While things like this have happen to me, this is really more from my wife’s job. Three times this year her work has been hit hard by users opening links from unknown people that came via Yahoo Messenger. Each time multiple people do it across many departments. Mind you this is a techy company, for all the good it has done. While they clean up they close Messenger from the network and send out inumerbale warnings about opening links. I guess people forget after Messenger is given back to them because again, this is the 3rd outbreak. i think the outbreaks are less destructive each time at least. I wonder if they may lose their yahoo Messenger completely after this. What I find most amusing is the way I understand it, some of the infected folks act as if it could have happened to anyone. No, it can’t happen to just anyone. It has to happen to a knucklehead who will open whatever link is sent to them. Luckily, here where I work few people use Messenger and most of my users would be too cautious to open a link sent to them. of course I deal with a lot less people that my wife does so I can deal with people easier.

  I’m not sure that today’s cartoon is too techy for it’s own good. At work we finally replaced our aging LTO2 tape drive with a new LTO3 drive. It will back up 400GB native and 800GB compressed. That is twice the density as the olds drive. The speed is supposed to be double as well but it may be even beter because the old drive has been giving us lots of problems. Backups are crucial in IT. I think most people take it for granted, even in IT. The key is not only getting a good backup but testing it as well. Then you MUST store the tapes in a separate and secure location. A good backup will save your job in IT, literally.

   The toon was again done with color in a separate layer from the ink. I have not been able to speed up the process yet. It’s taking and extra hour at the least to complete. There is something I like better about it even with the extra time required. I’ll keep doing it for now but it’s taking way to long. There is a trick I may go back to where I have two inked layers and color one of those. Keeping the one ink layer on top will preserve the lines while letting me use my old friend ”bucket fill”.

  I actually had a conversation like this. I was a bit surprised when the user asked if they should open a email that was flagged as a virus. It took all I had not to laugh at them. Just in case anyone reading this doesn’t know, generally IT recommends NOT infecting your machine.

    I have been trying different angles lately and some other experiment. In the past I have just colored inside the inked lines. The problem for me is I end up coloring part of the line. So this week I have had a separate layer just for color. I think it is the right way, but it’s taking me much longer to finish.

   Anyway, I hope you like the toon. I’m really trying to get away from just having talking heads for the toons. Let me know what you think.

   I’m mixing it up a bit and show one of my wife’s days. She is a data security engineer. She is lucky enough to be able to work form home. Her company actually has been sold off but she is part of the folks who make the transitions take place. There is so much involved in combing companies networks. It is safe to say her job is way over my head.

  She has been a bit busy these days. Working in computers can always be stressful, then combine that with joining multiple cultures that each business has.

   This was only inspired by an incident and is totally fictional. We had some email issues due to our firewall rules getting corrupted. It only effected 2 different domains. One of the domains was sbcglobal.com. So when a co-worker had emails bouncing back from an sbcglobal address it was a natural assumption it was related to the firewall issues. It was a few days after we fixed the email issues so we were surprised. In IT you always have to go back to the basics and never make assumptions. So I went back and carefully looked at the addresses that were bouncing. There was one letter missing in the address. There were 3 days of sending and re-sending before the staff member came to me. It was all in good fun.

   When we buy new PCs we also buy monitors as well. These days not only do you get a much better machine, you also get a much better and bigger monitor. So when we get a new PC we usually give the user the monitor as well. Where the problem comes in is when their office mates see the new screens. It does not matter if the screen is only 2 inches bigger they notice. Then we get asked multiple times by many people when they will get one. I know it is only human nature but it can be rather sad. The majority of users are fine with whatever the get. We try and give the bigger monitors to those with more mature eyes or users who use large spreadsheets and such. So when we get new equipment we have to be careful who gets what. I wish we could upgrade everyone with huge screens but those dang budget limits.

   We had a 3 day weekend up north in Tulsa Oklahoma. Tulsa a great town and we saw a fantastic fireworks show. These days on trips we always use one of our GPS units. There are many ways to get from the DFW area to Tulsa and it can be fun to go different ways. It especially gets challenging when we add a side trip to the overall trip.

   What got me tickled was at one point both my wife and oldest daughter had their phones out with the GPS turned on. They each had comments here and there on when I should expect to turn. It seems all 3 GPS devices had different direction and distances calculated. The only reason my youngest did not have hers out is she lost her phone within 2 days of inheriting her mom’s old phone.

    The trip home was fun anyways even with so many people/devices telling me where to go. The highlight for me was when we saw a bald eagle fly just in front of us across the highway in the Arbuckle Mountains. I knew they have many bald eagles during winter but did not expect any in the heat of summer.

   I actually had this toon done last week, closest to a buffer that I’ve had in a long time. I’m attempting to work on multiple cartoons when I get drawing. I find for me drawing is easier once I get warmed up. If I can keep drawing once I get started I can get much more done.

   the toon itself is based on something I once overheard at a customer site back in the late 80′s or very early 90′s when I was doing field service. The company distributed locks made in Europe, where the company was headquartered. The employee was getting chewed out by an irate customer who’s order had not arrived. The sale person calmly explained that the shipment had been delayed because the cargo also contained a rhinoceros that had not gone through the proper channels. I thought it was a great excuse or an even greater cover story. Either way I never forgot it and decided to retell as a toon.

   We are out of town for the 4th weekend. We are in Tulsa at a hotel that faces the Arkansas river. We’ve been here several times for fireworks. It is great here, we are surrounded by many things to do and we can see several fireworks shows from here. Even if the weather turns to rain we can see the river from our hotel window.

   The cartoon is actually from this morning when we were getting ready. 3 of us put on shirts that had American flags on them. My oldest daughter came out in one of here favorite shirts she owns, a Union Jack. While I like the UK and love their I just maybe of all days she should wear something else. Anything else!

    I was hoping to do a lot of cartooning on this 3 day weekend. However, I somehow managed to leave the house without my Wacom pen. So I could only “draw” with a horrible portable mouse. I got the toon done anyways, whether good or not you have to be the judge. If I had my Wacom pen I would have taken a crack at drawing some fireworks in the last panel.

   Today is my co-worker and good friend James birthday. The cartoon is exaggerated, I’m not this bad. OK, somedays I am. The cartoon does however reflect how James works all day. We do keep busy in IT, yes even me sometimes I actually took him to lunch the day before his birthday. I’m not going to get him a card, this toon will have to suffice.

    Happy birthday James! Thanks for all you do.