Page 7 - Ron Call News Today

With nothing to go on, Sean ordered in nine complete sets of hardware and paid the eye-watering extra cost to get the kit delivered same day. The next morning, armed with a bulging site pack full of gear, he hopped on a train to London and set off on a voyage into the unknown. He was at least a little familiar with the clients site and, upon arrival, headed directly to the location where the stricken devices had been installed. They were all working perfectly. Apart from one, which just needed ...

Goodbye, Mr Chips Share Copy On Call There are few things worse than when someone nicks your chips, be they of the potato or silicon variety as our latest delve into the annals of On Call reveals. "Ben", as the Regomiser has dubbed todays contributor, was tasked with supporting a network consisting of a pair of decade old HP1000 minicomputers. The devices ran the Real Time Executive (RTE) operating system (RTE6, according to Ben) and the software used by his company was written in Fortr...

Practical jokes: just dont Richard Speed Fri 23 Apr 2021 // 07:31 UTC Share On Call Welcome to another entry in The Registers On Call files, where we learn that the hilarious pranks of an IT joker can be enjoyed as much as millionaire actor George Clooneys "fun" leg-pulling. "Jim" returns once more to pages of On Call with a tale of poorly targeted japery and an unfunny practical joke. Is there any other sort? We skip once more to the 1980s and the mighty IBM XT, a flee...

Volunteer Whanganui 2 minutes to read Urgent Job Vacancies – Volunteer Whanganui ■ Lawn mower ■ Art tutors assistant ■ Health Shuttle driver ■ Ground maintenance worker If you are interested in any of these volunteer positions please come and see us. Room 110, 60 Ridgway Street, Community House, "The old post office building", Whanganui. Opening hours: Monday – Thursday 9am – 4pm. Ph (06) 3479430 Email: whanganuivolunteercentre@xtra.co.nz or visit our website for all our current p...

Not quite what we meant by disk capacity Richard Speed Fri 16 Apr 2021 // 07:15 UTC Share Copy On Call Welcome back to On Call and a timely reminder that no matter how careful and clear you think your instructions are, a user will somehow always misunderstand. Our tale, from a reader Regomised as "Keith", takes us back to simpler times: the era of the 5.25-inch floppy disk and software updates mailed out to users rather than flung out at inconvenient times by an unforgiv...

Register reader finds that some Apple fans are... not very bright? Richard Speed Fri 2 Apr 2021 // 08:04 UTC Share Copy On Call The weekend is upon us, and we can think of no better time to celebrate the efforts of those courageous individuals tasked with sorting the problems of users. Be they Mac or PC-based. Welcome to On Call. Todays contributor, Regomised as "Philip", was the resident "PC guru" for a major computer manufacturer. It was the mid to late 1980s, and Mart...

A matte-black terminal? Neat! Where can I get one? Richard Speed Fri 26 Feb 2021 // 08:15 UTC Share Copy On Call Dark Mode is all the rage nowadays, but screens of the blackest black go back further than you might think, as well discover in another episode of On Call. Todays story comes from "Keith" and takes us to the era of Wyse terminals and foot-long cigars in the workplace. Keith was gainfully employed at a small financial data firm and was responsible for looking a...

Wow, this PC is hot stuff... actually it might be a bit too hot Richard Speed Fri 19 Feb 2021 // 08:15 UTC Share Copy On Call Can you smell burning? Is it the Friday morning bacon? Are you having a stroke? Or is it something more sinister? Find out in this weeks episode of On Call. Regomised as "Will", our hero was the IT manager for a government department responsible for supporting lawmakers and looking after a number of security agencies and task forces. The Regomiser...

Mice do like cheese after all Richard Speed Fri 22 Jan 2021 // 08:15 UTC Share On Call Welcome back to The Registers series of On Call stories from those who have to face the most unpredictable resource in the IT world: the user. Our tale, from a reader Regomised as "Mike", takes us back to the glory days of the personal computer revolution and the service department of a ComputerLand outlet. The year was 1982 and Mike was delighted with his workplace. "A fairly amazing...

IT staff can be so... spiky sometimes Richard Speed Fri 15 Jan 2021 // 08:15 UTC Share Copy On Call A seemingly innocent uplighter looms large in todays On Call tale of NetWare nefariousness in which a reader takes observability to new lengths. "Dan", for that is not his name, was working as departmental support for a UK local authority "more famous for its wild animal park" than its IT prowess. This was back in the 1990s, and Dan told us "we had only just managed to gai...