…your laptop dies, the replacement laptop looks like it’s about to die, the internet connection might as well be dead, and finally your application looks like it’s dying too.
Well has just happened in the presentation I just did, or tried to do to be more accurate!
It’s been an easy week, tweeking the application for the final review presentation for my favorite client, it was supposed to be a swift in and out, everybody leaves chuffed with themselves at the close of a successful project.
Silly me, thinking it was gonna be that easy.
So this morning it I start off giving the css a quick polish ahead of the meeting, making sure everything is working as it should. Then me & my boos head off safe in the knowledge the site is working perfectly. We arrive at our clients, with the laptop we were asked to bring last minute (just grabbing the nearest one as were leaving). We are shown into he boardroom, clients sat round a huge table, massive 42″ plasma at the head, waiting for our laptop to plug into.
First hiccup – As we’re plugging everything in my boss tries to plug in the power cable, doesn’t fit – cables must have got mixed up, never mind, must have at least an hours battery time.
Second hiccup, takes 10 mins hook up the plasma.
Third hiccup, no network, need IT to enter the proxy server settings.
At last were up and running, oh no what’s happened to the site!
What!! how can this be, I was just on it half an hour ago!
‘Cannot connect, SQL Server 2005 does not allow remote connections’
Few phone calls later we figure out it must be a problem with firewall, quick call to the hosting company we use,
bish bash bosh – were up an running, limping heavly by now.
10 mins in, laptop dies, quick plug in the power, shit it’s not the right cable!
So we have to use someones laptop in the office, the only laptop available, a Polish designers machine, everything’s in Polish, including an obscure Polish browser, no IE, no Firefox.
So hesitantly open up this browser, phew, everything is in the right place.
As we are going through the site, it starts getting slower and slower, till the point where it was taking 20 seconds to load up a basic page.
The excuses start from out hosts about poor connection speeds, meanwhile out clients are asuming it must be the site that’s really slow, not good!
During this time, the Polish guy who’s laptop it is has been sitting in, playing with his mobile the entire time,
bip, bip, bip. Then he starts playing with the wall mounted air conditioning unit with the remote, turning it up and down, eventually settling for freezing.
We decided to call it a day, and re-schedule for a meeting at our offices, where we eliminate this scenario from ever happening again.
I’m off for a beer now,
S