You can, so they say, lead a horse to water but can’t force it to drink. I’ll go along with that – especially when you substitute “customer” for the word horse. Now, when it comes to upgrading systems (especially hardware) some vendors are constantly giving their customers the hard sell. We don’t do that but, when a system comes to a certain age it’s hard to avoid advising that it’s time to “put it to sleep” so to speak.
We habitually offer service & support contracts with new systems together with a promise to fix breakdowns due to “fair wear & tear” for up to five years. Beyond that though, it’s impossible to deliver on any promise to mend broken kit as you just can’t get the parts. Try laying your hands on an ATX motherboard, replacement Pentium II or III processor or older types of DIMM memory and you’ll get the idea. So, after the five year anniversary we respectfully suggest that it may be time to look at the advantages of switching to something more up to date. You’d be surprised at how few of the “horses” go along with the suggestion. Many, neigh J nearly all, succumb to some little voice that says “save the money – save the money” which they do – then go and blow the savings (and some more) on a new beemer. And then the inevitable happens and some important component falls over. And then we (usually) manage to dig them out of the poo at short notice.
The reputation for such heroics is what led a disconsolate looking gentleman to our door. He was clutching a grubby looking beige box – which had “died”. Inside the beige box was a database containing all his company’s customer records, trading history, contacts, accounts, prices and so on. He’d already consulted a number of local IT establishments none of whom could help and the dealer who’d originally sold him the kit had gone belly up in, erm, 1993. Needless to say he did NOT have a current service agreement in force and a well meaning friend (some friend), a former employee, had suggested consulting us – as a last resort.
Both Patrick and I were away (see below) so Mrs R and young engineer Gary tried to help by gathering the facts before phoning us. Examining the innards revealed a processor bearing the legend 80286 and memory not even on modules but soldered directly onto the motherboard.
“What’s the operating system ?” they asked.
“Dunno – Concurrent something or other”
“And the database used to store the information ?”
Shrug
“And your latest backup ?”
Another shrug.
Believe it or not this ancient box actually ran four simultaneous users using, one presumes, Concurrent DOS which was an abomination of an “operating system” that went out of style around 1986 before Shopper was launched. The four users connected to the box using Wyse dumb terminals and a four port serial interface.
Long term readers will know that I’m a big advocate of the maxim “if it ain’t broke don’t fix it” but there does come a time when common sense says that “a stitch in time saves nine” should take precedence. In this case that should have been around 1989 ! Even worse, the “friend” had suggested that it would only be necessary to bring the system box as we’d have plenty of screens and keyboards lying around. He hadn’t brought a mouse – with an old character based operating system it simply wasn’t required. The old style 5 pin DIN plug keyboard we did have (one, kept just in case) but the video card was a Hercules enhanced graphics type which needs a special kind of monitor. We threw the last of those away before we moved office in 1996. Another obstacle was the floppy drive – none of your modern 3.5 inch jobs here but a 5.25 inch genuine floppy (as in bendy) disk. Did they have a boot disk ? What do you think ?
So, advised of the enormity of the task and the likely time/cost of attempted resurrection, he trudged off and we haven’t seen him since. Ahhhhh.
As it happens I could have provided a boot disk to try and get the machine up under (ordinary) DOS as I have a pair of them that go with my equally old Televideo two and a half stone “portable” computer that dates from 1983 (see Shopper issue 163 for a picture) and a copy of Gibson Research’s excellent Spinrite program (www.grc.com) which would have given us a fair stab at recovering the data files. But Mrs R doesn’t know that I have a stash of such rubbish, I only keep the Televideo so I can donate to an IT museum one day.
I could point you at book of the month candidate Disaster Recovery Planning (subtitled Preparing For The Unthinkable) by Jon William Toigo (ISBN0-13-046282-9)
We habitually offer service & support contracts with new systems together with a promise to fix breakdowns due to “fair wear & tear” for up to five years. Beyond that though, it’s impossible to deliver on any promise to mend broken kit as you just can’t get the parts. Try laying your hands on an ATX motherboard, replacement Pentium II or III processor or older types of DIMM memory and you’ll get the idea. So, after the five year anniversary we respectfully suggest that it may be time to look at the advantages of switching to something more up to date. You’d be surprised at how few of the “horses” go along with the suggestion. Many, neigh J nearly all, succumb to some little voice that says “save the money – save the money” which they do – then go and blow the savings (and some more) on a new beemer. And then the inevitable happens and some important component falls over. And then we (usually) manage to dig them out of the poo at short notice.
The reputation for such heroics is what led a disconsolate looking gentleman to our door. He was clutching a grubby looking beige box – which had “died”. Inside the beige box was a database containing all his company’s customer records, trading history, contacts, accounts, prices and so on. He’d already consulted a number of local IT establishments none of whom could help and the dealer who’d originally sold him the kit had gone belly up in, erm, 1993. Needless to say he did NOT have a current service agreement in force and a well meaning friend (some friend), a former employee, had suggested consulting us – as a last resort.
Both Patrick and I were away (see below) so Mrs R and young engineer Gary tried to help by gathering the facts before phoning us. Examining the innards revealed a processor bearing the legend 80286 and memory not even on modules but soldered directly onto the motherboard.
“What’s the operating system ?” they asked.
“Dunno – Concurrent something or other”
“And the database used to store the information ?”
Shrug
“And your latest backup ?”
Another shrug.
Believe it or not this ancient box actually ran four simultaneous users using, one presumes, Concurrent DOS which was an abomination of an “operating system” that went out of style around 1986 before Shopper was launched. The four users connected to the box using Wyse dumb terminals and a four port serial interface.
Long term readers will know that I’m a big advocate of the maxim “if it ain’t broke don’t fix it” but there does come a time when common sense says that “a stitch in time saves nine” should take precedence. In this case that should have been around 1989 ! Even worse, the “friend” had suggested that it would only be necessary to bring the system box as we’d have plenty of screens and keyboards lying around. He hadn’t brought a mouse – with an old character based operating system it simply wasn’t required. The old style 5 pin DIN plug keyboard we did have (one, kept just in case) but the video card was a Hercules enhanced graphics type which needs a special kind of monitor. We threw the last of those away before we moved office in 1996. Another obstacle was the floppy drive – none of your modern 3.5 inch jobs here but a 5.25 inch genuine floppy (as in bendy) disk. Did they have a boot disk ? What do you think ?
So, advised of the enormity of the task and the likely time/cost of attempted resurrection, he trudged off and we haven’t seen him since. Ahhhhh.
As it happens I could have provided a boot disk to try and get the machine up under (ordinary) DOS as I have a pair of them that go with my equally old Televideo two and a half stone “portable” computer that dates from 1983 (see Shopper issue 163 for a picture) and a copy of Gibson Research’s excellent Spinrite program (www.grc.com) which would have given us a fair stab at recovering the data files. But Mrs R doesn’t know that I have a stash of such rubbish, I only keep the Televideo so I can donate to an IT museum one day.
I could point you at book of the month candidate Disaster Recovery Planning (subtitled Preparing For The Unthinkable) by Jon William Toigo (ISBN0-
but, on examination it’s way too detailed for most SME’s. If you work for an outfit with several hundred PC’s though, give this book a try, there’s plenty in here for you to be thinking about. Fortunately, for the rest of us, the lessons which would benefit most smaller businesses from the above parable are easy to pick out. Firstly if either your CPU, operating system or application software are two or more full versions out of date then its time to start thinking about moving up. In practice that means that sub Pentium 500 MHz users with Windows 95 should be planning and budgeting for replacements. If you have custom or very specialist software and your provider bites the dust then start finding a replacement right away – don’t wait until a problem forces you to look. And, finally, don’t ever EVER neglect your backups. I know I keep going on about it but, one day, your backup may be all that separates you, your business or your job from the dole queue.
So where were Patrick and I while the “workers” were dealing with antique hardware ? We’re helping a client move to a new office. In Georgia (USA not Russia). Your first reaction is probably that this is daft. Surely some local screwdriver type could do that for them ? Well, the office move was planned during my last visit there in November. What they needed was someone to install a couple of dozen Cat 5 ethernet connections, move the computers, servers and leased line routers then connect it all back up again. And the client got quotes from various local outfits the cheapest of which came to, wait for it - fourteen THOUSAND dollars. To which I replied I could send two people over for a week, and pay the air fares, and be satisfied with half that. So they said do it.
The move was planned for January with Alan and Patrick getting a week away somewhere different -a change is as good as a rest (my goodness this is a month for cliché sayings). But Bell South couldn’t/wouldn’t confirm a date when the new phone/ leased lines would be available and months passed by. I swear they’re worse to deal with than BT and that’s saying something. Finally they settled on mid April – exactly when Alan’s wife (who also happens to be my daughter) was due to give birth. Clearly he couldn’t go so I went with Patrick instead. And we had some help from Wendle the resident handyman/gofer.
Wendle, I think, is what they refer to as a “good ‘ole boy” – whatever that means. He looks like one of the mountain characters in the film Deliverance, drives a huge pickup with a Confederate flag and has the IQ of a gnat. He’s friendly, tries to be helpful and drops stuff – so we kept him well away from the servers.
The new wiring was a doddle. Moving the computers, servers and printers was a doddle – apart from a few Wendle breakages. Finding something to stand them on was not. The furniture move was chaotic and, by the middle of the second day I decided to organise a few things outside our sphere of responsibility. “Where’s Wendle ?” I asked Patrick, hoping to get some assistance moving desks into place.
“He’s outside” came the reply “Hoovering the car park”
And he was. It transpires that the boss had told him to tidy up and this was the highest priority he could identify. Patrick, however had a dilemma – he needed to saw a length of plastic trunking in half. “It’s so messy in here” he said “and so clean out there – I don’t know whether to saw inside or outside”. He settled for inside.
It was, however, a good job we went. In addition new leased lined someone had decided to change the ISP as well and the new one had provided internet connections in the branch offices instead of point to point links to the main one. So, we had to set up VPN links from the branches and think about providing some security as well. As the branches have just a few PCs and the ISP had given us LOTS (like 60) static IP addresses we settled for the simple solution of using Symantec’s Norton Personal Firewall rather than have to configure and maintain a networked hardware device. Within minutes of implementing this we detected several attempted break ins on each PC. Obviously some wily hacker had not been sitting around just waiting for us to go online – but it just illustrates how efficient their robot software tools are at winkling out new possible targets. If you spend any time online and you haven’t any protection then I think you should look into getting some.
And, if your car park needs sprucing up, just let me know – I’ll send Wendle to give you a hand.
And, in case you’re interested, BOY, Aiden William, 7lb 3oz, all are well and you can call me Grandad.
So where were Patrick and I while the “workers” were dealing with antique hardware ? We’re helping a client move to a new office. In Georgia (USA not Russia). Your first reaction is probably that this is daft. Surely some local screwdriver type could do that for them ? Well, the office move was planned during my last visit there in November. What they needed was someone to install a couple of dozen Cat 5 ethernet connections, move the computers, servers and leased line routers then connect it all back up again. And the client got quotes from various local outfits the cheapest of which came to, wait for it -
The move was planned for January with Alan and Patrick getting a week away somewhere different -
Wendle, I think, is what they refer to as a “good ‘ole boy” – whatever that means. He looks like one of the mountain characters in the film Deliverance, drives a huge pickup with a Confederate flag and has the IQ of a gnat. He’s friendly, tries to be helpful and drops stuff – so we kept him well away from the servers.
The new wiring was a doddle. Moving the computers, servers and printers was a doddle – apart from a few Wendle breakages. Finding something to stand them on was not. The furniture move was chaotic and, by the middle of the second day I decided to organise a few things outside our sphere of responsibility. “Where’s Wendle ?” I asked Patrick, hoping to get some assistance moving desks into place.
“He’s outside” came the reply “Hoovering the car park”
And he was. It transpires that the boss had told him to tidy up and this was the highest priority he could identify. Patrick, however had a dilemma – he needed to saw a length of plastic trunking in half. “It’s so messy in here” he said “and so clean out there – I don’t know whether to saw inside or outside”. He settled for inside.
It was, however, a good job we went. In addition new leased lined someone had decided to change the ISP as well and the new one had provided internet connections in the branch offices instead of point to point links to the main one. So, we had to set up VPN links from the branches and think about providing some security as well. As the branches have just a few PCs and the ISP had given us LOTS (like 60) static IP addresses we settled for the simple solution of using Symantec’s Norton Personal Firewall rather than have to configure and maintain a networked hardware device. Within minutes of implementing this we detected several attempted break ins on each PC. Obviously some wily hacker had not been sitting around just waiting for us to go online – but it just illustrates how efficient their robot software tools are at winkling out new possible targets. If you spend any time online and you haven’t any protection then I think you should look into getting some.
And, if your car park needs sprucing up, just let me know – I’ll send Wendle to give you a hand.
And, in case you’re interested, BOY, Aiden William, 7lb 3oz, all are well and you can call me Grandad.
Under Development from Issue 186 of Computer Shopper Magazine