The ICT Direct Winter Upgradathon!!

[DJ-1701]

Congratulations to the winner!

[hallb15]

I've heard Trump called lots of names but never an Iditot before!

 

Aaaaaaand we're done!

 

 

Congrats and that's all for taking part! It's been fun

[DalekSec]

Well done winner! It couldn't of been won be a better spinning cube

[ICTDirect_Dave]

I've heard Trump called lots of names but never an Iditot before!

 

Noooo! I could've sworn I'd checked it over more than once!!!!

[sonofsanta]

If ever there were a deserved winner--both for the Christmas Carol contributions to the thread and inhumanely poor workstation spec--it is surely @LeMarchand. Congratulations!

 

And thank you, @ICTDirect_Dave and everyone else at ICT Direct for giving us a larf and some fun goodies

 

[/sucking up in the hopes of getting a good quote next month]

 

 

 

I've heard Trump called lots of names but never an Iditot before!

 

 

Isn't that referencing Kim Jong Un though?

Edited December 19, 2018 by sonofsanta

[DalekSec]

I've had a bit of good news today, i'm getting a replacement for my Surface! A proper powerful(ish) laptop! Still not as powerful as that beast but you can all now rest easy that my power hungry needs have been met.

[Garacesh]

Shh, everyone, if nobody mentions their name, they might not check the thread, and then there'll be a redraw

 

Congratulations LeMa-er-I mean, 'winner'.

[ICTDirect_Dave]

Shh, everyone, if nobody mentions their name, they might not check the thread, and then there'll be a redraw

 

Congratulations LeMa-er-I mean, 'winner'.

 

Haha! You're out of luck, he called me last night anyway so I told him before posting the video

[ICTDirect_Dave]

Isn't that referencing Kim Jong Un though?

I had a feeling that you'd be the first to notice that

[hallb15]

Noooo! I could've sworn I'd checked it over more than once!!!!

I wouldn't have mentioned it only I didn't see my name in the credits...

[ICTDirect_Dave]

I wouldn't have mentioned it only I didn't see my name in the credits...

 

You were lumped in with everyone else and given an apology for my forgetfulness.

 

In fairness I was finishing the credits at home last night and Red Dead 2 was calling from my TV screen

[Boredguy]

If I'd known I'd be in the credits, I'd have made you into Londo

[Katy]

So... where's my prize then?

[DalekSec]

Just seen the credits, which was my submission that was your favorite?

[ICTDirect_Dave]

If I'd known I'd be in the credits, I'd have made you into Londo

There's still time

So... where's my prize then?

I can't give any more prizes. But, next month I'll be putting together a special deal to say thanks to you all for making this thread enormously good fun!

 

It'll be strictly for school support staff and be limited to no more than two purchases per school whilst stocks last.

 

Keep an eye out in the new year

Just seen the credits, which was my submission that was your favorite?

 

This one

 

http://www.edugeek.net/forums/windows/200985-ict-direct-winter-upgradathon-4.html#post1716543

[bald_pig]

speaking of prizes, now that I'm in the new place we can work out what you can send me!

 

I'm thinking an ultrawide and a shiny bluetooth mouse

[DalekSec]

speaking of prizes, now that I'm in the new place we can work out what you can send me!

 

I'm thinking an ultrawide and a shiny bluetooth mouse

 

RGB Strips

[DJ-1701]

speaking of prizes, now that I'm in the new place we can work out what you can send me!

 

I'm thinking an ultrawide and a shiny bluetooth mouse

 

RGB Strips

 

An ultrawide, shiny, RGB, bluetooth mouse?

[LeMarchand]

EPILOGUE

 

It was the morning of the Nineteenth Day of December, in the Year of Our Lord Two Thousand and Eighteen.

 

The Technician awoke from what had been a most uncommon pleasant dream in which he had won not only a weekly prize from ICT Direct, but he had also won the big main prize! He sauntered down the stairs humming merrily to himself, daydreaming about how pleasant it would be to work on such a behemoth.

 

"When do you get your prize?" asked his wife as he sat down at the breakfast table.

 

The Technician took start. How could his wife know what he had been dreaming about? Did she know about the dream featuring the twins, the ball bearings and the pot of Swarfega? His heart raced... and then slowed down as realization dawned: It had not been a dream; he had won the prizes!

 

***

 

All through the day he looked over at his creaking, but soon to be retired, machine with thoughts full of joy for how much easier his work would be in the coming year and beyond. But something gave him pause. What of his comrades-in-arms who were still toiling with antiquated equipment and who had not been as lucky as him?

 

The thought of two prizes sat heavily on his heart, but then inspiration struck! He dashed off a few electronic mails - epistles, if you like - and made arrangements. His weekly prize would be redistributed! There was one person whose largesse had helped others out in composing entries in the draw, but he would allow the people to choose how the redistribution would take place by means of a poll.

 

The Technician sat back in his chair; his work complete and his mind at rest. It would be a good New Year for not just him, but another of his online chums.

 

Poll here: http://www.edugeek.net/forums/windows/202458-ict-direct-winter-upgradathon-re-prize.html

Edited December 19, 2018 by LeMarchand

[sonofsanta]

So I kept promising Dave I'd write an actual story for the thread, what with being an actual writer and all, but real work kept getting in the way (we have not had this many power cuts in years, seriously, what the hell). Four weeks I've been trying to do this. Four weeks!

 

But tomorrow is the last day. 6 of the top 10 domains on our Smoothwall are Netflix CDNs. There is no job worth starting. So today, I thought, I shall make time. I only want to write 500 words or so, something short. I can do that! I've sold stories as short as 350 words! I've got half a dozen publications under a thousand words! I'm a good flash writer, this'll only take me a couple of hours working around incoming emails!

 

Best laid plans and all that. So here, have a 2000 word piece of @ICTDirect_Dave fan fiction, swooping in at the last minute to take the title of Weirdest Thing I've Written All Year. Apologies for it being a rough-as-bumholes first draft, with all the colons and semi-colons that involves from me. I've spent long enough on this already without doing an editing pass.

 

###

 

The Technician

 

Dust fills the air, spat out in fits and starts by failing server fans. Sunlight cuts through the room like knives, slicing through the gaps in the server rack where equipment once hung. Each of those gaps is a memory, is a grieving: loyal friends fallen, with naught to replace them.

 

On the floor, the Technician works furiously, hunched over a netbook. They lift a tiny black screw out, hanging on the tip of the screwdriver like a drop of dew on a blade of grass; they place it reverentially in an envelope, so as not to be lost. Every screw is precious. There can be no replacements. For now, there is only what there is, and no more.

 

Unless the netbook can be resurrected, and a signal can be sent.

 

The Technician hopes there is someone out there to receive the signal. There are words that are almost lost to the Technician, that they chant in their thoughts like prayers till they lose all meaning: Supplier. Budget. Purchase order. These words held meaning once. Would that they will again.

 

Screw removed, the Technician turns the netbook over. They start to slide a flathead screwdriver around the edges of the keyboard, when a furious clamour and banging at the door makes them jolt. The screwdriver slips, and a key pops off: Pause/Break, skittering across the tiles and coming to rest beneath a cupboard. A gift to the cockroaches that lurk there.

 

"ARE YOU IN THERE," bellows a voice, arrogant and impatient. "I NEED A NEW LAPTOP, I CAN'T GET ON THE INTERNET."

 

A raider, here to take precious equipment. They could be sent away with something now, fobbed off with something that looks impressive regardless of actual specification or condition, but they would be back. They always come back. There is no sating them.

 

The Technician closes their eyes and takes a steadying breath. There isn't enough time. There aren't enough resources. They have to prioritise. They have to get the signal out.

 

They set about the keyboard again, lifting it from the chassis to reveal the circuitry beneath. With reference to the service manual--a faded laser print out, paper yellow and crumbling, old support case numbers scribbled in the margins--the Technician identifies the power board, and begins to lift it out for transplant.

 

The shouting at the door increases. More voices have joined it. The word "BLOCKER" is yelled, and taken up like a chant.

 

Carrying the now-removed power board on finger tips, the Technician carries it to the desk where another netbook lies in pieces, components splayed out like an autopsy. This is, in truth, not one netbook, but all the netbooks: it is the working motherboard from one, the display from another, the hard drive from a third and a keyboard reconstituted from keys kept tucked away in a secret pot, hidden in a drawer beneath a pile of silica gel. Ribbon cables wind across the desk like intestines, thinner wires like nerves. It is desperate. It is unlikely. But it may be salvation, for netbook and technician both.

 

Trying their best to ignore the tumult outside the office, the Technician takes up their tools, and connects the power board. There is hardly any solder left for the iron. There will be no room for mistakes.

 

The door begins to shake with the pounding of fists. "TEACHING AND LEARNING" comes a cry.

 

The Technician finishes their task and puts down their tools. They reach for the power brick and connect it. With a prayer to Gilmore, Barlow and Kapor on their lips, they touch a screwdriver to the motherboard, connecting two headers in lieu of a working power button.

 

Miracle of miracles, the patient lives. The netbook boots. A login screen appears, grey on blue: Windows XP. No mind. It will be enough for this task. The Technician enters a near forgotten password, passed down from their predecessor like a rumour: "if you need an old laptop, the local admin password should be g3tm30ut0fh3r3."

 

The door handle rattles. The raiders grow bold. Did the Technician lock the door, or is it just the handle sticking? The Technician mutters thanks that the Site Team are as impoverished as IT, and have not been able to replace it.

 

Regardless, time grows short. No barrier will stop the raiders, not physicial or technical or social. They are relentless. They will come.

 

The screen lights up with green rolling hills. Green: a forgotten colour. It feels like everything has been dust for as long as the Technician can remember. On the desktop, a golden square: Outlook 2003.

 

The Technician tries to close their ears against the haranguing of the crowd outside the door. They remember what else their predecessor told them, not in words but in a haunted look: this place will wear your soul down. You will give and give and it will not be enough. You will empty yourself of everything that works, going without so they can have. But when you have no more to give, they will not understand, never understand, no matter how much you explain, because they do not want to understand.

 

There is only one hope. The signal must be sent: a hero must be summoned.

 

Outlook loads in blocks, rectangles overlaying rectangles as if it is assembling itself, like the fragments of consciousness reconstituting after sleep. With no working trackpad, the Technician navigates with Tab, Space, Enter. New email.

 

The hinges start to creak. Screws are coming loose in the doorframe. One shout briefly surfaces above the stormy sea of sound: "I'VE FORGOTTEN MY PASSWORD."

 

I've attached a purchase order, types the Technician, tears stinging their eyes as they realise just how short their time has grown. Please could you deliver as soon as possible?

 

They hit Send.

 

There was an error connecting to the network. Your message will be sent when a connection is restored.

 

No! How could it fail? Everything was fixed, everything was set up! The mailbox still exists, Exchange still wheezes on from the rack. It should have worked! The wireless couldn't be resurrected, but the Technician had connected a Cat5e cable. It should have worked, it should have worked!

 

The Technician paws at the Cat5e cable, pulling it through their hands, desperate now, small sobs escaping their lips. There is a crack in the door behind them, splinters falling from the break like tears. The raiders have almost broken through. The Technician is certain the shelves will be stripped bare by them this time. They will take everything, and the Technician will be left with nothing.

 

There! A break in the cable. It looks like a computer chair has rolled over it, no doubt from some unannounced, unreported moving of classroom furniture that left it exposed and vulnerable. There is a broken green wire inside the sheath, the copper glinting like treasure beneath long grass.

 

There is a creak, and a crack, and a clatter. The door has fallen. The raiders are in. Only their own eagerness holds them back now, as they all try to squeeze through the door at once.

 

The Technician touches the frayed copper ends together, twisting them, pinching them tight. They are just turning back to the netbook to check the connection when the crowd overwhelms them. The Technician recognises the raider at the front. They're Senior Leadership: those who have risen to the top through ruthlessness, or through self-aggrandizement, or sometimes just through sheer time. Regardless of the path of their ascension, one thing unites them: that certain flavour of confidence that acknowledges no objection, brooks no barriers to demands.

 

"CAN YOU LOOK AT MY LAPTOP I CAN'T GET ON THE INTERNET"

 

I hope the signal got through, prays the Technician, taking the proffered laptop. It is a near-pristine Surface Pro, its screen mirror black. The Technician remembers it passing through their office, like a visitation from a divine angel. Would that they could have such equipment.

 

The technician tries to unlock it, but the screen remains dark. The Technician connects a power cable. The screen glows, letters of the POST glowing like holy scripture upon a tablet.

 

"It was out of battery," the Technician says, trying to balance deference and helpfulness in their voice, fighting to avoid any implication of user fault. "You need to plug it in when it warns--"

 

"I CAN'T BE EXPECTED TO KNOW THIS TECHNICAL STUFF," the raider bellows. "CAN'T YOU JUST GIVE ME A NEW ONE."

 

Another raider pulls them back by the shoulder and towers over the technician themselves. "I'VE BEEN APPOINTED MANAGEMENT LEAD FOR THE COST-EFFECTIVE DISTRIBUTION OF PAPERCLIPS, I NEED A NEW LAPTOP TO ADMINISTER THE SPREADSHEET."

 

More pile in behind them. "NONE OF THE KEYBOARDS IN V5 WORK, THEY WERE FINE WHEN THE LESSON STARTED BUT WHEN I CAME BACK FROM THE STAFFROOM THEY WERE ALL BROKEN."

 

The Technician strains their neck, tries to see the netbook screen. Tries to see the network icon. Tries to see if the signal got out.

 

But there are too many bodies in the way. Too many raiders. Some are helping themselves to printer toners; they're almost certainly taking the wrong ones, and will almost certainly try and jam them in anyway.

 

Something in the Technician snaps. They can't help these people. They won't help themselves! They take no responsibility for their own actions. They have been here too long. Nietzsche: Beware that, when teaching children, you yourself do not become a child.

 

A new pounding of feet sounds in the corridor. The Technician stops fighting. Stops trying to answer questions, stops trying to keep hold of equipment. Take even the flesh from my bones, if you must.

 

"DELIVERY!" booms a new voice. There is something different in that voice, though the Technician struggles to place it at first. Something in the tone, something missing...

 

Entitlement. There is no entitlement in the voice.

 

The raiders part, brought to heel instinctively by a tone of authority. Become a child, the Technician thinks, and respond as a child.

 

The newcomer carries a large box, but their face is hidden by a helmet. Hair cascades from the back of it in a ponytail. None recognise the intruder, and the whole room falls to silence in anticipation, only the grind of old server fans struggling to expel dust in the background.

 

The newcomer places the box down calmly, and reaches up to remove the helmet.

 

"'ello," he says, "I'm Dave!"

 

The signal got out.

 

"Got those laptops you ordered," continues Dave. "Lovely bits of kit these Dell Latitudes. We found some bigger RAM sticks lying around too, so we've upgraded them for you. You sounded like you could do with a little bonus."

 

The Technician finds their feet. They go to the box, and fold back the opening like an archaeologist with a crate, like a priest with a relic, like a parent with a newborn's blankets.

 

They pull one slim box out from the inside. They open the lid. They lift out the laptop. It is--it is whole. Unbroken. Working. It may not be pristine, but it is tested, blooded, proven.

 

It is such good value for money.

 

The Technician looks inside the box, and counts the smaller boxes within. They look at the crowd of raiders who stand, still shocked into silence, uncertain of what is going on.

 

"There's enough," says the Technician. "There's enough for everyone."

 

And they count the raiders again, and count the boxes again, and tears spring to their eyes as realisation springs to their mind. They look to Dave. Dave looks back on the Technician, kind and benevolent, knowing full well what rigours the Technician has suffered. He has seen the netbook on the desk. He knows the horrors.

 

"There's enough for everyone," he says, laying a hand on the Technician's shoulder. "Everyone."

Edited December 19, 2018 by sonofsanta
I missed the closing speech mark off omg what an AMATEUR *shudders*

[DJ-1701]

...Dave looks back on the Technician, kind and benevolent, knowing full well what rigours the Technician has suffered. He has seen the netbook on the desk. He knows the horrors.

 

"There's enough for everyone," he says, laying a hand on the Technician's shoulder. "Everyone.

 

... except you."

[DJ-1701]

...the local admin password should be g3tm30ut0fh3r3

 

Great... going to have to reset another password now.

[sonofsanta]

... except you."

 

Way to ruin the entire point of the story, @DJ-1701 going to go and change my vote on @LeMarchand's poll now!

[DJ-1701]

Way to ruin the entire point of the story, @DJ-1701 going to go and change my vote on @LeMarchand's poll now!

 

You still get to keep the Rep, that was Epic.

[LeMarchand]

Well, I got an early Xmas pressie today!

 

A big thanks to @ICTDirect_Dave and the team as well as everyone who entered the draw, especially all those who put in the extra effort on this thread.

 

I'll take some pics when it's up and running (alas, probably in the New Year) but for now...

 

 

P.S. Although the machine is a bit of a Leviathan, it's certainly not hellish!