...With friends like these.

[burntheland]

lol! step .01

never fails

[diluzio91]

lol! step .01

never fails

that being said... theres a large difference between old people and... as red forman would say.... Dumb A**es

[slaveofconvention]

Sometimes they don't even need to listen - just read what's on the damned screen. I just got around to looking at a PC i've had in for repair for a couple of days (customer said she didn't want it back until Friday so I'm not slacking that much).

I built this PC about 18 months ago and just happened to run into her in the street and she said "I've been meaning to call you, the PC you built isn't working - I haven't been able to get it to boot up for the last couple of months...." Yup, MONTHS - this PC hasn't worked since christmas!

I turned it on, let it start up - up came the menu you get when XP hasn't booted last time and I chose - normal so I could see what the issue was... and it hung on the main XP loading screen, so I reset it and chose "last good configuration which worked" and, it's now 100% fine - boots and shuts down without problem....

Question is, now I have to decide how much to charge her for about 1 min 45 seconds labour :p

As it happens, and while it was on, I ran a gamut of AV, spyware and malware scans to see if there was anything else wrong, along with a couple OCCT and Memtest cycles - PC is absolutely fine :p

[artoodeeto]

ha! I love it.

I *do* have play devil's advocate though: somewhat in people's defense, most people's issues are due to not knowing enough about how their computer works. For people like us the basic stuff isn't hard, but we like tinkering. For other people like my younger sister, they just want to turn it on and have it work, and if it doesn't, then pay someone else to spend the time fixing it.

I'm sure if the client had had any clue what she was looking at, or had any idea it was a potentially quick fix, she would have gone to Last Known Good. But my guess is she saw that menu and since it's not normal, the eyes (and brain) glazed over, and she really didn't look at it. There's a lot of people like that out there. And really, I suppose it's better than the bozos who *think* they know what they're doing and screw it up even more trying to fix it. I can talk, I used to be in that category. Course, I also almost never dumped my worsening problem on someone else, I always solved it myself. Never met a computer problem I couldn't at least buy my way out of LOL

It's like oil changes in my car - I know they're not hard to do, but I'd rather pay someone else $20 to do it than spend the time and energy doing it myself. So yeah, I can see it from both sides. But there are plenty of times when it blows my mind how many people don't realize that a few minutes of research can yield a fix to their issue...

[Trace]

Yeah. My aunt used to always change her own oil in her cars, when she was young and couldn't afford it. Now, she has a good job and doesn't feel like doing it, so she takes it in. Some computer users are the same way.

[mDust]

Some computer users are the same way.

Lazy? lol, yeah, they are. I change my own oil because I can do it faster, cheaper, and, most importantly, I know it's done right. I'll also be replacing all 4 struts, the outer tie rod ends, and a broken sway bar on my car when the parts get here. It's ridiculous how easy it is to do stuff like this. Most people would rather pay for someone else to do 'it', no matter what or how easy 'it' is. The only way I can see this justified is if you have too much money and can't figure out what to spend it on...after all, the pool isn't going to lounge next to itself while sipping drinks...
It's been my experience that most people have extremely shallow thought processes...or maybe it's 'tunnel-vision' for thoughts. For those of us who attempt to solve our own problems: With billions of us online, many people have had the exact same problem, regardless of what it may be, and have posted a solution on the internet! Google can teach us anything...

[x88x]

I always prefer to do my own car work as well, but when you live in an apartment complex with annoying (but understandable) rules about what you can and cannot do in the parking lot, sometimes it's not really feasible. Any work I do myself these days has to either not require much space or disassembly, or be able to be completed in a weekend (at my parents house). Unfortunately, nobody seems to rent out small apartments with garages...I can't imagine why..

[artoodeeto]

I always prefer to do my own car work as well, but when you live in an apartment complex with annoying (but understandable) rules about what you can and cannot do in the parking lot, sometimes it's not really feasible. Any work I do myself these days has to either not require much space or disassembly, or be able to be completed in a weekend (at my parents house). Unfortunately, nobody seems to rent out small apartments with garages...I can't imagine why..

That's actually a good point - I too am in an apartment and am lucky I'm allowed to wash my car in the lot (they have a separate spot for that but my last apartment didn't allow it at all), so I definitely can't do my own oil changes. Really what it comes down to is needing to have someone show me how the first time so I don't screw it up. Once I've done it once, I'm good and will prefer to do it myself. But I've also had bad experiences buying my own car parts, getting substandard parts unknowingly, that sort of thing, and not always getting my money back, and then still having to fork over $$ to have a shop do it right...I'm understandably a little leery of doing car work on my own without a knowledgable person to walk me through it at least the first time. And I'm sure a lot of computer users are like that too. course, at work the overwhelming majority aren't the slightest bit interested in solving their own problems (I'm sorta the mini-backup IT, at least for basic issues).

[Luke122]

That's actually a good point - I too am in an apartment and am lucky I'm allowed to wash my car in the lot (they have a separate spot for that but my last apartment didn't allow it at all), so I definitely can't do my own oil changes.

I have friends who own homes, with garages. It's a good trade to help them with their vehicle maintenance so you can do your own in their garage.

[mDust]

...I'm understandably a little leery of doing car work on my own without a knowledgable person to walk me through it at least the first time. And I'm sure a lot of computer users are like that too. course, at work the overwhelming majority aren't the slightest bit interested in solving their own problems (I'm sorta the mini-backup IT, at least for basic issues).

As for the car work, eHow.com or similar sites have videos you can watch on just about any topic. Here is a video on how to change your oil. Watch it, then examine your car and find the oil fill-port, dipstick, oil filter, and drain plug before you start. Take the used oil to AutoZone or a similar store that disposes of oil. If you have any questions, make a new chatterbox thread and I'm sure you'll get a bunch of replies.

And I'm not sure if the problem is people not 'being interested' in solving their own problems as much as it is them lacking critical thinking skills. Nobody wants to look stupid when someone else solves the problem for them by basically doing nothing, but it happens all the time. It's my theory that they simply can't concentrate on what the problem is and imagine possible solutions at the same time...so they just sit there and do nothing or try the same non-solution repeatedly.