*&!"£*&^!"£ computers!

[hobbitomm]

Well, as you all know, I do a fair amount of research, and the main databases I use for this are supplied by a company called Ovid. To use them, you need to login. So far so good. I have a login. Ah. But the URL that results from logging in doesn't play with the Trust Firewall, so the dbs won't load. Which means I can't research. Okay... so.... phone the library, who are responsible for it at this end.

Ah. A known problem with our firewall. Talk to IT support.
Ah. A known problem with their .cgi scripts. We're not changing our firewall. Talk to their support.
Ah. An unknown problem. It'll be their firewall. We'll see what we can do, but it may need changes in your firewall......


AAAAAARGH! Who moved me into Kafka when I wasn't looking?

Comments

[hobbitomm.livejournal.com]

And fairplay to Ovid, they worked out a temporary quick and dirty fix for me to use whilst they work on a proper solution.

[sharikkamur.livejournal.com]

Empathy here. I've had oobles of problems with firewalls too.

My solution: Hang all of the spammers, malware writers and hackers so we no longer need firewalls. It's probably easier than getting the firewalls to work properly.

It's also recyclable and otherwise environmentally friendly.

[hobbitomm.livejournal.com]

Oh, the extra annoyance is that the trust blocks access to my main e-mail address, on the grounds that the trust doesn't control its virus checkers. Despite the head of NHS IT (nationally) saying that its checkers are superior to those of the NHS.....

[sharikkamur.livejournal.com]

Farming out virus protection and other firewall matters is a real pain. When I worked in Edinburgh I couldn't access a whole host of work-useful sites because they weren't deemed appropriate by the firewall providers for some reason.

Hmm... I imagine you'd have a real stinker of a time with that. After all, you have legitimate reasons to google for 'breast enlargement'. :)

[loupblanc.livejournal.com]

Hang all of the spammers

Preferably by the testicles...

[graylion.livejournal.com]

short stake. nastiest thing know.

[sharikkamur.livejournal.com]

Takes too long - you can get through a lot of spammers quickly with one handy reusable, biodegradable length of rope.

[loupblanc.livejournal.com]

How?

[sharikkamur.livejournal.com]

Serial hangings. If the rope's long enough you can even hang them in parallel. If it's really long you can have massively-parallel hangings.

[loupblanc.livejournal.com]

Considering spammers range from Florida to Siberia, you'd need a really really long rope. ;)

[sharikkamur.livejournal.com]

We can round them up first. Maybe prod them a little with some of Arpad's short stakes. :)

[loupblanc.livejournal.com]

I guess that means finding them first. Since many of them are nothing more than computer programs, Arpad's stakes won't be much use on them.

Still the human ones could be useful for point practice and target archery as well...

[sharikkamur.livejournal.com]

But we can round up the programmers of said spam programs.

Using some of them for target practice seems a reasonalbe idea to me. I used to have a game for the Atari ST that had, as its closing credit, "End animal experimentation - use virus-writers instead". Quite clever, I thought.

[anthraxia.livejournal.com]

Treat them accordingly. Squish them into tins and lose the key. But make sure the tins can only be opened with a tin opener by destroying half the contents.

New Spam - made with real Spammers

[loupblanc.livejournal.com]

Sounds like sardines to me... ;)

[spenceraloysius.livejournal.com]

Are you using Ovid to access medline? Because, if you are, you can access all the medline abstracts at Pubmed through your web browser. Yeah, I know that means you'll be using an NIH resource, but hey, Americans deserved to be punched.

[hobbitomm.livejournal.com]

Actually, I had used pubmed but it's not actually complete- it's missing some references I know are correct. And the interface sucks bigtime.

[spenceraloysius.livejournal.com]

Yeah, though if you use a reference manager like Endnote, you can directly download from pubmed just like you would from ovid. I don't know if it has the same firewall problems, though.

[hobbitomm.livejournal.com]

No, pubmed works fine. But as I say, missing some. Plus I _hate_ endnote. It's... clunky.

[viola-arvensis.livejournal.com]

Look on the bright side, at least it's called Ovid, which is pretty damn cool :P (computers suck, can never get mine to work either)

[hobbitomm.livejournal.com]

I'd prefer Sappho :P

[viola-arvensis.livejournal.com]

"egoan de emayta toyto cunoida"
"And this I feel also"
or possibly even, 'I agree' :P