@sawboman
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Glad you now have a GP geared up to guide through the mine fields, it can be a great help to feel someone has your back. I think that when bucket loads of nasty stuff is hitting the fan some attitude adjustments are sometimes considered to be needed, long may that continue and ease your way through difficult times.
After my wife’s second visit to the oncologist yesterday things have now really started to rumble. Tests and checks once scheduled for next week or the week after such as heart checks are now bumping up against new ones for tomorrow chemo centre and Tuesday chemo centre again. Bank holiday Monday was already booked for another MRI but now Tuesday is filling up, though on the bright side I think this appointment shuffling frees up a double booking day in ten days time, though that may also be usurped by the start of Chemo in a very few days time. Getting SWMBO to understand the need for us to coordinate and synchronise our diaries so that I can ferry people about the countryside is a slight struggle. I suspect there is a slight desire to push the nasty stuff back and perhaps out of mind a little bit, but if I don’t know the when and where for every appointment exactly I can see things going awry. A surprise item has already popped out of the hat for Tuesday morning.
Bob, I sense a slight lift in your mood as the days go by, long may that continue
I had something similarly confusing with a Windows 10 machine last month. I deleted all of the update records restarted and all was well once more with the world. In your case I can only think that the copy loaded into the machine had something to be desired and that a reboot cleared it out and allowed a cleaner environment in which to run.
My/our slowest portable took a bit over 30 minutes though probably not as much as 45 minutes, though the download and preparation background task was not at all rapid.
None of them had any real problems other than having to restart a number of services.
Paul Pester has now spoken and from what he said it appears that the back end was OK. but that the customer facing or perhaps interfacing part had issues.
Quote, ‘Testing before the switch were “misleading” as they did not foresee the problems with the system’s capacity.’
From my experience of cutovers throughput capacity estimation, including the first day stimulus factor (never to be underestimated) and testing are a serious issue. Not least because generating test traffic is a pain and estimating the choke methods needed to manage or constrain ‘first day access’ loads appears to be another black art. It is simply not easy when you get 100% of normal total daily demand in less than an hour and I have seen that happen. Repeated access attempts then add to the load as erroneous inputs increase.
That is true though I do not have any need to build my history at the moment, though it has perhaps become a little stale. I did try one of the comatose accounts last night, only to find I had forgotten the PIN, which I have now retrieved. I shall try again when I am next out and about, though that may not be today. Today’s session with my wife at the oncologist was a bit too intense. There was a bit too much emphasis on a string of comorbidities for comfort, though the specialisation nurse was very helpful. Somehow a very slow moving 40 person test queue was not there any more and were were on our way once more.
Unfortunately, it’s not the case that staff here *can’t* do the jobs, it’s often the case that they *won’t*, and I don’t blame them. Take your newly Australian GP. He’s given up on a good job here to do what the job should be, but in another country. If GPs were given better support and general admin throughout the NHS wasn’t as bloody awful as it is, I doubt that a lot of them would be looking elsewhere.
I am not sure if he was a GP or a consultant, but yes the back up is where the NHS falls down. The admin and clerical is a huge mess with some technical areas staffed by people who’s training was OK -ish a long time ago. I have two close relations who work with them and they can be bitchy, obstructive and plain poor at the job, yet for some reason they survive. Example 50 years ago cleaning machines were used by the company I worked for at the time to replace the cleaning methods still used by the NHS. It still employs an army of mixed ability staff, some of whom get in the way of real, effective work.
Currently we are averaging three to four hospital appointments per week so get to see the warts and all glory. This week the score is three for my wife, one for me and no time for our daughter whose ear problems continue.
On check in today my wife gave her name, DOB and then the lights dimmed for a fraction of a second, just like a fast shutter on a camera. With apparently no battery back up or UPS for the servers every terminal in the building crashed and the log ins took over 30 minutes to be remade. So more time was lost by numerous staff.
Three of our machines have now run through and all appears to be well. I will do the remaining portable tomorrow and then there is my daughter’s machine… However, first it is off to the oncologist in the morning, – this evening is not an easy time.
One suggestion, when a PC does its final restart and you can log in, do so and leave it for ten or twenty minutes to work out what it is doing. it will then run much better.
Ed, there were problems with some AMD devices in the past; check out the web for links to your problems.
Sadly it appears that some who had standing orders set for today may have a problem with TSB standing orders so it could be worth seeing if the account is in good order. Not much you can do I guess except say sorry to the target account holder. Hopefully this will be addressed over the next couple of days. It is possible that it is another symptom of a capacity or throughput issue at processing pinch points.
I think you are finding it a bit more interesting and a challenge which makes it more fun, I was under the gun to get something a while back so game playing fell off the table. Perhaps it was all for the best but now I am left with the little car, complete with nearly 100,000 miles on the clock, a nearly new couple with one just over 2,000 and one just under 2,000 and a wife who cannot drive her car, (the one with less than 2,000 miles) for the conceivable future and certainly the next 6 months or so. My big issue is keeping them all charged up and running.
Anyway enjoy the game and the challenge.
My old portable did the job in about 28 minutes and that is on a ten year old machine.
Steve, I pretty much agree with what you said. The NHS was originally expected to help mop up any unemployment after the war and probably did a air job of that back then. However, we are now trying to import people to shore up the services that cannot be staffed by those already here. My wife is seeing a Greek oncologist mind you he is pretty damned good, almost everyone else comes originally from Asia, except the lung specialist who I saw from Portugal. She was keen as mustard, polite and really knew her stuff in very precise English. With some sensible automation of the type that Bob found today more could be done with less waste, fewer hours spent on paperwork and more patients treated. An ex UK doctor was talking about medical services here and in Australia where he went to work. The medical IT meant that he spent about 2 hours per week on paperwork – including PC time and about 38 hours out of his 40 dealing with patients. Here he worked far more hours saw fewer patients and had no job satisfaction. Sorry to say that several things conflict in the NHS to limit progress, mindsets, NIH and pure bloody mindedness.
I once suggested a system remarkably like the one Bob saw today when talking with a group of nurses. The idea of a see through uniform would have gone down better – and NO I did not suggest that or anything like that
I suggest that the mail is a far from ideal way to deal with urgent matters. My wife has had her MRI and CT scans sorted out by phone and text with mail ‘sometimes following on behind. Yesterday’s was sorted by her phoning as it was urgent. We have one more on the Bank Holiday Monday and another on the 10th of May.
Bob, have you been able to sort out your physical health issues, I hope so!
Sorry I have just seen the other thread, glad it is all done and dusted.
What I saw was the background download and configuration, the actual install part took way less time than I expected, possibly as little as 20 minutes. My oldest machine a 2008 portable is not going through the throws of downloading so I shall await developments with interest.
The internet was a bit ‘odd’ for the first few minutes with lots of slow loading on some sites, but that could be either the PC or the internet.
As I said, I don’t use branches, one not since the 1990s though I do use post rarely or the PO to pay in cheques. My ‘spare’ credit card accounts do get ‘time to time’ use though with everything else going on time slips by. One has been fallow for longer than I thought, the other about 12 months. I might ‘give them air later today’ and see what happens. The two heavily active ones get cleared every month, with December being a biggie, due less to Christmas and more to a couple of operations – they ain’t cheap.
I cannot be certain when it started to install but the install has been running for a while though it is totally seamless so far and the machine has continued to work without apparent issue. It is now at 69% install though the numbers are now tumbling through quite fast, will it succeed and stick? That is the big question.
I understand internet banking’s usefulness to some, but I have always kept records; since 1975 our accounts are shared, (with one exception for tax purposes), so we always know our various balances or liabilities. I visited one branch 200 miles away >10 years ago – to deal with my father’s account, The other is ‘only’ 40 miles away but not visited this millennium. We are clearly atypical; my point was that if internet banking access was interrupted for a few days we would be unlikely to notice, let alone be affected.
We value a choice of different payment methods in these in outage prone times. We still keep several different credit cards, though two are largely dormant, perhaps I should give them a ‘heartbeat’ transaction. Accounts are settled via the internet on presentation, it saves postage. The bottom line for us is that we still value paper and are pretty hot on paper receipt retention.
Dave, my understanding is that the new TSB system was just that, a ground up new software system on new hardware to work through the next part of the 21st century and be right away from the legacy stuff. TSB had no legacy to start with as they rented capacity on the Lloyd’s system, so it would make no sense to start their new world with a 1970’s era depreciated hardware unless the Spanish owners palmed something off onto them, which I strongly doubt.
Bob I am glad that is now working OK for you, I used what is now our local TSB branch for a couple of executor accounts in the recent past and do agree the staff were impressively helpful. Far better than NitWit bank who could not open the requisite executor accounts for deceased customers who had used them for well over 60 years. That was after they had previously carried out some illegal actions in the past on one account, – defying a court order is not the wisest thing in the world. I had thought about transferring an account to TSB in the recent past. If they can sort out the present issues, I might resurrect that idea, a modernised computer system might avoid the upcoming issues that all of the banks are going to face, moving away from their legacy iron.
I plan to retain at least two banks for the foreseeable future to provide some sort of insurance.
I agree with the comments about the sense of entitlement, TSB have accidentally screwed some customers over badly and they do need recompense for out of pocket costs. However, that is not the same as “I could have been affected, but wasn’t, so give me the money anyway”.
To be honest, I would probably not have been affected had I been a customer, I have never used online banking and do not appear to have a need to start it now. Note, I did not say I never will, circumstances change, I am old enough to know that.
Had a phew moment at about 5:30 p.m. after the latest scan as it was was clear of unwanted problems, so apparently no other cancer elsewhere. Wednesday should be a full scale unveiling of the master plan for treatment starting with the chemo, – which will not be fun for anyone.
Bob, remember chase down your loose ends tomorrow.
Well done, for getting an answer. Now we hope it will translate into the desired result for you tomorrow. If it does not pan out do not let the matter slide off the table, it is vital you get what your need.
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