'm currently researching how to reverse-engineer WIM and SWM files to basically replicate Dell's manufacturing process because they won't take it back even to do a simple factory reset and send it right back.
What the fuck, Dell.
As for you, Microsoft, you're going to make it so difficult to use your shit product that I have to choose between an arduous, dangerous, and likely illegal process to reclaim what I ALREADY BOUGHT, or just _not use_ a license key? (Which, there's no penalty for that.) Why am I going so far out of my way to legitimize myself to you, when you're probably selling backdoors and private data of mine anyway? Why do I owe you anything?
Oh, right. Because I couldn't get Fallout 3 to run in Wine. Because the game industry follows money, not common sense. Because you marketed upon idiocy and cheapness and won a global share.
Fuck you. Fuck everything. Gah.
VS Code is pretty good, though.20 -
// family tech support
Dad: *Opens Microsoft Word*
Dad: *Writes stuff*
Dad: *Saves the file as "Doc1.docx" (every time)*
Dad: Son, where did I save my file? I can't find it.2 -
Worst things about being a dev? Boy, this will be a long one!
- Whatever I do, be it hard work or smart work, I feel I am always underpaid.
- Most people who don't know tech feel my job shouldn't take that long. "Oh, a website that should be easy." "Oh, REST services, that's cute!"
- Most people who know a little tech will be like, "Here is the code for this on Google, then why are you charging this much"
- Companies like Microsoft and Apple who are too cool to follow standards.
- Always underpaid!
- The friggin compilers and random environment vars. Sometimes you make no change and the code works on a restart. I mean wtf!
- Having to give/meet deadlines, when we know most of the times things get out of control.
- Having to work for jerks mostly who don't know squat, and can't tell the difference between a CPU and a Wooden box.
- Sometimes I wanna take a break from my laptop(traveling and stuff) , those are the times I get the maximum work load!
- Did I mention we are always underpaid?
- Because of the kind of work I do, finding a girl has been challenging. Where the heck are they!
- We have to stay always updated. Often we deploy something using a framework and the next day we see an update.
- Speaking of updates, I hate having to support for OSes like Microsoft.
- Speaking of OSes, I hate Apple!
- Speaking of Apple, I feel we are underpaid, de javu?
...
How much would you hate me if I wrote "just kidding" ?3 -
So, a few months back my mother had some issues with her windows 10 box not being able to do proper backups to a backup partition. At the same time I was pulling insane hours at work and writing on a eBook on commission for a guy, besides having small kids with on and off flu and shit.
Needless to say, I didn't have time to look at the backup issues. Well, even though my mom is one of those dogs you can't teach new tricks, she has always been resourceful enough to get help with things.
This time she picked up the phone and called Microsoft Support, got some guys to remote in and take a look. They messed around a bit and said they were done.
She phoned me up later that day to tell me how proud she was of herself for doing that. Of course, she skipped telling me the important bit about she actually calling them, rather describing it as "Microsoft was just on my computer and fixed it".
You can imagine my immediate reaction, cold sweat running down my back, adrenalin rushing in as I dug through the details of what had happened.
A few days later she calls me up again and tells me the problem is back, and we agree that even though the MS dudes was not able to fix it at first, she should try again, as she had a ticket to reference.
The next attempt by MS actually fried her partitions, and apparently they had f-ed up trying to delete and recreate the backup partition.
That's not the worst of it though. Since they fried her disk, her computer crashed and naturally the remoting won't work. In our country, they have no people on the ground to do hands on help, and they didn't have a partner near by. Her not having a win 10 usb stick, nor a spare computer to make one, she was in a surreal predicament.
She was also quite pissed, and pissed off mums are not to be messed with. She managed to get Microsoft to agree to cover the costs of a non-partner to visit her to fix the problems, and using her as the middle man, they made an agreement with the 3rd-party tech support company.
After the box was fixed though, some more issues arose... regarding billing. The 3rd-party tech support was unable to get in contact with the person at MS that was going to sign off on the bill, and again using my mom as the middle man, it was agreed that my mom, as the customer, was to be reimbursed for the bill to the 3rd-party.
Guess what... 3 months went by, with weekly follow-ups and nagging from my mom, and still no money...
At this time, I had time to help her, and after some digging and borderline stalking, we managed to get the phone numbers of some of the higher ups in my country, and she started calling them directly.
After talking to a couple who refused to help, she reached the Vice President of the country branch, and was finally able to talk to someone who gave a shit.
Still took over a month more to actually get the money, but now she had someone who actually gave her statuses, receipts and ETAs.
FUCK!2 -
We all hate being tech support for our family and friends, but motherfuck this is insane; my sister asks me for support and then doesn't listen to me. E.g. I tell her that the Microsoft login page is fucked up so she'll need to login again and she doesn't try again, but pesters me until I login for her... Every goddamn time...11
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Older tech support story, but still a frusterating one.
Sister was running Windows 8.1 (ew) when Microsoft was ramming Windows 10 down everyone's throat.
Her laptop decided to update to Windows 10, and after waiting awhile, she decided to unplug the laptop's battery and power chord.
This did what you expected, corrupted her install, leading to a bootloop. I then got to deal with that to try and recover it.
Once I got into the recovery mode, it wanted her password to restore from a system image, guess what she forgot?
She tried her PIN, and gave up after a few attempts, and I got to reinstall Windows for her.
Lesson learned from this? If you're the IT person of the house, make sure that you have an account on all machines that you may administrate. That way you don't need to deal with this shit.1 -
Fantasizing about stabbing SharePoint in the throat, I'm being forced to contact Microsoft tech support, so I need to obtain our software assurance account info.
Our company's rep sends me our SA account numbers (assuming that was all I needed) and the link to create an incident.
Step through Microsoft support ticket 'wizard' which ends with requiring a login with a Microsoft account.
Me: "What login account should I be using?"
Rep: "You shouldn't need one. Just use the SA account number and access ID I sent you."
Me: "There is no entry for those values. I step through a support 'wizard' and the final page redirects me to the Microsoft login page."
Rep: "Use your work email address."
Me: "I can, but I shouldn't have to use my personal outlook email address. Can I just send you the issue and you submit the ticket? After the ticket is created, all the correspondence will be through email anyway."
<30 min. later>
Rep: "I just linked your work email address to your company's account. You should be able to login now."
Me: "Same error. I think you're messing with me."
<30 min. later>
Rep: "Select the option to create an account with your own email."
Me: "Now I know you're messing with me. Already tried that and received the error 'You cant sign up here with a work or school email address'."
Rep: "Weird...I guess Microsoft changed their policy."
Me: "So now what?"
<1 hour later>
Rep: "You might have to send me your SharePoint issue and I'll get a ticket created. After the ticket is created, I'll change the contact email address to you."
WHY DIDN'T YOU DO THAT TWO HOURS AGO!
Whew! Thanks devRant...that's better. I put the knife down and now only want to punch SharePoint in the face.3 -
If there is tech support that is just plain awesome, it these:
1) Namecheap
2) Newegg
3) Nyko
The ones that are meh include:
1) Linksys
2) AOL
3) Microsoft9
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