<SparTacuS> Posted February 13, 2005 Share Posted February 13, 2005 I spent 2 evenings last week (2-3 hours each night) trying to help a "friend" set up their dial-up. I was doing this by giving instructions over the phone (they live 200 miles away).They had been given a newish machine to replace an old crapper. And had tried to do it solo before ringing me. The worst booboo they had made was to pick a modem at random from the drivers list so whatever I did the modem seemed to identify as a "standard 33K". After all this time getting nowhere I gave up and told them to take it into the local shop to identify the modem.Day three - Phone call "It didn't have a modem"Question - who is the daftest me or them? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
prathapml Posted February 13, 2005 Share Posted February 13, 2005 This sort of thing just seems to happen with us....An acquaintance would call you up (phone) and ask you how to do something.Well, it wouldn't be quite so bad, if the person that wanted to get the info, stayed normal. Instead, they'd go all ballistic, pretend they know things, not give you the info you need (to instruct them), do things that you did not tell them to do (or run ahead of the series of instructions).Oh well.... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
army20 Posted February 13, 2005 Share Posted February 13, 2005 When friends call me to get support or help, i'm always telling them to bring their computer at my place. I hate doing phone support Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
matrix0978 Posted February 13, 2005 Share Posted February 13, 2005 ewww..... i cant believe i just say that word... Dial-up. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bart of borg Posted February 14, 2005 Share Posted February 14, 2005 ewww..... i cant believe i just say that word... Dial-up.<{POST_SNAPBACK}>Dial-up? What's that? Isn't it a brand of Soap? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DigeratiPrime Posted February 14, 2005 Share Posted February 14, 2005 exactly what army20 said, ive learned the hard way not to be so nice on the phone. Have them, if possible, bring teh pc to you, never the other way around. Setup a policy early on if you want to help others the least they can do is bring the pc to you.And always make a backup, some people miss their cookies. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
phoenix_nf Posted February 14, 2005 Share Posted February 14, 2005 yeah the policy is nice. but some people expect YOU to go to their place to help themselves , and its even worse when they are a part of your family or friends. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jaclaz Posted February 14, 2005 Share Posted February 14, 2005 I am sure that it happens all the time to you as well, usually it goes like this with me:1st Phone call:Friend:Hi, it's ****** speaking, how are you? Listen, may I ask your help? My PC is acting strange.... Me: Ok, Don't Panic, what happened?Friend: Well, nothing, all of a sudden PC won't boot. Me: What error does it give? Friend:Hmmm..., it says Cannot find kernel32.... or something.... Me:Have you seen anything out of ordinary before today?Friend: No, actually it's several weeks I have this popup saying I should Update my antivirus or something.... and I push the cancel button everytime as you told me to do.Me:I actually doubt I EVER said this to you!Friend:Wasn't it you? Well, then it must have been my neighbour's son, he is a sort of hacker or something....Me:Ok, right now I cannot stay on the phone, please do not touch anything, I'll call at you after work, we'll get a beer and I'll fix it up.Friend:Gee, thanks, see you later.2nd Phone call, (about 1 hour later):Friend: Hi, sorry to bother you again, but you know, my son in law came by, and he tried and fix the PCMe:Ok, happy to know it's ok now, so we'll see another time for the beer...Friend: Hmmm..., no, actually PC does not work, but now screen does not get blue, is black and says Missing operating system ...or something.Me:Ok, DON'T TOUCH ANYTHING, I'll be there about seven.Friend: Thanks, see you later.....and a few more of this type.Usually when I finally get there, at least four people have rebooted in a way or another the PC, and (not necessarily in this order) defragged it, issued an fdisk /mbr command, ran Partition Magic to fix things up, tried reinstalling Windows and failed....etc. jaclaz Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
totoymola Posted February 16, 2005 Share Posted February 16, 2005 Darn! If I encounter this problem, I will format their hard drive and reinstall the system immediately! Hahha!Ok, I work as a computer lab technician in my school (part-time), and I encounter a lot of stupid questions everyday. Something like.. "What is left-click?" But I understand, because some of them are first timers.There was a funny girl typing her essay using Word2003 earlier. She was complaining that her name (on top of the page of her essay) is marked with a "red, zigzag underline". I told her not to worry about it, because the computer is just thinking that she typed it incorrectly. Then she yelled: "B*ll$hIt!!! I know how to spell my name!!! Stupid computer!!!"Who is really stupid?? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
prathapml Posted February 16, 2005 Share Posted February 16, 2005 Darn! If I encounter this problem, I will format their hard drive and reinstall the system immediately! Hahha!<{POST_SNAPBACK}>The two basic principles of Windows system administration: For minor problems, reboot For major problems, reinstallSource: http://unattended.sourceforge.net/ Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cypher_soundz Posted February 24, 2005 Share Posted February 24, 2005 LOL i used to do this for my job , you would get so many people and it made you ask the little questions to make sure everything was right...like the old joke "is there a power cut" etc lolRegardscyph Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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