PureBasic Forums - English

Don't you love being a "computer whiz"? Strangers calling you at all hours of the night asking obscure questions about the latest Blackjack software they installed is just what I call a good time!

What is it about the computers that people think is magical? I have people calling me all the time because a friend of a friend of a friend told them I had a computer or something.. Almost always the questions are hilarious - like "Will a CD burner work in my computer?" and "how do I upgrade my HP I bought in 1994 to run Quake 3?"... Or my favorite "I think I have a virus because my computer won't turn on.."

Not that I mind helping people but it's like they think computers are mystical and that all who work with them have some telepathic ability to divine information from thin air.... When someone asks me an obscure question I always reply "Hey, my car won't start - what could be the problem??"... No one seems to get the joke!

i completely understand where you're coming from. I had that problem with my family... Calling and trying to have me talk them though a complex fix for their computer, when i'm not even certain that's what will help (because i haven't SEEN the computer)...

i guess that's the curse we must bare.... or something....

however... i used a secret to avoid such phone calls.... i moved 1500 miles away from my family :roll:

While I agree on your general assessment, I think evolution went on; while folks phoned you some time ago at stupid hours to tell you

"I think I have a virus because my computer won't turn on.."

we are now at the stage of

"My friend, who is good with computers, says I have a virus because my computer won't turn on.."

Experiences show that you should NEVER MESS WITH THE ASSESSMENT OF SOMEONE'S FRIEND, WHO IS GOOD AT COMPUTERS, TOO.

It wouldn't be much of a problem, if their assessment would be halfway right at times; but it NEVER is - a rule of thumb out of a few years experience. So tell them that they are wrong and you piss off two people though you'd have fixed their stuff - something you do for 15 years for a living.

Some time ago, it was different. Some time ago, you pissed people off for NOT FIXING things.

"My friend, who is good with computers, says I have a virus because my computer won't turn on.."

he he... i understand that! Lots of people here in the UK are becoming 'experts' due to lots of government self-improvement propaganda making people feel guilty if they don't attend 'government funded' IT night classes to learn how to use Micro$oft Word and Excel (oh! and..err.. learn about IT). Funnily enough when people emerge from thier 2 hour classes and free coffee with a mickey mouse certificate they become PC gurus. :roll:

I usually use my cristal ball and wand...

For the "my computer won't turn on", I use the "Computae Ignitiri" spell cast.. One of 2 things occours, or it turns on or it blows up (depending on your mage habitlity and spell points)...

For the "how do I upgrade my HP I bought in 1994 to run Quake 3?" i use the "Sistema Tranformae in Linux" spell, works quite well for old 486 and pentium boxes, then i cast "Hackarea Quake con Opanis Geely" which is an encantation thas transforms the appearence of Q1 (get's has pretty has Q3, and for a wimp persons that ask these kinda of questions is good enough)

For "Will a CD burner work in my computer?" i cast "extra ramis and ideeis cabli" which makes the machine think it has more resources than it actually has... I also try a combination of "Largis Swapis Filis" and "UDMAoffis" in case the machine is kinda off old (this combination is dangerous!!! cause it might chew up and speed down most systems if they are too old)

Kale wrote: Funnily enough when people emerge from thier 2 hour classes and free coffee with a mickey mouse certificate they become PC gurus. :roll:

It's worse here (= germany).

We have a daily newspaper, called "Bild". Guess it is similar to "The Sun" in the UK. And now imagine... from the same publisher, at a low price, a weekly newspaper in the same paper format... called "The Computer Sun".

Yep, that we have. A weekly newspaper called "Computer Bild". Headlines like "Make your computer 3000% as fast as it is now. We tell you how." or "Now you can build your own PC. Illustrated on 4 pictures."

I am not a religious person... actually I am agnostic. But the "Computer Bild" is the bible of the devil!

But hey, I do anything I can to bring people back to the true light, using the blessed means irony & sarcasm. They love me.

A little story....

About a year ago, a friend of mine asked if I could look at HIS friend's computer - it wouldn't switch on. I popped round to the guy's house, and found he had a very small pc (on-board everything). I took it away, examined it it and found that the power supply had blown, taking the motherboard with it. I told him that he needed a new main board and case ( the cheapest option) which he agreed to. I bought the items, installed the new board into the new case (which was a standard desktop case, and bigger than his old one), and swapped all the other items (cpu, disk etc) into this new box.

I arrived at his house the next day, with this new, bigger box. As I walked in , he noticed the box, and his eyes lit up.

"Look at the size of that - I'll bet that's more powerful!"

There's just no helping some people

People not only ask me to fix things but insist I do the research to find them what they want, without actually telling me what that something is and they insist on calling the whole thing "the hard disk" no matter what I tell them.

So now, I have to find them a computer (has to be cheaper that 200 dollars), set it up in their house (I don't have a car but they don't care), install the software (They don't want to pay for it so I have to find shareware alternatives as well), train them how to use it (They have never used a computer in their lives), explain the terms in English (Which they don't like anyway) and I get nothing for all this hard work. Then they complain it isn't fast enough (Which I exhaustively explained to them that a pocket calculator is just about what you get for 200)

Hmm, I don't need more friends, I need enemies. Enemies don't ask me to do anything for them!!!

Use my excuse.. "Sorry, I'd love to help but I have to work!"

Karbon wrote:Use my excuse.. "Sorry, I'd love to help but I have to work!"

i say : sorry, no expierence in those things, lets talk about a beer

Hahaha

My work *is* tossing down a few.. It's hard work lifting those heavy mugs.