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Stupidest Tech Questions You've Ever Been Asked

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The question itself wasn't stupid, but the cause of it....well.....

It was a recent family tech support issue with a Brother all-in-one printer/scanner.

- Something was chirping in the computer room.
- First assumption he made: It's something wrong with the computer or the printer, because they are electronic, and they are in the room.
- Unplug printer, remove from room.
- Chirping persists.
- Find old smoke detector that was in there for some reason. Its battery was dead.
- Move printer back into room.
- Plug USB cable into RJ-45 connector.
- Printer doesn't work.
- I offer to purchase Fisher Price shape-learning toy for relative.
- I begin to drill holes in my head, in the hopes that I will decrease my intelligence to a level where I won't be asked about anything technical ever again.



Also, I used TeamViewer for the first time. It's incredibly sluggish, but it's a hell of a lot easier than trying to purge spyware/adware that way than trying to look for things I don't even know are there in the first place. He somehow got the idea that each type of media file needed its own player. And of course each one came with a browser toolbar.
 
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People who don't understand the entire point of Windows, for some what, almost 30 years now, is that you can run multiple applications. The number of people who close out of a program to access another one, only to turn around and open the original is painful to the noggin'.

In Excel
Exit Excel
Open Calculator, make calculation
Close Calculator
Open Excel back up

I've seen this happen in financial sector businesses.

And people who double-click EVERYTHING. Fucking stop that.
 
Oh, and in a computer lit class 15+ years ago in college, old women trying to use the mouse like a TV remote. If I was the prof i'd have an aneurism having to deal with that on a daily basis.
 
BrunoPuntzJones said:
People who don't understand the entire point of Windows, for some what, almost 30 years now, is that you can run multiple applications. The number of people who close out of a program to access another one, only to turn around and open the original is painful to the noggin'.

In Excel
Exit Excel
Open Calculator, make calculation
Close Calculator
Open Excel back up

I've seen this happen in financial sector businesses.

And people who double-click EVERYTHING. Fucking stop that.
Click to expand...

Why would they open Calculator, Excel is basically a calculator :|
 
I was actually getting angry on the phone because I thought I was being trolled. The guy on the line kept hitting the New button instead of the down arrow next to the New button even though I was explaining to hit the down arrow. Then he proceeds to tell me the menu option does not exist as if I am running a completely different program than him. I am getting frustrated, he is getting frustrated.

So we went through it all again:
Me: Okay, just click on the arrow next to the New button.
Him: Arrow, what arrow, all I get is a new email when I click on the button.
Me: No, don't click on the button, click on the arrow next to the button.
Him: But there is no arrow, there is only a triangle.
Me: ... (trying to not crush the phone in my hand)... that is the down arrow.
Him: Ohhhhhhhhh.

click.

I mean come on, there are triangles representing arrows all OVER the place, on this page alone I see 8 triangles representing up or down. Sigh.
 
I had someone tell me Al Gore helped invent the Internet.

Not a question, but funny since she was dead serious.
 
zokudu said:
Why would they open Calculator, Excel is basically a calculator :|
Click to expand...

Calculator is MUCH easier to do calculations if you don't need the references in excel. I am not interested in 2 or 3, but I am interested in the summation of 2 and 3, do the calc and toss in 5 in the cell.
 
Years ago I dealt with quite a few simple issues that were blown out of proportion. They were far too numerous and basic to talk about and since there were so many, I can't say any one was the stupidest...

One that annoyed me was when I was a PC Tech. Someone came to me to have a NIC isntalled. I put the NIC in and sent them on their way. The next day they returned because their printer didn't work and they blamed me because it worked prior to me touching the computer. I popped open the case and saw that pin 1 on the LPT port was flipped. So whoever built the computer messed it up....and they blamed me. I pointed that out to them, told them they've NEVER printed anything on the system because it would be impossible and really made them feel low for blaming me. Basic thing, but the guy was a real jerk and I didn't roll over.

If you're ever considering tech support. Always know hot keys. You can tell someone to hold down control or the windows key and press another key to avoid using the mouse altogether....it can save you a lot of phone time.
 
It's not a question, but it kinda bugs me when coworkers talk about computers and confuse RAM with hard drives.
 
Possessed Freak said:
I was actually getting angry on the phone because I thought I was being trolled. The guy on the line kept hitting the New button instead of the down arrow next to the New button even though I was explaining to hit the down arrow. Then he proceeds to tell me the menu option does not exist as if I am running a completely different program than him. I am getting frustrated, he is getting frustrated.

So we went through it all again:
Me: Okay, just click on the arrow next to the New button.
Him: Arrow, what arrow, all I get is a new email when I click on the button.
Me: No, don't click on the button, click on the arrow next to the button.
Him: But there is no arrow, there is only a triangle.
Me: ... (trying to not crush the phone in my hand)... that is the down arrow.
Him: Ohhhhhhhhh.

click.

I mean come on, there are triangles representing arrows all OVER the place, on this page alone I see 8 triangles representing up or down. Sigh.
Click to expand...

What's a "new" button?
 
I remember this old one from my dad. He was a system administrator and also built many of the servers the company used at the time. Like 15 years ago he got a frantic call from his boss on a Sunday morning because they had just rebooted all the machines my dad had just built but none of them were coming up. The boss spent hours trying to figure it out and even called another coworker into the office to help. These needed to come up or else!!! After hearing the error message on the screen, my dad asked him to remove the setup disk from A:...
 
Possessed Freak said:
Calculator is MUCH easier to do calculations if you don't need the references in excel. I am not interested in 2 or 3, but I am interested in the summation of 2 and 3, do the calc and toss in 5 in the cell.
Click to expand...
Calculator:
- Push Calculator button on keyboard, or else get it through the Start menu.
- Push 2 + 3 ENTER
- Switch back to Excel and place result in cell.

Excel 1:
- Click any unused cell.
- Push = 2 + 3 ENTER
- Type result into cell.

Excel 2:
- Click in the cell where you want the answer.
- Push = 2 + 3 ENTER


:hmm:




Scarpozzi said:
...
If you're ever considering tech support...
Click to expand...
...you must also enjoy stabbing yourself in the face with white-hot spikes.




...always know hot keys. You can tell someone to hold down control or the windows key and press another key to avoid using the mouse altogether....it can save you a lot of phone time.
Click to expand...
"What's the Windows/Ctrl key?"
"Hang on, Windows key? I think I used that earlier on this call. Let me find it again."
"Looking for the Control key...oh yeah, it's the one that says Ctrl."
"Which Control key do you want me to use?"
"I always use the mouse to make that window come up, and I don't want to get confused with this keyboard stuff."


:\
 
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Parents aren't getting power to their speakers. Can you take a look for us? Sure. I trace the power cable which is plugged into an extension cable, which makes a loop and is plugged into itself. DOH!
 
Ever have someone Google a URL you give them?

"Go to www.checkthisout.com"

::Googles webiste::

"I can't find it?"

"What do you mean you can't find it, just type the website in and hit enter!"

"there's a whole list..."

Found I can get around that by telling them to hit F6 before typing anything into a browser.
 
Here's one I still think about on occasion... I was showing a guy in the office my serial trackball(this is early 90s), and telling him how I preferred it to a mouse. It said it was alright, but it didn't work well for him, as he slid it across the desk to demonstrate. I still wonder if he was trolling me, or if he thought that was how a trackball was used :^/
 
Fritzo said:
Ever have someone Google a URL you give them?

"Go to www.checkthisout.com"

::Googles webiste::

"I can't find it?"

"What do you mean you can't find it, just type the website in and hit enter!"

"there's a whole list..."

Found I can get around that by telling them to hit F6 before typing anything into a browser.
Click to expand...

I run into this frequently. Let me just remote in and look (assuming I don't have an RDP or something set up).

"Go to whatever.com"
"Ok but which one do I click on?"
"Huh? Don't click on anything yet, just go to that site"
"I did, and Google just shows me a bunch of pages, which one you want?"
"Ah, in that case I'll just come over there"

I bill out a bit over a $100 an hour now, driving time as well. If you can't operate a web browser, just consider it a computer illiteracy tax.
 
me: "I need you to log off your computer and log back in."
them: "You mean restart it?"

Another annoying thing I see people do here at work is to use the caps lock to type their capital letters.

[turns on caps lock] T [turns off caps lock] oday is [turns caps lock on] T [turns caps lock off] hursday.
 
Me: "Go to www.somesite.com"
customer: "How do I do that?"

I don't know how many times I've ran into this when I worked at the help desk. It's like if the minute their Internet stops working and they call, they suddenly forget how to use the Internet.
 
Fritzo said:
Ever have someone Google a URL you give them?

"Go to www.checkthisout.com"

::Googles webiste::

"I can't find it?"

"What do you mean you can't find it, just type the website in and hit enter!"

"there's a whole list..."

Found I can get around that by telling them to hit F6 before typing anything into a browser.
Click to expand...
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.
 
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