[PA Comic] Wednesday, January 7, 2015 - Codex Parentes

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[PA Comic] Wednesday, January 7, 2015 - Codex Parentes

Codex Parentes

http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2015/01/07

Read the full story here

Robotic Draconian

That helps a lot actually, thanks.

Skwigelf

It's......it's like he's talking right to me.

Elaterid

Yes! My mother has owned a computer (the same ancient and creaky XP laptop) for the better part of a decade and still needs my help to keep it running. She doesn't seem to understand the concept of 'computer virus', the damage it can do to her prized internet access device, or why she has to keep the antivirus up to date (never mind any other software) and avoid opening suspicious emails from friends. I receive phone calls on this subject at approximate one month intervals.

Rhesus Positive

I thought that most of my woes would be over when we bought my mum an iPad.

Then I had to lecture her about basic safety precautions like not leaving your expensive flat electronic device screen-up on a dark staircase.

Luckily nobody stepped on it before her brightly-covered case arrived.

Gyral

God, this hits home. My in-laws are this way. My wife pretty much wrote down their login and password on a piece of paper and taped it to the desk and she still gets a weekly call asking her to help log in to their account. And it's not just "My email" or "My bank account", it's "my account". And these calls tend to take an hour just to get them logged into Yahoo Mail. I'm going to submit her for sainthood, because I know I wouldn't have the patience to put up with it myself.

SwashbucklerXX

My mom bought a book and taught herself Windows 8, so I'm no longer doing regular tech support for her Surface tablet. Plus, she's so proud of herself! It's pretty great. I do still get the occasional call asking for help with some website or other, but usually that's because the website was poorly designed to begin with. Web developers really ought to hire people over 60 to test out usability.

Maxxsense

I have to remember this advice not only for at home but also at work, school, and my nightmares working IT.

Tube

SwashbucklerXX wrote: »

My mom bought a book and taught herself Windows 8, so I'm no longer doing regular tech support for her Surface tablet. Plus, she's so proud of herself! It's pretty great. I do still get the occasional call asking for help with some website or other, but usually that's because the website was poorly designed to begin with. Web developers really ought to hire people over 60 to test out usability.

I bought my mother a Surface Pro 3 to replace her ancient windows xp shitbox. She booted it up and said "eww, windows 8".

I wanted to punch her in the face.

joshofalltrades

Windows 8 is fan-fucking-tastic, fuck the haters.

Hevach

An account of two conversation I had just in the last month:

"Our internet is out, hurry over and fix it, my show is on!"
"Which show? Is the TV out, too?"
"Yes, everything's out, a truck hit the transformer and there's no lights on the entire block."
"If the power is out, your internet won't work."
"No, but it's wifi. Wireless. No wires."
"It still plugs into the wall right?"
"Let me check.... Oh, yeah it does, nevermind, I'll call you to fix it when the lights are back on."

"The printer won't print."
"Is the printer turned on?
"None of the lights are on, my daugher says I have a virus in my facebook."
"Check the power plug on the printer."
"It's plugged into the USB like it's supposed to, I'm not stupid, you told me to fix that last time."
"Not that plug, the other one, that goes into your power strip under the desk."
"I took that off. It should only need one wire, right?"
"No, you need both of those."
"Ok, I'm plugging it back in... The lights are one, but it still won't print."
"Give it a minute."
"It's still not... Wait, it's printing, but it's printing things I was trying to do yesterday. Oh it's printing another. Is it going to print all the stuff I tried to print?"
(ten minutes of trying to explain how to purge print jobs)
"Oh, it's done. Nevermind I guess."
(next day)
"IT'S PRINTING THINGS FROM BEFORE AGAIN! My daugher says its definitely a virus in the facebook, you have to come help me!"
"Remember how I told you to clear the print jobs?"
"Yeah, there were like... fifty of them left when it stopped, but it quit so I thought they were done."
"Do you know why it quit?"
"No. Well, it was out of paper this morning, and I put more in, but then right away it started printing again. But that shouldn't have done it, right? Like I said, it's definitely the virus in my facebook."

joshofalltrades

My dad used to work at a computer help line to troubleshoot PC issues.

Anyway, he got a call once where a lady told him that her cup holder had stopped working.

He was, of course, confused, so he asked her what she meant.

Well, you see, there's a button she usually presses on the front of her tower and then the cup holder pops out.

CharlesMabe

@joshofalltrades

Windows 8 IS fantastic (not perfect), and so was Vista. People just were at a time where they didn't understand the need for software to be updated/rewrote, where they didn't understand the need for improvement because they thought XP "just worked", and they didn't want to have to upgrade their outdated hardware and didn't understand the need. Humans are ignorant and ignorant things complain too much.

Dratatoo

Vista came out during a unfortunate time frame. Hardware accelerated GUI was a novel concept at this time and the hardware required for it came from the "prosumer" or gaming oriented field. People tried running it on a half / one decade old HW ("But WinXP ran just fine"), third party driver support was sucky the first 1/2 year after the release, mix it with bit of confusing info about Microsofts previously canceled Longhorn project and you have a perfect hate stew. IMO Microsoft should have waited with Vista until the Multi core platform migration (Core 2 and AMD FX2) was in full swing, this was when the next actual performance increase hit and people were ditching their single core PCs.

I think Windows 8 isn't that bad - but I know my way around frustrating UIs. For the average customer it is a mismatching blend of different concepts which don't really fit well together IMO.

Idiotic design examples:
Windows 8 will default to the inferior Metro/UI Settings instead of control panel applets - unless you know that a certain setting / dialog exist in the control panel, you will never find it via the start page search.

You still have layered settings menu. Gee, 4 Windows stacked at each other, just to reach the options of a "network adapter" - this exists since Windows 2000 and most likely won't go away du to compatibility reasons (Jurassic corporate in house developed programs expecting these menus and dialogs to be there) -

You can see that Microsoft is torn between catering to the average user and trying to appear fresh while slicing into the new markets (AppStore, mobile computing) and also trying to keep companies with their recompiled dinosaurs program suites happy.

Robotic Draconian

CharlesMabe wrote: »

@joshofalltrades

Windows 8 IS fantastic (not perfect), and so was Vista. People just were at a time where they didn't understand the need for software to be updated/rewrote, where they didn't understand the need for improvement because they thought XP "just worked", and they didn't want to have to upgrade their outdated hardware and didn't understand the need. Humans are ignorant and ignorant things complain too much.

Windows 8 was built for tablets. I have a laptop, and I've had this thing for a little over a year. In this time, Windows 8 has crashed over two-dozen times, nothing works correctly and it's just now decided that my trackpad doesn't work once I sign it. It's not broken, 'cause I can use before signing in to my computer, but the moment I do, it stops working. I've gotten used to this stuff, but the fact is that Windows 8 is kind of crap compared to Windows 7.

joshofalltrades

I have had exactly zero issues with it!

And I use a desktop!

forty

Every time Windows 8 directs me to "tap" something on my very-much-not-a-touchscreen monitor, I frown a little.

Loquat

My husband thought it would be a good idea to get his father an android tablet for Christmas. Haha, nope! They've already had one hour-long phone call on the subject of how to connect the darn thing to the internet, and my father-in-law is actually reasonably competent with computers.

Mild Confusion

So, about twice a year I go to Ohio to visit mine and my wife's family. A few years ago I really got into making my own computers and -after some trial and error- I started to get rather competent at it. Since I always stay at my aunt and uncle's house and he cooks dinner for me, my wife, and our two children, then he let's us sleep in his house, and drink all his booze for free. Cause he's the coolest dude ever.

So the other year for his birthday, I made him his own computer since his was some store brand from 200-and-fucking-2. I put all the software on it, set it for auto-updates, auto-cleaning, and auto-virus scans so that it's take care of itself. He was so happy when he got it and I'll never regret giving it to him even after the end of this anecdote.

Well, literally the next fucking day! My mother, my brother, my aunt, and my in-laws somehow, started bringing me all their laptops to "fix" them. And when I went to their houses for dinner or Christmas, it's all, "Can you fix my desktop, the clicker won't click." It blows my mind the shit I find on their computers. Trojans, viruses, cookies from hell, enough bad registries to make the DMV jelly, everything!

But, I love my family and that is my life and now it's a bit richer for imagining them all as dancing bears with fez hats. So thanks Mike and Jerry.

Cabezone

I started getting a lot less help calls when I started telling everyone it's faster for me to reinstall windows than the try and unfuck their computer. People fear the reinstall.

trickcyclist

It helps to know I am not alone. Thank you PA. Thank you.

Robonun

Randall Munroe came up with this handy cheat sheet that I use all the time at work. 'Cause never mind that we have a full-time, well-paid IT staff here, no, it's much easier for my computer-illiterate coworker to come over and ask me to sort out Outlook after she broke it for the third time this week.

ziddersroofurry

Funny because most of the talking bears I know are in tech support.

Dratatoo

"Cyber-shaman for their unruly ifrits" is the best phrase describing involuntary family. tech support.

Darkewolfe

You know, few tech support requests bother me anymore.

That could be because my first tech job was working help desk for a piece of agricultural software. This was at a time when most of my callers were farmers who might literally have bought a computer just for that piece of software.

I got really good at breaking things down into the simplest, most concrete components. I also answered questions like, "What do you mean by double click?"

thavleifrim

worst part is when the person you are helping decides to not do what you tell them because a better idea just popped into their head and they end up making it worse.

Tofystedeth

Darkewolfe wrote: »

You know, few tech support requests bother me anymore.

That could be because my first tech job was working help desk for a piece of agricultural software. This was at a time when most of my callers were farmers who might literally have bought a computer just for that piece of software.

I got really good at breaking things down into the simplest, most concrete components. I also answered questions like, "What do you mean by double click?"

My first job was doing IT and related things for a company that makes lawnmowers. Some of our dealers were literal Amish, but had special dispensation to use our parts software*. I had to explain things such as click and dragging.

*It was strange. They could use our parts software, but they couldn't have internet. So instead of automatically submitting the order, they would print and fax it (because fax was allowed?). And instead of automatically updating, their sales rep would come by with a burned disc or USB drive.

MarcinMN

Darkewolfe wrote: »

You know, few tech support requests bother me anymore.

That could be because my first tech job was working help desk for a piece of agricultural software. This was at a time when most of my callers were farmers who might literally have bought a computer just for that piece of software.

I got really good at breaking things down into the simplest, most concrete components. I also answered questions like, "What do you mean by double click?"

"Son, what do you mean by 'hover' over it? I can't fly!"