>>>My advice to Dimity is - find an excellent network person.
>>
>>Good to have one on your list - alternative is to make client pay for all work caused by his network issues.
>
>I do both. That's how (and a lot of TLC) I keep the networker happy.
>This is just one example of non-programming issues that would drive me batty if I didn't have that guy. Printing is probably the worst offender, followed by hiccups with remote connections.
>It's great to be able to forget about those things and concentrate on application programming because that networker is just about infallible.
>
>Technology also helps.
>Every time I do a SQL backup and I notice that Microsoft has not changed the default medium from "Tape" I remember the hours frittered away on tape devices.
>I haven't seen one in so long I forget what they look like, but they were another source of grief.

[shrug] perhaps the reference to "tape" is something like "tar" on *nix systems? (i.e. an file bundling format rather than physical media) ... or the virtual cardpunch/reader found on IBMs VM systems was used to transport data between different computers?