April 9, 2003

One day, while this support pilot fish is working with a departmental clerk, she complains that she wastes lots of time typing the same things over and over.

"Ninety percent of her entries into the database used to track inventory, labor, etc., were the same every time," says fish.

So fish looks over the application and figures out how to create configuration files that can contain the entries that the clerk has been endlessly retyping. He sets up the files in their special folder so they automatically load for the clerk.

"This significantly improved her production, and I received kudos from the clerk and our boss," fish says.

And everyone is happy -- for a few weeks. Then fish gets a call from the clerk.

"She told me that someone in the corporate office in another state had cleaned out our configuration files, and she was back to typing the duplicate information for every entry," says fish.

"So we recreated the configuration files. This time I placed a Readme.txt file in the folder, explaining what we had done and asking corporate headquarters to leave our files alone."

But a month later, fish gets another call: It's happened again, and the configuration files are gone.

"Again, I recreated the configuration files," says fish. "This time I renamed my Readme.txt file to _Sexy.txt -- the underscore put the file at the top of the directory listing.

"And at the beginning of that file, I wrote, 'Now that I have your attention...' and repeated our request that corporate headquarters leave our files alone."

And it worked, says fish: "When I left the company two years later, our files were still intact."

April 7, 2003

Lost and Found

User swears he hasn't deleted anything, but the eight years' worth of files that were on his laptop are gone. Support pilot fish can't find them either, and there's no backup. "Sorry," says fish, "but your data is lost." Angry user blocks the door, refusing to let fish leave, until a co-worker walks in and asks what's wrong. After user explains, co-worker laughs, "But that's not your laptop -- yours is over in the corner." Read More

April 8, 2003

Shark Tank: Moral of the ... aw heck, you KNOW the moral

Sales pilot fish at this IT consulting outfit has a list of companies that have bought customer relationship management software, and he's calling them to see if they need help upgrading. Read More

April 10, 2003

Shark Tank: But he's feeling a lot more secure now

Many of the engineers at this big computer maker work at home and log in through a gateway server, says a pilot fish who worked there. Read More

April 11, 2003

Shark Tank: Deja vu all over again

Big hotel. Holiday weekend. Long lines of guests. And the lines are getting longer because the hotel's computer network has slowed to a crawl, says a consultant pilot fish brought in on an emergency basis to fix it. Read More

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Critical Considerations for Data De-duplication

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