Experiencing Technical Difficulties

[herbie]

With humans. WTF happened over the last 50 years? When did so many intentionally stop learning anything at all, forget most of what they did learn already thinking that's 'for their own convenience' ?
I've been dealing with computers, phones. tv and Internet since Bill Gates was still thinking of starting a company. Here's a few thing that people have paid me to do for them.

- Figure out how to connect the antenna cable to their TV. Explain why that little flat panel down in the basement didn't get very many TV stations that were right out there on that mountain. It says digital right on it!
- tore a landline phone jack off the kitchen wall and literally just glued the plastic jack on the wall in another room and it doesn't work!
- two people who were told their cell phones wouldn't work unless they had Internet at home. Neither of their phones were even connected to wifi, nor did they own a tablet or computer, yet they'd been paying for Internet for ages. One $150+ a month for Starlink.
- Today I was paid to set up a f*cking Amazon Fire Stick. A 6 year old  can do that. She managed to take it out of the box all by herself, read the instructions and I should've been impressed she managed to put the battery in the remote before I got there.

Husband bought the one step up version, it has buttons on the remote that are already on her SmartTV remote. It cost $20 so it must be better.
What is and where is and which funny (HDMI) plug does it go into.
What is my wifi password, where can I find it? What's the router? Oh! your phone has a flashlght! Oh! You can take a picture with your phone and then enlarge it to read the little type on the router tag? That's my password where it says 'password'?
Go to amazon.ca/code how? Oh, you can use Chrome on a phone to do Internet? Enter what code? The one on the TV?
No don't enter your gmail password to sign up for every app! F^ck it just make a new password and only us it on every app you sign up to... (bad advice but look who I'm dealing with)
Tack on 15 minutes explaining and showing her how to switch from HDMI to TV five or six times/ Do i always have to?

I'm not trying to claim I'm some Brainac, these are all things a middle age person in 2024 should know. Things I taught my children when they were in Elementary school. Like buying a model car, looking at the plans and putting it together. Shit I learned long before High School was done, the difference between a phone cable, a power cable and an antenna cable. That a clear line of sight meant you could SEE something, not 'knew' it was behind the barn or that mountain. To look up what was A and what was B without having pictures of each and 6" text saying plug A into B and still can't figure it out.

That's just tech stuff. there's so many levels of this intentional refusal to learn. From the 3 significant others that kept the cooking oil in the pantry and cake sprinkles beside the stove to the 25 yr old that didn't know if the Macs came before the Mcs in the files so she hid all their customer papers behind the filing cabinet, to a buddy who was just in a rollover and got whiplash and is glad he doesn't wear a seat belt because no govt is gonna tell him what to do.

 

 

Edited November 20, 2024 by herbie

[herbie]

"I write all my passwords down in this book....."

And I've yet to see any of the passwords written in someone's book work.

You can spot from a customer's computer without even meeting them if they're an obstinate old fart, a dupe, or just dumb. 15-25-60%

[herbie]

Always laughed at people who used a laptop on the same desk as their router and connect via wifi.
Now I laugh at people who live in town and get Starlink internet. Seen speeds up to 200Mb here for $150+ a month. You can get Gig cable or WISP for $120 here, in bigger towns for $100 a month.
They send someone to set it up and you don't need to buy a dish, crawl onto your roof and drill holes through your outside walls either.

Spent their lives thinking cheap = better, now it's newer and 'cool' > better.

BTW all those whining about the exchange rate look at the DOT COM and don't even know about DOT CA and think those are Canadian prices listed!

Edited November 28, 2024 by herbie

[herbie]

THe Bank called and asked me to drop off a stack of business cards.

It's almost Christmas so the basket cases are clicking every phishing link and email they see.

[herbie]

Want a computer gift for $100?
The Raspberry Pi 500 is out in time for Christmas. An all in the keyboard computer w 8GB RAM comes with it's own OS on a SD card. Attach any mouse and HDMI monitor and away you go.
You can attach SSD drives thru USB, there are hundreds of OS's and retro-game ports plus IO pins for hobbyists.
If you're into computers, this is the gizmo to play with, emulate almost anything.

[herbie]

Another half dozen people this week that can't tell a f*cking web page from a virus. Or their Windows desktop.
Windows seems to have a lock on the stupid.

Met one exception almost 30 years ago. A couple came into my computer store and knowing them personally I knew they'd be an endless PITA requiring help if I sold them a PC. So I told them Macs were infinitely better machines so they'd go elsewhere.
Came in 2 weeks later railing at me as a game clearly marked for Windows 3.1 or Win 95 wouldn't work. If they're better how come it won't play PC games too?

 

[herbie]

So I got a text from someone Saturday night asking if she could come over and pick up the computers she dropped off.
The previous message on the conversation was asking the same thing in early January, 2024. Then I remembered running into her at the local re-use shed in early summer, she'd asked the same question and said she'd come get it that afternoon.
Had to tell her sorry they were sent to recycling a month or so ago after I'd had them over a year and no one came to get them. She replied with OK then.

This morning there was a nasty FB post from her brother telling evreyone what a scumbag I was for throwing away "his property" and destroying all his saved memories.
I remember that system. Had a smashed  screen with a hole in it exactly the size of a hammer head. A Macbook, originally priced over $1500. That wouldn't boot up and when dismantled has a soldered on hard drive.
Scrolled back on that conversation again and saw that I'd texted her back exactly that in Oct 2023, that the only way to get those pics back was to send it to Apple, pay many huindreds of dollars and long shipping waits. No further contact until she asked to pick up the laptop in Jan 2024 and never did.

The brother actually stated in his rant that if he took his car to a mechanic, didn't want to pay for repairs and left it sitting there for a whole year a reputable mechanic would 'give his car back'.
Some people live in their own delusions.

 

[herbie]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JgDZF5Aiums

[herbie]

Yesterday as I was driving a couple miles to a custeomer's I got 3 calls on the bluetooth. All were "lost password" problems. and the guy I was going to 'got hacked' which means in plain English "stupid enough to listen to some foreigner on the phone'.

Today I got a legit password problem. A lawyer died, and his agency must get into his files. Nice change.

Had to hold me mouth closed over a Karen Jr the other day. She literally blew up her computer, fried the power supply, popped caps all over the motherboard and literally cooked the power pins off her SATA hard drive. Had to tell her I am too old now to do that fine soldering etc and it would cost her hundreds of dollars if anyone could. She grinned and told me they'd bought a Geek Squad warranty so they should recover her Jesus files and pseudo science diet for free. Only that wasn't the drive from the computer she bought there, it was a refurb she bought somewhere else.
Known that family for decades - cheapest, fattest, flakiest, most demanding beggars and leeches off their church I've ever seen. Passing the attitude to their kids.

TIP: Don't forget your passwords! No one else can 'fix' them. And for God's Sake do not save your online banking password. When your browser asks if you wish to save it, either choose 'never for this site' or look at the popup window and erase the password part and then save. Then when you go to the bank site, your card number will be there but you'll have to enter the password, (yes, every f*cking time).
That way you won't forget your password and if someone hacks or steals your device, they won't get into your bank.

[herbie]

And Good God, hours after my last post I got TWO MORE.
Same thing.. some guy phoned and....

And the worst, you tell them never listen to guy on phone/ooga-ooga you're infected popups etc. you see their eyes blank and the body language that says I'm not listening! I graduated in 1967 and I don't have to learn anything, I'm not going to! and even though DO NOT EVER SAVE YOUR BANKING PASSWORD is there on their receipt (they have to show the Bank to get access back) they'll be back in a month.

Telling a lady if she didn't like MS spying, then don't buy windows and she kept repeating back well which Windows should I buy? over and over... as if there was a choice.

Ya f*cking point at what you want and you click it, don't matter if it's f*cking Haiku, Windows 3.1 or 11, a Mac or Linux Mint. It ain't that f*cking hard.

[herbie]

Oh F563! I haven't had a Sunday where I wasn't called at home to fix someone's computer! Over the years people have called
during my father's funeral two
during my mother's viewing at the funeral home
during two weddings
these because our store was closed or they were told by staff I was out of town.

Tack on
during Christmas dinner
before New Years Eve
dozens of times while eating dinner

Dozens of Karens and Kevins with more gall than brains, all so stupid that even though they insist that their start page MUST be Google have never even thought of entering 'my computer is doing such and such' and clicking search first.
Duh, you can DO that?

Even blew my top and booted an annoying customer by telling him I was 5000 klicks away in Newfoundland. When he responded that he'd take his business elsewhere, telling him how I'd f*cking call someone closer to home too. (His house was hit by lightning and he needed an electrician - of course his email didn't work with no power for his router FFS.
That's as descriptive as 90% can get - it doesn't work.

Sometimes I wonder why I don't take up babysitting instead. Kids have an excuse, they're kids.

[herbie]

So I told the doddering old lady's son to call the phone compay and cancel the Internet. They'd told him eariler that <100Kbps was the best they could expect on $80 mo ADSL where she lived.
And to call the cable company and order just the Internet, their smallest package.

So the dimwit called to tell me that he did what I told him and called the phone company and cancelled all his Mom's services. Then he called the cable company and ordered their Internet. Called his Mom to see when they were coming so he could be there. Her phone didn't ring. Ran over to see if she was okay and found out her cell didn't work either. Needed my help again.
Went over and found a cable modem blinking in the corner. She'd ordered a full pkg from them last year but found the TV decoder 'too confusing' and cancelled. They'd ended her TV pkg, but she'd been paying for 60Mbps Internet through them ever since. And hooking up to the crappy DSL... Made the son call the phone company back, tell them he made a mistake and turn her cell and landline on while I stood there. Connected her laptop and phone to the proper wifi.

And made him pay for my service call, not Mom.

While I was there I deleted RealPlayer, Quicktime and AusLogic Defrag from her laptop and told her to stop using Windows 98 shit like Yahoo mail just because her daughter was 'the computer expert' stuck three decades ago.

[herbie]

MicroSoft is removing the oobe/bypassnro script in Windows 11 and will force all users to make a MSoft account. I do not know how you will be able to set it up if you have no Internet access as it already hangs upon install until you connect, unless you run that script.
Initially you just had to disconnect, back up a step, continue and then it offered to create a local user account.
Making an install USB stick with Rufus was the easiest way to set a local account. Pop it in and boot from it, run the install and wipe all the partitions and be rid of all the OEM crapware on your new machine.

[herbie]

So after calling my home number for over a week and finally catching me sitting beside the landline, I go back to the little old lady that can't tell me more than 'it doesn't work' about her computer.
Spent hours 2 weeks ago setting it all up the desktop is a complete mess of icons, the start pages of both Edge and Firefox are back to default and all the saved logins that were duplicated in both are GONE.
Someone did a Windows reset and mucked about with it.

I made the effort to fix, but when she pulled out her Oh I've got all my passwords here in this book and on scraps of paper in this drawer... I told her I couldn't be of help and left without charging her anything. This was the 8th visit in a year and neither she, her son, nor her daughter will listen, learn, admit to anything, or follow written instructions about how to do anything whatsoever.
The PVR from the cable company has been sitting on her desk for 2 years after she cancelled, the ADSL modem she cancelled last month is beside it, plugged in with no WAN light but still xmitting wifi signal, the book of password has her dialup password from 1996 and nine or 10 hotmail ones, newest 2017.

Should she call again I will refer her to a 'proper' tech that will bill her travel time and at least $60 an hour for the full time of the service call.

[Michael Hardner]

1 hour ago, herbie said:

So after calling my home number for over a week and finally catching me sitting beside the landline, I go back to the little old lady that can't tell me more than 'it doesn't work' about her computer.
Spent hours 2 weeks ago setting it all up the desktop is a complete mess of icons, the start pages of both Edge and Firefox are back to default and all the saved logins that were duplicated in both are GONE.
Someone did a Windows reset and mucked about with it.

I made the effort to fix, but when she pulled out her Oh I've got all my passwords here in this book and on scraps of paper in this drawer... I told her I couldn't be of help and left without charging her anything. This was the 8th visit in a year and neither she, her son, nor her daughter will listen, learn, admit to anything, or follow written instructions about how to do anything whatsoever.
The PVR from the cable company has been sitting on her desk for 2 years after she cancelled, the ADSL modem she cancelled last month is beside it, plugged in with no WAN light but still xmitting wifi signal, the book of password has her dialup password from 1996 and nine or 10 hotmail ones, newest 2017.

Should she call again I will refer her to a 'proper' tech that will bill her travel time and at least $60 an hour for the full time of the service call.

Why do you guys make less than the dishwasher Guy? Makes no sense to me.

[herbie]

3 hours ago, Michael Hardner said:

Why do you guys make less than the dishwasher Guy?

The dishwashers are too heavy to toss out and buy another $1000 one to bring home in a backpack.

HTG so many ppl think whey spend $200 to fix it when I can buy a new one for $300. Then they go find out A) they meant 399= the 300, and there are no $399 ones, so they spend $900 and just lie to everyone it was $300 in order not to look foolish. And that guy hears new laptops are only $300 and does the same.
Tack on where I live the BigBox is 180km and $50 worth of gas away, the sales guy will sell them an extra warranty and an antivirus they don't need and charge them "only" $125 to set it up all wrong and then they drive 2hours and $50 more gas.
Then after dropping $1500+ tell your pal you paid $300 because the Chromebook you bought your kid was only $399

Believe me, no one believes they insisted you need that antivirus just to make an extra $2 commission.
And the dishwasher guy's heart gave out 3 years ago. He didn't blow his frustrations over id1ots and jerks off on the Internet. So if your stove, washer, dryer or dishwasher break you borrow someone's truck, make that drive to the BigBox and bring it home and install it yourself. So I do make a lot more $$ than him 😁

BTW I'm not in it for the $$. I do it so as not to degenerate into a dumb helpless old fart like the ones who retire and think golf and Alaska cruises is living.

[herbie]

Anyone into 3D printers? My kid told me to buy one to play with instead of wasting $$ that will just end up her inheritance. F off with only buying things you need, buy things you want and enjoy them FFS, she said.

Stupid tariff BS has put a new car out of the picture.

[herbie]

A guy saw me walking my dog and was a little annoyed I forgot his wife called the night before and I didn't come. So I went in to see.
Their printer "didn't work". HP inkjet.

So he put in a brand new cartridge and the black ink empty light was still flashing. Claimed he'd tried everything. Even bulshitted how the original cartridge was good for "three years". So I told him he probably got a bad cartridge and had to try another.
But the first lasted three years... and held it up to me plus the box for the new one. 

The box was for some obscure Chinese Amazon brand cartridge.
Needless to say what the problem was.

and he'd already ordered a new Amazon one.

Edited April 27 by herbie

[herbie]

The guy complaining his all in one didn't qualify for Windows 11 and was 'just to old' to learn Linux shit bricks when I upgraded it for him.
He just had a CPU that wasn't on the original Windows11 list.

He took one look at 11 and "OMG now I have to learn things all over again!"

Turns out the guy bought an iMac three ears ago and doesn't use it because it's just too hard...