#384 – Logon
Posted on November 23, 2007 at 12:00 am by Chris
I’ve been working at my current day job since January. It’s weird because this is the first job I’ve had where I’m working on a Windows PC. Every other computer job I’ve had has been on a Mac. This is the first time that I’ve been exposed to what it’s like to work on a computer that I have no control over. If I want to change anything I have to send a request to the help desk, wait for a trouble ticket to be created, get that approved by my manager and then wait for the IT department to schedule an appointment with me. It’s a very different world than what I was used to. At all my previous jobs the designers had Macs and we got to do whatever we wanted with them because nobody else in the company knew how they worked. Now I can’t even change my desktop wallpaper.
Tags
i like the security system. i should try to create one of those…
Aww, I thought we’d get a Lovecraft Joke… Still, pretty good. It’s nice to see Biff isn’t the only crazy person in Biffland.
They never upgrade the security
where I work. They make us change
our password every few weeks. It’s
maddening. Everybody tapes their
passwords to their computers, so
they won’t forget.
hmm. I guess his chair isn’t the most complicated part of his job anymore.
It took me a good two minutes of looking at that picture to realize that Biff wasn’t sitting on the back of the chair. I thought it was like… Down or something. Man, I’m blind…
Also, how many keyboards would that place go through with that security system?
i know how you feel chris. my family used to have a mac llc, but switched to windows a long time ago. i adapted pretty fast, but recently i sat down at a mac for the first time since way back when, and had absolutely no idea how anything at all worked.
OM NOM NOM NOM!
I have to wonder how it is Biff manages to maintain a job. I mean, clearly he’s a genius, but often of the Wile E. Coyote nature.
Saralaccurity?
hehe, macs suck.. they are maddening. my aunt had one, and I couldn’t stand it. she had a really cool game on it, though, called “escape velocity”. anyone with a mac go to the “ambrosia software” website immediately and find it. it’s the coolest game ever.
I was just about to comment, and the computer closed my window for reasons best known to itself, then sulked for 5 minutes. Without further delay:
WHEE! Biff’s left-handed!
I don’t know. If I risked having my hand chomped off if I hit the wrong key, I’d probably be using my off hand…
Macs and Windows PCs… It’s like the difference between American and British English:
I mean they do the same thing, in a similar way, though one system’s butt is another system’s lady bits.
I know how he feels. I was recently hooked into the main network after many years of being a stand alone station. Now I can not even install needed updates without “their” approval. And forget about installing my own wallpaper – all computers must be the same – no personalization!!
I’d be paranoid as a cat in a dog kennel if I were him.
I used to have all those restrictions on my computer at work, but I figured out how to turn off a bunch of the non-essential security constraints. My wallpaper’s destiny is now in mine own three hands.
Mac for the win? :D;;
All these people I know make fun of me for having one D: They’re all “LAWLZ YOUR COMPUTER SUCKS L2PNRLNOOB.”
I like my Mac. It hasn’t crashed yet!
[Please keep in mind I am technologically challenged and therefore, I rate computer awesomeness by how often they die. But then, my family could just have bad luck with PC’s.]
to change Windows desktop image:
use the awesomeness of a multi-button mouse to right click on the desktop to bring up a menu.
select porperties.
click on the desktop tab.
sleect an image from the list
OR
click the browse button to search for an image not on the list.
use the drop down list to choose if you want the image to be centered on the screen, streatched to fit the screen, or turned into a tiled pattern to cover the screen.
click OK or Apply.
Pfft’. My school are computer Nazis. They figured out how to grey out the “set as wallpaper” right-click option when you right-click an image. AND they managed to turn off tabbed browsing! They went through the trouble of upgrading all 1000+ computers in the school (yes, I live in a wealthy, spoiled area blahblahblah) to IE7, just to take off the one feature IE7 has superiority of IE6.
Biff’s chair returns! with new allies
Don’t blame the PC. Blame the company. I’ve worked on both for many years, often using both in the same job (prepress graphics). Boss at one tried to say no personalization, then he asked me to fix something on his system. Guess who had custom wallpaper, a personal photos slideshow, etc?
After that I personalized both of the ones I worked on (within reasonable limits, of course — not so much someone else couldn’t use it easily if I was out), and he never said a word.
Evaluate how much trouble you’d get into, then just do it.
to Wannabeelf
Some companies will remove those rights from clients. This is done by configuring GPO on your server which are automaticly pushed to the clients workstation on logon. a GPO is a network policy that cannot be modified by the user.
feel free to read about gpo’s and network administration here
http://www.microsoft.com/windowsserver2003/technologies/management/grouppolicy/default.mspx
cheers
Is Biff left-handed, or is he just typing with his left hand so his dominant hand isn’t bit off?
Heh!
Chris has discovered proper network security. Heheheh! I think Biff’s SysAdmin is channeling our SysAdmin here at work…
In Biff’s world, anything can be a predator…
Biff just looks so strange in a polo shirt.
Where I work we only have one computer that gets used in the warehouse for shipping and recieving. Only one person knows how to use it, because the operating system is some sort of evil program from the early 90’s. It looks like a horrible cross between Linux and MS-DOS.
I use both mac and windows, and I must say I like mac more. Sadly the programs/games I have/want to use are windows only, or the mac version sucks.
Q.Q
Biff is Ambidextrous. Chris said so in the FAQ on the Forums.
Don’t let the company computers pull you down. Regular Widows are pretty cool for us non-artsy types. I can change my desktop pretty easy…
My current desktop is Gorillaz.
Hopefully I’ll get to make a computer for my room next year….yeah I’ll have a chunky old monitor, but I’ll have made it, so thats cool.
my giant mouth is below my chair
Hopefully some day Biff will be all the financial support you’ll need when it becomes a huge hit and people randomly throw money at you! 😀
ha! Chris knows HOW to change a desktop on a windows machine, it is that at work he isn’t allowed to. sillies!
That’s totally photoshopped
Allowing only what you really need for your work is the best way to keep people from screwing things up…
If you give everybody access to everything, well, trust me, there are lots of people who do things you cannot imagen…
I study Informatics Management and boy, we’ve given our IT manager a hell of a time 😛
Last year, we easily got in the settings of the school printserver via a client (what shouldn’t be possible) and we put all the printers on stand-by…
You could try to print and you could restart the printer all you wanted, but you wouldn’t get a single paper printed in the entire school…
Luckely for him, WE were the once who did does things and we told him what we did and how… else he wouldn’t have got a clue…
After we do stuff like that, security is thightend and the network is made safer…
Imagen some fool changing it, but not actually knowing what he did…
Nobody would be able to print untill he reinstalled +-100 printers…
Biff works? Man, my whole gestalt of Biff will have to be re-combobulated now, again.
Ah, much as I love a good Mac vs. PC debate, I just skip over the whole argument use them both. I prefer the Mac for editing, sound and (some) graphics programs, and I use the PC for my drawing and 3D work. Nice, simple, and no argument nor pride over the idea of what I ‘should’ be using.
That, and I never thought about the security abilities of a pit-fiend of some sort… intriguing, for sure.
this is funny because im stuck in my art college with Mac laptops…and i just hate these things with a fiery passion.All the programs seems to crash half the time they are used,and the general layout is horrible…I miss my Windows XP
VTanker:
apparently, you don’t know a joke when you see one.
the Scarf:
i use windows for art. that “mac is for artists” thing is crap; you can make art of just as high quality and just as easily on a PC as you can a mac. and you can actually upgrade parts of your system when you need to without having to buy a whole new machine.
PC art:
http://www.care2.com/c2c/photos/view/99/878363184/art_made_on_a_PC/
(password is biff)
It’s annoying when someone you know sets a password for your wireless internet and then forgets it 30 minutes latter.
For some reason this reminds me of The Thing when Doc tries to give CPR to someone.
Go PCs!!! I use mac at school and I HATE them. But my teacher is such a mac fanatic we arn’t even alowed to say macs are horrible (which is true)
Sweet comic.
macs suck, thay arnt compatible with pc, and among that the mouses cant right click
Macs do have a right click, its capacitive sensing they do to tell if it was a right click. But either way Macs have +’s and PCs have +’s. Can’t we all just get along?
Sunday night and still nobody sad any thing abut linux! let me jest say it, linux kicks butt.
@AG:
>
It wouldn’t have been Pick, would it? I’ve used inventory management systems that ran on Pick, and found it to be a good match. Not flashy or fast, but solid, reliable, and nigh-unbreakable.
Man-oh-man. I love this one! We have to change our passwords at work every month or so. And it can’t be the same as any of your past seven passwords. I’m always trying to think of variations so I don’t have to create a new one. Sometimes I forget and get locked out at 6am (ya, that’s when I’m at work) and have to wait until 7:30 or so when IT gets in.
Seems like good security to me ^.^
On the Windows/Mac thing:
Mac ain’t my style but its ok, windows however.. XP was doable but vista is a nightmare. i’m sticking to linux
For the whole Mac vs Windows discussion over here… I would say – if you have a PC – change to Linux (apparently also Mac users can do the same)! I was hesitant for a long time and only changed recently because I thought it would be difficult… actually it wasn’t – if I can do it (almost) anyone can! I am sooo happy with my new operating system. And for programs (work-related) that are windows-only: The emulator Wine actually does the trick for most of them.
By the way… I found Biff only yesterday and I am already hooked and determined to go through all of them today – I just hope I wont die from stomach cramps.
When I saw this one, I knew I had to have it as my desktop at work (I work in computer repair…). Pure awesome. I want that security for my computer. No more of that silly thumb-print-reader which just enters your password for you.
Oh, and on the subject of operating systems, I say pick what works best for YOU. Linux is awesome, but not for novices or obscure hardware. Game programmers support Windows best. And MacOS is optimized for creative efforts (music & movie creation and so on, etc., and so forth). Just don’t go on about OS/2 or I will have to hurt you.
i thought the chair had more levers
@ Hyshinara:
I like all the idea that if some wannabe hacker messes up the school’s network, it’s my fault. The so-called security isn’t ever secure, because you’ll always find someone smarter than the gatekeeper.
What’s next? If someone steals my car, I go to jail for encouraging a theft? O_o
My idea of security is: you mess up, you pay, so you’ll be more careful next time. It’s a concept not well known nowadays, some people would wash their pets in the dishwasher and then sue the washer’s company ’cause they didn’t put a “no pets” sign near the handle 🙂
Great office chair, BTW. I guess the lower handle makes the chair rise and the other makes it fold itself trap style and explode.
First time I’ve ever seen Biff scared. lol 🙂
HAHAHAHA I need this to protect my computer from my spying brother.
I decided to name the monster Carl.
I’m sure the productivity level of a windows shop leaves something to be desired. I’ve run the gamut from your level of lock down to everyone having admin rights and porn popups.
And I guess you posted this on a PC, or if you want to word it differently at work?