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Problems Between Keyboards And Chairs
JaysonFour
Classy Monster KittehRegistered User regular
Classy Monster KittehRegistered User regular
...why is it the second you mention you're studying computers in college, everyone starts begging for free tech support? I have a life other than helping your sixteen-year-old cover his ass after a night of downloading porn (and the lovely amount of spyware/trojans/etc. that came along for the ride) so his mom doesn't get a pair of amazon-sized headlights in a pop-up while surfing the FoxBox site with his twelve-year-old brother.
...sorry. I just got off the phone with the guy's mom, and have come to the conclusion some people should be legally barred from using a computer due to stupidity. She had a few questions, and I wanted to ask your advice on the answers I have for her.
1) Shit-filled Family PC: The thing takes a solid twenty minutes to boot up. The desktop is sprouting porn icons like a possessed college kid's mattress, and there's about sixteen or seventeen different types of malware that I can tell of (maybe more, thier A/V won't boot).
My solution: They have the discs, nothing that can't be replaced on the drive, and thier pictures are stored in albums- actual photo albums. I'm suggesting a "nuke from orbit"-style reformat and re-install. It would be easier than spending a week cleaning out everything, and it would allow me to drop in Net Nanny or something like it, as well as a fresh, non-corrupted A/V.
2) Friend of my mother's laptop: She thought it was a custom-built laptop, but after looking at it, it's an off-the-shelf Gateway from the local big-box retailer. The user is a Bejeweled 2 nut, and this thing struggles through the game, slowing every time she lines up a few jewels and skipping along the graphics between levels during the "wormhole" sections.
My solution: More RAM, a better graphics card, a faster processor, and a good swift kick to the beanbag for the lady's husband for simply buying the cheapest laptop he could get and passing it off as a custom job. (I'm not REALLY going to kick him, but... *sigh*)
So, am I right on the money, or is there a better solution to the problems?
...sorry. I just got off the phone with the guy's mom, and have come to the conclusion some people should be legally barred from using a computer due to stupidity. She had a few questions, and I wanted to ask your advice on the answers I have for her.
1) Shit-filled Family PC: The thing takes a solid twenty minutes to boot up. The desktop is sprouting porn icons like a possessed college kid's mattress, and there's about sixteen or seventeen different types of malware that I can tell of (maybe more, thier A/V won't boot).
My solution: They have the discs, nothing that can't be replaced on the drive, and thier pictures are stored in albums- actual photo albums. I'm suggesting a "nuke from orbit"-style reformat and re-install. It would be easier than spending a week cleaning out everything, and it would allow me to drop in Net Nanny or something like it, as well as a fresh, non-corrupted A/V.
2) Friend of my mother's laptop: She thought it was a custom-built laptop, but after looking at it, it's an off-the-shelf Gateway from the local big-box retailer. The user is a Bejeweled 2 nut, and this thing struggles through the game, slowing every time she lines up a few jewels and skipping along the graphics between levels during the "wormhole" sections.
My solution: More RAM, a better graphics card, a faster processor, and a good swift kick to the beanbag for the lady's husband for simply buying the cheapest laptop he could get and passing it off as a custom job. (I'm not REALLY going to kick him, but... *sigh*)
So, am I right on the money, or is there a better solution to the problems?
I can has cheezburger, yes?
JaysonFour on
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it always depends on the model of the laptop, but you generally can't replace gpu/cpu. ram's usually upgradable, though.
The crap you buy off the shelf is actually great if you're not a gamer, and even then you often times only need to worry about replacing the video card and power supplies...
I feel where you're coming from though, the moment people learn I work on computers, and that I'm good at it, I become the "Hey can you fix this" guy.... And sadly I can, or if anyone is having issues with something you can hear them "Maybe Nakatomi would know the solution" *sigh*....
I'm in Georgia for a funeral and the family here keeps asking me for technical support here and there...
Movie Collection
Foody Things
Holy shit! Sony's new techno toy!
Wii Friend code: 1445 3205 3057 5295
The plus side is that it'll also make better use of the meager resources of the laptop.
[1]DO NOT DO THIS
Really? Really grad school professors and deans? Can I not escape this shit for a minute? I have to figure out some way to get free credits or something for helping them.
or Brawl. 4854.6102.3895 Name: NU..
Laptops are the worst cos if the hardware messes up there isn't alot you can do.
But in extreme cases i use the "nuke-from-orbit" format approach too. I just ask people to backup everything important (and you will be amazed that they forget to backup somethings and blame it on you even when you explicitly said that the format would wipe everything).
My video lecturer is the best, complete windows noob.
9/10 times, they'll go somewhere else and give someone the benefit of time and money wasted on their old-ass PCs.
I hate to think people would waste their time and money on helplines when i could probably fix it in 5 seconds.
I can has cheezburger, yes?
I can has cheezburger, yes?
Norton is terrible shit and McAfee is only slightly better. Everyone has them because they paid Dell and HP a fuck-tonne of money to get them to come preinstalled with a 30-day trial on their computers.
http://www.virus.gr/portal/en/node/28
The numbers don't lie. That said, I use Avast (on my Windows box, anyway, we don't have these "viruses" on Linux) because I don't feel like spending $60 a year on a subscription to anything. Avast is probably the best free one around: AVG is a memory hog to the point where Half-Life 2 (and other Source-engine games) won't run: google "Paged Pool Memory error" sometime, and Anti-Vir has annoying popups in its free version.
or Brawl. 4854.6102.3895 Name: NU..
I converted most of my family to being Linux/Ubuntu users, so I don't have to deal with this anymore.
http://www.thinkgeek.com/tshirts/frustrations/388b/
My girlfriend got it for me on my birthday
So just faked it with a script I wrote (Norton Icon) that does nothing other than display a dialog 3-5 mins after clicking "Virus check completed. Nothing found." :P
A carton or 6 pack of beer for family or extended family. And close friends.
$120 an hour for strangers.
Favor for a Favor with people i know are good for it.
Knowledge is valuable. Lots of people in IT forget this because it seems SO FUCKING EASY to them.
That's the same approach I took when pricing my services for car detailing.
They are high prices, because i don't want to be everyones PC repair bitch. I also don't want to be doing work, when I'm not at work. Everyone claims to have "a computer guy" and I'll be that computer guy for a fee.
Also, once you fix someone's computer cheaply, they expect you to do it again. And they will fuck it up again, they always do.
Hey, guess what? Like six weeks later, same story. I uninstalled limewire again, got their office program to work, and quit. I was pretty annoyed at those kids.
You've also got to love people who can't freaking read.
"Hey, I tried to install this hard drive in Windows Vista, but it says I need a driver or something."
"Did you install the drivers?"
"Yeah... they were on this CD"
"What was the CD labeled?"
"Windows XP drivers, why?"
"You're running Windows Vista, not XP. Do you see a problem here?"
"No..."
*sound of my head against the wall.*
The lady friend is the only exception to this, for obvious reasons.