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Windows 10


Eli

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I didn't go to University...just College (I know that term gets a bit convoluted in the US, but here University is usually 4 year degrees, while College is more Technical/Hands On vs Theory and 2 year diplomas.

 

I took Computer Network Technician at the Lethbridge College back in 99-2000, graduated just after the Dotcom Bubble burst...was fun trying to find a computer job when Nortel was laying off tens of thousands of workers in my backyard here in Alberta.  Ended up getting a few contracts at the College...till they had a $4 Million deficit and just told all their contract employees to fuck off.  unemployed for a year...then Convergys opened a call centre here...did the whole phone thing for 6 months, moved up to tier 2 agent job...then into the IT Dept at Convergys for 5 years.  Got out 1 week, almost to the hour before they announced the closure of the Kamloops centre (I moved around year 3.5 as the Lethbridge centre had already closed).  And now I'm a government peon working for the local Catholic School board.  Currently we've got 5 techs, and soon to be 6...looking forward to my title changing to Network Analyst soon...but I'm not holding my breath thanks to our 10 Billion dollar deficit (Province) this year...probably no new money for a while.

 

Sorry...that was a bit more than I had set out to type...

 

Interesting to hear Convergys still exists to some degree....before I left they were in the process of being bought up by some Hedge fund that was rather well known for buying companies and then selling them off piece by piece for a profit.

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did the whole phone thing for 6 months

 

 

I did phone support at Microsoft for about six months in '95.  I was the "Grammar Guru" (each function specialist was a 'guru') for Word 95, wrote some of the macros it used, some knowledge base articles, etc.  They laid us off when they outsourced it all.  Which really sucked, as they had promised a raise and stock options at six months, so naturally the layoff was a couple weeks before that (there was a later class action lawsuit about it, didn't do me any good).  I then applied for a position in the Microsoft lab, and they told me I was overqualified and should be in management.   :rolleyes:   That was as annoying as another company that called me in for an interview around the same time, and as soon as I sat down with the interviewer he started out with, 'let me just say first that you're overqualified'....like, why then did you waste my time!?  He did give me a tour of the company at least.

 

Heh, we were at an 'off campus' site for Microsoft, so we didn't get to be part of the big Windows 95 launch with Bill Gates.  Instead, we had Steve Ballmer and had to download and install a 'Ballmer' theme for our desktop.  Complete with icons that were pictures of Ballmer's kids. *shakes head sadly*  I might still have the tshirt and pin they gave us.

 

Even back then I was the 'old guy' in the support group.  They put the lone female in the corner next to me to keep the younger guys from bothering her.  She had a plush doll of The Tick on her desk with a pull string, so periodically through the day you'd hear "Spoon!"  That was better that the guy across from me, he talked so loud.  Meanwhile there was a guy one more cubicle down that you'd see his head bobbing up and down as he'd hop on one leg while he was talking on the phone (he was missing the other one). He and I wrote some of the macros together.

 

The beta manuals for Windows 95 were huge.  Five volumes, I don't remember how many pages each.  Maybe three inches thick each. 

 

And yeah, Microsoft Bob came out then too.  We were scratching our heads about that one as much as everyone else.

 

Bug bashes were always fun.

 

I learned Remote Sensing using LANDSAT and SPOT imagery when I was studying for my physics major with a minor in meteorology.

 

 

*nods* I took a couple meteorology classes, that's all that was available at the time where I was.  That's kind of the progression of the disciplines:  Geography to Climatology to Meteorology to Physics (or vice-versa).  My graduate climatology prof put it this way:  'In meteorology, you have to know the physics and the equations.  In climatology, you only need to know that the equations exist and how they apply."  The Physics department was across the hall from the Geography department at grad school. 

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Down here, Meteorology and Physics are both majors hosted by the School of Physics from the Faculty of Science (it works like that here, the University is divided into Faculties, each faculty has 1 or more schools, each schools hosts the careers or majors, and classes for other careers that need them).

If you are doing physics, you have to take 6 optional classes from a list of like 20 available, and if you select carefully those 6, you end up 1 class away from a major in Meteorology (and the same applies for the meteorologists). So is funny, they call it the 2x1 career combo. Not that you would get a job here thanks to those 2 particularly unemployed careers, but hey, you know, teaching physics at high school pays apparently (that't what about 70% of my class mates are doing now). I never graduated anyway, decided that having a family and a good paid job was better for me.

I started doing call center stuff at 18, first working as Customer Service for BetOnSports.com Have you guys heard about all the phone gambling business that was done abroad by Americans and how it took years for the IRS to pursue them? Well, about half of them had their Customer Service here and it gave employment to THOUSAND of young university guys who spoke good english and knew how to use a computer here.

I worked on BetOnSports for about 1 year, then another year in a different sportsbook, and then another. Attrition is high, but they used to pay well. When I was 21 I stopped working in those places and moved to work full time at my university as a professor's assistance and later on as teaching assistance, where I actually teach university level classes (mainly General Physics Lab 1, 2 and 3) for engineering and science students. Enjoyed it, I was very good to the point where I actually was assigned more groups than actually graduated guys. It helped the university: I was reliable, trustworthy and less expensive (I was paid as an undergrad assistant, not as a half time professor). I eventually made it to Coordinator Assistant for labs 1 and 3. By then I was 23/24 and was sharing my time between those clases; an assistance post at the Plasma Research Lab at the Nuclear, Molecular and Atomic Interactions Research Center; my Peruvian girlfriend; my elected position as General Accountant to the Student's Federation of my University; and a shit-load of drinking... So I was tired, exhausted, and decided to make a change after my GF dumped me: quit the Student's Fed, quit the university classes but 2, quit the research center, and find a night shift job as Customer Support for a website that still operates today: https://www.bingohall.ag/(formerly .com), more online gambling. Within 6 months I was Accounting Support; 6 months later, Payout Lead and 6 months more and I was accounting department manager, with 4 accountants under my supervision... they didn't liked being managed by an undergraduated physics student. I left that place in 2010 and moved to HP, where I did 3 years of HP Proliant Servers Support (running MS and Linux and ESX/ESXi) and then moved to my current post as SAP Enablement and Data Manager...

EDIT:

I'm not sure why I wrote all that but it seemed relevant. I'm only 32 but it seems I've lived a liftime already, can only admire the experience of some people here. I'm happy about it.

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my goodness what an outpouring.

 

 

My windows 10 install has gone pretty well actually, the only issue thus far is that it locked up when I uninstalled my old Cisco VPN client, when I installed Soncwall's DNE winfix app it quit locking up and my vpn works again.

 

 

I'm not sure why

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VPN Clients are the devil.

 

I always hated dealing with the Nortel one I had to use to get in remotely at Convergys.

 

I love Microsoft's new Direct Access, but don't have it setup here yet...

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 my Peruvian girlfriend

 

A Peruvian GF, eh ?  Hmmm....a lawyer friend of mine's third wife is Peruvian. His second, and mother to his sons, was Nicaraguan.  At one time they wanted to set me up with her sister, heh.  

 

Meteorology was with the Physics department in Nebraska too.  Also Astronomy.  One of my professors, who was later the best man at my wedding, thought I should be teaching at Junior Colleges (2 year, like Winnie is talking about). There was a hybrid program at Northern Colorado that was somewhere between a Masters and a PhD that he suggested for me.  Obviously, that never happened, I was diverted by RL. I did have 1200 undergrad students though, which basically meant I got no sleep.  Grading 1200 essays is a tedious nightmare.  And those students were awful.  The University had to let anyone into the school, so the freshman geography classes were one of the 'weeding out' classes.  My supervising prof was just starting his first year, and was newly arrived in the US from Lithuania. He couldn't understand all the F's I was handing out.  192 nation map assignment, and they only get five nations right ?  F !  Essays written cross-wise across the page instead of on the lines?  F !

 

"You can do a lot in a lifetime, if you don't burn out too fast" - Neal Peart

 

my goodness what an outpouring.

 

 
Just good old, traditional TWP threadjacking :P
 
My ex (2nd wife) just upgraded to Windows 10 this weekend.  Or rather, one of the boys started it for her and she just let it finish.  Last night she told me she was afraid to turn it on. lol
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Bottom line for me, I still prefer Windows 7, but Windows 10 is okay. (Loathed Windows 8)  Just remember to adjust your privacy settings on 10 because Microsoft defaults them wide open so they can track you and feed you targeted ads.

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I'm still using Firefox.  Disliked Chrome's data mining "features", so stopped using that. Although I do use a version of Chrome called SRWare Iron, which is Chrome without all the Google update/call home features.  Works well enough, but I mainly just use that for testing websites.

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  • 3 weeks later...

Bottom line for me, I still prefer Windows 7, but Windows 10 is okay. (Loathed Windows 8)  Just remember to adjust your privacy settings on 10 because Microsoft defaults them wide open so they can track you and feed you targeted ads.

Tell me more on how to do that please, as I've recently updated to Windows 10? 

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  • 2 months later...
  • 1 month later...

My issue with Chrome is it's ridiculous memory consumption

I've never had an issue with this personally, never seen Chrome go above 600 MB of memory. Even with around 10 tabs open on Chrome I can still run several steam games, mind you from like 2007, Intel HD graphics suck and strain RAM ):

 

Although it uses around twice as much as around firefox :\

 

I am surprised by the amount of computer techies we have here tho! I was planning on building my own desktop but then quite a few RL issues popped up. So now anyone know anything about the laptop market?

 

(My windows 10 upgrade experience was hell, 4 days of solid updating then having to restart several times :P )

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I've never had an issue with this personally, never seen Chrome go above 600 MB of memory. Even with around 10 tabs open on Chrome I can still run several steam games, mind you from like 2007, Intel HD graphics suck and strain RAM ):

 

Although it uses around twice as much as around firefox :\

 

I am surprised by the amount of computer techies we have here tho! I was planning on building my own desktop but then quite a few RL issues popped up. So now anyone know anything about the laptop market?

 

(My windows 10 upgrade experience was hell, 4 days of solid updating then having to restart several times :P )

10 tabs... That is nothing. I have 15 open as I type this and that's after closing a few.

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