2020-04-02:

Fri:
A few fun compalints about today and really isn't that why you're here? Let's get into it.

What should have been a 15 minute test wasn't even started because equitrac won't install on my versalink device. Oh, it claims to be installed. It's all happy about initializing but it's all a lie. The icon shows up on the screen but it's a generic gear icon. And worse yet when you touch it it gives a 404 error and says there's a problem loading the page.

It's stupid. Why say it succeeded when it didn't? I mean yes, most error messages are crap, but let's be real. An error message in this case, even a crappy one, would be suuuuuper helpful. Like, it failed, I can clearly see it failed, don't try to tell me it didn't. So I have no idea what to do about that and messed with it a bunch of the day.

Another part of the day was messing with the keyboard. To enter fax numbers in Gabi, we have to go through all sorts of gyrations, for reasons? They sent me software for a device I don't have the Gabi solution loaded on, and two links so I could go test it. No directions. No support. Here are two links, go test it.

The one link had a page with some certs (it's always certs, I hate everything) and no directions. So I messed about and finally emailed "what the heck am I supposed to be doing to make this work?"

And someone came back with "install the certs" and I was like, yeah no crap Jack how? I great a great "success!" message and "0 certificates installed." Yeah, 0 certs installed is a failure by the way, not a success. In fact now that I think about it, I may raise a stink and write that up as a bug. It's stupid. It failed, it shouldn't cheerfully tell me otherwise. Anyway, back to this guy;

"Oh, you need to use this password I didn't include in my earlier two emails about this."

That would have been good to- wait it still says 0 certificates installed. How about a clear set of steps and not me just flailing around? Is that too much to ask? I did figure out the "add this IP address to the printer trust" thing he was going on about so that was a minor victory. Still wasn't able to test it though.

So that was my day. A whole bunch of dissapointment and resentment. How was yours? I left a little early because at that point there was no one else around which technically is against the rules of always having another person. I mean I could have died in there and who would have known until Monday? Nobody. So I wasn't getting an answer from Mr "I forgot to give you the password" so I figured it was pointless me being there any longer.

Did the shopping, most shelves actually had things on them again! Nice. Got what I needed, went to get gas. Then saw my parents.

Back here put stuff away and did game with the gang. No battle maps needed, and we stayed on task fairly well and got to the planet we needed to get to. (After finding the spy, because of course there was a spy)

Sat:
Nasty gray day. Rainy. Checked my sites in the morning and then got caught up on the magicians.

After lunch I did a few things around the house. I was looking for pushpins, found the coin collection my parents bought for me when I was a baby. Made a space for it to be displayed.
Fixed the bathroom soap dish that was coming off the wall.
Did some cleaning.
Took apart the PC and got it ready to take to my parent's house.
Finished up chapter 3.

Played some Mass Effect. Then I shut it off and was going to check out Shante and Sonic Generations and just got to the main menu in Shante and Sean popped up. So we played Borderlands for the rest of the time. Until quite, quite late.

Sun:
Meaning I got up suuuuper late today!

Got a few things done though. I baked muffins. I put the comics into the database, and got the next stack out. Vacuumed the rug. Did some reading.

Didn't have my phone on me so I was an hour late responding to Sean who wanted to do more Borderlands, so we did a few hours of that. Still not done, this was a large expansion!

Ate dinner, got ready for tomorrow.


Mon:
Minor victories and minor defeats today, let me explain all about them.
As far as the whole certs thing from Friday he sent me a new set of them, which installed. This reminded me of my fury with Success - but failure! and so I wrote it up. Let someone above me hash out that they want no error messages when things fail.

Another small victory was figuring out why equitrac wasn't installing. I still have no idea, but I know what I did. On the advice of John I rebooted the server. Yeah, that's it. I hate windows so much.

With that done I started the test which required it. I expected it to fail, but it passed. I was like, huh? Turns out I guess the .NET card works different from the CAC/PIV cards or maybe it was just a setup thing but I got it to the point where it "should" be, logging in with alternate login allows me to see the job. Yay! Logging in with the card does not. Yay! Putting the key in that should let me see the job... doesn't let me see the job? BOO!

In fact I see the same login name in equitrac and I don't see the @ part in the audit log leading me to think it doesn't work at all? But how to prove it, that's the real issue.

Also sent the other jobs that Kevin got me for the alignment test, and we went over the tests he added. No big deal, but I did rearrange them into a more balanced arrangement. As all things should be.

Came back here, wet, raining and cold today. And for the future as well, so yay?

Did the usual stuff, but finished the book I was reading. Now onto the second one, the one I actually got for Christmas.

Two calls, the guy with the email needing his smtp server password changed, forgot to test that when we last spoke, and making sure Skype worked for a guy.

Got ready for bed, and waited for Sean in case we were doing Borderlands tonight. Waited about a second, how is that for timing?

Finished it, but we had left some things behind which we might go take care of tomorrow.

Tues:
Very busy day today. In no particular order, but rather how I remember it, I got through one of the last D5.1 tests I need to do as the bug preventing me from installing Equitrac was fixed. It was a really huge prox reader, it worked fine.

Worked on a D5.4 test, as that bug was also supposedly fixed. I did three cards, one of them didn't work, and emailed Joe like "was this all the cards" and he was like "what's that card? And no, there should be these other two cards." So much for Christina's test plan. So I tried the other two cards. One worked. So much for that being done.

Looked at a build for USDA, just making sure it still worked as it was just the official build of what we had gotten for that test before. It was basically to hit the button and see if it came back positive. It did.

Worked on reproducing my "usb drive removed" error message when scanning to home. Couldn't, it worked just fine. Maybe I should apply the clone file I made from before, if it's a mis-configuration that might bring it back so they can see why it's giving that message. Didn't think of that, and I took the clone file too.

That reminds me, had to reload two machines because I was trying to reproduce the bug in D5.4 and D5.1 so I cloned the .4 machine to the .1 machine and it wouldn't boot. Not being content I tried it on another machine and it wouldn't boot either. Lovely. Reloading them fixed it.

Figured out how to get into the serial port on some old 7655s or whatever they are. It's not straightforward like the newer machines. You need not only a funny looking cable (like you do on the newer ones) but I also had to track down a serial to USB adapter. I did find one that worked but maybe I don't need it, the developer guy said he took care of it. Fine.

Oh I ate lunch in there someplace. Also saved a plant. I looked towards the "back door" of the lab and thought "isn't there a plant back there?" There was, it's one of those long viney plants that for some reason is kept in a water bottle. It was totally in the dark because no one uses that passageway, or at best only a few times a day. So I cut it out of the water bottle, and planted it in one of the empty pots Ken has. So now it has light and water and actual dirt it can pull nutrients from, maybe? At least it has a better chance than it did.

I think that's everything. Hopefully not quite as busy tomorrow.

Came back here, only about 40 and no sunshine. Windy. Hasn't it been spring almost two weeks?

Checked sites, ate dinner. Got ready for tomorrow and played a bit of Shantae, then did some reading. After all that, a bit of Borderlands and then went to bed.

Wed:
In the morning we had the usual USDA meeting, they're still not ready to give us a build so I will do no testing for them. So there.

Looked into two bugs I had previously written, as the latest build of D5.4 supposedly had fixed them. For a wonder, it had. How about that.

Well, two major ones, a timing test that was quick, and I did finish up another D5.4 test? Huh, don't recall exactly.

Spent the afternoon (or a portion of it anyway) figuring out if the last feature I need to test for this early release was busted or I was doing something wrong. After much consideration I believe it's not me! *firecrackers and balloons* I set up an older machine to do the same thing, namely log in with the card and see what I got for the username. (Using the specially formatted UPN/sAMAccountName card) On the old machine I got the numbers then @ then mil as I expected. On the new machine I got the numbers and @ and then our domain. This does not allow me to log in to equitrac and so the test fails.

Loaded the latest release of the software that supports USDA so I'll be ready when they give me a build.

Oh, and the pranks I played on all the people in the lab. So many pranks... on all the people... in the lab. Like, uh, you know, and that other person. I was just howling with laughter there were so many pranks. On the, you know, people. In the lab.

Came home, did the usual stuff, with more reading. Popped into the machine in Borderlands a bunch to see about getting a sniper like Sean did with over 9000!!!! damage. I found a couple of good replacements for lower level weapons, and a copy of the sniper I wanted but without quite as much damage as his seemed to have. (The damage numbers seem to be all wonky for some reason. A result of the area we're in?) Didn't seem to matter, I killed Graveward in like a clip. Couldn't believe it. I just tore through him. Sweet. My companion animal is so cute and tiny right now, glitch? I have to get my screenshots out of Xbox, maybe I can remember and show you. Maybe the april fools joke by them? Sean's "double" was just as tiny so I'm thinking it was.

I remembered



She's soooooo tiny. Totes adorbes. Five Stars would shrink again

Got ready for bed, but Sean was going to be late due to, I don't know, slacking or something? I mean he's home... I kid! I kid the Sean! Anyway, had some time. Looked through my screenshots I had taken on xbox. Did I find a gift idea for Sean? Huh.


Thurs:
If I could find one thing that I did today that encapsulated the spirit of the day, what would it be? What one thing showed who I am, what I can do to make the world a better place? Oh, of course! Watering the plants. Yes, I was going to do it tomorrow but after the 30 minute meeting, 20 minutes of which (as pointed out by Christina) seems to be Don raving about his filters and how the jira works. It's like, we get it Don, we are all highly technically people that know how the jira works. We are all impressed with your filters. We don't need to be told about them again. So after the meeting I had about an hour and nothing to do because I had finished everything I could humanly do (so as to not reveal that I am in any way inhuman) so I did that. Found more pots so I put more plants just sitting in water in pots. So weird.

What else did I do??? Set up a machine for other Don, with users. Upgraded it to the latest code, because why not? Moved all my in progress stuff to done, as agreed even though it's only an early release and only one model was tested. It's fine, history has shown there aren't bugs across models.

Christina gave me a demo of the workplace cloud, as I was looking to finish up the last of the D5.3 stuff in one swoop, but s;he's got everything installed and ready for the test on her machine so whatever.

Yeah, not very productive today, because I was productive all freaking week! We did all the VersaLink testing in a single week. That's not too shabby.

Came back, had one new call but as usual I checked sites and ate dinner.

The call from yesterday was made, he just had some questions, and I cleane;d out two antivirus programs from one guy's machine, and got him on RR mail in Thunderbird. Thanks for offering to pay me! Finished my book, back to comics I guess.

Let's look to the future! Tomorrow: Unknown. I'm back to being done with everything for the moment. Maybe USDA will come through. Then shopping, I wonder if the bank is open again? I could deposit a lot that's been hanging around here. I guess I'll check. Then maybe getting gas? I haven't used much honestly, and then seeing my parents. We'll be doing my game with me here I believe, though no email has gone out about it.

Then another quiet weekend. No real plans, we'll see what comes.

Everyone out there safe? Disease free? I hope so. Keep it that way okay? I'll see you all next week.