The Register, Monday, June 9th, 2025
Field Support Chap Got Married - Which Took Down A Mainframe
If you like it to keep working, don't put a ring on it
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272 articles · page 4 of 6
The Register, Friday, June 6th, 2025
Techie Traced Cables From Basement To Maternity Ward And Onto A Roof, Before A Car Crash Revealed The Problem
Doctor? Why does this hospital network run in such strange places?
more → The Register, Monday, June 2nd, 2025
Admin Brought His Drill To Work, Destroyed Disks And Crashed A Datacenter
This week, meet a reader we'll Regomize as 'Slim' who told us of his time as head of IT in Asia for a global trading company - the sort of outfit that plays the markets and needs its tech to run 24 x7 without even the briefest glitch that could slow down a client's trades.
more → The Register, Friday, May 30th, 2025
Techie Fixed A 'Brown Monitor' By Closing A Door For A Doctor
After three service calls, user reflected on their utter stupidity
more → The Register, Monday, May 26th, 2025
Techies Thought Outside The Box. Then The Boss Decided To Take The Box Away
Life in a corporate aquarium didn't go swimmingly
more → atera, Sunday, May 25th, 2025
IT Department Humor And Memes
In today's tech-driven world, IT departments often use humor in the form of memes, jokes, and pranks to brighten up the workplace and boost morale among their hardworking IT personnel, who are devoted to keeping our digital networks running smoothly.
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The Register, Friday, May 23rd, 2025
User Unboxed A PC So Badly It 'Broke' And Only A Nail File Could Fix It
For once, the IT department was rewarded for finding the fix, and the perfect-if-unexpected fixer
more → The Register, Monday, May 19th, 2025
Automatic UK-To-US English Converter Produced Amazing Mistakes By The Vanload
Yard of Eden just doesn't have the right ring to it
more → The Register, Friday, May 16th, 2025
Dilettante Dev Wrote Rubbish, Left No Logs, And Had No Idea Why His App Wasn't Working
Self-taught coders who work in HR and have a doctorate in English tend to do that
more → The Register, Monday, May 5th, 2025
People Find Amazing Ways To Break Computers. Cats Are Even More Creative
On Call The unconditional love of a pet is often a solace, and perhaps never more so than at the end of a busy working week. Which is when The Register competes with the animal kingdom for your affection by delivering a new edition of On Call, our Friday column in which we share your stories of scratching out a living delivering tech support.
more → The Register, Monday, May 5th, 2025
Teens Maintained A Mainframe And IT Went About As Well As You'd Imagine
Who, Me? One of the joys of Monday mornings is arriving at work to find messes made over the weekend. The other is reading a new edition of Who, Me? It's The Register's weekly reader-contributed column that shares your stories of somehow recovering from failure.
more → The Register, Friday, May 2nd, 2025
Techie Solved Supposed Software Problem By Waving His Arms In The Air
Used his loaf and found sweet solution for bakery borkage
more → How-To Geek, Wednesday, April 30th, 2025
10 Legendary Pranks That Tech Companies Pulled Off Perfectly
Every year, nearly all tech companies come up with new prank concepts that are fun to experience.
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The Register, Monday, April 28th, 2025
What The **** Did You Put In That Code? The Client Thinks It's A Cyberattack
When your customers work in super-sensitive situations, bad jokes make for bad business
more → The Register, Friday, April 25th, 2025
Techie Diagnosed Hardware Fault By Checking Customer's Coffee
y the time Friday morning rolls around, starting the day with a stimulating beverage feels like a fine idea. And so does delivering a freshly brewed installment of On Call, The Register's reader-contributed column in which you share tales of tech support triumph and torture.
more → The Register, Monday, April 21st, 2025
Developer Scored Huge Own Goal By Deleting Almost Every Football Fan In Europe
Fiddling with the production database - what could possibly go wrong?
more → The Register, Friday, April 18th, 2025
Need A Linux Admin? Ask A Hair Stylist To Introduce You To A Worried Mother
Lad who 'stays in his bedroom on his computer' emerged ready to deliver brilliant tech support
more → The Register, Monday, April 14th, 2025
Static Electricity Can Be Shockingly Funny, But The Joke's Over When A Rack Goes Dark
If this techie had been older and slower, this never would have happened
more → Search Data Backup, Monday, April 7th, 2025
Users Hated A New App - Maybe So Much They Filed A Fake Support Call
Sysadmin sent on road trip that required a lot of time doing nothing
more → The Register, Thursday, April 10th, 2025
Dev Loudly Complained About Older Colleague, Who Retired Not Long After
The graybeard wasn't doing a great job and morale improved once he left. How would you handle this?
more → How-To Geek, Saturday, April 5th, 2025
The Secret Inside Joke Developers Have Been Hiding In Plain Sight For Decades
For decades, software developers have been slipping jokes into their work.
more → The Register, Friday, April 4th, 2025
How Do You Explain What Magnetic Fields Do To Monitors To People Wearing Bowling Shoes?
Techie demoed the effect in about 3 seconds, as On Call again tries to break tech-support world records
more → How-To Geek, Friday, April 4th, 2025
AI Has A New Obstacle: April Fools' Day
AI is only as "smart" as the information it's given, and we've seen the downsides of the majority of that information being crawled from the internet. But what happens when AI comes across articles that are intentionally fake? Well, more of the same.
more → The Register, Monday, March 31st, 2025
Tech Trainer Taught A Course On Software He'd Never Used And Didn't Own
'I'm glad you asked that question. We'll get to that tomorrow' (After I research the answer)
more → The Register, Friday, March 28th, 2025
Tech Support Session Saved Files, But Probably Ended A Marriage
Self-described 'visionary' made life hell for our hero, then some oily vids returned the favor
more → The Register, Monday, March 24th, 2025
After Three Weeks Of Night Shifts, Very Tired Techie Broke The UK's Phone Network
And got away with it when someone else broke it even more comprehensively
more → The Register, Monday, March 17th, 2025
Developer Wrote A Critical App And Forgot Where It Ran - Until It Stopped Running
With the weekend behind us, it's time to once again ask the question "Who, Me?" That's the name of The Register's Monday column in which we share reader-contributed confessions of making a mess with tech.
more → The Register, Friday, March 14th, 2025
User Complained His Mouse Wasn't Working. But He Wasn't Using A Mouse
The same chap also caused a bomb scare in a missile factory
more → The Register, Monday, March 10th, 2025
Junior Techie Rushed Off For Fun Weekend After Making A Terminal Mistake That Crashed A Client
Using one green screen to manage multiple machines needs more than a Friday afternoon brain
more → The Register, Friday, March 7th, 2025
Glitchy Taxi Tech Blew Cover On Steamy Dispatch Dalliance
The week has ebbed away with embarrassing speed, so here we are again with a fresh installment of On Call, The Register's reader-contributed column that immortalizes tech support stories.
more → The Register, Monday, March 3rd, 2025
Techie Pulled An All-Nighter That One Mistake Turned Into An All-Weekender
Don't trust your tired self to do rm -rf right
more → The Register, Monday, February 24th, 2025
One Stupid Keystroke Exposed Sysadmin To Inappropriate Information He Could Not Unsee
Turns out you can be too careful checking that backups worked
more → The Register, Monday, February 24th, 2025
Untrained Techie Botched A Big Hardware Sale By Breaking Client's ERP
'If I wasn't already taking blood pressure meds, I'm sure I would not have survived'
more → The Register, Friday, February 21st, 2025
DIMM Techies Weren't Allowed To Leave The Building Until Proven To Not Be Pilferers
This week, meet a reader we'll Regomize as "Harry" who once worked for a supergiant global tech services company as it helped a major UK government agency to drag its tech into the 21st century.
more → The Register, Monday, February 17th, 2025
Techie Pointed Out Meetings Are Pointless, And Was Punished For It
This week, we venture into the realm of office politics with a reader we'll Regomize as "Palmer." Palmer once worked under a newly minted manager who considered Dilbert comics as useful training, and the Pointy-Haired Boss as an inspiration.
more → The Register, Friday, February 14th, 2025
Techie Cleaned Up Criminally Bad Tech Support That Was Probably Also An Actual Crime
Outsourcing is not supposed to involve taking clients' hardware out of their building to your house
more → The Register, Saturday, February 8th, 2025
Does This Thing Run On A 220 V Power Supply? Oh. That Puff Of Smoke Suggests Not
That's not even the worst part of this story, which features a flood, broken promises, and plenty of panic
more → The Register, Monday, February 3rd, 2025
CompSci Teacher Sets Lab Task: Accidentally Breaking The University
At the start of working week, it can sometimes feel like you're just another brick in the wall and the next five days will require you to carry weight for others. To ease you into the mucky business of exchanging your labor for currency, The Register therefore uses each Monday to offer a fresh instalment of Who, Me? It's the column in which you admit to escaping your errors and emerging unscathed.
more → The Register, Thursday, February 6th, 2025
I Was Told To Make Backups, Not Test Them. Why Does That Make You Look So Worried?
Shabby admin invented 'transparent tape' - a terrible storage medium but a magic tool for unlocking IT budgets
more → The Register, Monday, January 27th, 2025
Tired Techie Botched Preventative Maintenance He Soon Learned Wasn't Needed
Epic late-night road trip would have been an awesome if not for a secret change of plans
more → The Register, Friday, January 24th, 2025
User Said He Did Nothing That Explained His Dead PC - Does A New Motherboard Count?
Then suggested a bloke down the pub might be able to help fix it
more → The Register, Monday, January 13th, 2025
Life Lesson: Don't Delete Millions Of Accounts On The Same Day You Go To The Dentist
Or ignore documentation that warns you are about to do something dangerous
more → The Register, Friday, December 27th, 2024
After a long lunch, user thought a cursor meant their computer was cactus
Reg-reading heroes snacked on their woes and solved problems with extreme speed
more → Sun Microsystems, Monday, December 23rd, 2024
Y2K Parody Video
As the 20th Anniversary of 'Y2K' (the 'Millennium Bug') approaches on December 31, here's a short music parody VIDEO (set to the music of 'YMCA' by the Village People, a hit song from 1978) produced in 1999 by a Silicon Valley tech giant at the time, Sun Microsystems. It was one way the company used to break the ice at Y2K planning meetings in the 6 months leading up to the event.
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The Register, Friday, December 20th, 2024
Techie Fluked A Fix And Found Himself The Abusive Boss's Best Friend
Digital technology remains frighteningly finickity, which is why good tech support people are always in demand - and also the reason The Register never tires of telling your support stories each Friday in On Call, the column your generosity makes possible.
more → The Register, Monday, December 16th, 2024
Coder Wrote A Bug So Bad Security Guards Wanted A Word When He Arrived At Work
Working for a startup is supposed to end with getting rich overnight, but not like this
more → The Register, Friday, December 13th, 2024
Backup Failed, But The Boss Didn't Slam IT - Because His Son Was To Blame
ISP deserves criticism too for falling over after script kiddie beefing
more → The Register, Monday, December 9th, 2024
Panic At The Cisco Tech, Thanks To Ancient Ios Syntax Helper That Outsmarted Itself
This week's hero is a network tech whom we will Regomize as "Sherlock." Back in the 1990s he was working as an IT manager for a business that had a number of regional hubs, each linked to HQ over a 128K link. Smaller regional offices were linked to their hubs with 64K connections.
more → The Register, Friday, December 6th, 2024
No, I Can't Help - You Called The Wrong Helpdesk, In The Wrong Place, For The Wrong Platform
This week, meet a reader we'll Regomize as "Warren" who worked for an US-based organization that operated several sites scattered across London, UK.
more → The Register, Monday, December 2nd, 2024
NetAdmin Learns That Wooden Chocks, Unlike Swipe Cards, Open Doors When Networks Can't
Burglary skills are surprisingly important when building networks
more →