Something Random
- Thread starter ddrueding
- Start date
CougTek
Hairy Aussie
Too vague a question. It always depends on what you are looking for.
CougTek
Hairy Aussie
So basicly, they told you that you are brain-dead?
It means that nothing abnormal was observed. That is not necessarily a good thing.
ddrueding
Fixture
Based on the marketing strategies of the major resellers, there is a very popular item sold at deep discounts (called a "loss leader") that is a good deal. Their hope is that you will also buy other stuff, which isn't discounted nearly as much. If they have targeted something that you want, and it is still in stock when you get there, and you can walk out of the store without buying anything else, you can get a good deal.
In general, you will find better deals a day or so before Christmas.
Bozo
Storage? I am Storage!
On the news the other night, they pointed out that most stores actually increase the price of some of their items. They try to 'hook' you by offering some discounted items and hoping you will buy some of the other items.
Another slimy gotcha: some stores will advertise 'Black Friday door buster discounts' ( or some other outrageous add) but the price is actually higher than it was a couple of weeks earlier.
Buyer beware!
The best deals are the week between Christmas and New Years day.
Another slimy gotcha: some stores will advertise 'Black Friday door buster discounts' ( or some other outrageous add) but the price is actually higher than it was a couple of weeks earlier.
Buyer beware!
The best deals are the week between Christmas and New Years day.
Howell
Storage? I am Storage!
Perhaps you should hire a Xmas elf. There will be many out looking for work post-Xmas in this economy.
CougTek
Hairy Aussie
I'm glad to see that he log in earlier today. He must be ok.
I'm happy to hear that. I hope his family is too.
ddrueding
Fixture
ddrueding
Fixture
I think the total number of IRL meetings between anyone here and anyone else are pretty low. I've met Handruin (once) and Santilli (three times) in person, years ago, and that is it.
sdbardwick
Storage is cool
CougTek
Hairy Aussie
First time I notice that. Happy birthday JTR. Beware those potholes and don't ride in the snow!
I don't see it. Where is the front page? :dunno: It's all a forum.
sdbardwick
Storage is cool
ddrueding
Fixture
Indeed. Just scroll to the bottom, and there are some statistics along with the birthdays.
CougTek
Hairy Aussie
Ok, there's even more clueless than our users. As far as stupidity goes, this wins it all.
mubs
Storage? I am Storage!
Happy Birthday, jtr!
jtr1962
Storage? I am Storage!
Thanks for the birthday wishes, everyone! 
jtr1962
Storage? I am Storage!
I met Howell in 2004 IIRC. I've known apairofpcs since then also, and we've met in person many times.
No snow last night but many potholes as usual. The good news is NYC is installing LED street lights everywhere by the end of 2017 so they'll be much easier to see.
Bozo
Storage? I am Storage!
Happy Birthday, jtr! :cheers:
Chewy509
Wotty wot wot.
JTR, Happy Birthday... :beer:
Chewy509
Wotty wot wot.
Just received some photos from my wife's' cousin in Canada, and their first snow... very picturesque.
ddrueding
Fixture
Three very late nights of troubleshooting and I've found the issue. One of my users disconnected the LAN cable from their laptop and connected it to the "PC" connection on the back of their VoIP phone, effectively bridging the networks. This causes no immediate problem, but after 10-20 minutes some network traffic begins to drop, and after 30 minutes 50% of traffic fails. I only have about 400 devices on the network, but this was an absolute bear to find.
Turns out it was the little old lady who just took the office across from mine (boss' sister). Can't get mad at her....
Turns out it was the little old lady who just took the office across from mine (boss' sister). Can't get mad at her....
Chewy509
Wotty wot wot.
Very interested to know why plugging in a VOIP phone killed the LAN, if it was only bridging? (I assume your VOIP LAN and regular PC LAN are on two different subnet's)?
Was the LAN being flooded with traffic? causing ARP traffic issues? Your switches couldn't handle loops in the topology? (something which many cheap switches can't handle).
CougTek
Hairy Aussie
They better be. Otherwise, it isn't the old lady you should be mad at, it's you.
ddrueding
Fixture
No idea why it was killing the traffic yet. They are on separate subnets in addition to being entirely different physical networks (separate switches, etc). A different NIC on the VoIP server does connect to the data network, but that has a static IP and is handled properly. It may be ARP or otherwise routing related; perhaps some PCs picked up DHCP from the VoIP server and started routing all their traffic through that single handset? That could freak some stuff out I suppose. The switch it was connected to was a decent Cisco 48-port model.
Stereodude
Not really a
So how exactly did you track that down?
ddrueding
Fixture
Isolating chunks of the network one at a time, waiting about 30 minutes between each step. The main switch has 48 ports, most of them uplinks to additional switches, so I pulled 12 of them at a time (third group did it), then 4 of the offending 12 (fourth was it), then found the one of those 4 (got it in one). That sent me to the switch that connects to devices (another 48 ports). It was the second half, the second half again, then I lucked out and found it pretty quickly. 30 minutes between each step, that alone took me over 7 hours.
Of course, that was not the first fix I tried. At first I thought it was only the internet that was down (those were the only complaints I was receiving), so tracking down all our internet connections (7 in total) and their associated firewalls/routers. Then I realized that I was only getting complaints from one department and looked at the switch for their portion of the building (not even close). After that I was fooling around with different servers that may have been out of date or were acting in ways I didn't like, potentially spamming the network with traffic. One of the ESXi servers in particular was having issues with the NIC; unless it was connected to a network at system power on and never disconnected it would disable itself, requiring a reboot. This led me down several dead ends while trying to isolate parts of the network.
Some more stuff that I can't remember, but yeah....Happy Thanksgiving
Of course, that was not the first fix I tried. At first I thought it was only the internet that was down (those were the only complaints I was receiving), so tracking down all our internet connections (7 in total) and their associated firewalls/routers. Then I realized that I was only getting complaints from one department and looked at the switch for their portion of the building (not even close). After that I was fooling around with different servers that may have been out of date or were acting in ways I didn't like, potentially spamming the network with traffic. One of the ESXi servers in particular was having issues with the NIC; unless it was connected to a network at system power on and never disconnected it would disable itself, requiring a reboot. This led me down several dead ends while trying to isolate parts of the network.
Some more stuff that I can't remember, but yeah....Happy Thanksgiving
Mercutio
Fatwah on Western Digital
Stereodude
Not really a
Funny...
mubs
Storage? I am Storage!
Absolutely awesome, thanks Merc! ROTFLMAO!
ddrueding
Fixture
Thanks Google for sending me an e-mail that I need to update the billing credentials for a domain that doesn't include the name of the domain. They include the last 4 digits of the offending credit card (since replaced), but I purchased all of the domains! I've set up 50+ of these things over the years, all with me as the account manager. Do I now need to log into all of them to find out which one it is?
CougTek
Hairy Aussie
It's a way to spend your free time like another...