Experiences with non-techies

[soldier_ph]

User: OMG, I got Hacked !?!?1!1!1?!?

 

Also User:

And then they never lock their PC even when they leave the Building...

[da na]

In biology class today someone literally asked if, and I quote, "If people back then could see colors" (we were watching an old documentary film in black and white)

He then went on to argue that TVs have always been in color, but cameras weren't because people didn't know what the colors looked like so couldn't "put them in"

He was dead serious. He'll never live that down. 

[da na]

Another story, in the past month a friend has called me at 9 pm, on 3 separate occasions, to come to her dorm and change the wallpaper on her computer. I've shown her how to do it but she still asks. 

[rikitikitavi]

2 hours ago, Mel0nMan said:

called me at 9 pm, on 3 separate occasions, to come to her dorm [...] she still asks. 

Don't make a girl wait, it is impolite... also don't forget a box of chocolates or a 6pack (you know her better, so whatever's more appropriate).

Go tiger!

[CT854]

2 hours ago, Mel0nMan said:

Another story, in the past month a friend has called me at 9 pm, on 3 separate occasions, to come to her dorm and change the wallpaper on her computer. I've shown her how to do it but she still asks. 

I mean.

 

It's possible.

 

Maybe.

 

That she doesn't actually need help changing her wallpaper.

 

Woof.

[da na]

7 hours ago, rikitikitavi said:

 or a 6pack

great way to get arrested fast! 

[da na]

On 3/18/2022 at 3:20 AM, soldier_ph said:

User: OMG, I got Hacked !?!?1!1!1?!?

 

Also User:

And then they never lock their PC even when they leave the Building...

pretty sure I said something about it on this thread before but my Latin teacher 2 years ago wrote his password in permanent marker on the palm rest of the laptop and wondered how people kept getting in 

[Elijah Kamski]

On 1/16/2013 at 6:12 PM, nillas12 said:

Thought it would be fun to make a topic about, all of our experiences with all the people, who doesn't really understand all the tech.

Note: Don't make this too harsh on them. You need to help them, not yell at them.

I'll go first:

So my mom has a daycare. And one day I am sitting on the floor with my laptop. And one of the kids, with real dirty hands come and put his hand on the screen. Guess he thought it was a touch screen. Still haven't gotten it off, and it was 3 months ago.

My grandmother is scared of getting rid of the computer, because she thinks it will cut the power to her house.

rip XD

[Elijah Kamski]

On 3/18/2022 at 7:20 PM, soldier_ph said:

User: OMG, I got Hacked !?!?1!1!1?!?

 

Also User:

And then they never lock their PC even when they leave the Building...

i can confirm, this is how we do things and still do things.

We're all too lazy to properly encrypt it locally, we just hide the master password file in our homework folder that we know nobody else will dare enter if they know what's good for them XD

[RollyShed]

On 3/19/2022 at 2:55 PM, Mel0nMan said:

In biology class today someone literally asked if, and I quote, "If people back then could see colors" (we were watching an old documentary film in black and white)

He then went on to argue that TVs have always been in color, but cameras weren't because people didn't know what the colors looked like so couldn't "put them in"

He was dead serious. He'll never live that down. 

So stupid he didn't think about painters, painting in colour for the past few thousand years.

 

"TVs have always been in color" a very ignorant kid if he thinks that.

[FloRolf]

Today a highly paid team leader was confused as to why he was not able to edit the spreadsheet. He couldn't even click on the damn thing! 

Turns out he was clicking on the screen someone else was sharing over Teams... 

 

Kill me pls. 

[FloRolf]

On 3/19/2022 at 2:57 AM, Mel0nMan said:

Another story, in the past month a friend has called me at 9 pm, on 3 separate occasions, to come to her dorm and change the wallpaper on her computer. I've shown her how to do it but she still asks. 

Honestly dude, at this point it's probably you who can't follow the instructions

 

I want you to text her right now and invite her for a coffee or something. Thank me later. 

[Sant_HH]

Most of my experience with non techies are mostly sales people. Here’s some that I can remember

 

About a 2 years ago I was shopping for those keyboard-trackpad combo thing for my HTPC. A sales person then said to me that I should get the more expensive one because the cheaper one “doesn’t work on PC it only works on TVs and Xboxes” 

 

On another occasion I was shopping for a power supply because the one in my parent’s work computer blew up and a sales person tried to sell me a “500w 80+ Bronze” power supply that weighed like nothing and cost 300THB (~$10). When I refused he then tried to sell me a “600w 80+ Gold ” power supply which also weighed like nothing and cost 1200THB (~$40). I didn’t buy any one of them and got one from a reputable manufacturer online. He also claimed those crap power supplies were the best.

 

Some time later I bought a Lenovo prebuilt and wanted the ssd upgraded. I chose a WD blue 250gb nvme ssd and the sales person told me that Lenovo computers don’t work with any other ssd other than HP. I got the HP one anyway because the price and performance was similar and I didn’t want to have an argument that an m.2 nvme slot can accept any m.2 nvme drive

 

I have lots more but if I’m gonna write them all I’d be here for days

[da na]

2 hours ago, Sant_HH said:

Most of my experience with non techies are mostly sales people. Here’s some that I can remember

 

About a 2 years ago I was shopping for those keyboard-trackpad combo thing for my HTPC. A sales person then said to me that I should get the more expensive one because the cheaper one “doesn’t work on PC it only works on TVs and Xboxes” 

 

On another occasion I was shopping for a power supply because the one in my parent’s work computer blew up and a sales person tried to sell me a “500w 80+ Bronze” power supply that weighed like nothing and cost 300THB (~$10). When I refused he then tried to sell me a “600w 80+ Gold ” power supply which also weighed like nothing and cost 1200THB (~$40). I didn’t buy any one of them and got one from a reputable manufacturer online. He also claimed those crap power supplies were the best.

 

Some time later I bought a Lenovo prebuilt and wanted the ssd upgraded. I chose a WD blue 250gb nvme ssd and the sales person told me that Lenovo computers don’t work with any other ssd other than HP. I got the HP one anyway because the price and performance was similar and I didn’t want to have an argument that an m.2 nvme slot can accept any m.2 nvme drive

 

I have lots more but if I’m gonna write them all I’d be here for days

Is it just me or is a lot of the tech illiteracy and misconceptions caused by things like this? People generally trust salespeople, and if they're spitting BS people just eat it up...

[da na]

This won't go well

https://linustechtips.com/topic/1420287-fixing-old-ide-hard-drive/

"Can I recover this drive?" *opens and screws with head*

[Bitter]

I had a non techie moment last night, was messing with BIOS settings and accidentally reset my RAM speed. When I put it back I forgot to set the timings. NO POST! OH GOD WHAT DID I DO! oh yeah.

[Rauten]

So I work as a helpdesk monkey for a relatively large company.

This company has a ticketing portal, where people can type where the bad computer touched them and why they think it's inappropriate.

They can attach files to these tickets, and even embed pictures.

I've seen people use the attachments/embeds in some ridiculous ways, but DEAR LORD this one takes the cake.

 

The user wrote the details of his issue in a Word file. Mind you, it's all PURE TEXT he could've just written in the ticket.

Then took a picture of the Word file with his phone.

Then passed the picture file from his phone to the computer.

Then embedded the picture to the ticket.

 

WHYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY?!?!?!?!?!

[soldier_ph]

7 hours ago, Rauten said:

The user wrote the details of his issue in a Word file. Mind you, it's all PURE TEXT he could've just written in the ticket.

Then took a picture of the Word file with his phone.

Then passed the picture file from his phone to the computer.

Then embedded the picture to the ticket.

You can be glad that they didn't first write the text in Word, then print it, then take a picture of it with their phone, then email the photo to themselves so that they have it on the Computer, then take a Screenshot of the Email with the picture and then embed the picture in the Ticket. 

[da na]

1 minute ago, soldier_ph said:

You can be glad that they didn't first write the text in Word, then print it, then take a picture of it with their phone, then email the photo to themselves so that they have it on the Computer, then take a Screenshot of the Email with the picture and then embed the picture in the Ticket. 

one of my teachers in 7th grade back in good ol remote class days had a convoluted way of submitting assignments. He would send them out as .DOCX, have us print them, fill it out on paper, take a picture, convert it to a PDF, then convert the PDF BACK INTO A WORD DOC. Like you know you can edit text IN WORD, right? 

[AudiTTFan]

55 minutes ago, Mel0nMan said:

one of my teachers in 7th grade back in good ol remote class days had a convoluted way of submitting assignments. He would send them out as .DOCX, have us print them, fill it out on paper, take a picture, convert it to a PDF, then convert the PDF BACK INTO A WORD DOC. Like you know you can edit text IN WORD, right? 

My history teacher has an equally terrible way of doing things. He puts new notes in the class OneNote for our assignments, but instead of writing in OneNote there's always just an attached Word document, and that's where we're supposed to do our work. I can't believe we don't just write things in OneNote, and I especially can't believe he doesn't attach the document to an assignment in our MS Teams group like all my other teachers, considering MS Teams actually shows notifications when you get new assignments

[AudiTTFan]

On 3/18/2022 at 3:20 AM, soldier_ph said:

And then they never lock their PC even when they leave the Building...

I think the most egregious case of not following your cybersecurity policy that I've ever seen is my dad's keyring of flash drives. My dad is the senior vice president for one of the big 3 investment companies here in Canada, so naturally his company's IT department give even more attention to him than most other employees when it comes to security. With how much sensitive company info he deals with, here are some examples:

• He needs a separate phone for work, which he can't use for web browsing, or even taking pictures
• His company-provided HP EliteBook has its ports disabled, so an infected flash drive can't do anything
• He has to change his BitLocker code every month, and even the IT department isn't allowed to know the code

Despite all these measures, he frequently saves sensitive work documents to his Google Drive to download onto flash drives later using the family computer, and keeps Excel files full of all his passwords on others. Of course it gets better though, because he uses his  Dymo and labels them, so there's literally one drive labeled "company passwords" with the passwords and usernames for all the company services, as well as his BitLocker encryption key. Oh, and my dad works at home, so where does he keep these flash drives in case the house gets burglarized? In a safe? In a locked filing cabinet? Hell no! He leaves them sitting on his monitor's stand...

[Captainbeaky]

On 3/16/2022 at 8:46 AM, RollyShed said:

Elderly and devices - no, they are just dumb people.

 

Go back to the 1930s and my mother would be stripping down her car's engine to do an overhaul. 1960s was doing electrical appliance servicing, she in her late 60s. If she was alive today she's be running computers. How old is one of our organisation's IT experts? 80 years old. Is that vintage? Servicing them i.e. replacing faulty parts, installing systems, doing coding where necessary.

 

So elderly who can't plug something in are simply dumb and have never learned to think.

It’s not always down to the ability to think.

Our faculties and memory do diminish with increasing age. 

My mum was head of computing for her school back in the late 90’s - back in the day of command line programs for education. For a non-techie, she really had a good grasp of it, and was really good with the computers of the time. It was so sad to see her decline in later life, when a laptop and mouse would cause her to panic, simply because she couldn’t remember how to use it. The ipad was a boon in her latter years, because it was so easy to use, so she didn’t have to remember so much.

[rikitikitavi]

1 hour ago, AudiTTFan said:

He leaves them sitting on his monitor's stand...

And that is a security leak… just need to apply some social engineering…

 

like father like son lol

[Bitter]

6 hours ago, AudiTTFan said:

I think the most egregious case of not following your cybersecurity policy that I've ever seen is my dad's keyring of flash drives. My dad is the senior vice president for one of the big 3 investment companies here in Canada, so naturally his company's IT department give even more attention to him than most other employees when it comes to security. With how much sensitive company info he deals with, here are some examples:

• He needs a separate phone for work, which he can't use for web browsing, or even taking pictures
• His company-provided HP EliteBook has its ports disabled, so an infected flash drive can't do anything
• He has to change his BitLocker code every month, and even the IT department isn't allowed to know the code

Despite all these measures, he frequently saves sensitive work documents to his Google Drive to download onto flash drives later using the family computer, and keeps Excel files full of all his passwords on others. Of course it gets better though, because he uses his  Dymo and labels them, so there's literally one drive labeled "company passwords" with the passwords and usernames for all the company services, as well as his BitLocker encryption key. Oh, and my dad works at home, so where does he keep these flash drives in case the house gets burglarized? In a safe? In a locked filing cabinet? Hell no! He leaves them sitting on his monitor's stand...

I hope your families retirement funds are with a competing company.

[soldier_ph]

Well yes but actually no: