Monday, August 12, 2002 |
18:30 - Technology built by the lowest bidder
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Suddenly, a few minutes ago, my POP mail stopped working. Whenever the mail program checked for new messages, it popped up an error saying "POP user briant unrecognized".
Completely out of the blue. Just started happening. But I'd gotten used to stuff like this ever since we went to an Exchange server a few weeks ago. (Nary a problem beforehand, but since the changeover we've had at least one protracted period of downtime of one sort or another almost every single day.)
Naturally, the purpose of switching to Exchange was that it would be cheaper to implement-- which, one has to understand, has nothing to do with the cost of the equipment or the software. It has to do with the salary of the administrator.
A UNIX guru comes at a price. So does a security officer with real training who knows what he's doing. But Win2K admins who can set up Exchange and IIS-- well, they're a dime a dozen. And what company in its right mind would pay more for what they can get cheap?
Turns out, our Windows administrator had turned on some option in Exchange that makes it reject connections in which the password is being sent in cleartext (which we're all doing, since he'd told us not to use SSL). When Kris and I brought it to his attention that it was now rejecting us, his first reaction was "Well, it's not doing that for me..."
A few minutes later, he came to look at my setup. I showed him the error: Click, then "POP user briant unrecognized". First reaction this time: "Well, you're using a Mac. That's obviously the reason."
I point silently to Kris' NT machine running Outlook, with the same message on-screen.
The admin swears under his breath and stomps off.
I don't know how this is going to work out, but it's just such a perfect little microcosm of life in a Windows world. We refuse to pay more for extra quality, whether in our computers or in the expertise of our administrators. And when this leads us into months-long bouts of sporadic downtime, security breaches, and active attempts to thwart the needs and desires of employees, all in the name of "standardization on the system that everybody else uses", all we can do is drink heavily and escape into sports or fantasy in the miserable hours of evening, before collapsing into the dark respite of slumber with the nagging thought that death, should it visit in the wee hours, would be a welcome relief.
Just got a call: "Okay, could you try it again?"
I try again. No errors. "Yeah, it seems good now."
He seems surprised. "It does?"
"Yeah, no errors now."
His voice is pained and exasperated. "Oh, maan!"
This is going to be a long evening.
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