Need a little computer help

OkieFlyer

OkieFlyer

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Andrew L.
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My computers at work are configured to timeout after only a few minutes of inactivity. By timeout I mean I have to log back on with my network username and password every few minutes. Everything I had open in the last session is still there, but it's freaking annoying to have to log back in every few minutes.

I work in a natural gas processing plant and we use one of our computers to monitor a web based program from a third party company that helps up optimize our process. We just leave this webpage up 24 hours a day, so we can keep an eye out for changes. The problem is, since we just leave that page up a let it refresh on it's own, we have no need to move the mouse or punch any buttons, so the network session times out all the freaking time.

Is there any way I can adjust the settings to allow a longer period of inactivity before timeout, or even disable the timeout altogether?


Seems like half of our POA members have something to do with IT, so I figured you guys can answer quicker than our crappy contract IT department.
 
OkieFlyer said:
My computers at work are configured to timeout after only a few minutes of inactivity. By timeout I mean I have to log back on with my network username and password every few minutes. Everything I had open in the last session is still there, but it's freaking annoying to have to log back in every few minutes.

I work in a natural gas processing plant and we use one of our computers to monitor a web based program from a third party company that helps up optimize our process. We just leave this webpage up 24 hours a day, so we can keep an eye out for changes. The problem is, since we just leave that page up a let it refresh on it's own, we have no need to move the mouse or punch any buttons, so the network session times out all the freaking time.

Is there any way I can adjust the settings to allow a longer period of inactivity before timeout, or even disable the timeout altogether?

Seems like half of our POA members have something to do with IT, so I figured you guys can answer quicker than our crappy contract IT department.
Click to expand...

If one works in computer security, please avert your eyes for the following paragraph.

Pull up power point, get it displaying the slide show (I have one that says "press alt-tab twice") and then leave the slide show running in the background by pressing alt-tab until the screen you want shows up. Windows will not bring up the screen saver when power point is displaying a slide show.
 
It depends whether its a local setting or a server setting, and whether it's user-defined or specified as part of a Group Policy Object.

If it's a user-definable local setting, you should be able to control it in Control Panel / Personalization / Screen Saver. If not, then you have to talk to the Network Admin.

Rich
 
When I was a young man, I once tied the mouse to my lady friends umm the ummm thing with the... I'm... It sort of...um... Vibrates

I worked from home and needed to run an errand and didn't want the connection to time out. The boss monitored inactivity.

True story.
 
Justin M said:
If one works in computer security, please avert your eyes for the following paragraph.

Pull up power point, get it displaying the slide show (I have one that says "press alt-tab twice") and then leave the slide show running in the background by pressing alt-tab until the screen you want shows up. Windows will not bring up the screen saver when power point is displaying a slide show.
Click to expand...

Funny. To heck with the computer security guys. I'm paid to run a 100+ million dollar facility with help from a process optimization program that we pay hundreds of thousands for, so by golly, I need to be able to watch it without logging back on 50 time a day.
 
SixPapaCharlie said:
When I was a young man, I once tied the mouse to my lady friends umm the ummm thing with the... I'm... It sort of...um... Vibrates

I worked from home and needed to run an errand and didn't want the connection to time out. The boss monitored inactivity.

True story.
Click to expand...
:rofl:
:rofl:
:rofl:

That's funny

and

Are-college-students-more-brilliant-The-grade-inflation-debate.jpg
 
My typical response to "what do you do for a living" is "I'm in IT and no I can't fix your computer". BUT, since you DID fly the monkey................

no idea what version you are on or like Rich said it could be managed by a policy but try going to control panel and searching for 'power'. that'll bring up a bunch of options you can look at and hopefully adjust.
 
eman1200 said:
My typical response to "what do you do for a living" is "I'm in IT and no I can't fix your computer". BUT, since you DID fly the monkey................

no idea what version you are on or like Rich said it could be managed by a policy but try going to control panel and searching for 'power'. that'll bring up a bunch of options you can look at and hopefully adjust.
Click to expand...

I dare say nobody has handled your monkey quite like I did. You owe me bigly.
 
I have my old copier sitting on a pallet at work. I am going to blow it up. I have never loathed anything more in my life. I am going to blow it up.



Did I mention that I am going to blow it up!
 
I think I'll try the mouse jiggle thing for now. We do have a bit of an odd hippie rogue IT guy (dubbed ComputerJesus) that will usually hook me up with what I need. The mouse jiggle will get me through the long weekend.
 
SixPapaCharlie said:
When I was a young man, I once tied the mouse to my lady friends umm the ummm thing with the... I'm... It sort of...um... Vibrates

I worked from home and needed to run an errand and didn't want the connection to time out. The boss monitored inactivity.

True story.
Click to expand...

Okay just because nobody else went there and I feel like lowering the bar to the gutter today, "Why did your lady friend need a.... the thing..."
 
Sac Arrow said:
Okay just because nobody else went there and I feel like lowering the bar to the gutter today, "Why did your lady friend need a.... the thing..."
Click to expand...

Bryan just wasn't enough. Not in a sexual way. Well maybe partly. OK it was because he couldn't even get to the climax, in a book you know? Well he could get to a climax but....
 
Sac Arrow said:
Okay just because nobody else went there and I feel like lowering the bar to the gutter today, "Why did your lady friend need a.... the thing..."
Click to expand...
Sometimes he ran out of coke. Duh!
 
There is a reason for such policies. You might be able to justify to the business, creating a restricted account for running that app that gets exempted from the Group Policy Object (GPO).
 
SixPapaCharlie said:
When I was a young man, I once tied the mouse to my lady friends umm the ummm thing with the... I'm... It sort of...um... Vibrates

I worked from home and needed to run an errand and didn't want the connection to time out. The boss monitored inactivity.

True story.
Click to expand...

You need to branch out into non-aviation instructional videos. In the current employment economy there may be big market for this. :D :cool:
 
mscard88 said:
Bryan just wasn't enough. Not in a sexual way. Well maybe partly. OK it was because he couldn't even get to the climax, in a book you know? Well he could get to a climax but....
Click to expand...

This may be an implausible scenario...perhaps the vibrator was available for 6PC's devious (deviant?) mouse application because she didn't need it after hooking up with him? :ihih:

As I said, implausible. :fingerwag:
 
OkieFlyer said:
Funny. To heck with the computer security guys. I'm paid to run a 100+ million dollar facility with help from a process optimization program that we pay hundreds of thousands for, so by golly, I need to be able to watch it without logging back on 50 time a day.
Click to expand...

Have you ever just told them what you need?
 
denverpilot said:
Have you ever just told them what you need?
Click to expand...

Not yet. They just recently made some major network changes, which ultimately caused this problem. Haven't had time to get with IT about it yet, which is generally a major pain in the butt, but frankly, the mouse jiggle thing is doing the trick beautifully.

John221us said:
There is a reason for such policies. You might be able to justify to the business, creating a restricted account for running that app that gets exempted from the Group Policy Object (GPO).
Click to expand...

Well, the policy sucks, and our 3rd party contract IT group sucks :)
 
OkieFlyer said:
Well, the policy sucks, and our 3rd party contract IT group sucks :)
Click to expand...

I'm sure the policy is there for security. I am just as sure that it was a business decision, not an IT decision. As @denverpilot pointed out, you need to discuss your operational requirements with them so they can come up with an acceptable solution. Often these security requirements are mandated by law, as well, so that may be a consideration. I think you are blaming the wrong group of people.
 
John221us said:
I'm sure the policy is there for security. I am just as sure that it was a business decision, not an IT decision. As @denverpilot pointed out, you need to discuss your operational requirements with them so they can come up with an acceptable solution. Often these security requirements are mandated by law, as well, so that may be a consideration. I think you are blaming the wrong group of people.
Click to expand...

I can promise you, he isn't blaming the wrong group of people. Too often IT is seen as the hurdle to overcome instead of the business partner to enable growth. I've worked in IT for many years and have seen many different forms of leadership. The best ones are the ones who come from the business, not from IT. Disruption can be a powerful ally.

Now, having said that- in a contracted third party IT department, getting the right people to do the right thing here to prevent someone from installing mouse jiggler is going to be like cutting your arm off and snacking yourself in the face with it. Do you ever wonder how the social engineering takes place to enable Target, Home Depot and lately Chipotle from being infected and loosing customer data? It's exactly the problems displayed by this poster and the lack of partnership from IT that cause it. The business (this poster) will always find a way around the IT policy. This is why IT has to understand how the biz works and work with the biz to enable safe/secure practices. You are NEVER going to find that kind of partnership in an outsourced IT department.

TJ


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 
John221us said:
I'm sure the policy is there for security. I am just as sure that it was a business decision, not an IT decision. As @denverpilot pointed out, you need to discuss your operational requirements with them so they can come up with an acceptable solution. Often these security requirements are mandated by law, as well, so that may be a consideration. I think you are blaming the wrong group of people.
Click to expand...

Well, I was being a little facetious. It's really not that big of a deal, and I'm not interested in assigning blame to anyone. It's just annoying and we'll get it dealt with eventually.
 
Tj1376 said:
I can promise you, he isn't blaming the wrong group of people. Too often IT is seen as the hurdle to overcome instead of the business partner to enable growth. I've worked in IT for many years and have seen many different forms of leadership. The best ones are the ones who come from the business, not from IT. Disruption can be a powerful ally.

Now, having said that- in a contracted third party IT department, getting the right people to do the right thing here to prevent someone from installing mouse jiggler is going to be like cutting your arm off and snacking yourself in the face with it. Do you ever wonder how the social engineering takes place to enable Target, Home Depot and lately Chipotle from being infected and loosing customer data? It's exactly the problems displayed by this poster and the lack of partnership from IT that cause it. The business (this poster) will always find a way around the IT policy. This is why IT has to understand how the biz works and work with the biz to enable safe/secure practices. You are NEVER going to find that kind of partnership in an outsourced IT department.

TJ


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
Click to expand...

You sound a little bitter. IT doesn't take any pleasure in disrupting the business. It would appear that an operational requirement was missed, but more likely, it was probably a McGyvered solution to begin with (if you need a dashboard, build out the whole solution, including a dedicated terminal and display). Timeout screen lock policies have been standard security practice for at least 20 years. Often they are mandated by federal law, such as HIPAA and FACTA. At the end of the day, it just makes sense. You wouldn't leave your car out in the parking lot with the keys in the ignition, would you? Well, in all likelihood, the data on that network is more valuable than your car. And, yes, you are correct about the posted problem and the accepted solution; this is an example of someone shoving a shoe in the door, so they don't have to dig their keys out next time they need to get in the warehouse. It solves the individuals problem, but creates a potentially much bigger one.
 
I've been in a lot of IT departments and have never forced or mandated locking mechanisms on systems in Ops centers that are in physical access controlled areas (yes, the bosses of that area ARE going to sign a waiver that they're responsible for that) with timeouts that low. Usually we talk to the business unit and come up with a reasonable amount of time that a worker in that area should be using something on the machine and set the timeout threashold above that.

And agreed, if it's a display of a system that doesn't require interaction, we'll happily lock down a machine that only does that stuff and put it on a wall display or similar.

I'd just open a ticket with them that the screensaver lock is disrupting business and find out if they can change it, or if they're following a mandate based on a law or rule set further up the food chain, at least.

If some outsourcing place brought in and set up 1000 machines in an organization they'd pick default values for these sorts of things for the typical office worker. Getting a special "ops room" group made in the rulesets pushed to the machines so they're less annoying in the ops job, technically isn't hard at all. But they need to know the screen lock is causing a real business problem.

When IT is outsourced it's hard to do what I do at our place at least once a quarter. I wander the building watching what people are doing over their shoulders. Often I realize something the systems are doing is a huge PITA for some sub-group and can then talk to them and ask them if it is, and fix it. Or see that they're using the heck out of something that's causing performance problems or whatever.

Too many IT folk never take the time to "walk the halls" and see what's actually going on. Even just setting s group's default printer to a different printer they actually use all the time and their default settings can save them considerable time and aggravation (and therefore the company money and worker goodwill) and all it takes is looking at what folks are doing.
 
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