----- Original Message -----
From: "Haggerty, Mike" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: "CF-Community" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Sent: Monday, October 27, 2003 4:02 PM
Subject: Crazy Weekend
> I had a crazy weekend. Found out there are some really messed up people
> in the world and need to vent.
>
> First, on Thursday, someone I sold an application to a year and a half
> ago emailed me saying the application no longer works on the new version
> of ColdFusion. I explained the application was written to work on CF5
> and that I made no guarantees on future upgrades. I asked her what
> server it is on, and all she says is it is the latest version of CF.
>
> So I assume there is a problem with the code, I go home and it seems to
> work fine on CFMX. I get on the phone with her and learn that the latest
> version of CF means BlueDragon. She had a contractor come in and make
> some updates, and he sold her on an upgrade, got the server going and
> never tested the application. He did, however, make $4k for a three day
> project.
>
> So last Friday I was rewriting code for this lady all night. At around 2
> am Saturday, she finally starts to understand this is not getting done
> in a weekend and she needs to roll back to CF5. Of course, she is not
> the admin, and she wants to know if I can come out to CA to take care of
> it. Having a job to return to on Monday, I got on the phone with the
> guys at the co-location facility and get them to restore a backup.
> Problem solved for the present.
>
> The best part of this: I didn't get paid a dime for the overnight
> support.
>
> Around 8:00 AM Saturday I get a call from another client saying
> something is wrong with his database. He has an online catalog I built
> that ties into eBay. I go to the site and there is no content at all
> whatsoever.
>
> I ask him what happened recently to cause this. He had a friend who is a
> 'Web guru' come in last week to work on the database and add a 'News and
> Events' section to his site (he runs a computer shop that sells things
> online, don't ask me why he is adding a 'News and Events' section). Now,
> I know how this guy does his inventory, it's kept on a local
> installation of Oracle that replicates over to his hosting company. So I
> think to myself: the dude messed something up. All I have to do is ride
> up to Pittsburg, push a button and look like a hero. No big deal, and I
> get out of town for a day with my daughter, it's worth the three hour
> drive.
>
> I get there just before noon and take a look at Oracle, but there is
> nothing there. The 'guru' did his work on an ancient backup of the
> production database that didn't have half of the tables that support the
> site. He overwrote the existing tablespace and completely wiped out all
> the catalog data.
>
> I ask the client if he has been switching the tapes. He responds: "Oh,
> you mean running the back ups you told me to do every night? I haven't
> really kept up on that, is that going to be a problem?" Meanwhile, about
> 20 emails come in from eBay announcing various bids have been won but we
> have no record of what specifically has been bid on. We call the 'guru',
> who turns out to be a 55-year old Y2K programmer who wants to talk about
> how he has been out of work for three years more than the database. He
> tells me he has backups of everything and is going to bring them in
> right away.
>
> I'm thinking we're back in business and start looking around the store,
> there is a ton of surplus technology including routers, monitors, and
> complete systems. I find a poster printer (the kind they have at Kinkos)
> and the owner tells me he would be willing to part with it for my time
> in getting the site working. I think that sounds like a good offer
> (since this thing probably cost $5K and I wouldn't be there long
> anyways) and take him up on his offer.
>
> The 'guru' gets there with his backups and leaves just as I'm putting
> the disk in the drive. The backups turn out to be backups of the new
> database without data. Meanwhile, 20 more emails come in from eBay.
>
> That's when things got crazy. The owner says he has to go find out what
> these items are that need to be shipped, and told me to figure out how
> to get him back up and running.
>
> I was smart enough to bring a diagram of the database I wrote last year,
> so I could at least restore the basic structure. Tthe only tool for
> doing all this was SQL+, which meant I was writing the CREATE TABLE
> statements y hand... and there is nothing I hate more than typing CREATE
> TABLE statements.
>
> His inventory is bar coded and the listings he has on eBay reference the
> bar-codes. This meant we needed to scan the inventory again to get
> things going. I think, this isn't a big shop, we can have this done in
> time for dinner.
>
> I tell the customer the situation and he goes ballistic. He explains we
> are not talking about just the stuff in the shop, but also the stuff in
> the warehouse next door. He takes me over to see what we are talking
> about. You could park a cesna in there sideways and it is stacked floor
> to ceiling with computers, chairs, books, tables, water coolers, TVs,
> VCRs, and other junk.
>
> When I see this I go ballistic and tell him this is his fault for not
> backing anything up. He has nine people that work for him, he says they
> are all too busy to change a tape once every morning.
>
> Things continued spiralling for a while before we realized this was
> solving nothing. We came up with a plan, he would call in his entire
> staff and I would get the database back online. This would let us get
> the inventory back online before the end of the weekend. Next week, he
> can start typing all of his descriptions back into the site.
>
> I get started with rewriting the database, and the client gets busy
> macking back in his big chair and bellyaching with his white-trash
> millionaire friends.
>
> Takes me four hours to get the database running, by this time it's 7pm
> and none of his employees have arrived. He wants to know, since right
> now all he's really selling are laptops, if I wouldn't mind scanning in
> all of the laptops and finding their technical specs on the Internet.
>
> I tell him no, my work is done and he is responsible for the content. He
> tells me the deal is the site has to work and it doesn't work without
> content. We have a deal, and he doesn't have to pay a dime if I don't
> get the site working.
>
> So the guy forces my hand and I get with the content. We get all the
> laptops scanned that night and I spent most of the next day working on
> the descriptions. I do some of the monitors and bare-bones systems too,
> and I get maybe 500 items into the database.
>
> He finally agrees we are done and offers to throw in the cartridges and
> the power cable for the poster printer (what a guy).
>
> Finally, the weekend ends and I am on my way home. The printer was too
> wide to fit in the car, so we packed it in a blanket and tied it down to
> the trunk with some twine.
>
> Driving uphill on the Baltimore beltway, I hit a rock or something.
> There is a loud thud, followed by a long noise not unlike the one wipers
> make on a dry windshield. I look in the rear view mirror and see a dark
> object bouncing around in the middle of the highway, and people are
> swerving to get around it.
>
> The printer had come loose and slid out of the back of the car. I pulled
> over, but was unable to retrieve it before a large truck came through
> and smashed it to bits. The stand is dangling from the trunk of my car,
> I put it back in and leave.
>
> For all this effort I get: a stainless steel stand.
>
> M
>
>
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