serinde

( Warning: Womb fluid content ahoy, and not the porn-y kind. )
[*] or other nationalities' representatives, don't step on my jokes

No, really. I'm posting from a bus. (I'm also fighting off a little bit of carsickness, which I was afraid might happen as reading a screen is not much different from reading a book.) I have to say, for $17 the BoltBus is a pretty solid win: the seats are comfortable, the wireless is reliable, there's power, the bathroom isn't frightening.... I'm not convinced we'll reach Boston at the stroke of 5:45pm (we're only now going through Hartford) but I don't think we'll be much later than that.

(The "cranky", "you're stupid", and "my job sucks" icons were fighting it out for the honor of placement here. You see who won.)

First, let us define the problem:
A student with a MacBook (10.5.x). He can use the school wireless network just fine on the uptown campus. When he tries from his dorm room downtown, he can connect, but can only get Hunter web sites. No CUNY and no outer Internet whatsoever.

Stage 1 and 2 troubleshooting:
I took a look at his config when he brought the computer to the help desk, just in case there was some other-location insanity, which there was not. Then I had him call me from his room so I could walk him through some stuff. I ascertained the following:
- He had gotten an IP address on our network
- He could ping the wireless gateway and servers on the uptown campus
- He could not get to exterior websites by IP address (hence, not a DNS issue)
- Traceroutes died before getting into CUNYland (we connect to them for our intarwubs, don't ask me why)

So: clearly a routing issue. Something is not letting his traffic route outside the college network. Therefore I package all this information together, with specifics, with date stamps, with all the hops in the traceroute, and open a trouble ticket assigned to what we are pleased to call our network group. Three days later, I learn they don't actually use the trouble ticketing system; the help desk crew has to print out the ticket and hand it to them. FINE. I do that thing. Ensues the following conversation:

Notwork Stooges: It's his computer.
Your humble correspondent: No it's not, it works fine from uptown.
NS: It's nothing to do with us.
YHC: I don't understand why you would say that. He gets an IP address, he can authenticate to the AP.
NS: You have to find out when Hacker-Boy[1] is going downtown and have him take his laptop and test from the student's room and call us for troubleshooting.
YHC: Why? I've already been on the phone personally with this student, gathering this troubleshooting data. What else do you expect Hacker-Boy to find?
NS: Well if it's his computer--
YHC: IT IS NOT HIS COMPUTER, WHICH WORKS FINE FROM HERE.
NS: It's nothing to do with us.
YHC: *turns around and walks out without another word*

Apparently this (rightly) gave them the notion that I was gearing up to complain to their boss, because Stooge #2 followed me out a few minutes later to "sit down and talk about it". After gloriously insulting my intelligence and experience by "explaining" how CUNY sends us notification of IP addresses engaged in botnet activity, and how they nobly protect our network by blocking all those addresses, the following conversation ensued:

NS: ...so the student's computer must be infected with a botnet virus.
YHC: No, it can't be; it's a Mac.[2]
NS: Well then there must be something funny on it, because CUNY detected it and sent us a notice. So he needs to have it checked out first, but that is why it's blocked. When they are blocked they can only get Hunter & CUNY sites.
YHC: So IP addresses we block for this can get to Hunter and CUNY but nowhere else?
NS: Yes
YHC: Well that can't be it, then, 'cause he can only get to Hunter sites.
NS: ...Oh well then, when blocked you can only get to Hunter sites.
YHC: . o O ( YOU DON'T EVEN KNOW WHAT YOU'RE BLOCKING?!? )
YHC: OK. Well, could it be that the previous student using that IP address was the botnetted one, and when that DHCP lease expired this student got the address?
NS: That is possible I guess. We will remove the block. But he should still bring in his computer so it can be checked out.
YHC: Sure. Fine. I'll take care of that. kthxbye.

You will note, therefore, that this has magically transformed from "not our problem" to "oh except the part where we have a block against that IP address". You will also note that even if we had sent down Hacker-Boy, it would not have done a goddamn thing, since his laptop would have gotten a different address entirely. You will thirdly note the utter absurdity of trying to block out a particular machine by blocking DHCP-assigned IP addresses. Which leases, according to Network Stooge #1, last a whole! complete! twenty minutes!.

I am so utterly, bitterly fed up with their shit.

[1] Who they then started describing name, appearance, and function to me, apparently oblivious to the fact that I am his manager.

[2] Yes, I do realize the kid might have Windows on a Parallels or VMWare or Boot Camp setup. Bets?

Bud's brakes have suddenly started to make awful grinding noises when I apply them. Having been through the teenage adventure of ignoring loud brake complaints unto the point where the disc cracks and you have to drive home in your land yacht with no brakes at all, I see no need to get extra credit in that particular subject, and will call the brilliant competent glorious mechanics of Jersey City tomorrow.

I can borrow back Womble or probably use nedlnthred's car at need, so I'm not screwed even if they can't take delivery of the patient for some days. But what a damned nuisance.

I am on the world's most dire conference call, which is for all CUNY Help Desk managers (and the woman at the Mothership who fills that role). We are a half-hour in and so far it's been all about the incoming Oracle PeopleSoft bleargh. Not a word about how students couldn't register for six hours on Monday. But I don't care, because I am wearing new clothes and have borrowed nedlnthred's awesome teal shoes. I feel like I can throw down with anything.

OH WE JUST GOT TO THE PORTAL ISSUE. "It's not down! People could still get to Blackboard! It was only LDAP!" (WHICH YOU NEED TO REGISTER WITH.) Oy veh es mir. "We see usage spikes and that is what causes the problem, we don't know what's causing that and are looking into it." Gosh, d'you think that maybe, possibly, they could be coincident with registration sessions?

I am trying an experiment: no coffee this morning. (So far I am unimpressed.) (Am I extra bleh from lack of caffeine, or just because I have accumulated more bleh?)

Something is wackily awry with the Google Document that Dr. Nick and I have been working on for months. I can happily edit any other document I have access to and save it back, but that one consistently gives me the dread Network Error when I try to save. It's only 410KB, so we haven't hit the 512KB limit, which was the most obvious possibility. I've tried exporting it into HTML and uploading it as a new document; same problem. I really do not wish to grovel through 410KB of raw markup to try and see if there's some tag or other being stupid. (And how would I tell if it were? Wholly illogical for an HTML botch to keep you from saving the fucking file.) Gosh, it'd be swell if the error message was indicative.

...Hmm. At that. Just because it exports to HTML at 410K, does not necessarily mean that whatever internal format Gdocs uses translates to the same file size. Gosh, it'd be swell if the error message was indicative. HINT, HINT

Naturally, when I have a bit of time and a bit of inclination to do a bit of creative work, Google Docs is crapping out on me. (I can log in fine, but it gives me O NOES NETWORK ERROR!!1 whenever I try to save. Needless to say, my connectivity is otherwise fine.)

The IDE bus, that is.

Thanks to expert consultation from sweh and audiovile, and purred encouragement from Cravat[1], my PC has finally a) recognized both DVD drives, b) stopped thinking that the Pioneer A108 is a "PILDEER %008!", and c) will hopefully stop BSOD'ing at random moments.

Having entirely mined out this rich vein of avoidance behavior, it is time to search my closet.

[1] another feline hanger-on, who thinks I am her human. shechameleon: she looks just like Killer (but without the milk mustache).

Achieving orgasm is not unlike making sauce Hollandaise.

Hey look, it's more stuff I'm gonna miss.