Experiences with non-techies

[Nowak]

What is it with schools and terrible IT? Seriously.

[Thenatdude]

What is it with schools and terrible IT? Seriously.

Not enough time, money, or patience. They can't afford good equipment, they don't have the time to learn how to use any of it, and even if they did they wouldn't want to. Blissful ignorance benefits them just fine.

[Fgtfv567]

Later on in the year they decided to let him come back after realizing how fucking stupid it was, but he was still officially expelled over it.

So he's back in the school, but technically expelled at the same time? What is this, Schrodinger's Petty Criminal?

[Fgtfv567]

Not enough time, money, or patience. They can't afford good equipment, they don't have the time to learn how to use any of it, and even if they did they wouldn't want to. Blissful ignorance benefits them just fine.

Pretty true. It takes time filling up a room with working computers. Costs a lot even if it's shitty HTPCs because of how many there are. At my school ACLC, They put 3 classrooms into one giant room called the "Center" and it is LITTERED with Pentium slim-line desktops everywhere. Not only that they bought like 30- 50 samsung chromebooks and 30-ish Lenovo laptops. IT's alright tho, not too bad, they know what they're doing even tho it's like one or two guys

[Nowak]

Somehow my school managed to figure out how to build new computers to replace the ancient Windows 2000 machines, but as I said. They were highly unstable and would often be down for weeks at a time, and their security software was so massively outdated it allowed a serious virus to infect the machines for a few months. And they wondered why a lot of us students preferred using our own laptops.

[Fgtfv567]

Somehow my school managed to figure out how to build new computers to replace the ancient Windows 2000 machines, but as I said. They were highly unstable and would often be down for weeks at a time, and their security software was so massively outdated it allowed a serious virus to infect the machines for a few months. And they wondered why a lot of us students preferred using our own laptops.

How were they unstable? The viruses? Overheating?

[Thenatdude]

So he's back in the school, but technically expelled at the same time? What is this, Schrodinger's Petty Criminal?

No just retardedness. They didn't remove the expulsion from his record or anything but he was still allowed to return. Coincidentally myself and some friends are making fun of him about it on facebook this very minute.

[Nowak]

How were they unstable? The viruses? Overheating?

Oh, every few weeks the OS, Windows XP, would break for absolutely no reason. I'm not kidding, they'd get stuck in boot loops or just not even turn on for no reason. I can remember one time we put this sticky note that said "WILL NOT BOOT OR SHOE" on one of them. We were a weird bunch

[Thenatdude]

Oh, every few weeks the OS, Windows XP, would break for absolutely no reason. I'm not kidding, they'd get stuck in boot loops or just not even turn on for no reason. I can remember one time we put this sticky note that said "WILL NOT BOOT OR SHOE" on one of them. We were a weird bunch

I always used to put sticky notes over the sensors on the computer mouses with "You just lost the game" written on them. It was so funny one day, someone sat down at a desk, wiggles the mouse, it doesn't work and I hear this groan like he'd just been told a bad pun when he turned the mouse over.

[Fgtfv567]

Oh, every few weeks the OS, Windows XP, would break for absolutely no reason. I'm not kidding, they'd get stuck in boot loops or just not even turn on for no reason. I can remember one time we put this sticky note that said "WILL NOT BOOT OR SHOE" on one of them. We were a weird bunch

The school got em replaced or fixed right? Otherwise, That's Bullshit.

[Nowak]

The school got em replaced or fixed right? Otherwise, That's Bullshit.

Nope, we continued using the same PCs up until I graduated in 2012. And I'm pretty sure they're still active.

[Fgtfv567]

Nope, we continued using the same PCs up until I graduated in 2012. And I'm pretty sure they're still active.

THAT'S BULLSHIT! You know if they've still got that instability issue?

[Nowak]

THAT'S BULLSHIT! You know if they've still got that instability issue?

Nope, I haven't been there since I walked out the building after graduation, and all my friends that were still there after I graduated (juniors, then seniors) used their own laptops rather than the school PCs.

 

And as I said before, they had no idea why. Gee, I wonder...

[Fgtfv567]

Nope, I haven't been there since I walked out the building after graduation, and all my friends that were still there after I graduated (juniors, then seniors) used their own laptops rather than the school PCs.

 

And as I said before, they had no idea why. Gee, I wonder...

I think those PCs may have a small issue of being a piece of shit....

[Nowak]

I think those PCs may have a small issue of being a piece of shit....

These were custom-built PCs, too! Although there were still a few Pentium 4 clunkers sitting around, but a majority of these were "new" PCs. With outdated parts.

[Fgtfv567]

These were custom-built PCs, too! Although there were still a few Pentium 4 clunkers sitting around, but a majority of these were "new" PCs. With outdated parts.

I'm not even sure how the OS would fail like that

[Nowak]

I'm not even sure how the OS would fail like that

To be honest, I have no idea either. It just... happened.

[mallenwho]

librarian bough 400gb of ddr3 ram for school netbooks, rather than sodimm. She comes to us in the machining room asking if we can just cut it to size.

[PotatOS - Andrew]

Not enough time, money, or patience. They can't afford good equipment, they don't have the time to learn how to use any of it, and even if they did they wouldn't want to. Blissful ignorance benefits them just fine.

Not true in my case.  I found them playing with a sphero in the media center one day.  They said it was a project.  3 kids were waiting in the back with broken chromebooks.

[Akolyte]

My experience with the techies at my school was a 3.75 year uphill struggle that ended in me ragequitting year 11 from sheer frustration. unpassworded BIOS on every computer (We all know what that means: kali) extreme paranoia (One kid was expelled for charging his phone with the USB port on a computer) Their server ran Windows Server 2003 (in 2013 (and probably still does)) didn't know the difference between NTFS and FAT32 (Seriously, this one time they spent 4 hours wondering why they couldn't install windows on this one machine before I had to point out to them that it was formatted wrong) Symantec endpoint protection (and they wondered how people, including myself, kept sneaking trojans onto the computers and taking control of them remotely) no packet encryption such that I could have the entire staff's passwords in one lunchtime with a simple packet sniffer or a MITM program, etc etc the list is endless.

This is how I felt about them, and the feeling has not changed.

oh my gosh.   That is pretty terrible, esspecially security-wise.    My old school's computers used no antivirus, no encryption, and people would CONSTANTLY be hacking into other people's computers, even the teacher's computers.  One student I remember illegally made ransomware and remotley installed it on the teacher's computer, he made the teacher give him 100% score or the ransomware would never be removed.  Thats pretty scary, luckily I'm smart enough to know school wifi normally isn't very safe. 

 

I'm going to a college though, that has top level computer science and networking classes, so hopefully the security will be much higher there, but possibly not.  Because there are multiple security researchers I knew who used "password2014" as their password and as soon as I found out they never talked to me again.  Fair enough.  So sometimes security experts have really bad security.   

 

Still, what do I know.  If you can remotely install Trojans.  I don't know how to do that, I've seen people do it.  But its way over my head.  

[Zombater]

What I actually do-

 

Go on Norton anti virus.

 

Download the trial.

 

Get MSE.

 

Run MSE.

 

Run Norton.

 

Clean PC.

 

Uninstall Norton.

 

Done.

 

 

What people think I am:

 

 

What I actually am:

 

[Zombater]

Later on in the year they decided to let him come back after realizing how fucking stupid it was, but he was still officially expelled over it.

 

How is that even legal? Where do you live? And WHAT THE HELL WAS THE SCHOOL'S REASONING BEHIND THAT?

[Jambls]

Ahhh. Ok.

BestBuy sent me a $50 steam gift card that doesn't work, and their customer service won't help me at all. I can't even go into a bestbuy to get it fixed because I am on vacation in the UK. I got the gift card with a G502.

Where are you?

 

Reading about all these stories about terrible IT at people's schools both reminds me of the terrible IT at my high school and makes me glad I'm going to a technical school now.

 

Speaking of which... at my high school, all the computers ran Windows XP, unpatched, with Norton Antivirus 2006 and Spybot Search & Destroy, both of which without the latest virus definitions (which were probably a few years old at that point). And everyone was extremely confused when a virus broke out on the network. Oh, and since I was the tech god or something, each time a teacher had a problem with her computer (most of which were from 2001 or so, there were a few "newer", custom-built ones (and by "newer" I mean Core 2 Duos rather than Pentium IIIs, and yes, custom-built, there were boxes everywhere for a few months)) I had to help them with it. There were some days I spent more time doing tech support for my teachers than actually working. Oh yeah, students had nearly unrestricted Control Panel access.

My schools computers have basic non-admin profiles. You can change almost anything in the control panel. The run unpatched win7 on dual core pentiums or i5s with v-pro graphics and some Xeons in tech for 3D design.

[soup]

What I actually am:

 

 

What I actually am.

 

[Fgtfv567]

librarian bough 400gb of ddr3 ram for school netbooks, rather than sodimm. She comes to us in the machining room asking if we can just cut it to size.

Cutting ram? While we're at it let's stick some magnets to hard drives!!