First day working on the new project and what do I do? I do about the dumbest thing someone could ever do! I managed to fat finger the password, WRONG, into the password and verification password when setting up Windows XP on a brand new Dell T3400 Workstation!
How did I do this? I don’t really know, but it was one of those special moments, and I don’t mean that in a flattering way. So there I set, barely an hour into the day and I’m floundering working to get my blasted machine reloaded. I had no tools to crack the system, nothing to just do a default reload. I’m talking a full fledged, every piece of software, every single driver reload.
I finally get it reloaded and about the 4th driver I install requests a reboot. So I reboot. When it comes back up I have no keyboard or mouse response. ALL of the USB ports are not responding. I, at this point, am amazed at my fortune and blunder. So after about 15 minutes of trying various BIOS settings and other such adventures, I break down and call Dell.
What does Dell tell me to do after 30 minutes of troubleshooting? They tell me to reload Windows XP!
Where they kidding? No.
Here I am, about 3 hours down for the day now, and about to reload the system again. So just before the big kick off meeting I leave the machine reloading.
Finally, as I leave for the day I manage to get the machine reloaded with the appropriate drivers. At least, all of the drivers, except for the chipset drivers. Those are the ones I loaded last time and then the keyboard and mouse became tethered paper weights.
Overall the kick off meeting went well and we covered a number of topics. It appears, so far, that we’re definitely going to be going forward pretty hard core with the Agile style. Minus the heavy handed pair development, we’re instead split into groups of two each, that are open to pair, but generally just working in teams.
I’m definitely looking forward to the effort, minus the fat fingered passwords and non-working drivers. Once I get past that, then we’ll get to rocking! So cheers to tomorrow, I’m going to have a Viso (health energy drink?) and start kicking out some proof of concept code I’ve been working on.
