Gotta Love Windows

[Coffee Warlord]

So, I do the old format/reinstall yesterday (which was a production in itself).

Long story short, once I finally get everything working, my ethernet card isn't being recognized. Now, this card was purchased and we bought around 20 of them for 5 bucks apiece back in the day. We're talking bottom of the pile. It's been a trooper though.

So, I'm not particularly surprised when it doesn't recognize the card. Happened before, it's fixed itself by random reboots sometimes, and just picking various drivers. No dice. Okay. I have a wireless card that's quite good, but I don't use anymore, as I do not have a wireless router. After fucking with that old ass network card for ages, I break down and buy a wireless router.

As I'm rigging it, I remember my ISP ID's me through the MAC address of that old ethernet card. Alright, no problem. Card doesn't need to WORK, just need to get the MAC addy. Plug it back into the computer, fire up windows....bam.
Card recognized instantly, drivers autoinstalled, works perfectly.

Ahhh, the wonders of Utterly Insane Operating Systems.

[Glengoyne]

I was the first system administrator for our company, and when I installed the first round of Enterprise Hardware I dubbed our Data Center "Domain" Middle Earth, and named all of the boxes after characters from The Lord of the Rings. There was Gandalf, Gimli, Frodo, pippin, meriadoc, shadowfax, and after the first movie we introduced Arwen among others.

I handled all of the *nix boxes, and was surprised one day to find that the windows admin had joined suit. He had named the Windows Servers Sauron and Sarauman. It made my day.