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This topic reminded me of an occurrence in 1968 during the punched card era.
We had a "database" of around 50,000 punched cards for our inventory. Each card was a type of inventory item. Punched into a card was the identifying information, quantity on hand, price, etc. The punched cards were stored in 25 trays. 2,000 cards per tray.
They were kept in the user area where they could peruse them during the work day and brought to the data center at night to process all the orders and receipts to create updated punched cards which were merged into the deck replacing the out dated versions of each card.
One morning, the inventory department manager came down to the data center and told us that there we 22 cards missing from the deck. (That's 22 out of ~50,000) I still don't know how he determine that.
Anyway, he wanted us to run the ~50,000 cards through the computer and print out the missing cards.
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User: It doesn't work!
Me: What doesn't work?
User: The button!
Me: Which button what happens when you click it?
User: The button on the page! Nothing happens I just get an error!
Me: What does the error say? tell you to do?
Then total radio silence on the subject.
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Sad, but true, I used to work at a company that employed a full time QA department to test our code.
The most common explanation that accompanied bug reports were "I was doing something when it crashed."
Psychosis at 10
Film at 11
Those who do not remember the past, are doomed to repeat it.
Those who do not remember the past, cannot build upon it.
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Boy, you have a well trained QA department! They know they have to write a bug report...
I've had the opposite problem at times. For instance, I was trying to write an automated test for a "back" button. Worked perfectly the first time. Asked to start, asked to "back" and it executed the back button. Run it again and the back button fails to execute because it doesn't exist. What's going on is that the button to go forward executed SQL commands, the data wasn't cached so it took a couple of seconds to retrieve the data. Next run, the data was cached and it moved forward to the next screen as designed and the back button didn't exist.
Now, do I write a bug against the code because it works as designed causing my automated test to fail or against my automated test because it can't consistently test the back button.
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KP Lee wrote: Boy, you have a well trained QA department!
Yes, yes, we did. 
It was interesting place to work at for all the wrong reasons. We had one old gentleman who was disgruntled that his ideas for the code design was being ignored, so he used to write up bug reports so the resolution would be to implement his design without the usual review. We finally caught on.
We didn't use automated testing, instead we had to write scripts explaining point by point what to enter and click, along with the expected response, assuming no prior knowledge of the application. The QA department liked to hire kids from the high school across the street to do regression testing.
It didn't help that we also had clueless designers. Our coding team was pretty good, but we had to deal with non-technical designers and incompetent management. The designers didn't want to see cursors (this was back in the day of text screens) blinking, so the previous set of programmers had been instructed to hide the cursor off screen...and then wondered why error messages were not being displayed. To solve that, they took to logging errors to the hard drive...including "out of disk space" 
But the one bright spot was when they did decide to tackle the error message displays to make them unambiguous. Since there are errors that can occur in different places for the same reason, some had taken to using different wording to indicate to the programmer where the error had occurred. In the same vein as "You are in a twisty maze" versus "The maze is all twisty." Subtle differences lost on the QA department. We wanted numbers, but the non-technical designers deemed them "too technical", but we finally agreed on a compromise of a number followed by a message. Radical eh? Our hope was that we could get people to at least write down the number. A forlorn hope.
Psychosis at 10
Film at 11
Those who do not remember the past, are doomed to repeat it.
Those who do not remember the past, cannot build upon it.
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Another radical idea, set up a DB that tracks the error message and the program file that creates the message and when it is inserted into a table maybe the line number in the file when it was recorded (At least the function it is in) and you then use the identity field's value in the error message.
When you look up the records that match LIKE '%maze%' you can then list all the messages and ask them to identify which one they got, so they can say "I dunno, doe-N rememer"
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KP Lee wrote: set up a DB that tracks the error message
Nice sentiment, wrong era.
I do that now, and for critical errors, have the program e-mail me what ails it, so I'm ready for the inevitable customer service call.
But this was the early 90's and networks were barely in existence (the battles were raging over Token Ring or TCP/IP) and DBASE was the only SQL database we had access to on an individual machine. As I recall we only had one person on staff who knew anything about SQL.
The application was using 2400 baud modems to talk to the mainframe that had the document search engine. The workstation program was responsible for presentation and maintaining the document cache. At approximately 240 characters a second, you don't download megabyte documents. So the program had to track what portions of a document had already been downloaded and ask for the missing pieces should the user scroll through to one. There was a mode called KWIC - key word in context, where you could search for a term, like "mickey mouse" and you could configure it to display x lines in front and y lines after the line found with that term, for as many places it occurred in the document.
It was designed for legal document searches and lawyers (at that time) were extremely technophobic. The company had been brought kicking and screaming into the computer age. We even had a semi-clandestine project to bring the search engine to the desktop using those newfangled devices called "CD-ROMs". Management was unconvinced that they would ever amount to anything.
Psychosis at 10
Film at 11
Those who do not remember the past, are doomed to repeat it.
Those who do not remember the past, cannot build upon it.
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My wife orders stuff "offline" from Amazon.
It isn't worth the effort to correct her.
My one request to Microsoft, Google, and any other software maker that my wife uses, Please for the love of all that is Holy, change the save dialog box to FORCE a user to pick a directory/folder BEFORE they can enter a file name or click the save button. My life would be so much better. I wouldn't have to hear, "I saved it but I don't know where!" in panicked tones EVERY time she saves something. Also, it would be nice if they wouldn't supply default file names.
She is a lovely wife and mother other than her learning disability when it comes to a computer. She still doesn't understand Alt-Tabbing between applications.
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One that always drives me crazy is how people don't know the difference between a slash and a back slash.
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How about the customer that called to complain that their computer cup holder was broken. You know, the one where they press the button and the cup holder tray slides out...
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I burst out laughing the other day when an IT professional didn't know how to solve Schrodinger's wave equation for a finite square well potential. Actually, I didn't, but I think you get my point. 
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I used to work at a software publishing firm (Micro Lab) where we sold a flat file database program called "Data Factory". The owner was hoping the the Amper routines (if you are an Olde Tyme Apple II programmer you'll know what that is) I was writing to access the DOS that bypassed the slow command interpreter would speed up the database program to "DMA the data" between the floppy disk and memory.
One notable bit of miss-communication was that underneath the built-in Basic language (depending on the generation, either Integer or Floating Point) was the Assembly Monitor program. When you (for another misuse of a term) GPF'd, the Monitor would give you a hex display of the CPU registers. All the programmers referred to it as "Crashing into the Monitor." It took us a while to realize we were confusing all the non-technical people when we said that. They thought somehow the code was crashing into the glass on the CRT screens.
Psychosis at 10
Film at 11
Those who do not remember the past, are doomed to repeat it.
Those who do not remember the past, cannot build upon it.
modified 21-Mar-14 9:42am.
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Technically any kind of file IS a database because a database is something that stores information that can be retrieved later. Though, I don't think most people would consider a movie to be a database even though in the broad sense, it is one.
We in the industry tend to think of databases as something tied to a program that organizes data in a well defined manner. So WORD or NOTEPAD don't create what we call databases. We think of SQL Server or Access to be code that produces databases. Some don't think the JET engine produces a database even though you can use the same data organization methods and query structure to retrieve the data from it.
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I guess that I am showing my age...
For years I had trouble convincing my wife that she did not need to have the TV on the same channel while recording a show on the VCR (that's right, I said VCR  ). Seems that she did not understand that the TV had its own tuner and that the VCR had its own separate tuner.
Fletcher Glenn
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Can you download the internet to my memory (flash drive)?
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Also "Computer" when they mean "Monitor".
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I know one who refers to Microsoft Office as an Operating System
<sig notetoself="think of a better signature">
<first>Jim</first> <last>Meadors</last>
</sig>
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One I get all the time which I'm surprised I haven't read yet:
desktop background == screen saver
"Nice screen saver!" they'll say, about a desktop background photo...usually I thank them and follow that by asking "Hey what do they call that animation that appears when your computer is left idle..?" and they fall silent.
Prior graphics designer used to quip "let's go digital" when intending to move our newsletter from PDF to HTML format...
My mom greatly amuses me with the use of "voice" for computer audio...."my computer has no voice!" she'll say, when the speakers aren't working. However if computers evolve to the point where they naturally converse with users then this will start making a lot of sense.
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dannomanno wrote: they fall silent
One I forgot is the confusion people have between Windows and Office. 'What version of Office are you using?'...'Seven'. 
"Go forth into the source" - Neal Morse
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[I'd meant to post this on the Lounge but accidentally posted it in Insider News...apologies for the confusion.]
I was just reading this[^] and was wondering, are SSD's better or worse for protecting against a CME? What about the electronics themselves?
Any ideas from the experts here on CP?
And yes, I have an ample supply of tin foil. 
Marc
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Marc Clifton wrote: And yes, I have an ample supply of tin foil.
I wondered where my hat had gone!
Those who fail to learn history are doomed to repeat it. --- George Santayana (December 16, 1863 – September 26, 1952)
Those who fail to clear history are doomed to explain it. --- OriginalGriff (February 24, 1959 – ∞)
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Chris is more a physicist than I, but I can tell you that this sort of event will fry semiconductor junctions and the induced currents will likely melt the minuscule conductors used to connect electronic circuits to the outside world. So no, the short answer would be; a SSD is not inherently safer from this sort of event than a conventional hard drive. But it wouldn't hurt to cover it with a tiny tinfoil hat, just in case...
Will Rogers never met me.
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Thanks for the link, without that, I wouldn't have found what a CME was. Basically if it had hit us, I think we would have been hit with an EMP (Electro-magnetic pulse) I would expect that, with going through buildings to reach the computers, it would have created some slight glitches, but even though possible, I don't think it would fry our computers or erase our regular drives let alone the SSD's. Of course I could be wrong, EMPs have been known to disable engines that were running when they were hit.
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Never realised how easy this was to do.
I set up a company, install a couple of systems, install a couple more.
All on weekends.
Someone recommends me, so I now have three more systems to install.
Got a great supplier and a a fitter at a good rate.
Then get it remotely set up and running by the tech guys at the supplier.
I only have to be there to do the final connections, set up the t'interweb link and test it.
(Oh, and to pick up the cheque!)
---------------------------------
Obscurum per obscurius.
Ad astra per alas porci.
Quidquid latine dictum sit, altum videtur .
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Dave is watching you......
Simon Lee Shugar (Software Developer)
www.simonshugar.co.uk
"If something goes by a false name, would it mean that thing is fake? False by nature?" By Gilbert Durandil
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