Friend of mine just called me. She uses me for free computer help/advice. I was the one who told her he should have a router between her cable modem and computer for, if nothing else, the hardware firewall.
Well she has been having intermittent internet problems, so she called Time Warner. When she told them she had a router in there.... one she didn't get from Time Warner.... the tech person told her that routers serve no purpose besides wireless access, and all they ever do is cause congestion and that is why her internet isn't working, and no one should ever have a router.
I just had to share that.
Painfully stupid tech support
-
thibodeaux
- Posts: 8121
- Joined: Thu May 20, 2004 7:32 pm
Sounds about right. Of all the times I've heard, "My connection's down..." at least 90% of the time (in my personal experience), their shit could have been working and something on their end was set to "maximum insanity."thibodeaux wrote:To be fair to tech support, I bet 95% of their "teh intarwebs is broke" cases are because somebody had a router that wasn't configured right.
Diogenes of Sinope: "It is not that I am mad, it is only that my head is different from yours."
Arnold Judas Rimmer, BSC, SSC: "Better dead than smeg."
Arnold Judas Rimmer, BSC, SSC: "Better dead than smeg."
Fucking Internet Explorer, which I never ever use, managed to fuck up Steam somehow.
I had to pour over tech support forums to find out that some windows update turns on IE's proxy settings, which makes it so you can't access Steam webpages. Damn Microsoft.
I don't care if this was thread relevant, it seemed the best place to put bitching about technology.
Edited By Troy on 1274104849
I had to pour over tech support forums to find out that some windows update turns on IE's proxy settings, which makes it so you can't access Steam webpages. Damn Microsoft.
I don't care if this was thread relevant, it seemed the best place to put bitching about technology.
Edited By Troy on 1274104849
Wife is acting as a go between between a woman she works with and me, for the free tech support advice. These are exact quotes from the email exchange:
Woman: Could you please give me links to some laptops I can afford?
Me: What, is google broken?
Woman: I just need a good laptop that has Office because my son (who is 9) needs it for homework.
Me: You need Office so a grade schooler can do homework?
Woman: Yes.
Me: Ever heard of Wordpad?
Woman: What?
Me: How much can you "afford?"
Woman: I just need a good product at a good price.
Me: That means absolutely nothing. I can spec out $300 or $3000.
Haven't heard back from that one yet.
++++
JUST got the response, big spender wants to keep it around $300. Sigh. Time to throw back some amazon and newegg links.
Woman: Could you please give me links to some laptops I can afford?
Me: What, is google broken?
Woman: I just need a good laptop that has Office because my son (who is 9) needs it for homework.
Me: You need Office so a grade schooler can do homework?
Woman: Yes.
Me: Ever heard of Wordpad?
Woman: What?
Me: How much can you "afford?"
Woman: I just need a good product at a good price.
Me: That means absolutely nothing. I can spec out $300 or $3000.
Haven't heard back from that one yet.
++++
JUST got the response, big spender wants to keep it around $300. Sigh. Time to throw back some amazon and newegg links.
"Be bold, and mighty forces will come to your aid."
I fucking HATE that question.
"Tell me what to buy!"
They might as well ask me to also decide who they should marry.
"Tell me what to buy!"
They might as well ask me to also decide who they should marry.
"Happy slaves are the worst enemies of freedom." - Marie Von Ebner
"It was always the women, and above all the young ones, who were the most bigoted adherents of the Party, the swallowers of slogans, the amateur spies..." - Orwell
"It was always the women, and above all the young ones, who were the most bigoted adherents of the Party, the swallowers of slogans, the amateur spies..." - Orwell
Direct her to a cheap linux laptop, tell her to install OpenOffice.org.
I hope you're not being serious.
"Happy slaves are the worst enemies of freedom." - Marie Von Ebner
"It was always the women, and above all the young ones, who were the most bigoted adherents of the Party, the swallowers of slogans, the amateur spies..." - Orwell
"It was always the women, and above all the young ones, who were the most bigoted adherents of the Party, the swallowers of slogans, the amateur spies..." - Orwell
"Real OS" might be accurate, but it's a Windows world.TPRJones wrote:It's for the kid's own good, IMO. He'll learn to use a real OS and be able to better hide his porn from his clueless mother.
It'd be like buying someone a Mac to prepare them for computer use in the business world.
And recommending anything that isn't as user friendly as possible means nothing but grief, complaints, and more tech support calls.
"Happy slaves are the worst enemies of freedom." - Marie Von Ebner
"It was always the women, and above all the young ones, who were the most bigoted adherents of the Party, the swallowers of slogans, the amateur spies..." - Orwell
"It was always the women, and above all the young ones, who were the most bigoted adherents of the Party, the swallowers of slogans, the amateur spies..." - Orwell
1. This isn't a kid I would expect would have enjoyment from figuring out a new OS, or the persistence to do so.
2. Looks like she is going with the walmart one, because it is in her local stores.
3. I don't think she even clicked the link, because I was called and asked how much it cost. My end user could not be bothered to click the link I provided.
2. Looks like she is going with the walmart one, because it is in her local stores.
3. I don't think she even clicked the link, because I was called and asked how much it cost. My end user could not be bothered to click the link I provided.
"Be bold, and mighty forces will come to your aid."