Posted on 09/26/2020 7:53:05 AM PDT by sodpoodle
Documented conversations between Tech Support staff and (technologically impaired) seniors....
Tech support: What kind of computer do you have? Customer: A white one... Tech support: Click on the 'my computer' icon on to the left of the screen. Customer: Your left or my left? ************************
Customer: Hi, good afternoon, this is Martha, I can't print. Every time I try, it says 'can’t find printer’. I've even lifted the printer and placed it in front of the monitor, but the computer still says he can't find it..
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Customer: My keyboard is not working anymore. Tech support: Are you sure it's plugged into the computer? Customer: No. I can't get behind the computer. Tech support: Pick up your keyboard and walk 10 paces back. Customer: OK Tech support: Did the keyboard come with you? Customer: Yes Tech support: That means the keyboard is not plugged in.
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Customer: I can't get on the Internet. Tech support: Are you sure you used the right password? Customer: Yes, I'm sure. I saw my colleague do it. Tech support: Can you tell me what the password was? Customer: Five dots.
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Tech support: What anti-virus program do you use? Customer: Netscape. Tech support: That's not an anti-virus program. Customer: Oh, sorry... Internet Explorer..
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Customer: I have a huge problem. A friend has placed a screen saver on my computer, but every time I move the mouse, it disappears. *************************
Tech support: How may I help you? Customer: I'm writing my first email. Tech support: OK, and what seems to be the problem? Customer: Well, I have the letter 'a' in the address, but how do I get the little circle around it? *************************
A woman customer called the Canon help desk with a problem with her printer. Tech support: Are you running it under windows? Customer: 'No, my desk is next to the door, but that is a good point. The man sitting in the cubicle next to me is under a window, and his printer is working fine.'
No way.. I STILL double space after a period...
It’s a “no go” now?
ATTRIB /s
DEL *.*
We’re anachronisms.
ID10T error. Lol
I was taught to double space after a period as well, and yes, it’s a hard habit to break, but if you’re preparing resumes, cover letters, writing samples, etc. for a prospective employer, it would be best to avoid it.
My oldest is the tech guru of the family. Years ago his grandmother got new windows computer for surfing the net.
He said a the time the computer would be locked up and unusable within a month which is exactly what happened.
He wiped windows off it and installed Linux. There have been no problems since.
Check for a loose nut behind the keyboard.
I did the family budget in Lotus many years ago and needed to convert them. Easy, peasy.
We used to have the same conversation about a 40mg hard drive an insurance salesman who shared office space had on his computer in the late 80’s.
We did the calculations and figured he’d need another 100,000 clients before the hard drive would be full.
I remember sending emails TO GERMANY! When I worked for Digital... We’d have to wait until the next day to get a response (because of the time difference). :)
And being able to launch a print job from home (via a modem) and it be ready for me when I arrived at work the next day.
Any anything that isn't directly compatible can be saved as a csv file (comma separated value) or whatever the delimiter and it ca be read into Excel.
Good technical (and technically correct!) response. And HTML gets rid of extra spaces, so I’m basically screwed online.
If you have a large song and movie library, all will be accessible.
There are probably cheaper solutions but not as well integrated as the Apple TV. BTW, my gripe with Apple is not with their products but the product support. They obsolete their expensive devices to force people to buy new. Time will tell with our Apple TV box.
Anyway, I tried to build a home theatre PC that would have done everything that Apply TV does. It was running Linux. I bought a gyroscopic mouse and rf keyboard. This was before bluetooth. The mouse was difficult to use. The Apple TV remote is pretty wizzy with voice recognition and just 6 buttons.
Mine had 40 k ram and 2 40 k floppy drives. It was an AT clone, that I purchased in ‘89 or ‘90.
So much to say to so many posts. I am reminded of a story, attributed to Ronaldus Magnus about the gang of “yutes who were giving the business to an old codger hobbling down the street with a cane.
“Hey Old Man, don’t you wish you knew how to use a cell phone so you could call a cab ?”
To which the Old Man replied...
“Hey punk, who do you think invented all this crap ? And made millions doing it.”
Having used a 300 baud modem I remember a story about a Professor who complained to tech support that his screen was flying by too fast to read. Turns out the school had upgraded everybody to 1200 baud. The same thing happened to me when I bought a US Robotics 1200 baud but at least I knew why it was doing what it was doing.
By virtue of being President of a local art association with a lot of seniors as members I frequently get calls because of computer problems. I mostly troubleshoot over the phone by having a mental map of what they should be seeing on their display and asking questions based on educated guesses.
What should be a short session of a few minutes with somebody that is at least a little computer literate frequently turns into much longer sessions due to the lack of a common reference frame. For example, one cannot just tell somebody to turn the computer off because the person on the other end of the call thinks the monitor is the computer and by turning it off and seeing the little red light go out the whole system is shut down.
The payoff is hearing the shock when the recalcitrant machine starts working again followed by the gratitude of the user to me for fixing things.
It is more than a little frustrating to suggest playing with the machine so as to learn the basics only to get repeat calls for the same thing, knowing that the person on the other end really didn’t try to figure it out on their own, although some do try to one degree or another.
To error is human, to screw things really badly it takes a computer !
I’m also an old fart, in my 80’s. Designed products using the first microprocessors that came on the market back in the 1970’s. Those were exciting times for we tech nerds who started our careers using relays and vacuum tubes.
Took a while, but someone got it.
Wow. Vacuum tubes. Wire wrap boards?
Photo lithography changed things tremendously both at the chip and board levels.
The technology changes every year and a half.
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