Stupidest Tech Questions You've Ever Been Asked

[Phoenix86]

"the internet is broken"

Just reboot it.

 

[MagnusTheBrewer]

I had a teacher call me who taught computer skills to 3rd and 4th grade children. She couldn't get program she regularly used, to run.

Teacher: I use this every day. I HAVE to have the program! Why doesn't it work?
What's wrong with this computer?
Me: What happens when you try to run it?
Teacher: Nothing. <sullen>
Me: Ok, lets see if it still does it. Go to programs and click on that application.
Teacher: It's not there. <Why can't this idiot fix this?>
Me: Could someone have deleted or erased the program?
Teacher: No, I'm the only one who has access. I don't understand why it's not there. <panic>
Me: Let's see if we can find it. Go to search and type in the name of the program.
Teacher: I found it! <Oh joy, oh rapture>
Me: Ok...where is it located?
Teacher: It's right there in the search window. <What an idiot this guy is>
Me: Tell me exactly what it says before the name of the program.
Teacher: "F" "dot dot" "Greater than" "Back slash"

<mental face palm> (Dear God, please tell me she didn't forget what a colon was)
Auto play had got turned off. There was no installed program, it just ran off the CD.

 

[homercles337]

"Whats the first phone you ever owned?"

 

[maniacalpha1-1]

Where's the 'Start' button ??

That's going to be a very ubiquitous question with Windows 8....

 

[Red Squirrel]

Admittedly, I'll do this at work sometimes - mistype a URL the wrong (right?) way, and end up at a site'o'spam and scripts, or porn. Or if you're lucky, it'll either just time out, or just go to a placeholder page.

lol I did that the other day, I typed facebook.co instead of .com. I typed it too fast and hit enter before I typed the m. immediately end tasked firefox and did a full virus scan of my machine. No idea whether or not that page was infected but it looked rather sketchy.

But yeah people who actually purposely type a site in google or something make me laugh. I don't know why they do this. If anything why bother typing www and .com if you are using google to get to a site.

 

[unokitty]

At a community college in Florida, I had a user call and ask what they should do since their computer was on fire...

Uno

 

[WiseUp216]

My grandmother was getting an error when booting.

'Press F1 to continue...'

"I press F1 but it doesn't do anything."

It took me a couple of minutes to realize she was pressing "F" and then "1".

 

[Lanyap]

I've been using computers (PCs, minicomputers and mainframes) for 20 years, and I found iTunes to be a steaming pile of incomprehensible crap. So I am sympathetic to the OP's sister and would not put those questions anywhere near the dumbest ever.

Mainframes? You are obviously an old guy. No wonder you can't use iTunes. You need to stick with TSO/ISPF and maybe some VSAM KSDS control interval stuff.

 

[Kaido]

The best one I've had so far happened a couple years ago:

Someone was leaving nasty notes on people's desk at works. Just mean little comments printed out and left on user's keyboards...there was a lot of catfighting going on at the time between the office ladies, whatever. It escalated to an HR and became a Management issue, so of course Stuff Got Real. I was pulled aside and asked to trace the IP from a copy of a printout of one of the notes.

I tried explaining that there was no way to track down a user based on a printout, especially since the vast majority of our printers were USB desktop printers with no easily accessible printer history, and we didn't even know that the person had printed it on-site, but they were having nothing to do with it. And note that this talk was "Serious Business", stone-faced, high importance kind of stuff :awe:

I finally got out of it when the person interrogating me suddenly came to the self-realization that it was impossible for IT to trace copies of a printout - you can only trace the IP address from original printout. And that's how that particular project got off my plate...I excused myself and went to a room on the other side of the building and laughed until I almost cried

 

[dr150]

Why do they call it a mouse when it looks like a brick with two clickers?

Why does this TV show text instead of channels?

 

[lupi]

how do I get my post to say "sent from some stupid device" on them.

 

[The Boston Dangler]

we had this ridiculous and unused sun workstation at my office. i woke it from it's multi-years-long slumber and the last thing typed into it was a hated imbecile's attempt at getting his aol page.

 

[Ns1]

The best one I've had so far happened a couple years ago:

Someone was leaving nasty notes on people's desk at works. Just mean little comments printed out and left on user's keyboards...there was a lot of catfighting going on at the time between the office ladies, whatever. It escalated to an HR and became a Management issue, so of course Stuff Got Real. I was pulled aside and asked to trace the IP from a copy of a printout of one of the notes.

I tried explaining that there was no way to track down a user based on a printout, especially since the vast majority of our printers were USB desktop printers with no easily accessible printer history, and we didn't even know that the person had printed it on-site, but they were having nothing to do with it. And note that this talk was "Serious Business", stone-faced, high importance kind of stuff :awe:

I finally got out of it when the person interrogating me suddenly came to the self-realization that it was impossible for IT to trace copies of a printout - you can only trace the IP address from original printout. And that's how that particular project got off my plate...I excused myself and went to a room on the other side of the building and laughed until I almost cried

winner

 

[Ns1]

Everyone in the computer industry must of heard the word perfect story but just in case someone hasn't

http://www.waynesthisandthat.com/response.htm

if legit then LOL

 

[AreaCode707]

The best one I've had so far happened a couple years ago:

Someone was leaving nasty notes on people's desk at works. Just mean little comments printed out and left on user's keyboards...there was a lot of catfighting going on at the time between the office ladies, whatever. It escalated to an HR and became a Management issue, so of course Stuff Got Real. I was pulled aside and asked to trace the IP from a copy of a printout of one of the notes.

I tried explaining that there was no way to track down a user based on a printout, especially since the vast majority of our printers were USB desktop printers with no easily accessible printer history, and we didn't even know that the person had printed it on-site, but they were having nothing to do with it. And note that this talk was "Serious Business", stone-faced, high importance kind of stuff :awe:

I finally got out of it when the person interrogating me suddenly came to the self-realization that it was impossible for IT to trace copies of a printout - you can only trace the IP address from original printout. And that's how that particular project got off my plate...I excused myself and went to a room on the other side of the building and laughed until I almost cried

You win.

My favorite two questions.

User (via email during webapp testing, referring to a pop up box that says Save/Cancel): "Do I have to hit save to save the information?"

User (after I came to her desk and did an hour of training on new webapp with her): "Great, thanks! Oh, is it in the stars?"
Me: "...?"
User: "The old app was in the stars. Can you put this one in the stars?"
Me: "... Can you show me?"
User: *navigates to Firefox bookmarks
Me: "Ohhhhhh." *Bookmarks the web app for her. "Out of curiousity, do you use the internet at home?"
Her: "Oh yeah, all the time!"
Me: "How do you find your favorite web sites?"
User: *Navigates to url bar, clicks, views recent history
Me: .....

Please note - User is a patent attorney at a "large internet retailer", working with some of the most advanced tech patents in the world....

 

[ahenkel]

Do I need to plug my Imac in, or does it use wireless power?

 

[xSkyDrAx]

"what is a browser?"

 

[ahenkel]

"what is a browser?"

I get that all the time. I stopped saying browser I just tell people to go to Google.

 

[LumbergTech]

A woman told me that the DVD drive wouldn't read her disc and she was quite upset about why we had burned her a faulty one. Turns out that there was a wire hanging on the side of the drive and it wouldn't close all the way.

One from my friend:

A guy said that his keyboard kept typing aaaaaaaaaaaaa and would not stop, no matter what he did. He rebooted the computer even and it just wouldn't stop. Turned out that he had a folder laying on the key.

The joys of IT work.

 

[HAL9000]

My friend (he was in my IT class for about two years) asked me to come round and fix his desktop because it wouldn't boot.

He then called me a few hours later saying not to worry, he fixed the problem, he just has to turn his xbox on in downstairs first then his desktop will boot.

-_-

 

[ch33zw1z]

My friend (he was in my IT class for about two years) asked me to come round and fix his desktop because it wouldn't boot.

He then called me a few hours later saying not to worry, he fixed the problem, he just has to turn his xbox on in downstairs first then his desktop will boot.

-_-

lol, that's when you say "ok cool, l8r!"

 

[disappoint]

Is there a difference between air tight and water tight?

Sent from my GT-I9100 using Tapatalk 2

http://forums.anandtech.com/showthread.php?p=33837451&highlight=#post33837451

 

[disappoint]

Do I need to plug my Imac in, or does it use wireless power?

NO. It's not as advanced as my Motorola phone.

Which does.

Have...

wireless...

power.









...sometimes.

 

[Raduque]

My mother is good for asking stupid tech questions.

A recent one: "Why won't these charge?" indicating her MP3 player and GS2 plugged into the USB ports of a closed, turned-off, unplugged laptop.

 

[hanoverphist]

Another one of these? Fine. One time, someone (could be a co-worker) told me that they were turning off the computer by turning the monitor off -_-

ive ran into this a few times. one of those users had no idea what the difference between a local drive and a network drive was either. was very difficult explaining it for some reason. that same woman also asked me how she checked her emails. i told her to open outlook and click on the inbox if it wasnt already there. i ended up having to work with her for a month, changing icons on the desktop to make it easier for her. the final one was labeled "double click here to check your email!" in all caps. she still didnt get it, so the owner asked me to add outlook to her start up menu so it would be automatic. and this woman was in charge of the money.