Listen, all you tech savvy individuals, we don’t all have that particular skill set.
I would never be able to fix a technical issue on a computer w/o a computer to walk me thru it. If my computer is down, what am I supposed to do? Calling tech support line “Has Never Helped” me. YMMV
I can however make our finicky printer work. I have the touch. But no real knowledge. It’s just dumb luck. And magic fingers. 
Don’t fault someone for asking for help.
There’s a communication error for sure.
You should offer your expertise here:
I’ve been enjoying these tech support stories, and the battery backup discussion reminded me of one from back in my sysadmin days. But I didn’t want to hijack this thread too much more, so I spun off a new thread:
This.
Something may indeed be playing all over; but that doesn’t mean I know the name of the artist, or of the song; and I may well not have any clear idea of the lyrics, which are often hard to catch, especially on poor sound equipment and/or in otherwise noisy environments. Plus which that’s not what I’m paying attention to.
Years ago I had a problem with my cable. Once or twice a month I’d have to call in and so they could re-pair my cable card. The problem was that only Tier 3 could do that. So I’d call, I’d explain to the first tech support person exactly what was going on and exactly what I needed them to do to fix the problem (escalate me to Tier 3). Since I was usually calling after hours, I’d get their outsourced tech support. It would be ten minutes of reboot your Tivo, take the card out and put it back in, reboot your laptop, reboot your modem etc etc etc. Then they’d give up and send me to Tier 2 to go through all the same things before they’d finally send me to T3 (not outsourced). Side note, I never did any of that stuff, I’d just tell them I did so we could keep moving.
One of these times I was complaining to the T3 person who, at this point, I’d talked to enough that he remembered me from one call to the next. He gave me a shortcut. He put a note in my file saying that when I call in with this issue, to escalate me directly to T3 and told me when I call at night, instead of hitting the button for tech support, hit the button for billing. They’re not outsourced and not working from a script. Tell them what’s going on, tell them to look at the notes and they send me directly to T3. That made it a lot easier. But those cable card issues were still a big part of why I finally ditched cable.
No one here is faulting nearwildhaven for asking for help, I don’t think. Their responses to those of us who were trying to help them were terse and unclear, and they kept ignoring (or refusing to answer) questions we were asking them about what was going on, or to clarify their earlier posts.
Don’t you or can you imagine having this problem with one desk top, no smart phone would limit their ability to respond in wordy long answers?
But I don’t know. If I post a question(boy do I have 'em) on the Dope I’m mostly looking for moral support.
Altho’ I have gotten help here, sorta happenstance. (And Burpo told me how stupid I was for not realizing how to turn my lamp off. )
I’ve been pointed in the right direction many many times.
If I asked a technical question about computers or phones I’d be lost with the first technical sentence. I’d have to go look it up. Or get Hamza to straighten it out for me. He’s so smart. Nice to have handy. Everyone should get one. You can’t have mine. We’ve got him all broke in.
Anywho, there are many negative responses about Nearwildheaven. Calling them stupid and an idiot does nothing. If you don’t want to try and help because tech dummies tick you off, don’t even try. They’ll figure it out. Eventually.
Now, can y’all fix my dishwasher from your recliner?
Maybe. It seems that they were replying on the laptop computer that they were using to attempt to print things. I’m not entirely sure how that limits them to replies of just a few words.
But, regardless, questions from people trying to help them were ignored again and again, and the icing on the cake was, after several people said, in essence, “I don’t think it’s the printer(s), I think it’s something stopping communication between your computer and the printers,” she announced that she was going to go buy a new printer. And, then, the next day, she admitted that she did so, and that didn’t work, either.
Again, the issue is that people tried to help them, and they kept ignoring the advice and requests for additional information.
I hear you. I just hate someone to be called names for asking for help.
We all need help at times.
(Not that you did that, Kenobi)
Again: I don’t think that they got called names simply for asking for help. Any pushback they got in this thread is for the way they behaved in their own thread, which made it difficult for those trying to help them to do so, and made it seem like they weren’t actually listening to the advice they were being given.
Understood.
A brown delivery van?
Uninterruptible Power Supply. AKA(Also known as) a battery backup. Looks like a boxy version of a conventional power strip / surge protector and contains a battery that can support small loads like your router or PC or TV for anywhere from a couple minutes to a couple hours.
I have one that keeps my TV/audio system alive, and another that keeps my internet connection / router / wifi alive. At least for 15-20 minutes. Which is enough to weather most nuisance power outages.
Well played!
She wasn’t faulted for asking for help. She was faulted for asking for help, and then never answering any of the careful, specific questions that were asked about her problem. If she had answered the questions, and perhaps a second set generated by her initial answers, the odds are excellent that she would have a working printer today.
Yeah, no. She didn’t think the help offered was important enough to engage with it. Maybe she did just want moral support, and didn’t actually want to fix her printer connection. Then she should have said so. Maybe posted on the daily rants thread in the pit and not in … I think she started in factual questions. That’s a way to get answers, not moral support. A lot of posters spent time and effort trying to help her, and she didn’t cooperate even a little. There’s a reason i wrote in the thread how to engage with user support. Hint: it’s but what she did.
One thing to check is that your UPS still works. I had an outage and did not get any beeping from the UPS attached to my computer, which was now off, while the one attached to my router and ONT (Optical Network Terminal) did beep. That was because the one attached to my PC and monitors had died and did not stay up even a few minutes. Fortunately I wasn’t working on it at the time, so mostly no harm done. I replaced it and now I do a quick check every so often to make sure the UPS will actually do its intended job should power fail.
The one attached to the network will last several hours as the router, etc, don’t use much power. That means that it would be easy to not realize the power is off since all the battery powered devices would still have internet. I don’t have one connected to my TV/Audio devices though they are surge protected.
//i\\
In my experience Cyberpower UPSes have a nasty habit of failing, but not revealing that failure until the power actually goes out. Self test passes, computer connection still says 100% charge and 30 minutes of runtime, but when the power goes out, it just turns off.
What were you thinking saving a few dollars buying something that doesn’t even do it’s one job?
The APC ones are more expensive, but at least have always reliably let me know when the battery is no longer functional. They use a smoke detector schedule, and start beeping at 3am to inform me the battery is failing, which though annoying is better than not telling me at all.
I guess that’s better than not having a UPS.
For what it’s worth, it seemed to me that the poster in question was frustrated and irritated and did not always understand what was being asked. That is not a great place to be starting from.
Yeah, but some of the posts were more helpful and hand-holdy, and they ignored all of those.