"Dealing with computer noobs"-thread

[Machete234]

Im sure you all know these people.
There's this special kind of people who will never really understand what makes computers tick.
Or understand the difference between video text on the tv and the internet.

Im not even talking about old people who read the manual for their cell phones or something like that.

I also mean young people around 20 or so whose parents where intellectuals and read goethe or something like that and were very anti technology.
Now they cant buy train tickets from the machine at the station.

Enough blabla this thread is for humorous anecdotes about computer noobs.

Like for example they dont know what a native resolution is and why its better than their current one (800x600).
"but now everything is so small..."

Or do you remember the windows xp 60hz bug?
You looked at a noobs crt screen and you saw a stroboscobe like light and you thought youre getting a migrene very soon.
Noob would say :"I dont know what you mean"

Next case:
Im supposed to do something on a noob pc and everything goes painfully slow I mean 5 min to open something.
I opened the task manager (5min) and saw that this vista os is running on a pc with 1gig of ram. 999mb of which were already used without doing anything.

[Forboding Angel]

Next case:
Im supposed to do something on a noob pc and everything goes painfully slow I mean 5 min to open something.
I opened the task manager (5min) and saw that this vista os is running on a pc with 1gig of ram. 999mb of which were already used without doing anything.

Oi yes. I've seen this one a lot. PC manufacturers had a nasty habit of selling computers that had no business running vista.

Vista as an OS was actually a huge improvement over XP but ONLY if you had powerful enough equipment. In the 4 years that I ran vista, my only experience was that it was solid as a rock, but I also had the proper hardware to be running it.

One of my customers has a pink sticky note on her monitor that explains that the start button is the "Multicolored Ball" in the bottom left of her screen.

[Master-Athmos]

I opened the task manager (5min) and saw that this vista os is running on a pc with 1gig of ram. 999mb of which were already used without doing anything.

Be aware though what value you look up in Vista / 7 as the myth of extreme RAM usage was formed by the RAM occupied for caching which gets freed though when needed...

Not that this would have helped much in the given case...

[Machete234]

But try mounting an .iso file with this, there is no way to free enough ram for that.
You practically crash the computer by doing so.

I thought I install this game in 2min but then it took one hour.

[smoth]

[Machete234]

next episode: the faraday cage

My brother went to our neighbor to fix something on her pc.
You have to remember that she has good grade in her diploma and that one day she will have an important job and be the boss of somebody yet she cant fix her pc.

She said that she is afraid of wifi "radiation" so my brother did the only right thing there was (props!) and told her that there is radiation everywhere because of cell phone towers, radio etc and that the only safe thing would be to make her room a faraday cage.

[oksnoop2]

I get a call from this guy who says he has received a zipped document but can not open it because his copy of winzip pro or coffee cup zip has expired.

Me: Well windows will do that for you. You don't need software to unzip stuff.
Guy: No, I know you need this to unzip it. It it's a zip file.
Me: Just trust me on this one, uninstall it.

After a few minutes of that on repeat. He finally did uninstall it and saw the errors of his ways.

EDIT: Best part, this guy is an engineer who designs assembly line robots.

[Gota]

Bill gates called me once for tech support.
He said he was using windows when suddenly he saw this:

[KaiserJ]

recently i discovered that my dad thought you could burn both sides of a CD

to be fair though he's remembering 5 1/4 discs

[Machete234]

EDIT: Best part, this guy is an engineer who designs assembly line robots.

NIce, my warez version of winrar works for years and years and years,
yet I do not unzip .iso files with it.

[hoijui]

my uncles (now ex-)wife came a few times to me with her notebook, usually with email/outlook issues. she is one of the most annoying person i met in person. usually, i was able to fix her problems in about 5mins, but then she keeps on explaining the problems (that were already solved) for 15+ mins, each time she came. of course i kept saying it is already fixed, but to no avail.
my uncle had to go through a divorce with her. he is a mental wreck now.

one uplifting thing:
my grandma learned how to use a computer herself. she learned how to use word, how to scan and print and she played games (solitaire and the like). she was also often able to fix stuff herself, like the printer not working. or when the cable of the screen got loose, she checked through all the cables and got it working again. she was ways better at the PC then my mum will ever be.
miss her a lot, she was a nice person.

priceless: my dad, knowing only "how do you do?" in english, trying to read error messages to me over the phone. :D

[SharadSun]

My grandma, trying to watch her Indian serial episodes on our Inspiron... it's priceless. She clicks on one of the links like 80 bajillion times and has to call me over because the screen crashed. XD

[maackey]

Just last night someone called me asking how to get her stuff back after running Windows System Restore back to factory settings. (I actually don't know, I've never used it; I just backup my data and reinstall the os from scratch if something goes horribly wrong) I'm still not entirely sure why it was run, apparently it was automatic. But anyway, the thing that really made me cringe the most was that she spent $50 for GeekSquad to install Firefox and $300 or so for "insurance" -- basically the cost of a new modest laptop. (certainly better than the older one)

A while back though my grandma came to live at my parent's house for a while, and she *loves* Oprah. Goes on and on about her and the only thing I can really do is smile and nod. Then she starts talking about how you can't lie on the internet and have to give everybody your real information. (iirc she was also a victim of a phishing attack or nigerian scam or something similar) So it set off a nerve and I then proceed to tell her otherwise. She defends Oprah's site is hack-proof and people can't lie to Oprah because "she knows". I then take some time to make a fake email account, sign up on Oprah's site with some ridiculous name and fake info. The look on her face was priceless. Completely shocked, frightened and scandalized.

[Gota]

Just last night someone called me asking how to get her stuff back after running Windows System Restore back to factory settings. (I actually don't know, I've never used it; I just backup my data and reinstall the os from scratch if something goes horribly wrong) I'm still not entirely sure why it was run, apparently it was automatic. But anyway, the thing that really made me cringe the most was that she spent $50 for GeekSquad to install Firefox and $300 or so for "insurance" -- basically the cost of a new modest laptop. (certainly better than the older one)

A while back though my grandma came to live at my parent's house for a while, and she *loves* Oprah. Goes on and on about her and the only thing I can really do is smile and nod. Then she starts talking about how you can't lie on the internet and have to give everybody your real information. (iirc she was also a victim of a phishing attack or nigerian scam or something similar) So it set off a nerve and I then proceed to tell her otherwise. She defends Oprah's site is hack-proof and people can't lie to Oprah because "she knows". I then take some time to make a fake email account, sign up on Oprah's site with some ridiculous name and fake info. The look on her face was priceless. Completely shocked, frightened and scandalized.

lol
you gonna show her 2girls1cup next?

[PicassoCT]

I actually quite some time gave up on them, just accept your role. You are the shaman, the holy oracle, the prophet of lag, you know things.
(Mumble)" Oh, wholy machine spirits, i conjure you, to be gone."
Also opening the msconfig, and deactivting useless instantmessenger impresses the most.

You can even abuse the "MagicMachine Victims" to purchase expensive software.
"Only a 3dstudiomax license will ever get this machine running again, you really fucked up, grandpa."

If they want some fairytales and magic tricks, why not deliver? If you dont want to grow up, to be a real adult, this including the open-mindset, you deserve to be ripped off, for plagueing other people with your retardedness.

If i decided the ------- was a magic place, were fire spills out of machinery, and water comes from the walls, and a magic freezing box will take me to narnia if i open it, i will never get a sandwich- or i have to pay the rest of my life at subways to be spared the entering of the magic kingdom.

[Sucky_Lord]

Just the people that double click everything... Goddamnit it pisses me off..

[1v0ry_k1ng]

1) go round girls house
2) she offers to go and get coffee /innuendo innuendo
3) when she leaves, boot up her pc
4) 10 minutes to boot what the fuck
5) 10000 internet popups
6) bonzai buddy, neopetz & loads of shit running in background
6) have a massive nerdrage
7) spend 3 hours cleansing computer while she gets increasingly bored and eventually goes to watch tv
8 ) eventually finish and reboot to find computer 100% fixed at 10pm
9) leave without saying goodbye and enjoy the warm glow of a job well done

= my life

[Gota]

bonzai buddy?

[1v0ry_k1ng]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BonziBUDDY

[maackey]

@1v0ry_k1ng: next time say it's very dangerous to drive at night and you need to spend the night