Tech Support
In my college, I'm known as..well..'the Microsoft guy' - mostly due to me being a Microsoft student ambassador and due to me giving several sessions on .NET,etc. This title also has certain 'privileges' - you become official 'computer troubleshooter' and get call the moment something goes wrong with someone's computer. And since the majority of my college and relatives run a certain famous operating system by Microsoft...well..let's say I'm extremely qualified for a tech-support job.
I thought I'd write down my experiences. I'm sure most of you had similar experiences - do leave a comment if you can relate to what I'm saying.
Disclaimer 1: The people who asked me these questions are not non-technical people - they're computer science students in various colleges in Chennai - and who are generally smart and good at what they do outside of computers. In a way, the joke is on all of us (the geeks) for making computers so tough.
Disclaimer 2: Though most of these are Windows specific, they easily extend to other operating systems as well - just that there the problems are different. If you don't believe me, look up the archives of your local Linux user group. I guess the Mac is different - but I havent come several Macs here in India (do correct me, Indian Mac lovers!)
My computer is upside down
I got a shock when I first heard this from a classmate. It immediately conjured up images of computers doing Yoga poses - but I was pretty sure that that wasn't the case. When he told me that the taskbar was at the top, I thought that he had dragged his taskbar to the top - but I later figured out that his whole display is upside down. My guess is there was a problem with his video card or his monitor. Still don't know.
It's playing visualizations
This was the reply I got when I enquired about my friend's problems with Windows Media Player. I thought at first that he didn't like visualizations playing - but I later figured out that what he meant was "The audio plays but there is no video". It was a codec problem
Friend:"Let me get my brother who is better at these technical issues to describe the problem"
Technical brother:"Windows doesn't work"
Specifics, people. Specifics!This was with a friend who had a problem - and she summoned her brother who was supposedly a geek but who couldn't give me anything more specific than 'Windows' doesn't work. After a long interrogation session, I found that what he meant is that 'Windows Explorer' doesn't run - the cause was spyware fixed with my standard prescription of SP2 + Ad Aware + antivirus (with Ad Aware being run first, of course)
My program throws an error.Please help me!
If I had a dime for everytime I've been asked this question on the phone/real life/newsgroups by someone trying to code...well...I would have a lot of dimes. I absolutely hate it when someone cribs about an error in the program - but doesn't bother to check what the error was. Non-techie programmers can be forgiven. For programmers..well..bring back the death penalty, I say! Eric.S.Raymond's "How to ask smart questions" should be made compulsory reading in schools and colleges.
My computer...is emanating light
Seems that this chap turned up the brightness setting inside some game - and he couldn't tell the difference between the game and his computer. Go figure.
My toolbars fill half the window
I see this with Visual Studio users (btw, this problem is fixed with VS 2005). This is not a reflection on the users themselves (as every Visual Studio user has gone through this atleast once). Its a game every VS developer plays called 'Get the docking right'. I've wasted hours of my life trying to get windows in the order I like in VB 6 - and trying to debug crazy window placements over the phone isn't fun.
Windows doesn't work. Micro$oft sucks.
(An hour of diagnostics over the phone )
Btw, my friend has taken some big box from inside my computer for repair. Would that explain why I see nothing on my monitor?
This really happened.Seems that Windows doesn't run without a power supply. What a disgrace - Microsoft sucks![1]
Linux sucks. I can't install it from the Linux CDs you gave me.
(After a 20 minute interrogation)
I kept looking for setup.exe - where is it?
I feel like Duff when he invented Duff's Device. I'm sure this makes some sort of statement in the Windows vs Linux thing - but can't tell whether it is for or against Linux
The Dont-know-how-to-use-Google syndrome
There are so many incidents involving this that I gave a name for it. I'm going to point to this blog post everytime I see a question on a newsgroup which would have been answered by the very first result on Google! I can't blame normal people - but programmers? The reverse would be the 'copy-paste-bindly-from-Google' syndrome where coders copy-paste code without bothering to understand or test it.
If you havent subcribed already, do subscribe to www.thedailywtf.com . What is scary is the number of posts I can relate to with code I've seen
Note:
1.Bruce Toggazini had an interesting write up on www.asktog.com which spoke about how computers shouldn't lose work when the power shuts off. He actually does make a lot of sense.I don't know hardware - but I was wondering whether something similar to laptop batteries could be attached to all desktops. In case of a power supply, the battery kicks in and provides power for 5-6 minutes (enough time for a proper shutdown).