Great Moments in Computer Programming

[Da King]

They had your password?

They must have. I dont know what else would have triggered a 2FA ping at 2:30 in the morning?

[Da King]

I will talk about what a mess it is getting Github going on a new work computer later today.

It's the closest thing I've ever seen to "just don't let them in, in the name of security."

HA! Thats funny. Every time I log in, it wants to log in using a secure passkey. Which I have never set up, nor does it give me an option to set one up. So I just say "no thanks" and skip that step.

Security is fun.

[Jizaboz]

Ha! Fuck the Intel hate. Perhaps people scared to tinker with BIOS settings after updating it?

No, we're not scared. We use it to overclock and get even better performance. It's just that with the current Intel chips, you have to do the opposite of that, or else your chip might die a few months down the line...

Intel used to make CPUs that simply refused to die. I was running a 2500K for like 10 years, overclocked from 3.3GHz to 4.3GHz. Try that with the current Intel chips and see what happens.

Oh I want directly speaking to you or anyone else here about the “scared” thing, just the general opinion I’ve seen floating around.

Honestly I never overclocked anything. I’ve bought video cards already overclocked but that’s it. All this new shit seems to want to overclock itself until you tell it not to.

[Tdarcos]

I will talk about what a mess it is getting Github going on a new work computer later today.

And I can tell you how to put a free 2FA application on your computer so you can just switch windows, and it will give you the 6-digit TOTP. You do not need a phone.

HA! Thats funny. Every time I log in, it wants to log in using a secure passkey. Which I have never set up, nor does it give me an option to set one up. So I just say "no thanks" and skip that step

That's because you don't have 2FA enabled. If you had agreed, it would have taken you to a page to give you the information to enable it.

GitHub mandated 2FA starting last January for website logins (git check-ins are made using your SSH key, gt will automatically encrypt with your private key, GitHub decrypts with your public key). So, I went in and got the Base-64 code from GitHub instead of using the QR code, then give that to the TOTP generator. Now, you log in to GitHub with username and password, then it wants either your TOTP or a recovery code. I usually fire up 2Fast on my PC (my TOTP generator) before logging on, and it gives me the current code and how long (0-30 seconds) it is valid for. Then I use the newest one that has 30 seconds to live.

For anyone who wants to go that route, you can install 2Fast from the Microsoft store using Winget or download windows executable and/or source code from https://github.com/2fast-team/2fast It is itself password protected on your computer as it encrypts your website credentials. Their latest release was within the last hour.

[Da King]

That's because you don't have 2FA enabled. If you had agreed, it would have taken you to a page to give you the information to enable it.

Pro Tip then, Github: Don't prompty me for 2FA if I haven't set it up! Or, more appropriately, prompt me to set it up.

[Ice Cream Jonsey]

The point I was going to make and forgot is that Github sent out 4 SMS messaged in 5 minutes.

I......... didn't get my phone stolen in 5 minutes, Github.

[Ice Cream Jonsey]

My goal is to never curse in this thread again.

[Jizaboz]

I just.. have used the Google Auth app for a few years now, friend. You seem to have a bad stroke of luck!

I dunno which is funnier here.. Robb's problems with TFA or Paul's understanding of Github without being forced to use it because of work lol

[(ᵕ˵ ૩ᵕ)━☆ﾟ.*･｡ﾟ]

Background: all of our domains were hosted / bought through Google Registrar who then sold out their customers to SquareSpace for their Domain service. I received a notice that our primary domain expired on the September 14th and my brain went "okay, automatic renew will keep that biatch running" annnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnd...........

They only migrated over the legacy contact and card information. After figuring out how to actually pay them / enter a credit card number, I'm now trying to get our DNS settings for our email and a few web software instances running once again.

Is this the future?

[Jizaboz]

Everything fine so far! Windows 11 hasn't annoyed me since switching a few "fancy" things off with ONE EXCEPTION.

A few days ago I got around to plugging in my Gravis USB controller for Cyberpunk. After finishing up my game I go to turn off and an error message flashes by too fast for me to read it. The next day the same happens, then a 3rd time. This is nagging the shit out of me so I look around for a solution which was open the services menu and turn off "Gaming input for Xbox" or some shit. WHY?! Sure, I'm using Gravis but people are complaining that it happens with actual Xbox controllers lol

Running all of the following on High/Ultra at 1440 rez @ around 90-120 FPS with smooth results and nothing reaching critical heat levels:

- Call of Duty: Warzone
- Cyberpunk 2077
- Uboat
- Baldur's Gate III
- Doom II raytraced

My next purchase will be a M2 SSD, as I'm currently on SATA SSD as my main drive, magnetic for old shit and USB external for general backup.
I also should clip on another CPU fan but I think my friend is brining me a Corsair 120mm for free tomorrow I can use.

[Tdarcos]

My goal is to never curse in this thread again.

Fuck yeah! Right!

[Tdarcos]

I just.. have used the Google Auth app for a few years now, friend. You seem to have a bad stroke of luck!

I presume you're using Google Authenticator on your phone, Google discontinued and end-of-lifed its PC application. If you're fortunate enough to have gotten the PC version before they deprecated it, then you're also lucky.

I dunno which is funnier here.. Robb's problems with TFA or Paul's understanding of Github without being forced to use it because of work lol

1. I did an upgrade to Vasiliy Tereshkov's XDPW Pascal compiler, which I saw as a challenge as it was less than 15,000 lines, and was an actual compiler similar to Turbo Pascal 3 but doing a large subset of Object Pascal. Its small size made it accessible for one person to work on. I have learned that the consistent and regular use of a version control system with frequent commits makes fixing a problem when something is wrong much easier. If you always commit on every change where you have a still-working system, it makes rollbacks both possible and trivial. And I keep forgetting to do exactly that when starting what I think are "quick and dirty" apps that turn out to be much more work than I thought it would be. And that it would have been less work and fewer hassles or headaches if I had started with a repository and git add/git commit to save updates.

I am going to take my own advice and start doing that for all new programs from now on.

2. I have a group of books I am writing more-or-less simultaneously. I do make frequent commits each time I start an editing session. Well now, to be able to log on to Github you have to either use recovery codes or a 2FA app. I will tell you, more than once I've had to go back several commits to discover when a section was changed incorrectly, and be able to go back, recapture the original text, and restore it.

I have been making the mistake of thinking a small, quick project doesn't need the overhead of a full repository and git add/commit. And I'm starting to discover that there are very few programs that won't be improved by having that.

[Casual Observer]

When the company I work for was hiring, I would be on LinkedIn a few times a week, keeping an eye on who was looking for work.

What I have noticed in the last few months is that LinkedIn, very desperately, started re-using the "My Network" tab.

Before, it would tell you when you got a connection request. Cool. Easy. Most times, the only thing I used on that awful, awful site.

But now they are putting a red notification icon on the My Network tab and having unrelated shit and nonsense there.

LinkedIn figured out that people were logging on, seeing if they had any friend requests and leaving. So to "trick" people, they used the one part of the site we looked at to try to drive engagement elsewhere.

What a stupid, short sighted decision.

Here's why LinkedIn is useful. Two weeks ago I asked a complete stranger for a recommendation to a job. She did recommend me to her friend who then recommended me to her boss. HR didn't bother to talk to me and scheduled a "second" interview. I just signed my offer and picked up my laptop. Posting and commenting and wishing people well can scoot you ahead in line with hiring.

[Jizaboz]

Fuck LinkedIn

[Flack]

Last year I purchased a Wavlink brand dock for my laptop from Amazon. It cost around $300 and I purchased this one specifically because it supports four monitors and it's USB-C and doesn't require Thunderbolt. I've owned it for almost a year and a half. It worked great for a year but has started having issues. Most notably, the device crashes/resets in Windows and temporarily disconnects all my monitors. That wouldn't be the end of the world, except when the monitors return it often moves them all around and changes the resolutions.

After doing all the basic troubleshooting stuff, I checked the company's website and sent an email to their listed support email address, which immediately bounced. I then went to their Amazon page and clicked the link to go to their tech support which sent me to a non-existent page. 0 for 2.

After going through Amazon channels I was put in contact with the company. The first thing I asked them if a firmware update was available and their response was "why do you want one?" I explained the issue to them and they sent me a long list of unhelpful troubleshooting suggestions. I get it, they don't know who they're dealing with and of course I'm thinking, I've been doing tech support longer than their company has been in existence, but whatever. I tell them everything that's happening in detail along with screenshots of Windows event logs showing crashes and error codes (which say "if this continues, contact the manufacturer."

For additional troubleshooting, they said, they would need a list of all the hardware and software changes that have happened on my machine over the past 18 months. I mean... I get it. Wouldn't that be great to have? I mean, here's what's changed in the past 18 months -- every driver, a dozen USB devices, 18 months of patches... where ya wanna start, Wavlink? And of course this continues until the list of suggestions aren't just unhelpful, but impossible. "Would it be possible to try four different monitors?" All my monitors use HDMI. "Can you try four monitors using DP cables instead?" "Have you reloaded your operating system?" "Can you get another laptop?"

The only barely helpful suggestion they had (which I had already found via Reddit) was disabling the ability for the OS to put the USB port to sleep. I don't think that's what is happening, but maybe something down the USB chain is going to sleep and waking up and throwing the error. I wrote a quick script to identify every USB device and uncheck that option (there's no way to do it en masse in Windows; you have to drill down manually through every USB port and device and uncheck a box manually. Thanks, Microsoft).

[(ᵕ˵ ૩ᵕ)━☆ﾟ.*･｡ﾟ]

Are you sure they weren't just using you as Tier 2 to resolve other trouble tickets? Ha-ha-ha

[AArdvark]

When windows 10 really really wants you to upgrade to 11 and one of the engineers clicks the: 'yes, Ok, just leave me alone, I'm busy' button, and then after the upgrade SolidWorks won't run because it's Windows11. The whole point of having the machine is to use SolidWorks. Now the de facto IT guy has to do a registry hack to all the 10 machines to keep then from upgrading.

And on top of that there's this whole BitDefender issue shutting down everyones access to the network after an update but I think that was IT operator error.

[Jizaboz]

When windows 10 really really wants you to upgrade to 11 and one of the engineers clicks the: 'yes, Ok, just leave me alone, I'm busy' button, and then after the upgrade SolidWorks won't run because it's Windows11. The whole point of having the machine is to use SolidWorks. Now the de facto IT guy has to do a registry hack to all the 10 machines to keep then from upgrading.

And on top of that there's this whole BitDefender issue shutting down everyones access to the network after an update but I think that was IT operator error.

Yeah yr IT operator seems like a fucking idiot. Let me know if yall need a remote consultant than can just google shit and see if it makes sense heh.

[AArdvark]

Aw, he got everything working, eventually.. He's an engineer that just knows about computers. Our official IT guy left 8 months ago.

[Jizaboz]

Aw, he got everything working, eventually.. He's an engineer that just knows about computers. Our official IT guy left 8 months ago.

Ohhh my bad! For some reason I was thinking the young flakey dude was still there lol