March 19, 2004

This pilot fish is working as a PC technician for a local school district -- which would be an easier job if all the PCs hadn't obviously come from the lowest bidder.

"The district's PCs were bought from a regional clone manufacturer who had won the state contract," says fish. "The PCs were fair, but the keyboards were the cheapest ones made and were notorious for keys getting stuck.

"We figured out what was happening with the keyboards -- the keys would sometimes have a small piece of plastic knurl sticking out on the bottom. Sometimes we would remove the key and use an emery board to smooth it down."

So when a secretary calls fish about a keyboard with a sticking space bar, he grabs his emery board and heads for her desk.

"I picked up the keyboard to a height of one foot and let it drop flat, and the space bar popped up," he says. "The secretary immediately demanded to know what I had done. I replied that the 'drop test' was the first technique taught in computer repair.

"She seemed satisfied and left while I removed the space bar, smoothed off the knurl and replaced the key."

But a week later, fish gets another call from the same secretary. Now her PC is making a clunking noise, she tells him.

"What was it doing before that?" fish asks.

"It was whining," she replies. "So I picked up the box and let it drop on my desk. Now it's just making the clunking sound."

And fish realizes what she's done.

"She had picked up the whole PC and had done the drop test -- and had destroyed the hard drive," fish groans.

"I told her I knew what was wrong and would be right over."

March 15, 2004

From Bad to Worse

Shark Tank: When this 24/7 server loses a disk drive, an alarm sounds to warn sysadmins to replace the drive in the RAID array. A new disk will be installed in 24 hours -- but meanwhile the boss complains about the noise. ... Read More

March 16, 2004

Shark Tank: Who wants to be a millionaire?

Programmer pilot fish lands a student-intern gig at a small software company whose main product is a sales management application. A very high-end sales management application: "This tool allowed custom yacht companies to quote multimillion-dollar yachts, parts, etc.," explains fish. Read More

March 17, 2004

Shark Tank: Being right isn't everything

Early one Saturday morning, this local Internet service provider loses its DSL feed to a big apartment building, reports a pilot fish watching it all happen. Read More

March 18, 2004

Shark Tank: Wanna bet?

This pilot fish is this close to calling in sick one morning. His head is throbbing, his sinuses are running and his cold is in full, ferocious force. Read More

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Enabling Data Centers that Are Both Automated and Dynamic

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