2016-06-23:

Fri:
Very empty in the lab today, saw my supervisor twice briefly when she came in to get something out of a box, but that was it. Otherwise, nobody.

I got through scan to dropbox, and even wrote some stuff up, how about that? Now to be fair some of it was stuff just "imported" from another service, like "this is broken in this service too" but not all were like that.

Next up, the USB services.

Dropped the stuff off at Staples, (forgot the ink) and went to the bank, then shopping.

Over to my parent's house, invited my father over for tomorrow, and came back here.

No calls! Did get the SSD so I called that guy, he dropped the laptop off so I got started on that.
Watched some Powers at last, very good show!

Sat:
Did a few more laptop things while I wanted for it to be time to leave. Oh, it was such a glorious crappy day, just as I figured it would be.

Started the day with hours of trying to figure out the lady's crash. Interestingly, I don't think it's .net as the .net repair tool crashes in exactly the same way. Odd, no? That's like needing to test the sharpness of a sword by trying to cut it in half with itself.

Of course it really has no decent error message, in fact it has two undecent error messages, one werfault.exe which is apparently the error reporting service itself? Huh?

Well, at the end I started kermit flailing and one suggestion was the video card driver. Sure, why not? Oh, what's that? The intel site- THE INTEL WEBSITE- is down? For… maintenance? And you felt doing that during the day was the best… okay whatever.

So the next "straw" to grab was a bios update. Oh look, I can't get to the dell support site either, it just sits there. It wasn't the machine, we tried it on her Mac and no, nothing.

Great job, thanks everyone. So I have to go back there once these two sites decide to work.

Back here, looked into getting the car guy's pirated car software back on his machine. Moron.

Then out at 1:00 to beat my head against the terrible, terrible password keeping of the two people down the street. A nice little sheet I had with all their passwords. Do they work? Nope! The iPad gets mail, you must have known the password to set that up. No idea? Great.
So she calls Frontier (because unlike time warner/Charter I guess we are now they don't have a "punch in your MAC address and that's proof it's you) page.

She got off the phone, I tried the password, didn't work. Went on to the next password, gave it a few minutes, nothing.
Tried that password for her HUSBAND's account, oh look, they changed that one not yours. Let's go change it back again, shall we? Honestly, I have to do everything myself or they screw it up.

So I was on hour late to my 3:00, which went about as well as you would expect. Some vista system with a BSOD on boot. What a shock. Took that one home after tinkering with it for far too long. Have I mentioned I hate windows, lately? No?

Got back just in time to put the food in the oven and set up for the movie with my father. He liked it! But of course, it's a good movie, so why wouldn't he?

After that I made my FIVE phone calls and worked on the laptop some more. Got his pirated software up and running, yay go me. Didn't reach him. But I've booked tomorrow SOLID but got one break, one job is only 10 minutes from another. It's just sort of "tuneup" stuff and the like so it shouldn't be quite as bad as today.

But I know you'll surprise me, MS! *cute wink* *levels very large gauss gun*

Got the firmware and video drivers for the laptop, but there's no way I'm getting there tomorrow. Sorry, quilter lady.

And now it's 9:00, and I get to start this vista reload. Oh, but my life is full of meaning, purpose, and joy.

Sun:
The day giveth, and the day taketh away.

It giveth me a really warm day to sink my teeth into, like in the nineties at last. Love it!
It giveth me a plate of cookies. Really good cookies, actually.
It giveth me a section of watermelon.

It taketh one point of sanity.

The morning one (at 9:00) went long. It was stuck loading 10, and it was SLOOOOOOOW. I tried reloading 10, and it probably would have worked had I waited longer. I waited about 10-15 minutes I think just sitting there watching that stupid circle go around and around. So I put 8 back, and it spun around and around. But it finally did load. So tedious.
Then he wanted his modem changed to avoid the fee, and I got everything set up and called RR and… it wasn't good enough to support his level of service. So I got to tear it all back down again. Weeeee. (this is where I got cookies) So I get to go back there after ordering a better modem. Sigh.

Got back here about 12:40 (yes, compare those times again) and ate a quick "lunch" if you can call pie lunch, (I do, by the way) and went back out to be 15 minutes late to my 2:00.

This one was worse than I had been told, as the scammer had used the "encrypt the registry" password making her machine useless. So I got to reload a second machine, once I finally got my linux drive to understand what exFat was. Went to my 2:30 after leaving it doing the install.

This one I got to right on time and checked her machine out. Also put in her toner cartridge, and that went pretty fast. No major problems. She has THREE iPads? Wha- what?

Okay.

And all with cell service? How much is she paying for just that a month?

Back to the lady with the now reloaded laptop, got the standard stuff on there and her email back.
Hate leaving machines without doing the updates, but that takes hours and they'll happen eventually, right?
(The vista machine is still, more than 24 hours later, not even started doing the update process. Maybe I'll just proceed with it not being updated? I'll leave it tonight, maybe in the morning another 8 hours will make it work)

Then about a half hour late to my 4:30, where I told her to call frontier and get her password properly. She did. A quick check of that machine (it's one of mine with an SSD, so mbam ran in about 10 minutes) and one bag of watermelon later, I finally got home.

To cut my grass.

With that done it was exactly 7:00 so I had some dinner and made calls.

Talked with Ellen for an hour getting the page numbers working in her book. She somehow had 300+ sections so that was never going to work. I managed to delete them all in one shot. Doing a book in word, it just feels so dirty.

And got hold of the lady who wants a new router, so I have three jobs for tomorrow.

Oh look, it's after 9:00 PM. Time to get ready for tomorrow!

What a great weekend. (he said sarcastically.) At least I actually got money today. All cash too, oddly enough. And cookies! So good.

Mon:
A very long day! And still quite warm.
Packed up the set of games that sold, the playstation ones. The xbox and PS2 one did not go. You just can't get rid of old sports games I guess. They're like used diamonds in that regard?

Not too much with the first one, basically the usual stuff. She had every browser but was still using IE? But then why did she have so many bookmarks in Firefox, I asked myself. Got her printer installed, saw a barky puppy. Back home to eat lunch, after nearly 48 hours the vista machine finally worked out what updates it needed, and more fool me, I tried to put them all in at once.

Silly Robert.

And of course it had to roll them back. So then I sat and did them 50 at a time while I watched some Powers. That worked, left it doing the standard package while I went to see the laptop lady. Naturally, neither the updated video card driver or the bios update actually helped. So I left that job a total failure.
Wonderful.

Not much time at home after that, but I did more work on the Vista system. Then out to replace a router at 5:00. One dog came right up to me, sat down, oh, you're going to pet me, right? One dog kept a distance and just barked at me. Dude, you see this other dog is not being killed or anything, right? You're half my size, you don't have to act like I'm going to murder you at any second. At least he/she finally sniffed my hand, at least. But no touching!

Hopefully the router solves their issue. (Changing the router, not getting sniffed by the doggie.)
Back here, finished up the Vista system and called her, she was around so I brought it back. Got that set up there, answered her questions.

Back here it was just 7:00 so time for phone call making. Couple of calls, one appointment, one "you turn on the menubar in firefox this way" question, and Ellen again with some Kodak Easy Share question. Apparently it wants to be set as the default program and of course we can't think our own way around that problem!

Ate dinner.

Then the vista lady called, with a few more questions. Got them straight.

Neighbor was throwing out a home made cat playground thing, lugged it back here. Needs carpet put on it, and rope around the supports. With all the free time I have I'm sure to get that done quickly.

Made more labels, did laundry because I didn't get to it yesterday.

And it's time for bed. So ends my last day off. Back to work tomorrow. But I do have two more days off to look forward to, if my contract is renewed. We'll see.

Supposed to cool off, and it's getting there already it's much cooler and breezier outside.

So glad to be going back to work tomorrow! USB services, here I come.

Tues:
Entering bugs? Who's doing that? Not my coworkers, as I put in all six of them today. Again, mostly things taken from other services, but which hadn't been caught for this one. Great job, other testers that aren't me. No news about extensions, but I did hear about another guy getting the ax, one of the guys primarily in the other lab, but he comes over into "ours" sometimes. Rather sudden, by the comments. Only one week left now, doesn't look good. If that guy raised my hopes for nothing…

Tomorrow, finishing the scan to USB service (just a few things to do) and I'll start print from USB. I'm gonna make it to 750 bugs before I'm done, just you wait.

Then out to deliver the DVD drive and answer some questions. Did that. On the way out I looked over and there was a bunny hiding under the bushes! I managed to get a picture.

[[image file="2016-06/thisbunny_1.jpg" alt="salt for the tail" ]]

Awwww..

Got home, only one call today, so I booked Thursday already. Checked my websites, finally ordered that cable modem for the guy. Ugh, I've been so busy now that I have a little time to do writing or whatever, I've lost the thread of it and and don't have the gumption. Plus tomorrow I'll be guaranteed not to have time because Thursday morning I go to feed my parent's kitties and such. So I'll be getting up early, ergo going to bed early. Same for the next few days. So It's sort of pointless to begin now, right?

Wed:
Decent enough day, but I only wrote up three bugs.
Put the latest spec lines into the test cases, as that hadn't been done in FAR too long, nice job senpai. Then went to the meeting. They want to have 6 done by august, good luck with only two testers.

(Yes, no news as of yet.)

Then in the afternoon I did most of Print from USB. Two of the three were just things carried over from other services, but one was new.

And that was pretty much that. John did make a passing comment that got me thinking. I should digitize that mortgage stuff, as I have access to high speed scanners that can do legal for another week. I was going through my paperwork and the Midpoint Date was July 1, 2016! Hah! I was only supposed to be halfway to paying my mortgage off at next month. Like that was going to happen that slowly. (I've had it paid off for years now, and a good thing too) Huh, I've lived here 15 years now.

Out a half hour to my after work fun. Two machines, just a basic going over so it only took an hour. Didn't really have too much wrong.

Then back here, made two calls, checked my sites, got ready for tomorrow. Added a few mods to skyrim, see just how far I can push it with my new video card. Then mostly hung out in the museum doing stuff. Ah well. It was only a few minutes.

Then it was 9:00, time for bed, getting up early tomorrow.

Thurs:
The days just keep counting down.

Went to my parent's house, fed everybody. Meowing kitties were meowing, birds were chirping. (or screaming)

Did some scanning tests today, building up a spreadsheet of what happens when you scan various sizes on auto. Both for USB and fax. Both had their share of oddities.

Got a new build, but not much has changed in the last fifteen days, oddly. There were only three changes listed for bugs fixed, and the new features are only 1/3 there. As in, one of three now has a placeholder for where it's GOING to be, but doesn't actually work yet. And they want to deliver in August, and after next week they'll only have two testers. Great planning.

They might have three, but I haven't heard anything.

After work job was pretty easy. Someone smashed the power button on the PC and broke it. It's the stupidest design. Usually there's a wire plugged into the motherboard that leads to a switch, and the switch is attached to the case. If the plastic cover broke at least the button could be exposed and pressed with like a pen.

Not so here. The button (which was smashed back pretty hard and bent over, take a breath, dude) sits on a riser card that other cables plug into. Then from the button extends this plastic piece that curves around and it's the curvy bit that actually touches the button on the inside. Look, I'll show you a picture.

 [[image file="2016-06/elephant.png" alt="plastic bit" ]]

See how dumb that is? Anyway, it's broken so I got the machine running and ordered them a new bezel. Which of course means going back there. Sigh.

Got home, ate dinner, looked over the Steam sale for all the games I want and know I will never have the time to play. (Like city skylines, the PC version of Valkyrie Chronicles (as my PS3 is busted I can't play the copy I own) and others, like Torchlight 2.)

Made my calls, reached one person.

So two jobs for Saturday. Haven't heard any more from Sean, so that's up in the air.

Tomorrow- ?? Not sure what I'll test, maybe finish up print from USB by doing all the different file types, though I've already done a bunch. No hire buddy, it's his last day off.
Then shopping, no parents but I'll have gone in the morning to feed everyone again.

And that about does it for this week.

Tune in next week at this time to see if I still have a job or not!