Re: OT: Ping Isaac

On Thu, 3 Jul 2008 09:30:38 +0100, peterd.news@xxxxxxxxxxxxx (Pd)
wrote:

Jaimie Vandenbergh <jaimie@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

I managed Windows domains for ork purposes for a decade or so

I worked on 30+ Windows desktops, managing the 'upgrade' from 3.1 to 95,
then later in a moment of foolishness took a contract supporting 300+
Windows desktops and laptops running a toxic mixture of 95, 98, 98SE,
NT3.5 & NT4, and the scars will never heal.
A decade... you must be hideously disfigured.

Now that I've opened that walled up chunk of memory, I remember (and
this is a measure of how horrible the previous incarnations of Windows
were) feeling almost affectionate towards NT4. The general stability,
once a working configuration had been arrived at, made those machines
the most requested amongst the knowledgeable users.

Now that's funny. I have never willingly installed NT on any of *my*
(client) machines because of it's inflexibility re running games etc.

Ok in an office though.

I also managed a small (30+) network of PC's for about a decade as an
aside to my main role of Support Engineer / Help Desk Eng and it
really wasn't a problem (as in what percentage of my time I had to
dedicate to it).

Maybe something to do with that was the fact that I ran every inch of
the network cabling (so ran it in the right way in the right places),
ordered / installed all the networking kit and built and installed /
configured the majority of the machines. There were issues of course
but they were mainly to do with luser finger trouble.

This was in the days of DOS, W3.1/.11, 95 NT etc and it wasn't as if
the network was only used for file and print services. We became the
Corporate International Mail Hub [1] via MSMail with external gateways
to Lotus ccMail and roving / dial-in users (reps and customers). We
also had a MSMail to SMTP gateway, an X.25 gateway, Async gateways, a
Fax gateway etc etc. Even a mix of DOS-NetBIOS, Novell, NT and Unix
servers. There were also several multi-user databases running, contact
management / scheduling for sales and a timed / event popup system for
the support guys (those were eventually merged into one system) and
accounts had summat else. All running 24/7, with little or no budget
(every new purchase had to be sanctioned / justified individually).

I even put our (2 man) office in Warrington on our (London) LAN with a
couple of ISDN brouters. ;-)

I enjoyed those days very much. As long as I was able to efficiently
maintain my primary role (Help Desk) they gave me a free reign to
develop and expand the IT infrastructure and services as required, as
I saw fit, or as requested by the general staff [2]. Because
initially my secondary role (In-house IT support) didn't formally
exist and had no budget, most of what I put in place came about
because of my interest and willingness to experiment (no training
courses for me I'm afraid) and the Companies trust in that what I was
doing was (generally) for the best. ;-)

For reasons I can't really explain (and in spite of me inheriting
quite a bit of bizarre kit in there) I never saw a Mac of any kind
(neither in our 'demo room' nor on sitre). At least when in the IT
training centre they had one for show_and_tell! (and 120+ PC's) ;-)

All the best ..

T i m

[1] Because I was the first tech to install a mail system of any kind
in any of the 20 or so International offices.

[2] The most proactive feature for 'the staff' was the Fax gateway. In
the days when many many companies didn't have an email system or even
an individual account, our users were able to setup timed Fax jobs via
the central Fax server. The European Sales manager came into my office
one day, shook my hand and thanked me for enabling him to be able to
send 20 x 5 (Word) page Faxes, from his PC with just a few clicks of
the mouse. He added he had scheduled them to go overnight and when he
checked in the morning only one hadn't gone and that was because he
had entered the number incorrectly. He reckoned that saved him (or
someone) the best part of half a day standing over a paper Fax machine
(and that it was cheaper done at night). Nothing these days of course
but then I'm pleased to say it was quite 'modern' then. ;-)


.

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