The Vent and Rant Thread

[Hitch]

Originally Posted by 4691mls

Disclaimer - I'm not saying whether this theory is valid, just that I've heard it:

One reason I've heard for curfews is to keep people from staying out late partying because if they drink too much they are less likely to remember to do things like wear masks and keep their distance from other people.

Well, anything that lowers inhibitions will of course wreak havoc around "social distancing." I mean....the other folks all look better at closing time, amirite?

Hitch

[ownedbycats]

Originally Posted by Hitch

None of the damn measures make any sense, if we're all talking honestly.

In Nova Scotia, if you're a close contact with someone with COVID-19 (and public health's just shrugged and given up on contact tracing, so I guess they have to tell you) you're supposed to isolate... except to go to school or work. That kinda makes the whole thing useless.

[Hitch]

Originally Posted by ownedbycats

In Nova Scotia, if you're a close contact with someone with COVID-19 (and public health's just shrugged and given up on contact tracing, so I guess they have to tell you) you're supposed to isolate... except to go to school or work. That kinda makes the whole thing useless.

Like I said....if any of these measures had to pass even the most basic test of logic, they'd all fail. Every time I hear some new pronouncement, some new advisory, etc. my eyes roll back in my head so hard they're counting the roots of my hair on the crown of my head. I get that they're all dealing with something that they haven't had to tackle before. Fine, we all understand that. But for the love of Moses, stop flailing around just so you can issue "orders" and manage to accomplish nothing.

Hitch

[CRussel]

Originally Posted by 4691mls

Disclaimer - I'm not saying whether this theory is valid, just that I've heard it:

One reason I've heard for curfews is to keep people from staying out late partying because if they drink too much they are less likely to remember to do things like wear masks and keep their distance from other people.

Which makes sense for bars and pubs (there's a legal difference here), but not for retail stores. And as much as I'm generally in favour of whatever measures they think to use, I do rather think that curfews are the pandemic equivalent of ringing the doorbell with a bazooka.

[BetterRed]

Originally Posted by issybird

Trader Joe’s sells tiny avocadoes, but I realize that might not be cost effective when you’re in Sydney.

Now you mention it, I think I might have seen them in Harris Farms which is not unlike Trader Joe's, but going there involves using the buses, trying to avoid that right now.

The mirin seemed to help prevent the half an avocado going brown better than lemon, but that was with a sample of one - I should try lemon and mirin on two halves of the one avocado

BR

[Rumpelteazer]

Just when I was thinking that my life could start getting back to normal my body throws me curve ball. Since last Wednesday I’ve been having pain in my right buttock, which has gotten worse each each day. Yesterday during the day it was mostly gone but at night it got so bad I could hardly walk. I made an appointment with my doctor this morning.

It turns out my S.I. joint is acting up. Most likely because I’ve been moving around and walking differently since my appendicitis operation (to avoid pain in my sore belly) three weeks ago.

So now I have to “marinate myself in painkillers” (paracetamol 4 times a day and ibuprofen 3 times a day), keep the S.I. area warm, keep moving but not so much it hurts and try to avoid bending. In a week it should be a lot better if not completely gone. But if my pain stays so bad I have to get morphine, which my doctor wants to avoid.

I’m so frustrated, I just want to get back to normal. For today I had planned to start cycling again and slowly build up the length of exercise again. Hopefully I’ll heal quickly because I don’t want it to ruin my vacation in three weeks time. Because, darn it I deserve a nice vacation after these past six months.


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

[Hitch]

I am...inchoate, really, with anger. (Apparently not, since I'm venting here. I just wanted to say, I recognize my hypocrisy when I see it, most days...)

So, I get up Saturday morning, drag my carcass into the office...and none of my Dropbox files will make sharing links. Now...I have 1,000,000+ files, in Dropboxes. Yep, over a million. I have 3TB of DB space.

And a business that's abruptly nearly dead in the water, as we share files internally, across Dropbox, all. day. long. I download them from customers, via email, WeTransfer, Hightail accounts, and I distribute them to my crew, in Quoting, in Production, etc. (The production files are downloaded to DB, via File Invite, which is how we run our file intake portal for production.) Then I give the file links to my crew--except now, I can't. I have to direct them using directory structure ("go to Booknook.biz-->Production files-->Doe, John-->Book 4-->Production-->yadda.") OMG what a pain in the glutes.

So, there I am. Dead. Dropbox, by the way, has ZERO support, even for premium, corporate, paying customers, on Sat-Sunday. ("Sorry, we're all home having fun now!") I try to reach them via their Dropbox Support Twitter account; I try to reach them through their incredibly annoying Chat bot, AND I send them an email. Fast forward through my ranting to Monday morning, and...

I get not one but TWO "tickets" as they are working on it. One says it's been assigned to some "specialist" in-house and that I've likely been link-banned due to a bandwidth/traffic violation. (Any DB account has bandwidth limits and oh, yeah, hey, you as the DB account owner have ZERO way of tracking that, knowing when you're close to the limit, or even when your month starts or ends, by the way.) The other ticket, however, says that they're working on it. With a different specialist.

Monday: Nothing happens, despite my heated emails to them.
Tuesday: Viola! My account is unbanned, oh, happy day. But wait, there's more.

One ticket says, Oh, gosh, you had a bandwidth violation and no, we can't tell you how/when this happened, or on what file, but bad girl, watch that. (Eh? By what, my magic crystal ball?). But hooray, your linking power is restored. We've removed the Kryptonite, gurl!

The second ticket, though, says I was link-banned because, wait for it, they detected MALWARE in my account, in a PDF font license document. To have my linking restored, I have to delete/remove this file.

(The linking capability was already restored, mind you.)

Now, every file that comes into my computer is scanned. Every. Single. One. If you had hundreds of thousands of files from the not-tech-savvy, you'd scan them too. The file in question, a PDF font license, scans even now as clean, no threat detected.

So, I send that ticket responder what I see, about the PDF in question. And then I ask them, so, which one of you should I believe? The one that says I had a pesky but untraceable, non-identifiable bandwidth violation, or the one that claims that this PDF, that came with this font, which has been on my computer SINCE SEPTEMBER OF 2013, that's malware?

Talk about irate. What a load of old bollocks this all is. They have NO viable explanation so they feed me BS about why I was link-banned. It's absolutely beyond gobsmacking to me, that they try to feed me this garbare.

URGHGHGHGHGHGHHGGH!!!!

(Sorry for the length).

Hitch

[ApK]

Originally Posted by Hitch

Talk about irate. What a load of old bollocks this all is. They have NO viable explanation so they feed me BS about why I was link-banned. It's absolutely beyond gobsmacking to me, that they try to feed me this garbare.

MS and Google have set the bar extraordinarily low in terms how bad/absent customer support can be, and all others have apparently started racing to the bottom with them. It's like a highly competitive game of tech support limbo.

[CRussel]

While it's true that MS and Google have extraordinarily bad reputations for CS, that reputation doesn't extend to their Azure and enterprise side. I would also point out that OneDrive, unlike Dropbox, is quite transparent about current status and any issues you might have. Oh, and they don't take the weekends off. And while I don't know what the costs are for that much OneDrive space (I do mostly fine on my included 1TB of space), I strongly suspect that it's no more than DB. Just keep in mind that OneDrive and Azure were designed for large enterprises, while DB was designed for consumers. The expectations for enterprises are WAY different than those for consumers and it shows.

[Hitch]

Originally Posted by CRussel

While it's true that MS and Google have extraordinarily bad reputations for CS, that reputation doesn't extend to their Azure and enterprise side. I would also point out that OneDrive, unlike Dropbox, is quite transparent about current status and any issues you might have. Oh, and they don't take the weekends off. And while I don't know what the costs are for that much OneDrive space (I do mostly fine on my included 1TB of space), I strongly suspect that it's no more than DB. Just keep in mind that OneDrive and Azure were designed for large enterprises, while DB was designed for consumers. The expectations for enterprises are WAY different than those for consumers and it shows.

Yes, OneDrive is surprisingly Enterprise-ready. I had conceived it as personal use, but it really isn't; it's part of MSFT Sharepoint too.

I'm also looking at some other replacements, including Egnyte, pCloud, MediaFire; and possibly Synch, although I'm not sure how I'd get the files to Synch. I can use a Server-2-server transfer, as it is, with all the previously mentioned, through MultCloud, which works...amazingly, IME. I've been using them for about 2 years, to move files seamlessly from DB to GDrive, scheduled daily and it works a treat--and is NOT limited by my painfully low bandwidth, thank heavens.

The customer service thing--I honestly believe that's partly why we get the customers that we do, and why they come back. While I no longer offer phone support, except in the most egregious of situations (omg, can authors TALK!), we do have same-day email reply policies and we are diligent about trying to ensure that every concern is addressed, all the time, for our customers. What I objected to the most was the simple lack of truthfulness and even if the bandwidth encroachment IS truthful, fine, then when, how, and how much? What file? If you can't tell me, how the hell do you even know it happened? It's just frustrating as hell.

Hitch

[PeterT]

Today was fun. It all started yesterday with a major snow storm (at times dumping 10cm per hour). Massive traffic issues all over.

Luckily as I was attempting to clear my driveway yesterday morning, had a call from work to say transportation, meals on wheels, food bank were all cancelled for the day and it became a day off work. Just as well as the road in my town house complex was impassable.

Later yesterday, my wife and I finished the snow clearing, and by this time the road in the complex had been cleared. Well over a foot of snow had fallen!

Today started out well. I thought I should get into work earlier than usual to dig out the work vehicles. Opened the garage door, got into my car and .... it doesn't start! Sounds like the engine isn't getting fuel. Try a few more times, and just in case, grab my booster pack and try a boost Just In Case. No go

Call for an Uber; see it's surge pricing but know I have no choice. Told the driver will be there in 15 minutes, message the driver to confirm unit # for pickup. Message back to meet him on a main street! I live on the corner of two main streets so tell him where I'll be

Hobble out to the street and ... I see him head on by. Luckily I wave my arms, he sees me and stops just a twenty feet away.

Get to the office and... Vehicles are badly snowed in. Work with colleagues and get a few vehicles out I grabbed a 4wd Ford Transit mini bus and it was great. Luckily one client trip I was dreading got cancelled; one of the technicians he was meant to see couldn't make it in. (He's a visually impaired client going to a heart specialist in the other end of the city, with limited parking at the best of times, and I knew I'd have to escort him to and from the appointment).

I must have passed 30 city buses stranded by the side of the road; encased by piles of snow piled up by plows.

End of day, I've grabbed a minivan and brought it home. If I feel upto it I will call the Automobile Association tonight and see if they can figure out the issue.

Sent from my Pixel 4a using Tapatalk

[BetterRed]

Originally Posted by ApK

MS and Google have set the bar extraordinarily low in terms how bad/absent customer support can be, and all others have apparently started racing to the bottom with them. It's like a highly competitive game of tech support limbo.

I called MS support last Saturday, it was a 'how to do' issue following a Word crash; it recovered the document OK, but it lost some customisations, macros. settings etc - weird.

I used their chat support channel. It was quick to respond, the responder didn't waste time with ring-around-rosie questions, grasped what the problem was, gave me a couple 'clues' on how to fix - which was all I needed. I gave them 5 stars.

On the few occasions I've called MS support it's always been good. But its help forums are awful - all I've ever got from them is a canned answer to an unrelated issue.

BR

[ownedbycats]

Originally Posted by ApK

MS and Google have set the bar extraordinarily low in terms how bad/absent customer support can be,

[marked as answer]

Hi ApK,

If I understand you correctly, your issue is that Microsoft has bad/absent customer support. If I have misunderstood, please do not hesitate to correct me.

Can you please do the following command:

sfc /scannow

Thank you and be sure to mark Helpful.

...

Oh that was painful to write.

[Hitch]

Originally Posted by BetterRed

I called MS support last Saturday, it was a 'how to do' issue following a Word crash; it recovered the document OK, but it lost some customisations, macros. settings etc - weird.

I used their chat support channel. It was quick to respond, the responder didn't waste time with ring-around-rosie questions, grasped what the problem was, gave me a couple 'clues' on how to fix - which was all I needed. I gave them 5 stars.

On the few occasions I've called MS support it's always been good. But its help forums are awful - all I've ever got from them is a canned answer to an unrelated issue.

BR

I agree with all of this and the community forums are simply appalling. I've lost my s**t there once or twice, particularly with uber-condescending answers from Word "experts" who've been anointed in the community as such.

I mean...I don't claim to be a Word Expert. But I know a lot more than the average bear around Word, and when some pinhead douchenozzle tells me that "oh, you can use a paragraph style for that, and it won't accumulate in the Automated TOC" and I'm looking RIGHT AT just that very damned thing happening, which is why I posted in the first place...well.

When I've been using headers and styles, and both of those incorporated with outline numbered lists, for the last 20 years plus, and they tell me "nope that won't happen" and I'm trying to tell them that this is a bug in Office 365, because, bygod, it is happening (and other weirdnesses with outline-numbered lists)...man. I was pretty damn hot under the collar.

Hitch

[CRussel]

Originally Posted by Hitch

Yes, OneDrive is surprisingly Enterprise-ready. I had conceived it as personal use, but it really isn't; it's part of MSFT Sharepoint too.
Hitch

Yes, it is. It helps when you run your own business on your own dogfood.

Originally Posted by BetterRed

I called MS support last Saturday, it was a 'how to do' issue following a Word crash; it recovered the document OK, but it lost some customisations, macros. settings etc - weird.

I used their chat support channel. It was quick to respond, the responder didn't waste time with ring-around-rosie questions, grasped what the problem was, gave me a couple 'clues' on how to fix - which was all I needed. I gave them 5 stars.

On the few occasions I've called MS support it's always been good. But its help forums are awful - all I've ever got from them is a canned answer to an unrelated issue.

BR

Roughly my experience as well. If you have actual support instances, or are willing to pay for an ad hoc one, you get someone who either knows what they're doing or will escalate to someone who does. 24/7, 365. (Well, OK, there might be a bit of a wait from 25 December through to 1 January.)

Originally Posted by Hitch

I agree with all of this and the community forums are simply appalling. I've lost my s**t there once or twice, particularly with uber-condescending answers from Word "experts" who've been anointed in the community as such.

I mean...I don't claim to be a Word Expert. But I know a lot more than the average bear around Word, and when some pinhead douchenozzle tells me that "oh, you can use a paragraph style for that, and it won't accumulate in the Automated TOC" and I'm looking RIGHT AT just that very damned thing happening, which is why I posted in the first place...well.

When I've been using headers and styles, and both of those incorporated with outline numbered lists, for the last 20 years plus, and they tell me "nope that won't happen" and I'm trying to tell them that this is a bug in Office 365, because, bygod, it is happening (and other weirdnesses with outline-numbered lists)...man. I was pretty damn hot under the collar.

Hitch

I don't claim to be a Word expert either, but I used it as my main tool for 20+ years and more than once had to show my editor how to fix something. As for the online forums? It's a crapshoot. If you get an MVP who is interested, you'll get a good answer. If not, well...

You're already using Word. Time to switch to OneDrive for Business, Hitch. Really.