Lack of Posts, Bell Canada, Windows 8 and Exchange 2013.

Sorry for the lack of posts, I try and get one in at least once a week, but as you can tell I haven’t posted in over a month.  I have been extremely busy with Work and School that this site has escaped me.  So I decided to make a rant post.  There will be 3 main topics, Bell Canada, Windows 8(.1) and Exchange Server 2013.  There may be more, depending on how I feel after the rant.

Round 1: Bell Canada

So anyone who has me as a friend on Facebook knows the story about the issues I have been having with Bell.  It started July 24th and JUST ended about a week ago (Last week of August).  On the 24th of July, Bell decided, for no reason in particular, to just pull us from the “Slam”… Essentially this means we had no internet connection.  I had called bell quite a few times that day, first 2 times the calls were mislogged as Telephone issues.  Get his, they diagnose Telephone issues by calling the line, if you answer, the line is fine, case closed.  Except the issues was an INTERNET ISSUE! Fucktards.  So basically the first two calls were closed and we weren’t notified.  By mid afternoon I had called a third time and was told about the closed cases, I was furious, the finally opened up an Internet issue support ticket, and would send out a tech a few days later.  Excuse me, a few days later?  This is a business, not just some random person.

Luckily, one of our tenants (The Library rents some of our rooms out to other businesses) was having an installation done by Bell.  I asked the tech if could help us out once he was done.  About an hour later he was able to take a look and made a few calls, this is where we found out Bell pulled us from the “Slam”.  He made a few more phone calls and said it should be back up by the next day.

As the tech assured, the internet was back up and running the next day, but over the next week, we started to experience random disconnects. Out modem would lose its sync, and try reconnecting.  This happened close to every 2 hours, and sometimes 15 minutes apart.  If we were lucky, we would be back online in 5 minutes, other times 10 to 15 minutes.  For a department that relies on the internet (The Computer Centre), constant disconnects is not good for business.  So for the next month and a half, we had several techs on site and 4 or 5 tickets.

The process of each ticket went as follows:

1. A call would be made stating we are still having issues.
2. A new ticket would be generated, and a test to the line was conducted by the tech support agent and the testing department.
3. The test come back positive for issues on the line.
4. The state they will send a tech either the same day or the next, to “FIx the issue”.
5. The scheduled tech shows up the day after they were scheduled.
6. The same tech does some test and confirms what the testing department stated, issues on the line.
7. The tech states he is not the right kind of tech and cannot fix the issue, and will schedule another tech for 3 days later.
8. I call in to state that 3 days is absurd for business service, tech is rescheduled for same day or next day
9. Second Tech shows up, takes us offline for 3 hours, states problem is solved
10. 3 days later, drop start to happen again.
11. Back to step 1

Now when we switched over in March of this year, we had about 20 down and 3 up…  One of the techs (i believe the 2nd or 3rd time round) said it was IMPOSSIBLE! the lines are only rated for 10-1 and it is completely IMPOSSIBLE to have more than that on the lines…  To this Tech, now that a real tech has fixed the issue, let me post the following image to show you how POSSIBLE it is…

That twice what he states was the absolute limit… I think maybe, like the other few techs that visited, that didn’t listen to ONE WORD I SAID,  I think its time you get retrained cuz its obvious to me, you don’t know the equipment you are supposed to be servicing.

So what do I mean by “didn’t listen to a word I said”? From the first tech, I stated, the issues started when they pulled us from the “Slam”… nothing has changed except the port on the “Slam”… maybe you guys should check the “Slam”… could it be an issue with the “Slam”?… Every tech ignored my inquiries “No, it the line, its definitely the line, that’s what the testing department states in my notes, Yup Yup, definitely the line, gotta be the line.”… So time after time, tech after tech, not one of them had the brains to put 2 and 2 together.  If everything was fine before the disconnect, and everything went wrong after the disconnect, not to mention they replaced every line twice… maybe, JUST MAYBE, Its not the line… FUCKTARDS!

Finally after the 5th tech came we got a real Tech, someone who knew what they were doing.  They realized (with me mentioning) the issue was at the “Slam”, they put on a “Striker” Board instead of the Alcatel board that were were on initially.  The “Striker” board is not as good for our lines.  He made the switch overnight and VOILA! We have high speeds and no disconnects.  SO my advice to Bell, stop sending Fucktards to the business customers. Or at least train them on the equipment so they aren’t Fucktards.  We were one call away from switching companies, if it wasn’t fixed that last time around, we were gonna say Bye Bye to Bell. I mean we has revenue issues for a month because of this shit, and all they did was give us the month free.  At least the system is fixed…

Round 2: Windows 8(.1)

For those of you who are now used to Windows 8 or 8.1, by this I mean those who have either gotten through the learning curve, or did what I did and installed Classic Shell or some other “Start Button” software, we know Windows 8(.1) is pretty badass… as long as its working.

Here is what bugs me about Windows 8(.1) besides not having a proper start button without installing 3rd party software… Why did you remove the Safe Mode?  Ok ok I know what you are gonna say “You can enter Safe mode by shift clicking Restart in the Start screen”… Yes you can, absolutely, thanks for budding in jackass.  Now let me finish.  When was the last time anyone went into Safemode after successfully logging into Windows?  Not very often, as Safemode is usualy used when you CAN’T get into Safemode… “Oh but you can use the install DVD to get into the Safemode!”, again, back off Fucktard, half the time systems don’t ship with the install DVDs, you have to make “Backup” DVD from your system, which a lot of people don’t do because A. they either don’t have a blank one to spare, or B. they don;t wanna wanna their time… I am a little of column A a little of column B.  But I did have an installation DVD…  however I couldn’t find the Safemode part.. every time I went into it that portion of the menu was missing.  So I thought I would try to “Repair” my system, you know, like every previous version of windows, you pop in the DVD, tell it to repair and it goes along and replaces the windows system files with the original ones, great for when they become corrupt. However Windows 8 removed that too, replaced it with “Refresh”.  Refresh does the same thing, it replaces all the windows files with the originals,  but here is the little twist. Although it keeps all your data, it erases every program you installed via CD or download, so pretty much everything you didn’t buy from the store… those it reinstalls for you, but the other 56 programs you have installed… all gone… Do you remember where the CDs are? Or the serials, or even the site you downloaded it from?  At least it leaves you a nice little list on the desktop of all the apps it so graciously removed… FUCKTARDS why did you fuck with Windows… Its like you get off on making it extremely hard for people to enjoy your software…  Not only did you make false promises stating Windows 8.1 will bring back the start button (HELLO FUCKTARDS, a quicklink to the Metro screen IS NOT A START BUTTON!)  But then you take away the very tools Techs like me use to make sure our systems run fine and we don;t spend days re-installing shit.  All of those because I updated the Bios…

Round 3: Exchange 2013

Ok, so I am 83.3% done my “Preparation to Microsoft Server Certification” course.  The last class out of 6 is Email Servers, specifically Exchange 2013.  Now for anyone who has installed this resource hog before (even earlier versions) you know how finicky it is.  A few classes ago our Prof. wanted us to get a head start and instructed us to install Exchange 2010, which is pretty much whats mostly used out there… Lets just say it didn’t go so well.  I couldn’t even uninstall it, you see it crashed while installing the mailbox database, which can’t be removed unless all entries are gone, but I could empty the database because the tools to do so weren’t installed during the installation, and you can;t install over it either.  So short answer to the problem, blow away your system and start over.  Not exactly an option when it comes to production servers.

So now we are on Exchange 2013, we decided to go with it as well, this is what people will be installing eventually.  First time round, somehow a file/folder became corrupt, didn’t find that out till it was on Step 11 of 13 during the install. So again, the solution is to blow it away, cuz you just fucked up your server… Now the install DOES check all the system files before it installs… or so it says… I have my doubts.

Ok, round 2, I get an issue where it tells me a folder is corrupt before I even get into the install application.  I go to remove the folder and I can’r because one folder 7 directories in is corrupt… So I do a scan disk, fix the issue and on t round 3, at least I didn’t have to blow away my system.

Finally I get it installed, and it works, but I don’t have nearly enough ram… Apparently if you are running both roles for Exchange (Mailbox and users) you need at minimum 8GB of ram… By default our VMWare machines have 2GB, I would also recommend at least 4 cores, default is 1. so the system was running mighty slow, considering that IIS workers take up 45% of your CPU at boot (I did say it was a resource hog).  So I boost my system and all works great.. I cannot say the same for others… Out of the other 20+ students maybe 5 had no issue, others couldn’t send to themselves because some service didn’t start properly, others got to the login screen, but the next page after authentication was blank.  Or a zillion other issues.  I tell you I have set up Linux Email servers in a fraction of the time with a fraction of the resources.  What would anyone subject themselves to this torture?  I am doing it for certification purposes, would I ever recommend that anyone in their right mind every install this shit, bottom line, FUCK NO, only a complete FUCKTARD would put their techs through hell to get this email system up and running, sure it has more features than a basic Linux based email system, but then again, to make the comparison, a $200,000 Hummer has a shit load more features than a $15,000 Chevy Aveo… For the normal person who needs a car to get from point A to B, the $15,000 Chevy is the best choice, its cheap on gas, does the job perfectly, and doesn’t show the world how much of a FUCKTARD you are.  None one NEEDS push notifications.  If its Groupware you are after, there are several equivalents in Linux that are so much easier to set up, and are much more secure.  Exchange is a bitch to install, and a bitch to configure… not to mention trying to update… Its not for me, at all.

Ok, I think I am done ranting for now, back to work…