Enemy of Entropy
Archive for Rant
Posts Finally Working!
Last night I realized that something was Wrong with this blog. Several days of posts hadn’t, and I couldn’t even leave a comment on an old post. The error message I was getting (database access denied) made no sense.
The MySQL information hadn’t changed. I tried changing the database password and updating the settings — nope, no good. I could view the db in phpmyadmin, and it was just fine. I could back up the database there, and change things, and I was using the same login information. So why couldn’t WordPress do anything?
We’ve been using 1&1 for at least a year or so now, I think, and haven’t had any real complaints. I hate calling anybody’s tech support, but they’re usually better than most, as they haven’t outsourced that to India. Reluctantly, I finally called.
If you ever call 1&1 and “Grace” answers, just hang up and try again. Better yet, keep her tied up on the phone and try from another line, just to be sure you’ll get someone else. She simply can’t understand English well enough to function in any job that requires telephone interaction, and her technical skills seem to be abysmal (it was hard to tell, considering the language issue). I was on the phone for more than 90 minutes, and couldn’t get anywhere. I kept asking to speak to her supervisor, and she kept being obstructionist.
She asked me to spell the name of the affected domain (technomom.com) over and over and over again. I did so, very slowly and clearly, at least five times. What did she do? Inform me that gbncom.com was working just fine, and ask me what error message I was getting!
Other than the fact that the end in .com, do you find any similarity in those names?
I finally got her to this site, where the errors were clearly visible to every visitor. Then, finally, she started talking about escalating the problem to someone else. She wasn’t sure who, though, and claimed that nobody there can make outbound calls, so she couldn’t have that person (or her supervisor) call me back. More holding. Thanks Goddess for unlimited cell minutes! I really, really need to get a headset, though, as I was in more and more pain from simply holding the telephone.
At nearly 5, “Glen” finally got on the phone. He said he has no input regarding the hiring of “advisors” like “Grace.” If the supposed supervisor doesn’t, who does? In any case, he finally pinpointed the problem: the database was full. To be accurate, it was more than full, 47mb over the size limit!
Honestly, I hadn’t checked that. But how could that happen? And wouldn’t I get some kind of notice or warning? Well, no, they don’t have anything in place to warn users when databases are getting too big. That seems like a ridiculously easy thing to put in place, but apparently it isn’t important to them.
I was aware of the 100mb limit 1&1 places on MySQL databases on our plan, but every time I’d looked at the usage, every database had 97mb free, or more! Blogs are mostly text! The images I do post aren’t even stored in MySQL!
After getting off the phone, I looked at the size of all each table. The culprit was the cache for the Joe Tan/Silas Partners Flickr photo album plugin. I didn’t notice, when I installed an upgrade to the plugin, that it defaults to showing all of the Flickr groups you’re in. There’s no way that I can see to disable caching, either, and it seems that somebody browsed a lot of group photos at some point over the weekend. Clearing that cache took me back to being way, way below the database size limit. If you use that plugin (which is great, BTW), check the settings!
So that’s why you’re seeing my blog posts appear late. It’s better than “the dog ate my blog posts,” at least. Isn’t it?
Teen Assaults Teacher, Activist Worries About Teen?
A 17-year-old running back assaults a high school teacher for doing her job.1 He tosses her around and breaks her finger.
Who would you worry about? The attacker, or the victim?
Read on…
Um, no, that isn’t what the password is “sposed to be”
My school “upgraded” its Oracle-based student records management system weeks ago. I know that it is Oracle based because ever since the “upgrade,” every time I try to access my “student portal” (my primary means of interacting with the school, as an online student), I get an “Oracle Site Builder” page.
Since the actual classes are done on another site and I could still log in there, I kept waiting for the promised fix. The traditional “screwed up the financial aid” problem has gotten to the point where I really needed to get in to see what they’ve done so far, though, so I pushed further today than I have before and finally pushed a “help” (I use the term very loosely) desk person to actually help me.
He took down all my information and said that he’d have to go to his boss, but he’d call me back Real Soon Now. I had other irons in the fire, as well as his (rather unique) name, so I consented.
Oddly enough, my phone rang again in about five minutes.
“We needa ver’fy your infomashun.” (I’ll have to drop the attempt to reproduce the child’s mushmouth here. My spellchecker is hurting too much.)
Ok — we went over my student number and so on again.
Boy: “You don’t have an account.”
Me: “You mean my account has been deleted in your upgrade?”
Boy: “No, that can’t happen. You ain’t never had an account.”
Me: “That’s nonsense. I can log in and get the Oracle Site Builder page, therefore I have an account.”
Boy: “We can’t log in, so you don’t have an account.”
Me: “Why are you trying to use my log-in? You’re supposed to be trying to fix my account, as an administrator.”
Boy: “We have to be sure you’re really having a problem.”
Me: “You mean that you assume I’m lying before you’ll do anything.”
Boy: “No, we just have to be sure you’re not doing it wrong.”
Me: “Well, obviously, you’re ‘doing it wrong’ because I’m sitting here looking at the Oracle Site Builder while you can’t log in. Do you want me to e-mail you a screen print as proof?”
Boy: “What password you using?”
Me: “What kind of question is that? I don’t give people my password. Don’t be stupid.”
Boy: “The password don’t work.”
Me: “That’s because you don’t know my password.”
Boy: “It’s supposed to be (standard default password).”
Me: “No, it should NEVER be (standard default password) after a user’s first log-in. In fact, if your system were set up properly, it would force users to change the password after the first log-in, and at least once every 30 days after that.”
Boy: “No, it’s supposed to be (standard default password).”
Me: “Are you an IT major?”
Boy: “Yes, and the password is supposed to be (standard default password). If it ain’t, we can’t log in to people’s accounts.”
Silently thinking “and that’s the point, dolt,” I went in and changed the password to (standard default password), since that’s just about all I could do.
Me: “Ok, just to make you happy, I changed it. Try to log in now.’
Boy: “Now it’s right.”
Me: “So you can fix it?”
Boy: “I have to call you back.”
Me: “I don’t think so. I’ll just stick with you. That way if you find anything you don’t understand in my records, we can work on it together.”
Boy: “You have to call (number for portal help desk). They have to fix it for you.”
Me: “Why didn’t you send me to them in the first place?”
Boy: “I had to see if you really had a problem.”
I changed the password while he was giving me the 800 number, of course.
Boy: “What did you do?”
Me: “Whatever do you mean?”
Boy: “The system says I have to log in again.”
Me: “Well, surely as soon as you saw that I really had a problem, you logged out, since you had no further reason to be logged in as me. Nor do you need to log in as me again. I changed the password again.”
Boy: “You can’t do that. It’s supposed to be (standard default password).”
Me: “Have your sysadmin give me a call if he has a problem with it, but so far you’re the only one who ever has. Buh bye!”
I haven’t found anything he changed in my records. Not yet. I just don’t trust the little bastard. It also frightens the hell out of me to realize just how many students must not ever change their original passwords, since he’s accustomed to blithely logging in to everybody’s accounts, and it’s apparently a standard practice in the department!
