10 Years Ago....

I've been going through some old notes that I saved from a while back.

I came across a set of notes today from ~October - November 1999.

At the place where I was working back then, on October 31st we were entering what we called a "hard freeze" with respect to changes. Basically, only approved emergency changes in response to some outage or degradation would be made between 11/1/1999 and mid-February 2000....

I was involved in some pretty hard-core systems automation at the time. Lots of cross-platform stuff and lots of custom monitoring tools . Beginning in early December of that year, we had to cover 24x7, meaning that regardless of what your role was in IT, you could end up working some really weird hours. I had worked nights in college, so it wasn't that big of a shock to me.

New Year's Eve that year, I, along with about 100 others, were camped out in our company's data center, watching our monitors and waiting for something, anything to happen.

Nothing really did, but they sure did feed us well for those couple of months! Then the market crashed a few months later and everything really went to hell in a handbasket...

Anyway, finding the old notes really jogged some memories. What were you doing in the run-up to Y2K ~10 years ago?

MS

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networker050184

I was 15 and doing absolutely nothing productive with my life. I'm sure I wasted quite a bit of brain cells, but it sure was fun!

L0gicB0mb508

I was probably in middle school. I can actually remember being in an Excite chat room. I believe I was actually reading something on alstalavista search as well. Script Kiddie Fo Lyfe.

makenocent

10 years ago, I was playing Diablo 2 trying to get some unique items. Man... I spent most of my free time on that game.

I was still in middle school too. Didn't do too well with my grades back then... >_<

JDMurray

makenocent wrote: »

I spent most of my free time on that game.

Well then, don't try Titan Quest or you'll loose more years of your life. It's the closest thing to D3 until the real D3 comes out.

dynamik

JDMurray wrote: »

Well then, don't try Titan Quest or you'll loose more years of your life. It's the closest thing to D3 until the real D3 comes out.

You apparently haven't seen Torchlight. I'm so thankful it doesn't have multiplayer; I wouldn't get anything done if it did. It's by some of the original Diablo guys.

Torchlight - Official Site

Torchlight (pc) reviews at Metacritic.com

Bad news is, this is just the precursor for their MMO

JDMurray

I haven't heard anything about TL that makes me think it's better than TQ, so I haven't tried it--and without online multi-player I'm not sure I would.

But, if we're talking 10+ years ago, we should be talking about Ultima Online.

srcurrie

10 Years ago I was a Network Administrator at a different K12. I checked and rechecked my systems and then worked all day New Years Eve and checked things again just to be safe.
My own network had no Y2K issues HOWEVER I received calls over the next few weeks from other people (people I do work for on the side) with software (Quicken and Windows 3.11) not acting correctly because of Y2K issues. We replaced the software and machines and all was well!

cablegod

10 years ago, I accepted my first non-contract full-time IT job. I'm still there today.

JockVSJock

eMeS wrote: »

Anyway, finding the old notes really jogged some memories. What were you doing in the run-up to Y2K ~10 years ago?

MS

Woa...What a trip...Didn't even think about this till reading this.

10 years ago I spent the year of 1999 rolling out Y2K compliant pcs (Windows NT) to replace dumb terminals, all across the USA. Was fresh out of undergrad and starting to get my taste. I wanted more. Was also doing some end user training too.

During New Years Eve, I was on call and a friend lent me his cell phone because I didn't have one at the time. My manager at the time would have me call into my voicemail to get updates to see if I had to come into work. What I would have done, I'm not sure.

Anyways, I went to bed that night and woke up just like any other day. The power was on, the lights were working, we had running water still and the phone had a dial-tone.

I called into my voicemail and got another one from my boss who said it was a total non-event and to enjoy New Years Day.

MoInSTL

Wow, the OP sure brought back memories! Since I wasn't in Net Ops I was only on call on New Years Eve. As soon as our East Coast data centers rolled over I could relax as I was working in Silicon Valley on the West Coast. I did have to replace every single workstation in the preceding months. I don't remember how many I replaced except it was a lot. I do remember getting a fancy plaque and a $500 bonus for my work. Of course $500 was a lot more then.

nel

Ahhh new years eve Y2K...i can remember it vaguely...i was roughly 13/14ish and thought i would be clever by drinking half a bottle of rum. No doubt by 7pm i was absolutely wasted beyond belief and puking into a tin of Roses chocolates but had a brilliant new year. i can just remember sucking on oranges come midnight for some reason!...ahh life as a young teenager/potential alcoholic growing up in england...isnt that what every kid does there these days?

Turgon

I had completed my MCSE and CCNA in 1999. I recall my boss saying that he thought Y2K was going to be a damp squid. Thankfully he was right. With all the hyperbole and money spent on sheister 'consultants' I think IT lost a lot of credibility in the eyes of it's many critics and the general populous.

Mishra

I was really enjoying my Dad's new screensaver he downloaded... I watched that thing for like an hour!

Attack of the y2k bug

JDMurray

dynamik wrote: »

You apparently haven't seen Torchlight.

OK, I am now officially hooked on Torchlight. It's Diablo 1 mixed with Titan Quest and a little WoW with just a hint of Disney. Not a bad pickup on Steam for $20. I can't wait for the MMO.

And I now finally understand this Penny Arcade strip:

marco71

umm ... 10 yrs. ago as an IT employee, I was still offering network support for Novell Netware 3.11, 3.12 and Windows for Workgroups 3.11, and of course O.S. support for Win 95/98...
as hobbist, as my notes revealed, at that time was trying to compile KDE 2 on linux and XFree86 4.0.1 (with gcc 2.95 of course) and played with StarOffice 5 and Corel Photopaint 9 on linux...
and remember also my IT skills almost 20 yrs. ago, when was studying dbase, foxpro, pascal and C programming in faculty (not to mention that I started with Basic programming on home-computers - HC 85/Sinclair ZX spectrum anyone ? - 25 yrs. ago) ... damn, I'm feeling old

Forsaken_GA

10 years ago.... I was about to undergo my personal crucible. I was just about to turn 23, I was working in the NOC at a major ISP, and little did I know that a chain of events was about to be set in motion that would see the loss of my job, my girlfriend, and damn near my sanity.

Thankfully, I came through and it opened my eyes and set me straight. Wouldn't be on the path I am today if I hadn't gone through it.

mikedisd2

Unemployed, living in a small dead-end town, wondering why things weren't working out.

Still wondering that.

jamesp1983

i was 16 and at a house party.

wd40

This post reminds me of "in the year 2000" segment on Conan Obraian's show

it was my first year in university, just started exploring PC's and the internet, I was studying Industrial electronics in high school and did not believe that anything will happen.

motogpman

Was working for a company called Unisys. We spent months prior to 2000 trying to make sure all the contract systems were up and running. People were freaking out, 911system, banking institutions, everyone that we supported were all on pins and needles.

Everyone was on call and nothing happened. We were all on call at sites watching the seconds tick away. What a bust.

People were braindumping heavy in those days just to get MCSE because that cert brought in BIG bucks. I agree, a lot of cred was taken from the IT industry due to the scare. Salaries started slimming down after that.

College, weekend NT cram courses, new turn key family, new house, and lots of hours at work made those couple of years a complete blurr and went fast.