For years now, whenever my dad tries to use a word processor, somehow manages to accidentally hit the vertical scroll bar, and becomes convinced he’s accidentally erased whatever he was writing. I’ve lost count of how many times this has happened, and he still hasn’t figured out how to fix it on his own.
He just bought himself an iPod. I may have to flee the country.
Last week, my sister’s computer was horribly infested with spyware, viruses and a whole host of other nasties. I asked her if she had been running the Windows Update, and she said ‘Yes, every time it says there are new updates I click download.’
I asked her what she does after that, and she said ‘It has a box that says ‘Install’ and ‘OK’, so I click OK.’
Two years, every update downloaded, not a single one of them installed.
Thanks everyone! I knew that you all would have many great stories to share. Keep 'em coming!
I have shown my mom how to C&P eight times. The concept totally escapes her. Of course, the last time I got annoyed that she still can’t figure it out and she got huffy and defensive, like it was incredibly difficult and I’m mean for expecting her to remember ctrl-C and ctrl-V.
I give up.
I’ve posted this here before, but it’s fun, so I’ll post it again.
A customer brought his recently-purchased Canon personal fax machine into Service counter where I worked. Total entry-level thing that took a little 98’ roll o’ paper.
“I’m having trouble getting this to work with my computer,” quoth he. (Serial ports for fax machines were just coming into vogue.) “I don’t believe that model supports any connectivity, sir.” “But it must. That’s why I bought this specific model.” :dubious: Okay. I track down the parts manual, and double check to make sure that there’s no RS232IF upgrade for it. Takes a while, and after I confirm that the machine (obviously) has no connectivity out-of-the-box and that there’s no upgrade available, the guy still insists that it must be possible.
“Sir, I promise you it can’t be done. May I ask why you are so sure that your fax is meant to be compatible with your computer? Did the salesman mislead you in any way?”
“Well, most fax’s are black or white, right?”
“Pardon me?”
“Most faxes. Black or white.”
“Uh, yeah. Thermal, ink-jet, or laser. They’re all black and white.”
“But this one is computer coloured.”
“Uh…? What do you mean?”
“It’s computer coloured.”
“Well, some software fax solutions allow you to send colour photos as attachments, but the facsimile standard is strictly black and white. Even if you could connect this machine to your computer, it couldn’t scan colour photos for transmission – you’d need a colour scanner.”
“No, no! It’s computer coloured. My computer is beige. This machine is beige. So they should be compatible.”
:smack: I regret to say that I lost it at that point and laughed openly at the guy, and in front of his wife, too.
Kyla, I keep having to give my mum remedial C&P lessons. I have it written down on a sticky-note for her, but she still needs to ask from time to time. I think that it’s the ephemeral quality of an imaginary and invisible clipboard that boggles her.
By that logic, the pants I’m wearing right now ought to be Windows-compatible.
When my Mom first got going on Email, I got about ten blank messages a day from her. No text in the subject, no text in the body. Then I started to get messages like this:
Subject: Hi Dooku this is Mom. I wanted you to know that I finally figured out how to ge
That went on for a couple weeks until she grasped the idea of using the Body portion, but she didn’t figure out that text can wordwrap, so
every Email from that point
forward that I got from
her had forced carriage
returns in them.
Not to be outdone, my Dad called because his computer wouldn’t launch Word. The conversation went like this:
“What happens when you double-click the icon?”
“Nothing.”
“Does anything else work?”
“I can’t get Excel to start anymore either.”
“Do you have anything open right now?”
“What do you mean?”
“Uh…I mean are any other applications running?”
“I don’t understand.”
“Minimize Program Manager.”
“What’s Program Manager?”
:smack: Sure enough, upon minimizing Program Manager, we discovered the problem. About 100 open running instances of Word.
“I felt a great disturbance in the Force…as if millions of Hot Shaved Sluts suddenly cried out in terror, and were suddenly silenced.”
In the late 90’s I found a CD by the side of the road somewhere. It was a little bit scratched, which was why my mom didn’t want me to put it in the CD player in case it damaged the stylus.
My Mom always calls to say she sent me an email.
Sounds like the 80’s when fax machines were coming in to general use:
“Hi, Bob. I’m going to send you a fax.”
sends fax
“Hi Bob. Did you get my fax?”
Anybody remembers old editor (like WordStar) shortcuts? Ctrl KB and Ctrl KK to insert markers, Ctrl KV to cut and Ctrl KC to copy. Now this is what I call tough!
Are they plug-and-play?
My father had trouble finding this CD he wanted. Asked if he thought I thought that I would possibly be able to find it out on the internet somewhere. Bracing for some relatively unknown country act, I ask him the name of the CD. “Live from Folsom Prison” by Johnny Cash. 2 seconds at amazon, and the cd is shipped.
Fast forward a month. Dad, I’m positive, thinks “He helped so much with that CD, it must be easy for lordVor to find ANYTHING on the internet.” So he asks me to find him a gas tank for his 1987 Dodge Dakota.
And yes, I amazed myself when I found a number of a salvage yard for him to call that says it has one. Of course, it turns out that Mom didn’t really want a replacement gas tank found, she thinks it may be time to get a different truck. Sometimes, you just can’t win.
-lv
Why is the concept of the left-handed mouse so difficult to understand?
I’m right-handed but use mouse in the left-handed mode (at work and home).
At work, if my PC goes mental (2-3 times a month, it’s an ancient Compaq Deskpro running Win95 and has a HUGE 500Mb harddrive), I have to call the IS department for help. They tap into my computer (they call it shadowing) to see what’s going on and I always tell them up front that I have a left handed mouse. It seems to take them 5 minutes to figure out what this means. I see the pointer spazzing all over the screen.
I think I found your guy. He’s running the disaster recovery plan project at the technology company where I draw a paycheck.
He knows enough to ask me whether we’re using encryption on our datafeeds, but he doesn’t know enough to recognize that in the sentence immediately preceding his question, I told him we used PGP on our datafeeds.
He makes twice as much as I do. I’m in the wrong line of work.
That story about the computer colored fax machine might be the funniest thing I’ve read all week.
Back in 1999, after my parents bought their first DVD player, I went with my dad to rent some discs. At the counter, my dad asked the clerk how you rewind them once you finish. The clerk cracked up, and I almost died. Another time, my dad was freaking out because the sidebar on IE wouldn’t close and it was obscuring half the screen. Apparently, he didn’t think to press the little red X in the corner. After I fixed it he got all mad at me because he didn’t think I’d really fixed it. He’d been trying to close out the sidebar for an hour and couldn’t believe it was that easy. Yeah, my dad isn’t technologically forward.
Ever tried writing with your off hand? Shouldn’t be difficult to understand, right?
One of the most frustrating calls I had when I did tech support involved someone who had AOL (OK, the majority of frustrating calls involved AOL customers, but I digress). I said I would send some information by email, and asked for her address. She said it was “dumbass@.comaol”. I said, “OK, I’ll send that to ‘dumbass@aol.com’, is there anything else I can do for you?” She then argued with me for several minutes that it was “.comaol” and not “aol.com”. Finally I just said I had it the way she said just to shut her up.
Hmmmm…let’s see. Two buttons. Use the other button.
You’re right, it’s very complex.
It’s bad if you’re actually in front of the other person’s computer and you’re trying to use the mouse with your left hand. I can’t use a mouse with my left hand, because I never developed a feel for it. My right hand is much better for the mouse, and always has been.
So I usually reverse the mouse for the time I’m using it, and then switch it back to lefty when I’m done.
My mouse at home is curved in such a way as to be pretty much unusable with the left hand, but if you want a distinct and overpowering pain in your wrist, I suppose you’d be welcome to try it.