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Posted: Sat May 15, 2010 9:02 pm
by GORDON
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.
Posted: Sun May 16, 2010 10:32 am
by thibodeaux
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.
Posted: Sun May 16, 2010 2:54 pm
by Malcolm
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.
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."
Posted: Sun May 16, 2010 4:07 pm
by GORDON
But the lies and/or bad info they gave her.... it angers me.
Posted: Sun May 16, 2010 9:51 pm
by Malcolm
Tech support is a shit job no one wants.
Posted: Mon May 17, 2010 10:00 am
by Troy
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
Posted: Mon May 17, 2010 11:40 am
by Malcolm
Troy wrote:I had to pour over tech support forums...
What did you "pore" over it?
Posted: Mon May 17, 2010 12:14 pm
by Troy
Ba, sorry English professor, wrong verb!
It was the steam forums.
Posted: Mon May 17, 2010 12:48 pm
by Malcolm
Troy wrote:Ba, sorry English professor, wrong verb!
It was the steam forums.
I just wanted to beat thib to the punch.
Posted: Wed Jan 15, 2014 10:29 am
by GORDON
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.
Posted: Wed Jan 15, 2014 10:32 am
by TPRJones
Posted: Wed Jan 15, 2014 10:33 am
by GORDON
I wish it were that easy. If I just shoot her that link she will want an executive summary of the pros and cons of each... you know how end users are.
Posted: Wed Jan 15, 2014 10:44 am
by Leisher
I fucking HATE that question.
"Tell me what to buy!"
They might as well ask me to also decide who they should marry.
Posted: Wed Jan 15, 2014 10:50 am
by GORDON
What do you need to do with it?
I JUST NEED A GOOD PRODUCT AT A GOOD PRICE.
Has there ever been any less useful description of anything, ever?
Posted: Wed Jan 15, 2014 10:52 am
by TPRJones
Direct her to a cheap linux laptop, tell her to install OpenOffice.org.
Posted: Wed Jan 15, 2014 10:56 am
by Leisher
Direct her to a cheap linux laptop, tell her to install OpenOffice.org.
I hope you're not being serious.
Posted: Wed Jan 15, 2014 10:59 am
by TPRJones
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.
Posted: Wed Jan 15, 2014 11:00 am
by GORDON
Gave her 1 amazon link, 2 newegg link, and just for the funny a walmart link. The walmart machine actually had the best specs for the price.
Posted: Wed Jan 15, 2014 11:21 am
by Leisher
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.
"Real OS" might be accurate, but it's a Windows world.
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.
Posted: Wed Jan 15, 2014 11:23 am
by GORDON
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.