Tooooo Loooooooooong

[altivo]

Yeah, it's that day again. At least our weather was tame, unlike what people had just 30 miles south of us. On the other paw, the light rain and not terribly hot temperatures meant we had a full complement of summer reading club activity. Door count nearly double the normal 600, at 1070.

Found out just an hour before closing that two computers out on the main floor have been marked "out of order" for days but no one told me. A peremptory check finds nothing wrong with them. I'll take another look in the morning, but I've told people repeatedly that if they don't report to me exactly what the problem is, it never happened and won't be fixed.

Experimented on one of the new machines today to see if I can rearrange the disk partitions without removing and restoring Windows 7. I used Gparted from the Xubuntu live CD and it worked. I plan to use that technique to set up the one that will go on my own desk. I want it to boot Linux by default but still keep Windows 7 on the disk and available to boot occasionally. Looks like it can be done cleanly enough.

First though, I need to get the other two set up with Userful, the managed Linux desktop we use on public workstations. That's where I got stuck. Userful desktop fails to find the NIC in these machines (a Broadcom ethernet chip embedded on the main system board) even though Debian, Ubuntu, and Windows 7 have no trouble with it. Userful is built on one of my less favorite distributions, Fedora. Apparently it lacks a driver for the Broadcom networking hardware. This should be fixable, but is going to require some sort of tinkering either with the installation setup or else by installing the necessary driver after the main system is in place. Waiting on support for the answer.

Gorgeous crimson sunset, after a half hour or more of glowing yellow sky that went from horizon to horizon. I got some photos of the crimson part, I'll see if any are good enough to upload.

Comments

[moonhare]

Found out just an hour before closing that two computers out on the main floor have been marked "out of order" for days but no one told me.

An "Oh, by the way..." moment. Tuesday I happened upon one of the Children's Room monitors bearing a sign 'monitor won't work.' We've had a terrible time with Dell flatscreen monitors failing, so I'm not surprised at the sign, but I am miffed that I wasn't told.

What's the first thing one checks when something electrical won't turn on? ;o) I reseated the plug on the back of the monitor (had come loose when someone adjusted the viewing angle). Typical and predictable.

But I'm the bottom of the food chain, as a tech assistant. My 'boss' randomly repairs things without any notes whereas I have station logs in each area. The biggest problem I run into is the generic "It doesn't work" note.

[altivo]

Ten years after a major physical expansion into a new building, we are still suffering from the "small place" syndrome. By that, I mean that people leave things half done and lying around thinking that they will "get back to it" but they forget to finish what they were doing until someone else picks it up a week later and starts asking "What is this? Why is it here?"

I do that too, but I'm much more territorial than most about it. I will leave the incomplete job on my own desk rather than in a public or shared work area. At least that way it should be obvious who is involved and where to ask. We do have procedures delineated for things like defective equipment or damaged books, but I can't get anyone to follow them consistently. They will set aside a book they want to repair (or have repaired) for weeks on end without marking it in the catalog or checking it out. Invariably, someone else will be looking for it and WILL mark it lost or missing. It's not so much laziness as just plain lack of consistent organized thinking.

And yes, at least half the "out of order" signs on computers turn out to be unplugged power cords or unplugged keyboard or mouse cables. But I can't seem to get anyone to think a symptom through to even the most simple causes. To them it's just "broken." Instead of listening, they just snap at me "Not everyone can be as detail oriented as you are." Sorry folks, library work is detail-oriented. Go somewhere else if you don't like that.

[casey382]

We got the yellow glowing sky too, but not after having the funnel pass very close to the North.
Hurricane force winds, sizable branches down, and flooding down the block. The rain came down so hard, I couldn't see the pine tree six feet out the kitchen window.
Three inches in 30 minutes, the news reported.
Our power went out for thirteen hours.

[moonhare]

I wrote a little procedure a couple of years ago on how to troubleshoot monitor problems... I think they talk behind my back now ;o)

I shouldn't snicker at this, but do: I was asked to look at a newly purchased copier/printer/fax that was not responding. There were about 7 installs done to correct the condition (copy 1, copy 2, etc...) and still the printer sat obstinately silent while tempers ran high. *sigh* I checked the connection first and found that the USB cable had been inserted into the phone port... It could happen to anyone, I suppose, and thankfully it didn't happen to me.

We have similar growing pains at work- our Board wants us in 2010, but we still run somewhere back in the 1980's. My biggest gripe (other than poor cataloging) is not identifying the changed status of an item. Nothing like a five or ten minute search in the stacks, patron in tow, just to discover that the book wanted, and showing up with an 'available' status, is in a haphazard pile of books to be weeded.

I love being Small-Town and try to maintain that relationship with patrons by not harassing them for missing cards or minor infractions.

[altivo]

Sounds like what we had on Friday. Power was out for 19 hours. At the peak of the rain looking out the library windows was like looking into an aquarium;

[altivo]

One "out of order" machine had its ethernet cable unplugged from the wall. The other had absolutely nothing wrong with it that I could detect.