Funny things you hear people say about computers.

[dragos240]

Here's a few:

"I don't think the USB ports in the front work in the front, so plug your cameras in the back of the hard drive."

"How do I get to Ed's website? (My brother's karate instructor)" Ed didn't have a website, she was trying to type in his email into the URL bar."

While I was taking an OS poll at school. "Yeah, I have linux, I hate it though, I have the white one." (Not sure what she meant by that.)

Me sitting at a blue screen at school. "(Me) what have you done to my computer?" At this point, she sent me down to the principal's office.

Someone else's reaction to my poll. "Operating system? I use microsoft word."

I always laugh inside when these happen.

[Psumi]

dragos, your signature can be taken out of context, REAL fast.

I suggest taking out the "I came." part.

[chris4585]

dragos, your signature can be taken out of context, REAL fast.

I suggest taking out the "I came." part.

I lol'd hard.

[sxmaxchine]

when i read stuff like that i dont laugh inside i tell the person that theyre wrong.

[cariboo]

@Psumi

You should maybe have a look at your own signature, the Oh NightwishFan... part could be taken the wrong way too. :)

[NightwishFan]

Visiting my mom, I am watching a (a file) video on my laptop. My mom says; "How did you get the internet out here?" I say; 'I do not have it.' She continues: 'Then how are you using your computer?' Me (at a loss): What?

The internet is far too popular, thus my time spent on it will now be limited. She could not tell me something a computer is used for other than the internet. Apparently thats all computers are for these days. Not 'work', who does that these days. We should just all quit our jobs, post on facebook and watch youtube.

Edit: Why are you all talking about me every time I am busy writing my post!? :lolflag:

[jflaker]

HMe sitting at a blue screen at school. "(Me) what have you done to my computer?" At this point, she sent me down to the principal's office.


LQTM Like Microsoft's unexplained errors are your fault. :lolflag:

[chris4585]

This thread reminds me of The Website is Down.

[jflaker]

Working as a support guy for a retail chain:

Store Employee: I need help. All of our registers went down.
Me: Ok, lets work through some basice stuff
Store Employee: OK
Me: Could you tell me if the monitor is on?
Store Employee: No lights so, no.
me: ok, lets make sure the register has power...could you look at the back of the register real quick...make sure all the wires are secure.
Store Employee: Ok, hold on...i need to get a flashlight.
me: Why do you need a flashlight? There should be plenty of light in front of the store.
Store Employee: Yeah, usually, but the power went out about 15 minutes ago and we can't ring up customers.
me: *(BITING MY TOUNGUE)* I can't help you without electricity...please call back after the power comes back on.<CLICK>

[chappajar]

dragos, your signature can be taken out of context, REAL fast.

I suggest taking out the ''I came'' part.

A joke by Psumi I hope...
I'm sure the vast majority of us know what it is referring to, but if you don't: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Veni,_vidi,_vici

[Minipalmer]

"Yeah, I have linux, I hate it though, I have the white one."I lol'd.

[undecim]

I always laugh inside when these happen.

Always makes me sad a little... Then I take that opportunity to educate them.

[Kdar]

Working as a support guy for a retail chain:

Store Employee: I need help. All of our registers went down.
Me: Ok, lets work through some basice stuff
Store Employee: OK
Me: Could you tell me if the monitor is on?
Store Employee: No lights so, no.
me: ok, lets make sure the register has power...could you look at the back of the register real quick...make sure all the wires are secure.
Store Employee: Ok, hold on...i need to get a flashlight.
me: Why do you need a flashlight? There should be plenty of light in front of the store.
Store Employee: Yeah, usually, but the power went out about 15 minutes ago and we can't ring up customers.
me: *(BITING MY TOUNGUE)* I can't help you without electricity...please call back after the power comes back on.<CLICK>

yes, thats useful to have to make things work :)

[themarker0]

An older client asked me "Can you help me log onto this blog?" I looked at the screen, and it was Igoogle.

[lisati]

One I saw reported in another thread: "I just deleted the internet" (a Windows user had deleted the IE shortcut on their desktop)

[MooPi]

It's moments like these that makes me wonder how the rest of the world functions. Really how does it ?

[skierkyles]

A few years ago when I was finaly upgrading to broadband from dial-up, the cable guy who was installing it was convinced that my wireless router was "only for dial up stuff." :confused:

[steveneddy]

It truly amazes me about how little the "average" person actually knows about computer terminology.

Calling the computer case a hard drive

Making a very simply Power Point presentation

Using Excel for drawing pictures - had a boss who didn't know about word and actually used Excel for EVERYTHING - amazed me how much Excel could actually do

And I use Linux, too - I use the green one. I LIKE HOT DOGS!

[Untitled_No4]

A few years ago I was working for a small software company when I got a phone call from a guy at one of our customers. He was waiting for everybody else to go home before he made it, and this is roughly how it went:
User: Hi, I have a problem, my monitor ran out of ink and I need a new black cartridge. The black is now grey.
Me: What were you trying to do when it happened.
User: Describing what screen in the software he was on.
Me: Okay, let me deal with it here and try again in a minute.

The problem? He didn't have permissions to do whatever it was he was trying to do so the button was disabled, i.e. greyed out.

And no, I didn't laugh. This was a big financial corporate which introduced computers and software to a department full of elderly people who worked there for all their lives doing what they did using pen and paper. They were all scared that they're going to lose their jobs just before retirement and it didn't help that the 20 years old girl hired to be an assistant at the end of the pecking order got the hang of it almost immediately.

[Untitled_No4]

This blog post was for a while the first hit on Google when searching "Facebook Login". Read the comments in the first couple of pages (or more, if you really enjoy it).

http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/facebook_wants_to_be_your_one_true_login.php

[Dayofswords]

i was at an electronics store and i heard an employee talk about browsers to a customer

"It comes with Internet Explorer, but you can get Mozillafox"

[ndefontenay]

Oh my god! I don't know if I should laugh or cry ><

This is crazy. All these people assume this is a new version of facebook just because there's a logo on top.
Nobody pays attention to the fact that there's a huge article in the middle nor that the domain is not facebook.com

It's even more surprising because in order to comment, you have to login! With Facebook!!!

[lisati]

Oh my god! I don't know if I should laugh or cry ><

As one of the people commenting said, this is so funny!

[Nickedynick]

I was at home once borrowing my sister's laptop. I was fiddling about with the front and took out a dummy SD card (that Dell ship to keep stuff out of the card reader), and my sister genuinely said:

"No! Put that back! All my uni work's on that!"

She thought it was the hard disk. ](*,)

[Untitled_No4]

Oh my god! I don't know if I should laugh or cry ><

Laugh, then cry, then be sad, then be happy:
Beyond the basic failure of those people, we can draw two opposing conclusions:
1. Linux stands no chance with those who are not at least mildly geeks. If people cannot work out where they are on the internet, how will they work out Linux?
2. Linux stand an excellent chance with non-geeks. If people can't tell that the page they're on is not Facebook despite of a different colour scheme and logo, (theoretically only) it would be possible to secretly install any Linux distro on their computer and they won't even realise that they're not in Windows-land anymore, as long as they are able to do whatever they're used to do (e.g. log into Facebook).

Point 2 is worth considering. We think those people are stupid because they didn't realise they're not on Facebook. Actually, if you look past this misunderstanding, those people didn't just give up, they have actively searched the page, found a Facebook login not where it normally is, and logged on. If the developers of that blog had added a redirection to Facebook after login or commenting, you can argue that those non-geeks have succeeded in solving a technical problem.

On the other hand...

[dragos240]

i was at an electronics store and i heard an employee talk about browsers to a customer

"It comes with Internet Explorer, but you can get Mozillafox"

My mom keeps saying "FoxFire".

[Wee_Guy]

My gran keeps referring to Firefox as "Firecracker".

Also, my young sister just told me that my stapler needs to be rebooted. Turns out it needs more staples:confused:

[3rdalbum]

A friend once asked me if I could install a virus on her computer. One piece of malware later, it turned out she wanted ANTI-virus!

(the first part of the second sentence is a joke)

It always annoys me how virtually EVERYONE I meet calls the desktop case a "Hard drive". It's like saying "Don't drive over the broken glass, you'll get a flat steering wheel"!

[forrestcupp]

Calling the computer case a hard drive
Yeah, or "the CPU". I love those.

My grandma once asked me how she could download the internet. I couldn't help but laugh.


My mom keeps saying "FoxFire".
Lol. That reminds me of one time I took some kids to an event called "Acquire the Fire". One kid kept calling it "A Fire the Choir".

[donkyhotay]

As others have mentioned, the tower is often known as the "hard drive" according to most people. I have also heard the tower be referred to as the "modem" quite often. The screensaver is "that picture behind all the icons when you turn the computer on" (i.e. the desktop). The computer is "the television screen thing" (i.e. the monitor).

I think my biggest wallbanger that I run into is:
User: I get an error when trying to open a file I (downloaded, someone gave me, etc.)
Me: What happens when you try to open the file?
User: The computer says "Windows can't find the correct program to open the file with, please select the correct program to open this file" what does that mean and what do I do.
Me: (after banging head against wall) That error means that Windows can't find the correct program to open the file with. You need to select the correct program to open that file.
User: Why can't the computer just tell me that?
Me: I don't know... (starts banging head against wall hard enough for there to be bloodstains)

[whiskeylover]

My mom keeps saying "FoxFire".

There is a restaurant near my place called "Firefly". I keep calling it Firefox in front of my wife, like "You wanna eat at Firefox tonight?". And she's like "It's Firefly!". I'm like "Hehe"

[spoons]

I was running Windows 95 when i was about 5 and it came up on the screen with "Illegal Operation" - I thought the police were going to bust in to arrest me.

[CharlesA]

I usually have to refer to the main "tower" as "the box under the monitor." I've had people call it the modem, hard drive, "box with lights" etc.

Fun times!

[eriktheblu]

A couple months ago, my cable internet stopped working. Wife calls tech support, goes through all the unplug and reboot steps, verifies modem is working properly. She goes through this two nights in a row.

Third night she puts me on the phone. The lady proceeds to tell me that she can offer me a rental modem and internet phone service at a discounted rate. (conversation edited slightly due to memory limitations and ego)

me: Why would I rent a modem, when I own one that works?

tech: If you have one of our modems, we'll be able to provide better support.

me: Will this support make the internet work?

tech: No there is currently an outage in your area

me: then no, I'm not interested

tech: well with this package, you could save on your long distance phone calls by replacing your land line

me: I don't have a land line

tech: It could replace your existing phone equipment

me: I don't have any phone equipment, I only use a cell phone

tech: Well it's a good idea to have another phone in case cell service is interrupted

me: This internet phone service requires an internet connection right?

tech: yes

me: which I don not have currently because your network is down

tech: ...

me: no thanks.


As it turns out, with this cable company if you have a technical issue you call sales (who dispatched someone to repair their distribution box), and the tech support staff tries to sell you stuff.

[CharlesA]

Upselling blows!

I'm glad I don't have to do any of that crap.

[Khakilang]

One of my friend read in the newspaper told me something about a Cozackie virus (don't know whether the spelling is correct) somewhere in South east Asia that affect children and I didn't know about.

So I answer him back. Can't Norton Anti virus kill it? He look back at me and laugh.

[samalex]

Too funny... at least now'days most people have some clue about computers. I remember trying to explain what I was doing when dialing into BBSes when my grandparents or even parents asked. The Internet has at least made people aware that computers can be connected to share info, but back in the 80's and 90's it wasn't so common. For the neophyte who has no clue what a computer is back in the day, the thought of being able to exchange info over the phone line was just too out there for most to comprehend.

Sam

[Maheriano]

Working as a support guy for a retail chain:

Store Employee: I need help. All of our registers went down.
Me: Ok, lets work through some basice stuff
Store Employee: OK
Me: Could you tell me if the monitor is on?
Store Employee: No lights so, no.
me: ok, lets make sure the register has power...could you look at the back of the register real quick...make sure all the wires are secure.
Store Employee: Ok, hold on...i need to get a flashlight.
me: Why do you need a flashlight? There should be plenty of light in front of the store.
Store Employee: Yeah, usually, but the power went out about 15 minutes ago and we can't ring up customers.
me: *(BITING MY TOUNGUE)* I can't help you without electricity...please call back after the power comes back on.<CLICK>

This didn't happen to you, it's a joke that's been circulating the internet for the last 15 years.

[CharlesA]

This didn't happen to you, it's a joke that's been circulating the internet for the last 15 years.

Well, yeah. I'm sure it happens tho.

[user1397]

The internets is broken!!!

[Roamer145]

Ah, memories. I've had my share of horror stories. One of which involved safely removing a backup drive from my computer, a laptop that I set up to run a backup on while I was going to class. I needed the drive for a project at school. My sister was still at home and about to come into town, so I called and asked her to grab it and the cable for it so I can use it. I specifically told her to right click the icon that looks like a disk drive that is on the desktop (I run LinuxMint on my computer, so no panel icon like she's used to) and to click "safely remove." She yelled, "I KNOW HOW TO DO IT!" and hung up. She brought it to me, and said that she "safely removed" it. I asked how. She said, "I pulled it really fast out of the hole" (hole being USB port). I blinked...then calmly stated..."Did you click 'eject' or 'safely remove drive' like I asked?" She then said, "No, the laptop lid was closed and I couldn't open it," (it has a slide latch, she was just pulling on the screen) "so, I just pulled it out. Was I not suppose ta?"

1 disk check, and a lot of yelling later, I found out that my backup drive was ok. Still, coming that close to losing 6 years of data made me realize...I need another backup drive, just in case.

[Viva]

Apple products aren't bloated:rofl:

[donkyhotay]

Store Employee: I need help. All of our registers went down.
Me: Ok, lets work through some basice stuff
Store Employee: OK
Me: Could you tell me if the monitor is on?
Store Employee: No lights so, no.
me: ok, lets make sure the register has power...could you look at the back of the register real quick...make sure all the wires are secure.
Store Employee: Ok, hold on...i need to get a flashlight.
me: Why do you need a flashlight? There should be plenty of light in front of the store.
Store Employee: Yeah, usually, but the power went out about 15 minutes ago and we can't ring up customers.
me: *(BITING MY TOUNGUE)* I can't help you without electricity...please call back after the power comes back on.<CLICK>

This didn't happen to you, it's a joke that's been circulating the internet for the last 15 years.

I had that working for cell phone tech support, the person couldn't get a signal during the big USA eastcoast brown/blackout a few years back. Had to explain that while yes the cell phone has a battery and will work during a blackout, the tower she is connecting to needs electricity as well...

[Shpongle]

A friend of mine sent me this yesterday

A woman asks her husband, a programmer, to go shopping
Woman: Dear, please, go to the nearby grocery store to buy some bread. Also, if they have eggs, buy 6.
Man: O.K.
Twenty minutes later the husband comes back bringing 6 loaves of bread.
His wife is flabbergasted
Woman: Dear, why on earth did you buy 6 loaves of bread?
Man: They had eggs

[Kdar]

I worked like web-developer on few occasions.. part-time job, on and off.

And I found so many people that so careless about Internet security. I had few people who basically where giving away their passwords to me... and to anything.. their e-mail, their computer, their whatever you can think of....
I always tried to explain to them they should be careful with such information, keep it private... but again and again there is someone who do it.
I might be a honest person and would not do anything bad to them. But some people can take advantage of them this way.

[Dawei87]

a Comcast tech who was working at my house told me and my family (in his obviously infinite wisdom) that you cant connect to comcast internet using linux, and that in order to go online i would have to install windows. after assuring me this was the problem with the internet, i promptly told him to get out of my house. :lolflag:

[amauk]

Windows auto-run brainwashing syndrome
"I put the CD in, but nothing happens !!"

[earthpigg]

"[software] sucks, it can't do [something]", said after 5 minutes of use.

[Dawei87]

i just remembered another one too: a couple weeks ago, my younger brother came to me and said "my nintendo wii wont run linux anymore, can you help me?" i was shocked when he said this, (my family is computer illiterate) and i kept asking him how he ran linux on his wii. he couldnt explain to me, and just kept saying it ran linux fine when he first got it. interested to see the problem i came over to help. turns out the problem was he was having trouble connecting his wii to the internet using his LINKSYS router...

[Wee_Guy]

I can't remember exactly when, but I'm sure that at some point in The IT Crowd, Moss (a IT guy) loudly proclaims that "Memory is RAM". I do remember explaining the difference between RAM and other types of memory to my Dad afterwards...

[Bachstelze]

Oh, look, it's this thread again...

[lisati]

I was running Windows 95 when i was about 5 and it came up on the screen with "Illegal Operation" - I thought the police were going to bust in to arrest me.
I've always been mildly amused by the term "illegal" in this context. :)

A friend of mine sent me this yesterday

A woman asks her husband, a programmer, to go shopping
Woman: Dear, please, go to the nearby grocery store to buy some bread. Also, if they have eggs, buy 6.
Man: O.K.
Twenty minutes later the husband comes back bringing 6 loaves of bread.
His wife is flabbergasted
Woman: Dear, why on earth did you buy 6 loaves of bread?
Man: They had eggs
You haven't been spying on the lisati household by any chance? This kind of problem crops up here more often than I'd care to admit! :)

[Tristam Green]

Oh, look, it's this thread again...

I cannot count the amount of times I have heard people say that about computers! LOL :lolflag::guitar::popcorn::KS

[Dayofswords]

My mom keeps saying "FoxFire".
http://www.animeyume.com/yu_gi_oh/foxfire.jpg

[dragos240]

Oh, look, it's this thread again...

Umm..... Shouldn't this go under recurring discussions then?

[NightwishFan]

There is a restaurant near my place called "Firefly". I keep calling it Firefox in front of my wife, like "You wanna eat at Firefox tonight?". And she's like "It's Firefly!". I'm like "Hehe"

This made me chuckle. :)


a Comcast tech who was working at my house told me and my family (in his obviously infinite wisdom) that you cant connect to comcast internet using linux, and that in order to go online i would have to install windows. after assuring me this was the problem with the internet, i promptly told him to get out of my house. :lolflag:

They made us purchase Windows Xp (back in the day) saying our Windows Me would not work. So we did, and it was too slow on 128mb of ram. Apparently he said he meant Me would not run Comcast email software. Then why did they leave without setting up our connection? Someone needs to take that company down a notch.


As for the 'illegal operation' I used to think that as well. Every time it would happen, I would shut off my computer hoping the police didn't notice. :lolflag:

[RandomJoe]

Calling the computer case the hard drive reminded me of one experience while I was a computer lab monitor in college. The lab belonged to the Fire Protection program, and this was the early 90s so not a particularly computer-literate group.

One night a student was having problems saving his work. He kept saying he was saving "to the hard drive" which wasn't what he wanted to do. I replied that he needed to save it to the floppy, but he said he didn't have one - even though he was holding one in his hand!

Finally figured out that he thought the 3.5" floppy was a "hard drive" because - well - it had a hard shell and wasn't "floppy" like the 5.25" ones!

[Frogs Hair]

" I think my computer is tired of rebooting so often " " Come on boot !! you throw back too a cheap radio !! " Me booting Ubuntu the first time prior to driver installation.

[dannyboy79]

people ask me for my help as to why there computer is so slow. they say, "well my son has all this useless music on the computer and it's using up all the memory." they think just cause the hard drive is getting full that's the reason it's running so slow.
HA HA, i think to myself. Poor kid's mom or dad ends up erasing all their music not realizing that hard disk space has nothing to do with with slow IE browsing and taking forever to boot up.

[Chronon]

people ask me for my help as to why there computer is so slow. they say, "well my son has all this useless music on the computer and it's using up all the memory." they think just cause the hard drive is getting full that's the reason it's running so slow.
HA HA, i think to myself. Poor kid's mom or dad ends up erasing all their music not realizing that hard disk space has nothing to do with with slow IE browsing and taking forever to boot up.

A badly fragmented hard drive can cause considerable performance problems.

[dannyboy79]

A badly fragmented hard drive can cause considerable performance problems.
i'll say it again, a full hard drive has nothing to do with slow computer IE browsing and slow computer startup. They were directly relating a packed hard drive and the slowness of the computer. It's a common assumption of the ignorant/novice computer user.

[chappajar]

i'll say it again, a full hard drive has nothing to do with slow computer IE browsing and slow computer startup. They were directly relating a packed hard drive and the slowness of the computer. It's a common assumption of the ignorant/novice computer user.

Unless you're talking about a disk so full there's no room for the swap file to grow as needed.

But I agree, it is a common misconception among computer illiterate that is almost always incorrect.

[3rdalbum]

User: I get an error when trying to open a file I (downloaded, someone gave me, etc.)
Me: What happens when you try to open the file?
User: The computer says "Windows can't find the correct program to open the file with, please select the correct program to open this file" what does that mean and what do I do.
Me: (after banging head against wall) That error means that Windows can't find the correct program to open the file with. You need to select the correct program to open that file.
User: Why can't the computer just tell me that?
Me: I don't know... (starts banging head against wall hard enough for there to be bloodstains)

Hey, don't say that too loudly. There are plenty of new users here who get the error message "Malformed line 8 in /etc/apt/sources.list", and you have to tell them "Well, if you open /etc/apt/sources.list and look at the eighth line, it's incorrect".

Another thing I hate is when Windows users think that positively EVERYTHING that goes wrong with their computer is caused by a virus. If they get spam, then they must have a virus. If their computer is running slower than usual, it's a virus. Ironically, when they get the virus that tells them to buy a (fake) anti-virus program for $80 in order to clean an "infection" off their computer, they don't realise that this itself is the virus!

[lisati]

Hey, don't say that too loudly. There are plenty of new users here who get the error message "Malformed line 8 in /etc/apt/sources.list", and you have to tell them "Well, if you open /etc/apt/sources.list and look at the eighth line, it's incorrect".

Another one is the error message that tells them to run sudo dpkg --reconfigure -a - seen that often enough.

[fugazi32]

When my sister saw me @ my box hacking away in a terminal: 'Why is your computer looking so '80s?'

[Dayofswords]

When my sister saw me @ my box hacking away in a terminal: 'Why is your computer looking so '80s?'

i got a good giggle out of this

[Joeb454]

Another one is the error message that tells them to run sudo dpkg --reconfigure -a - seen that often enough.

In fairness, up until recently, that didn't have 'sudo' in the message, which was more confusing :p

[kvarley]

My IT Technician at school has 1 solution to everything.

Turn it off and turn it back on again.

That's all I have ever seen him do aside from Windows updates!

[gemmakaru]

And I use Linux, too - I use the green one. I LIKE HOT DOGS!

I use the Brown one!

[blueshiftoverwatch]

My IT Technician at school has 1 solution to everything.

Turn it off and turn it back on again.
You'd be surprised at how effective that is. Not only that, but opening up the case, unplugging all of the components, and plugging them back in again works in a surprising number of situations as well. One day my USB slots suddenly stopped working. I unplugged and replugged them back in and they've been working ever since.

Even with Linux, you don't need to restart nearly as often as on Windows because many of the components are modular and can be restarted via the command line without restarting the entire system. But, often it's faster just to reboot the system than it is to look up the command to reboot the specific background progress.

[Tux.Ice]

I hear people all the time "He hacked my facebook" "she hacked my facebook" etc. If your password is 'carrot' and somebody guesses it, thats not hacking in my opinion. Same for the auto login stuff.

[rottentree]

I hear people all the time "He hacked my facebook" "she hacked my facebook" etc. If your password is 'carrot' and somebody guesses it, thats not hacking in my opinion. Same for the auto login stuff.

I remember a similar situation where a dude's security question was 'What's your favourite football team?'
It wasn't hard to guess you just had to check what team he is a fan of on his social site's page :D

[markp1989]

I hear people all the time "He hacked my facebook" "she hacked my facebook" etc. If your password is 'carrot' and somebody guesses it, thats not hacking in my opinion. Same for the auto login stuff.

i know, or worse when some one has a fall out with some one who knows there password and gets "hacked", when its not hacking if they already know the password

[chriswyatt]

Our IT teacher (of all people) used to say "log on to Word". :lolflag:

[chriswyatt]

i know, or worse when some one has a fall out with some one who knows there password and gets "hacked", when its not hacking if they already know the password

To some people just opening up a command line is 'hacking' :)

[chriswyatt]

people ask me for my help as to why there computer is so slow. they say, "well my son has all this useless music on the computer and it's using up all the memory." they think just cause the hard drive is getting full that's the reason it's running so slow.
HA HA, i think to myself. Poor kid's mom or dad ends up erasing all their music not realizing that hard disk space has nothing to do with with slow IE browsing and taking forever to boot up.

My parents think this as well. My mum wouldn't let me install stuff on the computer because she said it would 'slow it down'. Only if it's memory resident and gobbling up CPU would it really have any noticeable effect, but she doesn't know this. I tried explaining it to her but in the end I just gave up.

And someone else mentioned whenever things go wrong that people automatically assume it's a virus, I hear this a lot as well.

[RATM_Owns]

My dad doesn't like having Firefox installed (on Windows) because he says:
1) If you install Firefox it will slow down Internet Explorer.
2) More people use Internet Explorer, so it's better.

[NightwishFan]

I had an insane support call in person, my friend complained that Firefox broke his Windows and the moment he removed it, it fixed. I told him to be happy and enjoy the adware. (There was no helping someone that does not want to be helped.)

[Blackmag+c]

can you search the internet? :o :o

Uhhh, yeh...

[Swagman]

I had an insane support call in person, my friend complained that Firefox broke his Windows and the moment he removed it, it fixed. I told him to be happy and enjoy the adware. (There was no helping someone that does not want to be helped.)

Sounds like a classic case of an ID 10T fault.

[themarker0]

The best i heard was after explain to my ISP that our intenet was done, and my dad (Who used to run a dial up ISP) told them exactly what was wrong they said "Thats a problem bell is having at the moment, not us, you are calling the wrong number sir." Which i found funny since we had to verify the account before they would do anything.

[ericmc783]

A certain feature of Microsoft Office (whether it be word, excel, outlook, etc), isn't working, and the user says "I wonder if I might have some sort of virus on my computer".


lol.

[bear24rw]

My roommate was in an interview

Roommate: "yeah i use Linux a lot at home"
Interviewer: "eh, yeah we use AutoCAD"

[mkendall]

And I use Linux, too - I use the green one.

It's people. Linux Green is made out of people. They're making our OSes out of people. Next thing they'll be breeding us like cattle for kernals. You've gotta tell them. You've gotta tell them!

[ssj6akshat]

I remember when our modem was giving problems,while I was away for playing football two BSNL guys came and opened up my computer(I had auto login enabled) spent 2 or 3 hours installing stupid drivers but it wouldn't install.When I came back home i had a hard time explaining why their drivers weren't installing and it was a modem problem.

They thought Ubuntu was custom theme over windows.:lolflag:

[chriswyatt]

I recommended someone once defragment their computer as they hadn't done it since buying and I said it might speed it up a little. Anyway, they lost a file, blamed it on the defragmenter and probably have never run it since :).

[Tanayar]

"Yeah, I have linux, I hate it though, I have the white one."


Makes me think of eee pc 900, linux version.. :lolflag:


I remember when our modem was giving problems,while I was away for playing football two BSNL guys came and opened up my computer(I had auto login enabled) spent 2 or 3 hours installing stupid drivers but it wouldn't install.When I came back home i had a hard time explaining why their drivers weren't installing and it was a modem problem.

They thought Ubuntu was custom theme over windows.:lolflag:

Hahahaha, rofl :lolflag:

[lisati]

I remember when our modem was giving problems,while I was away for playing football two BSNL guys came and opened up my computer(I had auto login enabled) spent 2 or 3 hours installing stupid drivers but it wouldn't install.When I came back home i had a hard time explaining why their drivers weren't installing and it was a modem problem.

They thought Ubuntu was custom theme over windows.:lolflag:

This reminds me of the time I received an unsolicited CD in the mail for an online casino. A quick browse of the disk showed it to contain Windows software, so I fired off a polite email to them thanking them for the disk, pointing out that it wouldn't work on my system because I use Ubuntu, along with a link to the main Ubuntu website. They didn't get it straight away, and sent me instructions on getting it working in Windows. Another polite email, "sorry, that won't work". The exchanged continued in a similar vein for a few more emails ](*,) until someone at their end finally clicked, and sent me a very apologetic email..... :D

[trig]

Hello I T... Have you turned it off and on again... IS there a glowing light..... Look under the table see if it is plugged in.... go under the table .... plug it in...

LOVE THE IT CROWD

[fromthehill]

Hello I T... Have you turned it off and on again... IS there a glowing light..... Look under the table see if it is plugged in.... go under the table .... plug it in...

this happens too often :(

people get very aggressive when you point out something so obvious

[Glucklich]

dragos, your signature can be taken out of context, REAL fast.

I suggest taking out the "I came." part.

No it doesn't. For that to happen it would have to be: "I overreacted, I came, I saw, I returned."

[arnab_das]

here's the funniest thing i heard. was around 10-15 years back, and my friend had gotten a new PC which he had kept in the corridor. his mom asked him to keep the cabinet and monitor inside the room or it would get 'infected by viruses'. :P

[chriswyatt]

Me sitting at a blue screen at school. "(Me) what have you done to my computer?" At this point, she sent me down to the principal's office.

LoL, this reminds me of when I was using my Grandad's old Windows 95 PC and I got a BSOD. I pressed "Continue using Windows" or whatever the option was and it returned to the Windows GUI and all the icon positions on his desktop reset, he had everything positioned and neatly categorised, and of course I got the blame for them being moved.

I told them Windows did it but they didn't believe me, stupid Windows.

My Grandad was the only person I knew who had the internet around that time so I used to love going on his PC :D

[chriswyatt]

here's the funniest thing i heard. was around 10-15 years back, and my friend had gotten a new PC which he had kept in the corridor. his mom asked him to keep the cabinet and monitor inside the room or it would get 'infected by viruses'. :P

:lolflag:

I hope she was making a funny :)

[chriswyatt]

I just remembered another thing actually (sorry for consecutive posts, I know they're generally frowned upon)

I remember installing some crappy DOS game from a CD and it buggered up our computer, it was some Wizard game, anyway it modified AUTOEXEC.BAT or CONFIG.SYS and the computer refused to reboot. Anyway, I expected I was going to get in loads of trouble but my mum was actually cool about it, I couldn't believe it :confused: :O.

I think I managed to fix it in the end.

[Phrea]

My IT Technician at school has 1 solution to everything.

Turn it off and turn it back on again.

That's all I have ever seen him do aside from Windows updates!

Reminds me of The IT Crowd.

[Doctor Mike]

To some people just opening up a command line is 'hacking' :)
Knowingly entering someone's account without their knowledge and consent is criminal behaviour, not hacking. Hacking is not criminal behaviour, there are other words to describe that.

Hacking means: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hacker_(programmer_subculture)

[Firestem4]

Yeah, or "the CPU". I love those.


It's technically correct calling a Computer a CPU. It is not commonly referred to that anymore because the term CPU does directly refer to the Processor. But a computer *is* a Central, Processing, Unit. The Processor can't do anything without information fed to it by instructions run from a program which are on your HDD, loaded into memory, and then displayed on screen etc.

[Phrea]

It's technically correct calling a Computer a CPU. It is not commonly referred to that anymore because the term CPU does directly refer to the Processor. But a computer *is* a Central, Processing, Unit. The Processor can't do anything without information fed to it by instructions run from a program which are on your HDD, loaded into memory, and then displayed on screen etc.

Very true, it's actually a pretty sweet word for that black/beige box under our desks. :)

[BslBryan]

My mother: Will Windows work with Ubuntu?

[Chronon]

It's technically correct calling a Computer a CPU. It is not commonly referred to that anymore because the term CPU does directly refer to the Processor. But a computer *is* a Central, Processing, Unit. The Processor can't do anything without information fed to it by instructions run from a program which are on your HDD, loaded into memory, and then displayed on screen etc.

A processor's job is to perform logical operations. Storage, I/O, et cetera, don't have anything to do with a processor. A brain can't do anything either without I/O streams, yet we don't normally use the term "brain" to refer to an entire nervous system complete with sensory organs, musculature, etc.

[Doctor Mike]

My mother: Will Windows work with Ubuntu?
Re: Really geeky jokes +
The richest man in the world decide to buy a computer. Being the richest man in the world he decided to hire the smartest computer geek on the planet. The smartest computer geek on the planet (place name here) built a super computer that the NSA would die to have. He installed the most powerful and stable OS's in the world. A year after the project started he was done and he had created the ultimate super system.

The richest man in the world came to claim his toy. The smartest computer geek extolled the virtues of his creation describing the true power it would bring to the richest man in the world.

The richest man in the world studied the system for some time then asked, "How do I install windows"?

The smartest computer geek in the world began to vibrate and then vaporized into an explosive spontaneous combustive explosion.

The richest man in the world looked at the pink mist floating in the air, that was the smartest computer geek in the world, and said, "I guess you weren't windows compatible".


(original Doctor Mike 2010)

[earthpigg]

I remember when our modem was giving problems,while I was away for playing football two BSNL guys came and opened up my computer(I had auto login enabled) spent 2 or 3 hours installing stupid drivers but it wouldn't install.When I came back home i had a hard time explaining why their drivers weren't installing and it was a modem problem.

They thought Ubuntu was custom theme over windows.:lolflag:

i saw someone that had been given a free Ubuntu laptop from a family friend.

his desktop was full of .exe files - drivers for his wireless card.

all that needed to be done was enabling proprietary drivers.

[chappajar]

It's technically correct calling a Computer a CPU. It is not commonly referred to that anymore because the term CPU does directly refer to the Processor. But a computer *is* a Central, Processing, Unit. The Processor can't do anything without information fed to it by instructions run from a program which are on your HDD, loaded into memory, and then displayed on screen etc.

I disagree. The CPU is the CPU, not the whole computer.
The English definition for Unit might be able to fit both CPU and a computer (from the point of view of a dictionary), but that doesn't make it correct.
CPU is the central processor, it never correctly means the whole computer.

[CharlesA]

I disagree. The CPU is the CPU, not the whole computer.
The English definition for Unit might be able to fit both CPU and a computer (from the point of view of a dictionary), but that doesn't make it correct.
CPU is the central processor, it never correctly means the whole computer.

What would you call it then? The box with lights?

[chriswyatt]

What would you call it then? The box with lights?

I'd just call it a PC.

[CharlesA]

I'd just call it a PC.

Heh. That's the logical name for it I suppose. I support people who aren't technologically savey apparently, since I usually have to call it the "box under the monitor."

*shakes head*

[chappajar]

What would you call it then? The box with lights?

A computer.

[lisati]

Isn't language wonderful, with its shades of meaning? :)

[Old Marcus]

"What do you call that metal box, sitting on a metal frame which in turn is attached to a set of wheels, and has an engine in the front?"

"Um, a car?"

I mean, seriously.

[MichealH]

Whenever I talk Ubuntu someone always thinks linux is one big commandline. I say no It isnt it has a GUI to do the stuff in the terminal behind it - a bit like Windows but then they say lots more excuses in favour of Windows.

Why do people do this?

[c00lwaterz]

old times: you play computer, computer = games
Now: You use computer? computer = internet

[NightwishFan]

Someone once told me that gaming systems were not computers. I saw no point in correcting them.

[3rdalbum]

Whenever I talk Ubuntu someone always thinks linux is one big commandline. I say no It isnt it has a GUI to do the stuff in the terminal behind it - a bit like Windows but then they say lots more excuses in favour of Windows.

Why do people do this?

People don't like learning new things, and they don't like having to be a newb again.

[MichealH]

People don't like learning new things, and they don't like having to be a newb again.

I am really then the only one who wants to be a newbie again and start from scratch. I want to try it with Macs but thy're £1500 over here. o_O

[m4tic]

The thing i hate most is when people ask me how much it will cost them to access google on their phone.

[itreius]

Whenever I talk Ubuntu someone always thinks linux is one big commandline.
I suggest you look at the links in your own signature. That's why.

[Tristam Green]

about restarting the machine:


You'd be surprised at how effective that is. Not only that, but opening up the case, unplugging all of the components, and plugging them back in again works in a surprising number of situations as well. One day my USB slots suddenly stopped working. I unplugged and replugged them back in and they've been working ever since.

Even with Linux, you don't need to restart nearly as often as on Windows because many of the components are modular and can be restarted via the command line without restarting the entire system. But, often it's faster just to reboot the system than it is to look up the command to reboot the specific background progress.

++

[red_Marvin]

I suggest you look at the links in your own signature. That's why.

He has two links which describes how to install certain things from the command line, it is not as if they are mandatory for using ubuntu.

On the note on 'cpu' vs 'computer' for that box under the desk I guess there is a possibility that it is called cpu for historical reasons from when computers where much bigger and separated into multiple boxes. But on the other hand, if somebody has used such a machine I think they would know enough about computer technology to know the difference, so I don't know...

[dannyboy79]

I am really then the only one who wants to be a newbie again and start from scratch. I want to try it with Macs but thy're £1500 over here. o_O
i have a powerbook g5 running OSX 10.5 (I think) for sale. it's a 17" laptop. not sure how big the hard drive is or how much ram is in it. it's my dad's old one. it has a PPC chip in it, NO intel yet. want it for $500?

[Groucho Marxist]

I laugh any time someone says "Internets" outside of an ironic context.

[lisati]

But on the other han, if somebody has used such a machine I think they would know enough about computer technology to know the difference, so I don't know...

Sometimes old habits are hard to break, particularly the misguided ones. :)
(/me thinks back fondly to my first experiences with things like teletypes, punched cards, tape drives, and other such gadgets)

[drreed]

I wrote some data analysis software for these phd chemists to use in their research. They're all pretty smart dudes too - between them they have hundreds of patents for fluids they've created. (I'm the dummy in that room)

After I showed one of them how to pull up the package from his desktop, and got him all set up, I returned to my office to work on other things (it was a little side project)

About an hour later I got a call:

"This computer is beeping at me and I can't figure out why."

So I drive back over there, feeling a little embarrassed that I'd missed something as big as that. My program didn't use sound, what the heck had I done?

I get there, sit down, and there in front of me, beside his monitor, was a pager/beeper with a flashing red light!

He was off in the lab somewhere, so I left him a post-it note - "Dr. Bob - check the messages on your pager"

He didn't call me for like 3 weeks after that.

[TheNerdAL]

I wrote some data analysis software for these phd chemists to use in their research. They're all pretty smart dudes too - between them they have hundreds of patents for fluids they've created. (I'm the dummy in that room)

After I showed one of them how to pull up the package from his desktop, and got him all set up, I returned to my office to work on other things (it was a little side project)

About an hour later I got a call:

"This computer is beeping at me and I can't figure out why."

So I drive back over there, feeling a little embarrassed that I'd missed something as big as that. My program didn't use sound, what the heck had I done?

I get there, sit down, and there in front of me, beside his monitor, was a pager/beeper with a flashing red light!

He was off in the lab somewhere, so I left him a post-it note - "Dr. Bob - check the messages on your pager"

He didn't call me for like 3 weeks after that.
:lolflag:

[cbecker78]

Speaking of moronic chemists and custom software:

We had a company provide us with a GUI for our instrument. they came, installed the software had everything working well. I was really excited to be collecting data. Over the weekend, we had a power outage and no matter what, I could not get the software to establish connection to the instrument again. We tried everything over the phone. He kept asking, "and you're sure the tower is on." Of course, I'm not an idiot, it was on.

After 40 minutes of restarting and trouble shooting over the phone, it turns out that what was not on was the tower under the desk. Frustrated I said, "why on earth do I need to turn on that old computer?" Turns out "that old computer" was actually just the case they used to hold the PCI expansion board so we could add the labview card (what actually talks to the instrument) and some other card to the system. If I had looked, the large cable between the two towers might have clued me in. I felt like the biggest tool.

Of course, he could have mentioned earlier I was supposed to be turning on two things. Silly computer guy... assuming I had half a clue about what I was doing...:P

:oops:

[Doctor Mike]

I laugh any time someone says "Internets" outside of an ironic context.Yes, but there were webs and people who inputted data on gopher didn't understand the difference? Including a few physicists I know and I did development/conversion work for...

[JC Cheloven]

Teaching how to browse the web (daughter to his 60 y.o. mum):
- (...) and sometimes a little window do appear. You need to click "yes" one or more times till it disappear.

[Brent0]

I found this a while back while searching for a way to get rid of "Antivirus XP", a rogue program that comes with some Trojan Horse viruses! :)

http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20081130123314AAe3klv

I thought this was sad and hilarious at the same time.

[TheNerdAL]

My sisters think downloading too much things on your hard drive makes it slow. It's how much memory you have that makes it slow...I think, right? Correct me if I'm wrong. :P So anyways, my sister is using her laptop that cost around maybe $800 only for Internet Explorer and Microsoft Word. -.-

[NightwishFan]

From my experience Windows Xp does not really scale well to big hardware, so it wont take much advantage from having a lot of RAM. You need something new like Vista or 7 which need a lot of ram. (I am sure you can trim them though). It is hard to tell people they really do not need a powerful machine. I would rather have something solid and efficient. (Thats what I bought, and since it runs Linux I can scale it to my needs).

[Khakilang]

1st man: I think my software have some bugs.
2nd. man: Why don't you kill it with Ridsect?

[Chronon]

1st man: I think my software have some bugs.
2nd. man: Why don't you kill it with Ridsect?

That is both funny and historically relevant. :D

[kaldor]

I don't get it. People always treat computers as soooo hard to use and are totally STUPID with it when they'd be smart with anything else. My dad keeps calling the computer the "hard drive" and calls storage devices (like external drives) "USBs". I explain to him they are hard drives, but he can't understand it; they're just USBs.

My mother is a smart person, but with computers she drives me mad. She *always* asks for help with the simplest of things and always gets aggressive saying stuff like "I don't want to learn this!" when I try to help her. In time, I give up and say "if you don't want to learn it, then stop calling me for help and never touch your machine again."

Look at cooking. People make food by mixing lots of ingredients and different methods every day without thinking about it. People turn on a TV and change channels without even thinking about it. People bring a car to a garage to get parts/fixes without thinking about it. They set up stuff, build stuff, do everything. But oh lord, computers.. leave that to the "techies". The stuff I have to do when helping my parents is rediculously stupid... I get so frustrated when I hear "this is too complicated!" over something like "right click, press copy". Like holy crap, it's just a machine.

And then my parents praise my technical knowledge. They'll ask a question and I'll say "I plug your printer into my laptop to print quickly so I don't need to copy files to your PC just to print them" and I'll get a response like "*chuckle* my god, you've got some good grasp on technology! This is all too advanced for me."

Rant.

[quinnten83]

My IT Technician at school has 1 solution to everything.

Turn it off and turn it back on again.



Don't knock it if it works :lolflag:

[NightwishFan]

Kaldor I know what you mean. People I help say 'Wait wait you're going too fast!!' before I even get started. Then I slowly tell them.
C l i c k t h e b u t t o n l a b e l e d c a n c e l. I almost have to become aggressive to get people to calm down and listen to me. I have learned to just explain things as simply as possible, though most of the people I help use Ubuntu so it is no problem. :)

[drreed]

My mother is a smart person, but with computers she drives me mad. She *always* asks for help with the simplest of things and always gets aggressive saying stuff like "I don't want to learn this!" when I try to help her.

My 79yr-old mom uses Xubuntu.

The other day she told me her menus disappeared and she couldn't do anything. (Remember she's 79 3/4)

I go over and sure enough, the Applications menu is gone. Quick fix. Then I looked to see what she was doing and when I clicked on her minimized mahjong game, I discovered she had 17 COPIES of mahjong running, plus 5 solitaires (and a browser, and some other game too) LOL

So I showed her how to restart the game, or start a new one, without going to APP-GAMES on the menu each time and not closing the other game.

If she was still on Windows XP, that machine would have frozen to death on the 7th copy of mahjong!

:guitar:

[standingwave]

I discovered she had 17 COPIES of mahjong running, plus 5 solitaires (and a browser, and some other game too) LOL

Idea #20972 (http://brainstorm.ubuntu.com/idea/20972/)

Not a terrible idea.

[NightwishFan]

I think the gnome shell already implements this. You have to tell it to start a new session of a program.

[xir_]

My old man always says to me "the computer did it by itself". That is one thing people say that drives me mad.

[Jose Catre-Vandis]

I'd just call it a PC.

I'm a PC ;)

[3rdalbum]

My old man always says to me "the computer did it by itself". That is one thing people say that drives me mad.

"I was typing an e-mail, and it just disappeared"

[cbecker78]

"I was typing an e-mail, and it just disappeared"

HAHA! Hey, that can actually happen!

From Last night:


"My little fox went to Africa. Can you make him come back?"-My wife after installing itunes, and seeing that all her email links now opened in some program called "Safari", instead of firefox.

[whiskeylover]

HAHA! Hey, that can actually happen!

From Last night:

-My wife after installing itunes, and seeing that all her email links now opened in some program called "Safari", instead of firefox.

I hate iTunes just for that. They try to sneak in an install of Safari and QT along with each and every update of iTunes (which happens around 2304723097409 times a week)

[Khakilang]

Another one.

Mom: Son! Could you clean up the window please.
Son: Sure Mom! Click Start > Accessories > System Tools > Clean Up

[Khakilang]

Another one.

Mom: Son! Could you clean up the window please.
Son: Sure Mom! Click Start > Accessories > System Tools > Clean Up
:lolflag:

[x43234]

My mom keeps saying "FoxFire".

She probably thought it was this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foxfire_books

Of which I have a few. =)

ps: on the PC vs. CPU debate: I've always said: "The Box, No I don't need any of your peripherals. Just the Box and whatever CD's you still have for it." Non- or Quazi- computer literate people seem to understand that better, and doesn't make them feel stupid.

[dannyboy79]

another one.

"I can't get my email because I'm not at home"

little does she know that her roadrunner email can be accessed anywhere she's got an internet connection.

[new_tolinux]

What would you call it then? The box with lights?
"Computer", "system" or "machine", but never "CPU" or "box with lights". Although sometimes I have to explain that the monitor isn't the computer.

I am really then the only one who wants to be a newbie again and start from scratch. I want to try it with Macs but thy're £1500 over here. o_O
For me "learning" DOS was the "best". In the first place because it was the first thing I used, so I didn't know anything else. There was internet, although at least I didn't hear about it until many years later.
I have to admit that although I kinda like to learn Linux, I don't want to do it like I did "DOS" back then. I like to try my way around, and have Windows as a "back-up" in case I want to do something that can't be done on Linux at all, or can't be done on Linux by me.

I also have to admit that it wasn't fun to learn DOS, and I don't call it fun to learn linux either.
Both DOS and Linux have their bad habits and limitations. The most annoying part is when it doesn't work the way I want, which I find is more often the case in Linux than it is with DOS. That could be because I know my way around in DOS and I still use DOS commands in Windows because that's the quickest way for some things to be done.
It could also be that I know the limitations of DOS and to me Linux (as a "modern" OS) should just take any part of hardware and "everything" should be possible with it without any difficulties.

[MichealH]

"Computer", "system" or "machine", but never "CPU" or "box with lights". Although sometimes I have to explain that the monitor isn't the computer.

Not unless its a mac :lolflag:

[Objekt]

My girlfriend's father calls absolutely everything on a Windows machine "Microsoft." Not "Microsoft Internet Explorer" or "Microsoft Word." Just "Microsoft." He even refers to the Firefox browser as "Microsoft."

Fortunately, he hasn't extended the habit to the Linux realm. I introduced him to Ubuntu a few months ago, and have yet to field a single call regarding "why isn't Microsoft working" (meaning Word refusing to open one of its own files, or similar shenanigans).

[whiskeylover]

My girlfriend's father calls absolutely everything on a Windows machine "Microsoft." Not "Microsoft Internet Explorer" or "Microsoft Word." Just "Microsoft." He even refers to the Firefox browser as "Microsoft."

Fortunately, he hasn't extended the habit to the Linux realm. I introduced him to Ubuntu a few months ago, and have yet to field a single call regarding "why isn't Microsoft working" (meaning Word refusing to open one of its own files, or similar shenanigans).

When he does, tell him "That Microsoft isn't compatible with this Microsoft."

[standingwave]

When he does, tell him "That Microsoft isn't compatible with this Microsoft."These marklars want to change your marklar. They don't want marklar or any of these marklars installed on your marklar because it's bad for their marklar. They use marklar to try and force marklars to believe they're marklar. If you let them stay, they will install marklars and marklars. They will take all your marklars and replace them with marklar.

[shawnhcorey]

"Computer", "system" or "machine", but never "CPU" or "box with lights".

I call it the case, you know, like the hardware guys do (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computer_case). I guess I'm just too old fashion. :)

[aysiu]

I've moved some off-topic posts to other threads:
Various opinions about Macs / OS X (http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1453739)
Various opinions about Apple's iPad (http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1444117)

[dragos240]

Nobody actually said anything. But my school sill uses win 98 for most of their computers.

[CharlesA]

Nobody actually said anything. But my school sill uses win 98 for most of their computers.

I feel bad for snickering. :(

[Crunchy the Headcrab]

Nobody actually said anything. But my school sill uses win 98 for most of their computers.
Wow, and you ARE in the USA? No wait, nevermind, that explains it actually.

[dragos240]

I feel bad for snickering. :(

Meh, we have some xp computers. Nothing newer than xp though. We're pretty behind on the times. And people here said that the xp computers at their school were old. We have no computers with ram above 512. Don't feel bad, that's what laptops are for.

[takisan]

I've had an annoying problem by debating with my math teacher.

Teacher: Wait, did you click the mouse, or did you type stuff into a command prompt?
Other student: Clicked.
Teacher: Ha! Windows RULES!!!!!
Myself [getting extremely irritated and annoyed]: YOU CAN STILL LAUNCH A PROGRAM WITH A CLICK ON LINUX!!!!! JUST BECAUSE YOU USE STUFF MADE BY A SMALL GROUP OF PEOPLE IN SEATTLE DOESN'T MAKE IT GOOD!!!!!

Clearly he has no idea.

[tekkidd]

When i was at one of my tech challenged friends' house i noticed he had a new laptop so i asked "why did you buy a new laptop, your old one is only a year old" and he said "the old one got infected with a virus and couldn't boot so i had to buy a new computer"

[CharlesA]

Meh, we have some xp computers. Nothing newer than xp though. We're pretty behind on the times. And people here said that the xp computers at their school were old. We have no computers with ram above 512. Don't feel bad, that's what laptops are for.

Heh, our "upgraded" work machines are around 1.5Ghz with 512 RAM and running XP. It is teh sux.

[lisati]

My girlfriend's father calls absolutely everything on a Windows machine "Microsoft." Not "Microsoft Internet Explorer" or "Microsoft Word." Just "Microsoft." He even refers to the Firefox browser as "Microsoft."

Fortunately, he hasn't extended the habit to the Linux realm. I introduced him to Ubuntu a few months ago, and have yet to field a single call regarding "why isn't Microsoft working" (meaning Word refusing to open one of its own files, or similar shenanigans).

Or how about the people who refer to presentations as power points. We know what they mean, but...... :)

[CharlesA]

Or how about the people who refer to presentations as power points. We know what they mean, but...... :)

Language is a great thing, isn't it? :)

EDIT: When the hell did I become 100% Pure Ubuntu? O_o

[dragos240]

Or how about the people who refer to presentations as power points. We know what they mean, but...... :)

That's everyone I know. I always call them digital presentations.

[lisati]

That's everyone I know. I always call them digital presentations.
It's most of the people I know too.

<off topic>I just hope my mother-in-law isn't too confused with her new laptop, running Windows 7. The other week, after unpacking it for her, setting it up to work with her Wifi connection at home, replacing the trialware copy of Norton (?) with AVG free, I removed the trial-ware copy of MS Office and put on Open Office and Thunderbird. :)</off topic>

[dragos240]

It's most of the people I know too.

<off topic>I just hope my mother-in-law isn't too confused with her new laptop, running Windows 7. The other week, after unpacking it for her, setting it up to work with her Wifi connection at home, replacing the trialware copy of Norton (?) with AVG free, I removed the trial-ware copy of MS Office and put on Open Office and Thunderbird. :)

She'll get used to it. Oh, and you forgot to end your off topic tag.

[Objekt]

These marklars want to change your marklar. They don't want marklar or any of these marklars installed on your marklar because it's bad for their marklar. They use marklar to try and force marklars to believe they're marklar. If you let them stay, they will install marklars and marklars. They will take all your marklars and replace them with marklar.

You know, I was thinking exactly that, but I wasn't sure anyone else would get the reference. Get out of my brain, would you? :P

[MichealH]

Meh, we have some xp computers. Nothing newer than xp though. We're pretty behind on the times. And people here said that the xp computers at their school were old. We have no computers with ram above 512. Don't feel bad, that's what laptops are for.

Hmm... Win 7 on school computers anyone? We have ha!

[Berk]

My college boasts, as part of their prospectus, "a fully up to date computer suite" or something very close.
Shame the useless sods still run windows xp throughout, and in some cases IE6 which their own intranet isn't compatible with.

Best line i think from the library IT person was "of course you can't connect to that web site, the monitor is unplugged from the computer", when my gf was asking if there were any connection issues as she couldn't access an external site on her laptop, into which she had plugged the monitor from the computer she had booked so she could dual screen.
So much for IT staff with a clue.

[cbecker78]

another one.

"I can't get my email because I'm not at home"

little does she know that her roadrunner email can be accessed anywhere she's got an internet connection.

Same thing but even worse: I once opened up internet explorer on my mom-in-law's PC when she was there and logged into my email on yahoo. She immediately got mad and told me not to look in her email. She literally thought that IE was her personal email client. When I showed her I was in my own email, she got even madder and thought I had deleted her email account. It took a few minutes to get that all sorted out. But in the end she was very happy to learn that she could access her email anywhere.

We also learned that day that it is a good idea to have a different password for your email and your computer login if you are going to be giving that login away to anyone who comes over and uses the computer.

:lolflag:

[Objekt]

Some people, despite years of email use on many different systems, simply cannot grasp the concept of an electronic address book. That it is entirely analagous to a little black book, with the reliability of simply clicking on someone's address rather than typing it, is lost on them. They would rather manually type in the recipient's address Every. Last. Time.

You're lucky (or unlucky, depending on how you look at it) to get email from these people half the time, since they have the opportunity to misspell your address with every message. I have become deaf to their complaints of returned emails, inevitably due to mistyped addresses.

[cph05a]

When I was in high school, we used to leave this running in full screen on my geography teacher's desktop. Invariably she would check her ethernet cable after clicking on ie.

http://www.deanliou.com/WinRG/27549_winrg.swf

[chriswyatt]

When I was in high school, we used to leave this running in full screen on my geography teacher's desktop. Invariably she would check her ethernet cable after clicking on ie.

http://www.deanliou.com/WinRG/27549_winrg.swf

That's great :)

[Phrea]

My dad refers to selecting text as 'making the text blue'.
And when I want one of my parents to open a browser, I always say that they have to open Google [which is set as home on their browsers].

When my dad got his first 'modern' pc, about 10 years ago, he said that it didn't look like the Windows at his work.
They ran RedHat at his work.

A long time ago, I chatted with this dude who said that he ran 'Slakware' on his computer. I told him it's 'Slackware', even showed him the site.
He didn't believe me. :D

[lisati]

Oh, and you forgot to end your off topic tag.

Fixed

[lisati]

When I was in high school, we used to leave this running in full screen on my geography teacher's desktop. Invariably she would check her ethernet cable after clicking on ie.

http://www.deanliou.com/WinRG/27549_winrg.swf

Classic!

[new_tolinux]

A long time ago, I chatted with this dude who said that he ran 'Slakware' on his computer. I told him it's 'Slackware', even showed him the site.
He didn't believe me. :D
Isn't that the same?

As "slak" is Dutch for "snail", which are not best known for their speed ;)

[lisati]

Isn't that the same?

As "slak" is Dutch for "snail", which are not best known for their speed ;)

And if a speaker of English isn't paying attention, they might mistakenly think the Dutch speaker said "slug", referring to a creature that looks a bit like a snail without its shell. :)

[new_tolinux]

And if a speaker of English isn't paying attention, they might mistakenly think the Dutch speaker said "slug", referring to a creature that looks a bit like a snail without its shell. :)
That would really be some case of not paying attention, since the "a" in "slak" is pronounced the same as the "a" in "ball" is.

[lisati]

That would really be some case of not paying attention, since the "a" in "slak" is pronounced the same as the "a" in "ball" is.

True! :)

[Nickedynick]

They would rather manually type in the recipient's address Every. Last. Time.

Similar to this, my girlfriend insists on going to google.co.uk to search for stuff even though she knows that the Firefox address bar does exactly the same thing - that annoys me every time she does it :P It also extends to the search bar on my Android phone ](*,)

[MichealH]

It's most of the people I know too.

<off topic>I just hope my mother-in-law isn't too confused with her new laptop, running Windows 7. The other week, after unpacking it for her, setting it up to work with her Wifi connection at home, replacing the trialware copy of Norton (?) with AVG free, I removed the trial-ware copy of MS Office and put on Open Office and Thunderbird. :)</off topic>

Naa, Try out avast! Antivirus it is good and free. Also Its for linux :D (and Windows)


When my dad got his first 'modern' pc, about 10 years ago, he said that it didn't look like the Windows at his work.
They ran RedHat at his work.

Another case of mixing Windows with Linux :D


Isn't that the same?

As "slak" is Dutch for "snail", which are not best known for their speed ;)

lol

[Objekt]

Here's one from waaaaaay back in the mid-1990's that I just remembered: A friend was convinced that you should immediately disconnect from a BBS if you saw your computer's hard drive light turn on, because it meant someone was "hacking" you. Never did figure out where that came from.

[dragos240]

Isn't a BBS a forum?

[new_tolinux]

Isn't a BBS a forum?
Sometimes a forum is also referred to as a BBS, but according to wikipedia:


A Bulletin Board System, or BBS, is a computer (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computer) system (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Host_%28network%29) running software (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_BBS_software) that allows users (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_%28computing%29) to connect (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telecommunication_circuit) and log in (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Logging_%28computer_security%29) to the system using a terminal program (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terminal_program). Once logged in, a user (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_%28computing%29) can perform functions such as uploading and downloading (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uploading_and_downloading) software and data, reading news and bulletins, and exchanging messages with other users (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_%28computing%29), either through electronic mail (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electronic_mail) or in public message boards (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Message_boards). Many BBSes also offer on-line games (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BBS_door), in which users can compete with each other, and BBSes with multiple phone lines often provide chat rooms (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chat_room), allowing users to interact with each other.
Originally BBSes were accessed only over a phone line (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_switched_telephone_network) using a modem (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Modem), but by the early 1990s some BBSes allowed access via a Telnet (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telnet), packet switched network (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Packet_switched_network), or packet radio (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Packet_radio) connection.
The term "Bulletin Board System" itself is a reference to the traditional cork-and-pin bulletin board (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bulletin_board) often found in entrances of supermarkets, schools, libraries or other public areas where people can post messages, advertisements, or community news.
During their heyday from the late 1970s to the mid 1990s, most BBSes were run as a hobby (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hobby) free of charge by the system operator (or "SysOp (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SysOp)"), while other BBSes charged their users a subscription fee for access, or were operated by a business as a means of supporting their customers. Bulletin Board Systems were in many ways a precursor to the modern form of the World Wide Web (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Wide_Web) and other aspects of the Internet (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet).
Early BBSes were often a local phenomenon, as one had to dial into a BBS with a phone line and would have to pay additional long distance charges for a BBS out of the local calling area. Thus, many users (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_%28computing%29) of a given BBS usually lived in the same area, and activities such as BBS Meets or Get Togethers, where everyone from the board would gather and meet face to face, were common.
As the use of the Internet became more widespread in the mid to late 1990s, traditional BBSes rapidly faded in popularity. Today, Internet forums (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_forum) occupy much of the same social and technological space as BBSes did, and the term BBS is often used to refer to any online forum or message board.

Although BBSing survives only as a niche hobby in most parts of the world, it is still an extremely popular form of communication for Taiwanese youth (see PTT Bulletin Board System (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PTT_Bulletin_Board_System)). Most BBSes are now accessible over telnet (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telnet) and typically offer free email (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Email) accounts, FTP services, IRC (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_Relay_Chat) chat and all of the protocols commonly used on the Internet.

[CharlesA]

Isn't a BBS a forum?

Not exactly.

[Objekt]

Isn't a BBS a forum?

It's the other way around. The Bulletin Board System (BBS) came before the Web, before the Internet actually. Today's Web forums have pretty much replaced what the BBS's did.

Warning: High risk of nostalgia and "in olden days..." type stories. In lieu of me yammering on for hours, please read this Wikipedia article: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bulletin_board_system

You'll thank me later for shielding you from the horrific tales of dialup networking, Zmodem, and the heartbreak of someone picking up the phone in the middle of an hours-long download.

eta: God I feel old. Thanks a bunch you young punks.

[Ebere]

I think my biggest wallbanger that I run into is:
User: I get an error when trying to open a file I (downloaded, someone gave me, etc.)
Me: What happens when you try to open the file?
User: The computer says "Windows can't find the correct program to open the file with, please select the correct program to open this file" what does that mean and what do I do.
Me: (after banging head against wall) That error means that Windows can't find the correct program to open the file with. You need to select the correct program to open that file.
User: Why can't the computer just tell me that?
Me: I don't know... (starts banging head against wall hard enough for there to be bloodstains)

Seems to me it would have taken less work, and caused less frustrations on both ends of the conversation... If you had simply asked her/him what kind of file it was.

"What is the last three letters of the filename", if s/he needs even -that- simplified.

No blood. No headaches, and fustration cut very short...

[Objekt]

Seems to me it would have taken less work, and caused less frustrations on both ends of the conversation... If you had simply asked her/him what kind of file it was.

"What is the last three letters of the filename", if s/he needs even -that- simplified.

No blood. No headaches, and fustration cut very short...

That won't work with a non-savvy user and a stock Windows install. Windows has defaulted to HIDING filename extensions since at least Windows 95.

I realize MS was trying to make computers "friendlier," but they did no one any favors by obfuscating file types. We're no longer tied to 11-character MS-DOS filenames, but for pity's sake, there is still a lot of Windows software that depends on what comes after the . to tell what type of file it is. It just confuses matters to hide the extension. That should not be the default behavior.

[lisati]

Seems to me it would have taken less work, and caused less frustrations on both ends of the conversation... If you had simply asked her/him what kind of file it was.

"What is the last three letters of the filename", if s/he needs even -that- simplified.

No blood. No headaches, and fustration cut very short...

Sometimes the file extension is irrelevant.

I remember reading a magazine article in the 1980s about a tech support guy being called in to help when someone whose autoexec.bat file on an MS-DOS system was apparently being ignored. It turned out that the user's system had been patched to call up what at first sight looked like a regular .bat file, but which had been designed so that if it was run like a program instead of being called up from the command line it would do something different.

[mkendall]

eta: God I feel old. Thanks a bunch you young punks.

That's what you get for letting the little bastards on your lawn.

[Objekt]

That's what you get for letting the little bastards on your lawn.

I distinctly remember telling those kids to stay off my lawn!

<shakes cane menacingly>

In 1992, our modems only transmitted 2.4 kilobits per second, and that was the way we liked it!

[damis648]

I suppose none of you have seen this (http://rinkworks.com/stupid/) site? Most of it is quite amusing, but at the same time most makes you want to repeatedly bang your head on your desk.

[Ebere]

That won't work with a non-savvy user and a stock Windows install. Windows has defaulted to HIDING filename extensions since at least Windows 95.

I realize MS was trying to make computers "friendlier," but they did no one any favors by obfuscating file types. We're no longer tied to 11-character MS-DOS filenames, but for pity's sake, there is still a lot of Windows software that depends on what comes after the . to tell what type of file it is. It just confuses matters to hide the extension. That should not be the default behavior.

Ah.

That is correct.

Thank you.

[Ebere]

Fixed

So in other words...

You read, you scrolled, you fixed.

;)

[chriswyatt]

"Press any key. Where's the any key?" :lolflag:

[Khakilang]

What is the different between a "Enter key" and "Return key"?

[cariboo]

"Press any key. Where's the any key?" :lolflag:

Right here:

http://imgur.com/XODNO.jpg

[KTK]

I usually have to refer to the main "tower" as "the box under the monitor." I've had people call it the modem, hard drive, "box with lights" etc.

Fun times!

A number of the secretaries at the office where I work have their mini-desktop cases under their desks, lying flat on the floor in the back of the kneehole, so they can use them as footrests. Since they never do a hard reboot, it works . . . for a while.

[KTK]

I worked like web-developer on few occasions.. part-time job, on and off.

And I found so many people that so careless about Internet security. I had few people who basically where giving away their passwords to me... and to anything.. their e-mail, their computer, their whatever you can think of....
I always tried to explain to them they should be careful with such information, keep it private... but again and again there is someone who do it.
I might be a honest person and would not do anything bad to them. But some people can take advantage of them this way.

I once mistakenly sent a "SUBSCRIBE" message to an unprotected listserve, and it went out across the list (yeah - my mistake and theirs).

I was inundated with messages from members attempting to obey the message they had received, ordering them to "SUBSCRIBE". They sent me their names, addresses, passwords . . . .

[Penguin Guy]

There is a restaurant near my place called "Firefly". I keep calling it Firefox in front of my wife, like "You wanna eat at Firefox tonight?". And she's like "It's Firefly!". I'm like "Hehe"
No comment.

[lisati]

I once mistakenly sent a "SUBSCRIBE" message to an unprotected listserve, and it went out across the list (yeah - my mistake and theirs).

I was inundated with messages from members attempting to obey the message they had received, ordering them to "SUBSCRIBE". They sent me their names, addresses, passwords . . . .

I once mistakenly did a "reply to all" when reacting to a virus sent out through a mailing list run by the ISP I was using at the time. The backscatter kept coming in for over a year. Some of it wasn't particularly polite.

[dragos240]

Me and my brother are polar opposites. Today he asked me "Could I play Half Life 2 on my netbook?"
I told him that it doesn't have a powerful enough graphics card. "Oh, where can I download a better one?" he responded.

[NightwishFan]

I used to think I could somehow optimize my Windows Me into playing newer games. :)

[themarker0]

Two from me, in one hour!

I was talking to bell
"Do you have any linux phones?"
"No just regular and Android phones"

And my friend

"I just got a dell!"
"Cool, which one?"
"I dunno, a black one!"


Hehehe.

[toupeiro]

When I was doing IT helpdesk many years ago, there used to be this guy named Lucky that worked in a chem. lab that would always call in and say "Hey, do you think you could turn the dial up on the network today, its really running a little slow. Don't know why y'all keep turnin' it down." It'd just make me smile.

[pricetech]

My mom keeps saying "FoxFire".

Probably referring to a series of books.

[pricetech]

My latest adventure;
One of our users lost her documents. She had not logged in to the network properly and her home drive had not mapped. To further aggravate the issue she had moved her My Documents back to its default location.

Once I determined what the problem was, and was trying to explain it to her, she insisted she had done nothing whatsoever to change anything, in spite of me explaining that it couldn't change itself. She finally told me that she and her coworkers were too stupid to know how to do that. (her words, not mine)

I gave up.

[dragos240]

Some people are willing to learn, others aren't.

[Objekt]

My latest adventure;
One of our users lost her documents. She had not logged in to the network properly and her home drive had not mapped. To further aggravate the issue she had moved her My Documents back to its default location.

Once I determined what the problem was, and was trying to explain it to her, she insisted she had done nothing whatsoever to change anything, in spite of me explaining that it couldn't change itself. She finally told me that she and her coworkers were too stupid to know how to do that. (her words, not mine)

I gave up.

Nothing else you can do, when the user has unwittingly confessed the origin of the problem.

[whiskeylover]

No comment.

But you just did!

[fromthehill]

"I didn't do anything, the desktop changed on it's own"

grandpa who got his desktop changed by clicking start>preferences>display and searched for a picture in a folder other than the default picture folder, then change from stretched to tiled, then clicking ok. he can't do anything with the pc but he managed to do this.


"the computer is completely broken, it doesn't do anything"

my aunt who let me cycle 20 miles to her house to find out her e-mail doesn't sync because she managed to accidently change her password(no clue how she did that)"

sometimes people amaze me

[whiskeylover]

sometimes people amaze me

You should realize that not everybody is tech proficient. Just like not everybody is proficient in fixing a car.

I, for example, can fix just about anything wrong with my computer. But if there is anything wrong with my car, I take it to Valvoline and ask silly questions. I'm sure they must be laughing behind my back too going
"He said he doesn't know how brake pedals work. What a retard!".
"Hehe."

[shawnhcorey]

Way back when PCs had only two 5 1/4" drives, I was teaching some office workers on how to use the machine. I told them to insert the data disk in the the B: drive, the lower one; close the latch and type "dir B:' to see the files. One woman complained that the computer didn't list anything. When I went over and examined the machine, I found the program disk in the A: drive and no data disk; the B: drive was empty. I asked where the data disk was and she said she put in it the drive. Since it was not here, I looked closer at the machine. There was a gap between the drives and, sure enough, that's where I found the data disk. She claim it wasn't her that put it there.

[Objekt]

But you just did!

If I had a nickel for every time I said "If I had a nickel...", I'd be ironically rich.

(With apologies to the unknown original author :))

[cprofitt]

I have to be honest... working in IT I have run in to dozens of these stories. The simple fact is that IT is something we are good at. They (all the people that make these mistakes or use the wrong terminology) all likely have things they are good at as well. They likely would laugh at us if we tried to discuss things relating to their area of expertise.
-----
The good IT person tries to help others not degrade them.

Ubuntu is more than just a distro friends.

[aysiu]

I have to be honest... working in IT I have run in to dozens of these stories. The simple fact is that IT is something we are good at. They (all the people that make these mistakes or use the wrong terminology) all likely have things they are good at as well. They likely would laugh at us if we tried to discuss things relating to their area of expertise.
-----
The good IT person tries to help others not degrade them.

Ubuntu is more than just a distro friends. I agree to a certain extent. We shouldn't make fun of people who are making a genuine effort to have a basic understanding of computers.

At the same time, most people do not have a basic understanding of computers, and these are people who use computers all the time.

Look, I don't know how to make a shirt. I do a little knitting, but nothing complicated. I'm amazed by people's and machines' abilities to make clothing. But I understand basically how clothing works. You should wash it every so often if you want it to stay clean. Don't spill food on it if you don't want it to stain. Certain types of materials are good to wear in the rain. Others are not.

Same deal with cars. I don't know all the parts of the car or the science of how it runs. I still know enough to use a car. I know not to put water or coolant into the gas tank. I know you have to fill up the car with fuel in order to drive it. I know you need to start the car before the gas pedal will make it move forward.

Most people I know, who use computers every day for many hours of the day, do not have a basic understanding of how computers work. I mean basic here. I'm not talking about knowing technical mumbo jumbo. If you can tell a steering wheel is a steering wheel and not a tire, you should be able to tell a computer monitor from an optical drive.

[cprofitt]

Most people I know, who use computers every day for many hours of the day, do not have a basic understanding of how computers work. I mean basic here. I'm not talking about knowing technical mumbo jumbo. If you can tell a steering wheel is a steering wheel and not a tire, you should be able to tell a computer monitor from an optical drive.

I do agree that they should... then again given how they get taught...

[aysiu]

I do agree that they should... then again given how they get taught...
I think it's more what they get taught. The societal messages about computers I see are that if you know basic things about a computer, you are nerdy or geeky or some kind of programming genius; and that if you're a normal person, you should know as little about as computers as possible and ask for computer help from your power user friends or family members.

I see far more often people bragging how little they know about computers than I see people bragging about how little they about cooking, reading, watching TV, skiing, or conversing with other human beings. And these are people who have to work with a computer for 8-10 hours a day during work and then who come home to spend another 1-4 hours on their computer at home. You don't spend 9-14 hours eating. Many people can't afford to work 9 hours of sleep into their daily schedules. God knows many parents can't afford to spend 9-14 hours a day with their children or pets. But there are far too many people who spend 9-14 hours a day in front of a computer screen who don't even know how to avoid trojan viruses, who don't understand the difference between files living on a hard drive, on a shared file server, or in "the cloud," who can't tell the difference between the operating system the programs run on and the programs themselves.

[Wee_Guy]

When using an iBook G3 (without a delete key, only backspace) I found myself explaining to a (fairly young) teacher the difference between the delete and the backspace keys, and then showing her when she didn't believe me. (I was around 9 years old at the time)

[Objekt]

Same deal with cars. I don't know all the parts of the car or the science of how it runs. I still know enough to use a car. I know not to put water or coolant into the gas tank. I know you have to fill up the car with fuel in order to drive it. I know you need to start the car before the gas pedal will make it move forward.

Sadly, there are plenty of people who don't even have a basic understanding of their *car.* I am not just talking about awful driving habits, I mean people who have no concept of what motor oil is, where it goes in, or why it needs to be changed.

[cloyd]

I have thought this is a fascinating thread. I know, I've asked some dumb questions. Then, there is no such thing as a dumb question. I consider myself someone like the person who is not a mechanic, but understands basic common sense things about a car. That is how I use computers. I'm not a geek or a hacker. Wish I could be. I have to say, some of these have been hilarious to me. I went to the computer stupidity site, and some of the things about stupid tech support really rang a bell. Ubuntu forums is better than most tech support because 1) they insist on understanding the problem and 2) they offer solutions other than reinstall the driver, the program, or the operating system.

During my reading, all that I read is getting mixed up. I remember some tech support person telling a customer "stop clicking. Don't do anything until I tell you." I have felt so frustrated trying to understand what my father has done to his computer. He sits in front of the computer, and moves the mouse around, clicking randomly. Click, click, click, click, click, click. No telling what he has done to that machine. It is frustrating. At the same time, I see the humour of these situations. They are people who are worthy of respect and love. They frustrate the hell out of us. That is the way it is.

By the way, has anybody been at this long enough to have used GEOS on a Commodore? I stared on an XT at work, had to switch to a commodore when I went to grad school because it was given to me. GEOS and a ram expansion unit made it usable to me. It made a good word processor and a few other thing. A graphic operating system on a Commodore 64 and 128. Still cumbersome, but effective. Lots of the stories on the computer stupidity site go way back. I've lived some of them. At the same time, I am not near as tech savy as most people on this site. But these are funny, and the people I am laughing at, I really hope t laugh with, because I still make my share of dumb mistakes.

I heartily understand why this thread has gone 23 pages.

[alket]

few years ago a friend of mine came to my house with a floppy disk and asked me to put Counter Strike in it :D

[gabo.cr]

I used to work in technical support for some company, one day a customer called asking for help to get on the Internet. After a few minutes I realized that the customer's computer was off, it had no mouse, and they had no Internet provider yet. But they still wanted help with the Internet, Gosh !

[Jive Turkey]

Hey, don't say that too loudly. There are plenty of new users here who get the error message "Malformed line 8 in /etc/apt/sources.list", and you have to tell them "Well, if you open /etc/apt/sources.list and look at the eighth line, it's incorrect".

Another thing I hate is when Windows users think that positively EVERYTHING that goes wrong with their computer is caused by a virus. If they get spam, then they must have a virus. If their computer is running slower than usual, it's a virus. Ironically, when they get the virus that tells them to buy a (fake) anti-virus program for $80 in order to clean an "infection" off their computer, they don't realise that this itself is the virus!

A variation on that is when someone asks you to fix something, the next novel problem they have is YOUR fault.

[Endomancer]

Oh but I have a paid subscription, I don't need to run a virus scan
my sister

[ndefontenay]

Every year like in most country I guess, there's a computer fair in my country. It's supposed to showcase new technologies.

So I went there and I saw a screen which embedded a microphone and speakers using a modem (it was modem times) I called my mom and said:

"Mom! I'm at the tech fair, calling from a computer. I can see you!"

"Really?! This is fantastic what people can do these days isn't it!"

She never even consider how that was possible without a camera. My friend tried the same prank with his mom and got the exact same reaction.

Computer = magic.

[1roxtar]

As a computer tech, I had received a call from this guy who said he was having problems with his computer and he thought he had several viruses. I was like, "Go ahead and bring me your COMPUTER and I will take a look at it. Lo' and behold, he brings me his MONITOR!!! You should have seen his "deer staring at headlights" expression when I told him that I needed his TOWER.

I then had to go through this 15 minute tutorial explaining to him that his monitor wasn't his "computer". I had to dumb it down so much that I said, "just bring me the big square box that all your wires are connected to and I will take care of your problem. I hated to be so damn condescending but when it was all over, he was happy just to have his computer working again.

The weird thing is that I go through this same scenario lots and lots of times with many of my customers.

:lolflag:

[1roxtar]

I might go to hell for this, but here it goes....

About a year ago, there was a guy who was promoted to our department simply because he was a friend of our boss. He had absolutely no computer knowledge whatsoever. Seriously, I had to show him what button to push on the computer to turn it on.

After, slamming my head against the wall trying to train him, I came up with this evil plan to make him look humiliatingly incompetent for the job. I downloaded a "Blue Screen of Death" screen saver and set it to kick in every minute it sat idle.

Every time the BSOD would pop up on his monitor, he would absolutely panic and yell for me to help him out!!! My boss would follow me into his office to see what the commotion was all about. I would randomly click some keys and Voila!, his computer was "fixed".

Not too soon afterward, I got a pay raise for my computer "expertise" and the other poor guy was left to fade into obscurity. Nevertheless, I wasn't feeling too guilty because when it came to the people he had under him, he was pretty much a ****. I was the KARMA EFFECT!!!

[fromthehill]

You should realize that not everybody is tech proficient. Just like not everybody is proficient in fixing a car.



grandpa who got his desktop changed by clicking start>preferences>display and searched for a picture in a folder other than the default picture folder, then change from stretched to tiled, then clicking ok. he can't do anything with the pc but he managed to do this.

the fact that people who can't turn a computer on manage to do that without knowing and afterwards genuinly believe they didn't do anything. that amazes me :)

[chrisxuk]

It really ****** me off when family members, who aren't as computer illiterate as I, poke my monitors when trying to point something out. Actually touching the screen! It wouldn't be as bad if they just hovered, but actually poking it so you get the ripple effect.

I tell them to stop poking my screen, but they just complain that they wouldn't be able to point whatever it is out O.o

http://i1010.photobucket.com/albums/af225/chriscooper/ffuuuu.jpg

[Paddy Landau]

Some years back, a colleague was worrying that he had lost track of his finances and didn't know how much money he had left to spend before the next pay cheque. A friend of his said, naively, "Why don't you just ask your computer?"

As ndefontenay said, "Computer = magic."

[Angel622]

One of my friends said:"computer is my wife!":)

[d3v1150m471c]

someone on a certain forum thought that his ram amount was his hard drive space.

[dragos240]

"If you download a rickroll you get viruses...."

[CharlesA]

A variation on that is when someone asks you to fix something, the next novel problem they have is YOUR fault.

This is the main reason I've stopped doing freelance tech support. The extra money wasn't worth the pain.

You fix the problem they were having, only to have them screw it up again and blame you that you didn't fix it properly.


It really ****** me off when family members, who aren't as computer illiterate as I, poke my monitors when trying to point something out. Actually touching the screen! It wouldn't be as bad if they just hovered, but actually poking it so you get the ripple effect.

Try that with a touchscreen monitor and you'll get even more annoyed. :)

[lisati]

One of my friends said:"computer is my wife!":)

Mrs Lisati has directed a similar accusation in my direction on more than one occasion.

[dannyboy79]

my girlfriends sister told me she wanted to come over so she could use MS word to modify her resume. She asked if she could borrow a memory stick to put the file on because the only place it was stored was in her yahoo email account.

as simply as possible (so she could grasp the concept), i explained that if it's already stored in her online email service that she can access that file from anywhere she can access the internet.

[Helkaluin]

This isn't really about things being funny because of ignorance, but rather of geekiness:

It's a politics class at school, and we're doing the structure of EU. To keep myself awake I jotted notes in a combination of pseudo C and Bash.

When the teacher mentioned the Economic and Social Committee and started drawing an analogy to UK Parliament select committees for our understanding, I wrote:

#!/bin/bash
alias EU(ESC)=UK(select_comm)

At which point I started giggling quite loudly and uncontrollably at the political implication of ESC and Euro-sceptics. The unneeded attention I drew was explained away in a minute and, needless to say, I made quite a fool out of myself.

[dragos240]

"Every year your computer slows down 12MHz."

That's due to lack of antivirus and maintenance dummy!

[kingbirdy]

Man, this stuff makes me wish I'd grown up as computers were evolving with floppy disks and command line(that was commonly used, at least) and all that stuff. Of course, when people my age now look back by the time I'm an adult, I sure hope they would say the same.

[lisati]

Man, this stuff makes me wish I'd grown up as computers were evolving with floppy disks and command line(that was commonly used, at least) and all that stuff. Of course, when people my age now look back by the time I'm an adult, I sure hope they would say the same.

Floppy disks? The first computer I remember having contact with did one better: it used punched cards. The next one I had direct contact with used cassette tapes. It wasn't until a few years later that I used one that had could use floppies. Other than a couple of cluster controllers (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_3270#Controllers) at work, I managed to bypass using machines which used 8" disks.

[Dustin2128]

I remember using DOS, windows 3.1, and 5 1/4 inch floppies. I wasn't exactly born earlier, I just used computers from an earlier age than most. I do remember my first failed copy due to DRM though... :evil:

[linux18]

I have a few stories that just make me laugh so much. Just today, at a college, I ran a defrag program ( the computers had 85% fragmentation " and had to go quickly, so ( in order to avoid waiting for the defragger to finish so I can to logout ) I just typed " shutdown -f -s -t 1200 " into the command line. I figured no one will try anything if an unkillable box says "windows is shutting down in 20:00". I didn't even make it down the hall before the campus police call me back and threaten me that " destroying the computer " is a serious violation. I try to explain that invoking window's own shutdown script isn't dangerous, a hack, or some sort of mass file deleter.
They didn't believe me and had to call some students and professors from the cis, programming, IT, and other departments before they were convinced I wasn't trying to break the computer, so they let me off with a stern warning " you shouldn't do anything like that to the computers" in front of several students from the computer classes. You could hear the chuckling from almost everyone in the hallway. Later that night the officer called asking why people were laughing, I told the truth " You essentially told me not to make the computers run better in front of half of the IT students"

I've also had several "conversations" with people about how e-mail can be accessed anywhere from any in internet connected computer, a playstation 3 ( side note: screw sony for removing ps3 linux support! ) , phones, and other devices. How linux is not windows, windows is not the applications installed on a computer, and that I'm not lucky if my ten year old computer still works ( I'm lucky for discovering linux ).


the worst computer illiterate people are the ones that think they know what they are doing "i spilled some soda into that ati radeon 4850 ..... but im going to fix it" those kinds of comments that make your blood boil trying not to yell at the top of your lungs "HOW DID YOU SPILL SODA INTO AN EXPENSIVE GRAPHICS CARD, AND HOW TH **** **** **** **** DO YOU ****** THINK YOU CAN FIX IT" or my most blood boiling worst nightmare " if you computer crashed ( was a windows XP laptop), i can fix it by installing windows 7 ( almost flaunting the 'magical' wizardry of pirating a copy of win7 and even trying to make me believe that it will be faster ) " AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!


On a more serious note:
I can't buy into the notion that people's computer illiteracy is caused by anything other than the person who can't find the any key. I didn't have my own computer until I was 16, but before that I was fixing computer problems, installing PCI cards / RAM / bigger hard disks, and making sure all the connections were secure, etc. No one taught me, I learned for myself, and it extended as far as showing someone how to use power point without ever having used powerpoint before ( or openoffice presentation ). Now that i have my new laptop ( intel core i7, 6 GB of ram, nvidia 320 gt with 1 GB of vram, under $1100 ( I take every opportunity to brag )) I'm writing shell scripts, py scripts, etc and have come to the conclusion that learning how to use a computer has far less to do with how well you listen when someone teaches you how to use a mouse, but what your threshold for asking for help is. If you are always asking for help on simple computer tasks, you will only learn how to ask for help not how to use a computer. This doesn't mean "never ask for help" this means "try to solve your problems" if you don't try you can't learn. Take a look at some of your early posts asking for help............... do your question seem sort of stupid? ( to put it bluntly ) but are you better off now?..........did you try to understand or did you copy-paste the commands?.......the next time you ran into the problem did you know what to do? if you try to solve a problem ( even if you failed at solving it yourself ) you probably still learned. do you think if someone came over and fixed it for you that you would learn?..probably not. The best remedy for people that are computer illiterate is to let them try....tough love, leave them with a problem and let them try to fix it ( have backups, just in case ) Agree?

[dragos240]

I have a few stories that just make me laugh so much. Just today, at a college, I ran a defrag program ( the computers had 85% fragmentation " and had to go quickly, so ( in order to avoid waiting for the defragger to finish so I can to logout ) I just typed " shutdown -f -s -t 1200 " into the command line. I figured no one will try anything if an unkillable box says "windows is shutting down in 20:00". I didn't even make it down the hall before the campus police call me back and threaten me that " destroying the computer " is a serious violation. I try to explain that invoking window's own shutdown script isn't dangerous, a hack, or some sort of mass file deleter.
They didn't believe me and had to call some students and professors from the cis, programming, IT, and other departments before they were convinced I wasn't trying to break the computer, so they let me off with a stern warning " you shouldn't do anything like that to the computers" in front of several students from the computer classes. You could hear the chuckling from almost everyone in the hallway. Later that night the officer called asking why people were laughing, I told the truth " You essentially told me not to make the computers run better in front of half of the IT students"

I've also had several "conversations" with people about how e-mail can be accessed anywhere from any in internet connected computer, a playstation 3 ( side note: screw sony for removing ps3 linux support! ) , phones, and other devices. How linux is not windows, windows is not the applications installed on a computer, and that I'm not lucky if my ten year old computer still works ( I'm lucky for discovering linux ).


the worst computer illiterate people are the ones that think they know what they are doing "i spilled some soda into that ati radeon 4850 ..... but im going to fix it" those kinds of comments that make your blood boil trying not to yell at the top of your lungs "HOW DID YOU SPILL SODA INTO AN EXPENSIVE GRAPHICS CARD, AND HOW TH **** **** **** **** DO YOU ****** THINK YOU CAN FIX IT" or my most blood boiling worst nightmare " if you computer crashed ( was a windows XP laptop), i can fix it by installing windows 7 ( almost flaunting the 'magical' wizardry of pirating a copy of win7 and even trying to make me believe that it will be faster ) " AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!


On a more serious note:
I can't buy into the notion that people's computer illiteracy is caused by anything other than the person who can't find the any key. I didn't have my own computer until I was 16, but before that I was fixing computer problems, installing PCI cards / RAM / bigger hard disks, and making sure all the connections were secure, etc. No one taught me, I learned for myself, and it extended as far as showing someone how to use power point without ever having used powerpoint before ( or openoffice presentation ). Now that i have my new laptop ( intel core i7, 6 GB of ram, nvidia 320 gt with 1 GB of vram, under $1100 ( I take every opportunity to brag )) I'm writing shell scripts, py scripts, etc and have come to the conclusion that learning how to use a computer has far less to do with how well you listen when someone teaches you how to use a mouse, but what your threshold for asking for help is. If you are always asking for help on simple computer tasks, you will only learn how to ask for help not how to use a computer. This doesn't mean "never ask for help" this means "try to solve your problems" if you don't try you can't learn. Take a look at some of your early posts asking for help............... do your question seem sort of stupid? ( to put it bluntly ) but are you better off now?..........did you try to understand or did you copy-paste the commands?.......the next time you ran into the problem did you know what to do? if you try to solve a problem ( even if you failed at solving it yourself ) you probably still learned. do you think if someone came over and fixed it for you that you would learn?..probably not. The best remedy for people that are computer illiterate is to let them try....tough love, leave them with a problem and let them try to fix it ( have backups, just in case ) Agree?


I feel you man. I once got a blue screen while wring up a report. What happened? The teacher overreacted and yelled at me, telling me that that was a school computer, and wasn't my plaything. I tried to explain to her that I was just typing my report and this was windows' fault, of course it got worse from there. You can guess what happened, needless to say, I bring in a netbook for typing up something now. And even then some paranoid teachers see me in the terminal and think I'm hacking the school mainframe. I really want to give them a computer 101 class.

[NightwishFan]

Like there would be any worth getting into their mainframe... >_>

[RiceMonster]

Why would the school even have a mainframe.

[dragos240]

Why would the school even have a mainframe.

Teacher trying to sound smart maybe?

[donkyhotay]

I have a few stories that just make me laugh so much. Just today, at a college, I ran a defrag program ( the computers had 85% fragmentation " and had to go quickly, so ( in order to avoid waiting for the defragger to finish so I can to logout ) I just typed " shutdown -f -s -t 1200 " into the command line. I figured no one will try anything if an unkillable box says "windows is shutting down in 20:00". I didn't even make it down the hall before the campus police call me back and threaten me that " destroying the computer " is a serious violation. I try to explain that invoking window's own shutdown script isn't dangerous, a hack, or some sort of mass file deleter.
They didn't believe me and had to call some students and professors from the cis, programming, IT, and other departments before they were convinced I wasn't trying to break the computer, so they let me off with a stern warning " you shouldn't do anything like that to the computers" in front of several students from the computer classes. You could hear the chuckling from almost everyone in the hallway. Later that night the officer called asking why people were laughing, I told the truth " You essentially told me not to make the computers run better in front of half of the IT students"

I've also had several "conversations" with people about how e-mail can be accessed anywhere from any in internet connected computer, a playstation 3 ( side note: screw sony for removing ps3 linux support! ) , phones, and other devices. How linux is not windows, windows is not the applications installed on a computer, and that I'm not lucky if my ten year old computer still works ( I'm lucky for discovering linux ).


the worst computer illiterate people are the ones that think they know what they are doing "i spilled some soda into that ati radeon 4850 ..... but im going to fix it" those kinds of comments that make your blood boil trying not to yell at the top of your lungs "HOW DID YOU SPILL SODA INTO AN EXPENSIVE GRAPHICS CARD, AND HOW TH **** **** **** **** DO YOU ****** THINK YOU CAN FIX IT" or my most blood boiling worst nightmare " if you computer crashed ( was a windows XP laptop), i can fix it by installing windows 7 ( almost flaunting the 'magical' wizardry of pirating a copy of win7 and even trying to make me believe that it will be faster ) " AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!


On a more serious note:
I can't buy into the notion that people's computer illiteracy is caused by anything other than the person who can't find the any key. I didn't have my own computer until I was 16, but before that I was fixing computer problems, installing PCI cards / RAM / bigger hard disks, and making sure all the connections were secure, etc. No one taught me, I learned for myself, and it extended as far as showing someone how to use power point without ever having used powerpoint before ( or openoffice presentation ). Now that i have my new laptop ( intel core i7, 6 GB of ram, nvidia 320 gt with 1 GB of vram, under $1100 ( I take every opportunity to brag )) I'm writing shell scripts, py scripts, etc and have come to the conclusion that learning how to use a computer has far less to do with how well you listen when someone teaches you how to use a mouse, but what your threshold for asking for help is. If you are always asking for help on simple computer tasks, you will only learn how to ask for help not how to use a computer. This doesn't mean "never ask for help" this means "try to solve your problems" if you don't try you can't learn. Take a look at some of your early posts asking for help............... do your question seem sort of stupid? ( to put it bluntly ) but are you better off now?..........did you try to understand or did you copy-paste the commands?.......the next time you ran into the problem did you know what to do? if you try to solve a problem ( even if you failed at solving it yourself ) you probably still learned. do you think if someone came over and fixed it for you that you would learn?..probably not. The best remedy for people that are computer illiterate is to let them try....tough love, leave them with a problem and let them try to fix it ( have backups, just in case ) Agree?

Some people don't want to learn computers and want it to "just go". They expect it to magically do stuff just like a television, not require some education and work like a car. I'm certain if you didn't need to pass a test for it some people would do the same things with cars. "This car is defective! I was pushing on the accelerator and I didn't even go a mile before it went into the ditch. I know it's not my fault because I didn't touch the steering wheel once the entire time so obviously the car is defective. What do you mean I should take driving classes? I already know how to drive!"

[McRat]

Why would the school even have a mainframe.

Probably to processes attendance, payroll, A/P, inventory, class scheduling, report cards, etc. Sometimes extra capacity is used for computer science.