Your technology disasters - what's been your worst?

whirlpool

The new laptop I bought a few months ago was, I think, the most expensive thing I've ever bought.

Two mornings ago, I was working away on it and I took a gulp of coffee. It went down the wrong way and I ended up spluttering it up. I mean, it came out my nose - and landed all over my keyboard.

I had that moment, where I froze and stared in horror for about five seconds not knowing what to do. Eventually I figured it out (cloth, kitchen paper, etc etc....)

The only other one I can think of at the moment is drunkenly dropping my phone down the toilet, having just used said toilet.

Still eating your breakfast? :pac:

Have you had any technology disasters?

Green Giant

A friend of mine once reversed over his mobile phone in a tractor.

The phone still worked!

cml387

Don't use a Stanley knife to slit open a box containing an LCD monitor is all I can add.

Real Life

put my iPod into the washing machine. it was in my jeans pocket

o1s1n

Lifting a 100Kg bulky expensive Japanese arcade machine into the house.

Wouldn't fit passed the porch door with the control panel on so decided to try around the back.

Lifted it all the way around, but it wouldn't fit through there either - had to remove the control panel (if we'd done this to start with, it would have gone through the front door grand)

Finally got it into the house - powered it up, vertical collapse on the monitor.

There it sat for a year trying to be fixed, to no avail

Got rid of it and bought two smaller ones instead

Wossack

rm * -i

is very different to

rm -i *

burnhardlanger

Green Giant wrote: »

A friend of mine once reversed over his mobile phone in a tractor.

The phone still worked!

I miss that Nokia phone.

ixoy

Pushed a switch on the back of an old Gateway PC thinking it would disable the power so I could work on it.. It was actually a switch to 110v and when I powered the PC there was a bang, black smoke and a fried motherboard.

whiskeyman

Green Giant wrote:

A friend of mine once reversed over his mobile phone in a tractor.

The phone still worked!

.

burnhardlanger wrote: »

I miss that Nokia phone.

His mate probably misses that tractor more like!!

Flibbles

Wossack wrote: »

rm * -i

is very different to

rm -i *

WORDS=('please help me' 'i am so alone' 'i am lonely' 'pssssst' 'hello' 'hey, listen.'); while [ 1 = 1 ]; do say "${WORDS[$[ $[ RANDOM % ${#WORDS[@]} ]]]}" -v Whisper; sleep 300; done




Have fun.

Flibbles

ixoy wrote: »

Pushed a switch on the back of an old Gateway PC thinking it would disable the power so I could work on it.. It was actually a switch to 110v and when I powered the PC there was a bang, black smoke and a fried motherboard.

I've done that when I was younger. Was flicking all the jumpers on the motherboard to see what they did, found the 240v switch. Bang.

endacl

Didn't somebody press <return> and break boards.ie a short while ago?

Be hard to top that!

danniemcq

Dunno if you'd call it a disaster more of me bing an idiot but the time i got a second hand sky plus box and spent the best part of an hour trying to get it to work while on the phone to tech support and going through all the hidden menus and resetting EVERYTHING i realise i had been putting my card in the interactive slot and not the card slot (which to be fair was hidden)

Then there was nailpolish remover spilled over a laptops keyboard, the couple of blown psu's, the laptop that started smoking, the multiple curropted harddrives, the gfx cards that ticked... no doubt there is manty many more too but you gotta learn somehow

danniemcq

Wossack wrote: »

rm * -i

is very different to

rm -i *

rm -rf /

and

[PHP]:(){ : & };:[/PHP]

mad turnip

rm -rf /

IS VERY DIFFERENT TO

rm -rf ./

Luckily this was someone I know =D

Flibbles

DannieHasABrazilian wrote: »

Dunno if you'd call it a disaster more of me bing an idiot but the time i got a second hand sky plus box and spent the best part of an hour trying to get it to work while on the phone to tech support and going through all the hidden menus and resetting EVERYTHING i realise i had been putting my card in the interactive slot and not the card slot (which to be fair was hidden)

Then there was nailpolish remover spilled over a laptops keyboard, the couple of blown psu's, the laptop that started smoking, the multiple curropted harddrives, the gfx cards that ticked... no doubt there is manty many more too but you gotta learn somehow

I'm asked quite often how I know how to fix things on their computer so fast. I usually explain that I've done the exact same thing and spent ages trying to fix it.

fibix

whirlpool wrote: »

The only other one I can think of at the moment is drunkenly dropping my phone down the toilet, having just used said toilet.

Thank god I thought I was the only one. Fell out from the back pocket of my jeans, either I was taking the jeans off or pulling them on - it will remain a mystery

Duggy747

I once opened Internet Explorer by accident.

endacl

fibix wrote: »

either I was taking the jeans off or pulling them on - it will remain a mystery

Easily solved. Was the phone floating above the floater, or vice versa?

murpho999

Worked in AIB years ago.

Had to go one of their large comms rooms to a move network cable from one port to another due to a desk being moved.

Did the job but discovered I'd done the wrong one. I'd moved a cable from a chassis labelled FTB

Went back swapped it back and moved the right cable as I'd accidentally selected the wrong chassis. I'd moved a cable from a chassis labelled FTB xxxx instead of FEB xxxx

5 minutes later, Operations manager came running in with some panicking IT engineers saying that every single ATM in First Trust Bank Northern Ireland had gone down suddenly and then gone back on-line causing chaos.

I just nodded and said that was terrible and then realised what the FTB stood for on the chassis I had been at.

Never told anyone!

fibix

endacl wrote: »

Easily solved. Was the phone floating above the floater, or vice versa?

It was only a number one

danniemcq

Flibbles wrote: »

I'm asked quite often how I know how to fix things on their computer so fast. I usually explain that I've done the exact same thing and spent ages trying to fix it.

exactly!

Can i learn french or Irish? nope but when it comes to any computer issue i have a complete A-Z how to and what to do guide stored in my brain, never to be forgotten (no matter how hard i try)

well either that or google

KungPao

Back in the early 90s, we had an Amstrad 6128+, and I'd heard of this internet malarky, so I thought 'sure i'll plug the phone cable into the computer then see what this is all about".

Something bad happened and the computer never worked properly again

endacl

fibix wrote: »

It was only a number one

A mystery it shall remain. Ah well. I tried...

ra0044

Once left my 2 day old pride and joy mobile on the dasboard of the car. Then experienced a slow motion NOOOOOOOOO!!!! moment as it slid across the dashboard and out of the open passenger window as i went round a roundabout.

By the time I got around the roundabout it had been run over and was just a scattering of plastic pieces.

€ 500 euro mistake. I then had to go and explain to my boss who then issued me with oldest and nastiest phone he could find hidden in the back of a cupboard which I carried like a phone of shame whilst everyone else showed off there new I-phones.

Earthhorse

Wossack wrote: »

rm * -i

is very different to

rm -i *

Ha ha, yeah, you're right!

The letters are different.

professore

murpho999 wrote: »

Worked in AIB years ago.

Had to go one of their large comms rooms to a move network cable due from one port to another to a disk being moved.

Did the job but discovered I'd done the wrong one. I'd moved a cable from a chassis labelled FTB

Went back swapped it back and moved the right cable as I'd accidentally selected the wrong chassis. I'd moved a cable from a chassis labelled FTB xxxx instead of FEB xxxx

5 minutes later, Operations manager came running in with some panicking IT engineers saying that every single ATM in First Trust Bank Northern Ireland had gone down suddenly and then gone back on-line causing chaos.

I just nodded and said that was terrible and then realised what the FTB stood for on the chassis I had been at.

Never told anyone!

FTB pretty stupid nondescript name in fairness. Whoever put that on there and not "First Trust Bank Main Server" or something should have been fired.

Ilyana 2.0

I dropped my Nokia 3310 into a glass of miwadi. I never got to play Snake II again

The Diabolical Monocle

Rocksmith xbox game - I was meant to be epic guitar man by now.
level 1 - fvck this mind melting shyte.

anncoates

ra0044 wrote: »

Once left my 2 day old pride and joy mobile on the dasboard of the car. Then experienced a slow motion NOOOOOOOOO!!!! moment as it slid across the dashboard and out of the open passenger window as i went round a roundabout.

By the time I got around the roundabout it had been run over and was just a scattering of plastic pieces.

€ 500 euro mistake. I then had to go and explain to my boss who then issued me with oldest and nastiest phone he could find hidden in the back of a cupboard which I carried like a phone of shame whilst everyone else showed off there new I-phones.

You must have been going around the roundabout at some speed..

floggg

Hastily hiding my porn stash in what I thought was an empty irrelevant hidden folder, not realising what "auto-run" meant.

Thankfully it was before I realised my preference for hot sweaty man porn, or it could have been a very awkward and pre-mature coming out.

Mr. CooL ICE

Ilyana 2.0 wrote: »

I dropped my Nokia 3310 into a glass of miwadi. I never got to play Snake II again

You dropped a nokia into a glass? Did you end up pulling shards of glass out of your face?

ra0044

anncoates wrote: »

You must have been going around the roundabout at some speed..

Really wasn't. Just a combination of a shiny plastic phone and plastic dashboard.

Just like many things in life a little friction would have been a bonus.

petes

ixoy wrote: »

Pushed a switch on the back of an old Gateway PC thinking it would disable the power so I could work on it.. It was actually a switch to 110v and when I powered the PC there was a bang, black smoke and a fried motherboard.

I've done that on my own PC years ago before I knew better. RIP

play4fun1

Flibbles wrote: »

I've done that when I was younger. Was flicking all the jumpers on the motherboard to see what they did, found the 240v switch. Bang.

There's way too many people doint that .
I'm on a list of them .

Mint Aero

Mint Aero: Gosh I better buy a hardrive soon and back up my music, films and work.
Laptop: Good thinking Aero
Mint Aero: I'll just price them online
Laptop: Deeeeeeerp
Mint Aero: :mad:

LithiumKid1976

was on my honeymoon in machu pichu years ago, stunning place to take a few photos...... if you have the camera set right. :mad:

somewhere along the trip, the image quality setting on the camera changed from High resolution, to the lowest, lowest resolution there is, IE, where the image would look good on a phone screen, it would be completely blurred when viewed full screen on a pc.

still annoys me to this day.:(

Sir Arthur Daley

I was in a mad panic one evening packing up from work and got distracted as I was packing up, i went back to the Jeep thinking i had everything put in, into reverse to back around the house and immediately knew I drove over something, went out and there it was my Electrical Test Meters in their crushed case, €1200 they had cost and were just a year old, they were all a write off, took a long time to get over that one.

Professey Chin

Briefly took out 90% of access to large life assurance companies claim system. That was a fun day

humbert

Wossack wrote: »

rm * -i

is very different to

rm -i *

Have to admit I don't get this. Ran both and was asked for confirmation with both?

Mine would be leaving the partition number out when using dd. sda is very different to sda1

castletownman

I still haven't gotten used to the touch-screen phones. Fingers must be fatter than I realise.

Smart phones my ass

wazky

Dropped my Nokia in the jacks bowl on paddys day once, had to redecorate the west wing of the house after it.

Irish Steve

Long time ago. Due to leave company (major poultry supplier) at end of week to go to a new company, a major database update to do out of hours before I left, backed everything up twice, then restored old copy to unload a file from it, extracted the data needed and started the restore. ! hour in to the restore, it threw an error. No sweat, use the second copy. 1 hour in to that restore, it threw the same error. No tech support available from supplier at 0 dark hundred, so try a few things, like reading the tapes using a different utility to see if there was an error on the tape, no error.

Mild panic, as no usable system at this stage. Tried a number of things to see if there was a way round it, no luck.

Able to call tech support at this stage. Engineer arrives, and starts investigation, very quickly (I'd done the homework) escalates to highest level, there's a bug in the database restore software that means head office involvement.

Into engineers car, with all backup tapes, 2 hours and 160 miles later (yeah), arrive at head office, tech support take over and start work. 4 hours later, back into car, even less than 2 hours for return journey, ( out of peak period, so easier to low fly) and start restore of database, system up and working by 22:00 , so frantic panic to get that day's orders and deliveries into system so that deliveries could go out.

Fortunately, we had contingency plans to cover the lack of the system for the day, but wasn't much fun. 36 hour days are not a lot of fun, but they have to be done sometimes.

jester77

Many years ago, was working on a project that involved migrating a CRM system written in MS Access to a PeopleSoft CRM system. The MS Access was a nasty piece of software, there was an access file sitting on a server and every sales person when they returned to the office (this could be weeks at a time) would sync their local MS Access db using some sort of a VB script with the one running on the server. And every time there was merge issues as someone else would have updated some of the records in between the syncs.

Sat down with the team, got the requirements, was informed that PeopleSoft CRM would be the solution, contracts for between 300 and 400k had been signed and that I was to implement it. More contracts for training were then signed. So off I go to Washington for a few weeks to get up to date on the system, then a few weeks in London followed by a few weeks in Santa Clara. In the mean time someone had purchased all the hardware that was going to run this.

It was during one of the US trips where some things didn't add up. I just couldn't figure out how this new CRM system was going to be capable of meeting the requirements. Talked with the people from PeopleSoft and they said the software could not do what we needed.

So off to Frankfurt I go, meeting with the team and a few Peoplesoft consultants that had flown in. Nope, you have indeed purchased the wrong software. Project cancelled, over 500k wasted. But at least the hardware was used to upgrade the company intranet.

tim3000

When I first got a computer I was rather naive. Especially when it came to running programs like iTunes. Basically when I wanted to add music to this new fangled ipod of mine I would open Windows Media Player and then burn a cd of the songs I wanted. Then I would open iTunes and copy the contents of this newly burned cd to itunes.

Wossack

humbert wrote: »

Have to admit I don't get this. Ran both and was asked for confirmation with both?

Mine would be leaving the partition number out when using dd. sda is very different to sda1

might be different, but on AIX anyway, second one will give a prompt to delete for each file in your current directory. Used to use it to delete badly named files in random directories (quickest and dirtiest way to delete a file with an escape character in it for example.)
However, the first one will just delete everything without prompting, and error at the end saying 'file "-i" not found' or the like. Takes a few seconds to cop what just happened... and then :eek:

Ficheall

Bought a lenovo laptop which came with windows 8 preinstalled...

Ilyana 2.0

LordChessington wrote: »

You dropped a nokia into a glass? Did you end up pulling shards of glass out of your face?

Surprisingly not, the glass didn't even get chipped!

J_E

Hard drive failed 2 days before a project submission I had been working weeks on and for some reason my auto backup hadn't been working without me knowing for at least a week or 2 before...Spent from 10PM that night to 1AM the day after solid, getting back to where I was on it. Nearly slept through submission morning but managed it in the end. Always back up important stuff in two, three places.

Cravez

Ficheall wrote: »

Bought a lenovo laptop which came with windows 8 preinstalled...

I got a Toshiba laptop recently with Windows 8 installed. After much digging I was able to get passed all the UEFI nonsense and was able to install Windows 7 on it. Any queries just let me know.

Menas

A few years ago I had my two young nieces around. I set them up playing on the playstation. One of the controllers was a battery powered wireless one. The other wired.

So after about 15 minutes I look in on them and the youngest one is holding with the wired one, but there is no wire plugged in to it any more.
I thought she had broken it and gave out to the poor mite (she was 6).
After I calmed down the two nieces sat me down and explained that my 'wired' PS3 controller is in fact wireless. The wire was for charging it.

They have not been around since.