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Yeah, but it worked!

25 comments

TAGS:copier, packing shipping, printer
IT TOPICS:Desktop Applications, Hardware, Management

This engineering office is installing a new network copier/printer in its word-processing department, reports an IT pilot fish on the scene.

"One of the people in that department also handles package shipping via a particular delivery service that also provides Windows software for printing shipping labels, billing, tracking packages, etc.," fish says.

"With the new printer, we're having problems getting that software to properly hold the new printer configuration."

The service representative who is setting up the printer tells fish he needs to reboot the PC. Fish tells him to wait and check with the woman who handles shipping, because he knows that the shipping software can't be shut down and restarted during the working day.

Do that, and the software will automatically close out the current day and start up with the date of the next business day.

"Sure, I'll take care of it," shipping woman says. She walks over to the PC and closes her e-mail client and word-processing software.

Then, with the shipping software still running, she reaches down to the power strip and turns off the machine.

Fish and service rep stand speechless, just looking at each other.

After a few seconds, shipping woman calmly turns the computer back on. It reboots, Windows comes up, and she logs back in and restarts the shipping software.

"Since it ended in an error state, it rebuilds and corrects some data files and picks up where it left off, on the current day," says fish.

"I'm not sure which to be more perturbed about -- the fact that she would so calmly just power off the computer, or that a programmer would take the time to be sure his software can recover from a major power outage, but can't give the user a clean way to shut down and restart on the same day.

"I'd also like to know how she found this out, but I'm afraid to ask."

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I've done (almost) that

Submitted by Anonymous on December 5, 2008 - 11:31 P.M.

Yeah, there are a few apps where I've found that approach helpful!

I can't recall exactly, but I think it was expansive IDEs or similar where, by stupidity on my part I dragged and lost boxes or otherwise put the UI into an unusable state.
Also works when you KNOW that committing your changes are the wrong thing to do.
Shutting down cleanly would SAVE THE CURRENT WORKSPACE and restart into the broken layout.
Using task manager to kill the process (not quite a power-off, but almost as drastic) would allow me to open the app again in a 'last known good' state.

There were probably correct ways to reset the state - but with an unusable UI it was hard to find the options, let alone figure what needed to be done.

No, I didn't do this on a critical system, Probably more like during teach-myself 3DSMax or (can't recall)

It's a good (although illegal) hack out of an otherwise irrecoverably bad situation.

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Seen the office powered down

Submitted by bilbo3 on November 27, 2008 - 11:35 A.M.

A user could not find the light switch in the office so decided to throw the big switch in the office instead and walked out.

Unfortunately the office had an electronic lock and so the next morning the door could not be opened. The by-pass key was kept for safety in a key cupboard in the office. Result the staff where locked out.

Rather worryingly they managed to break into the so called secure office causing no damage and put the mains power back on. The key was moved to another location after that.

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Today's Haiku

Submitted by Stinky Jimmy on November 26, 2008 - 10:35 A.M.

Blithely flip the switch
Electrons jam up frozen
Wrong is the right way

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Worldship

Submitted by UPS Tech on November 26, 2008 - 10:16 A.M.

I have supported the UPS Worldship software since it first came out as version 2 in 2000. We are on version 10 at this time with version 11 due out in January 2009. Every version has had the ability to exit the software without performing the "end-of-day" process. Actually, the software will even allow multiple end-of-day process to be performed within a single day.

The issue noted in the story is either a lack of end-user training; or it's referring to software from another delivery company.

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UPS Worldship? Nowhere in

Submitted by NotUPS on November 26, 2008 - 12:41 P.M.

UPS Worldship? Nowhere in today's story does it mention UPS or Worldship. Looks like you jumped the gun and made an assumption.

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Look before you lambast

Submitted by Louis on November 26, 2008 - 10:01 P.M.

Before you criticize someone, check out the comments below. Someone mentions Worldship there.
Besides - its not such a great leap of faith.

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Thank you. I guess I should

Submitted by UPS Tech on December 1, 2008 - 9:19 A.M.

Thank you. I guess I should have tagged my info to the previous entry rather than starting a new one. I won't let that happen again. Have a great week !!

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Worldship is any good?

Submitted by Anonymous on November 26, 2008 - 12:03 P.M.

You make it sound like Worldship is great. It's NOT! Try being a developer trying to create maps between the UPS file structure and your database when with every update there comes a fieldname change, or table revision. And the updates? I once spent 15 minutes starting Worldship 10 different times. Why? because Update1 is now available....restart Worldship...Update2 is now available...restart Worldship...Updaten is now available.
Why can't they jsut put all the updates in at once??? Dumbass UPS programmers!

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It sounds like you need to

Submitted by Ender Wiggins on December 1, 2008 - 5:08 P.M.

It sounds like you need to try another approach to your development. I wrote many different programs that interface with WorldShip and some of which I haven't made changes going on 6 plus years (in other words did not have to remap anything). It is all about how you connect to the database, some ways are better than others. Remember just because you are unable to understand something, it doesn't make that 'thing' stupid.

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A couple of facts: 1) It's

Submitted by UPS Tech on December 1, 2008 - 9:26 A.M.

A couple of facts:

1) It's free. If you are not satisfied with the application; I would suggest checking the market for other solutions that fit your needs. I think you will find a solution that may fit your needs. However, I'm sure it will not be for free.

2) We strongly suggest that end users restart the application each day. This keeps the software up to date. Apparently, the end user had not restarted the app for some time if you had that many updates waiting. This also tells me that the app is stable - otherwise you would have HAD to restart it.

3) It was never written by Teamsters. Our programmers are non-union. I have nothing against Teamsters. UPS works very well with the union. We are probably one of the few corporations that are still doing well even though the majority of our workforce is unionized.

Just my $.02

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