Experiences with non-techies

[squirrl]

When your dad asks where the "on" button is on a desktop computer....

When your high school IT teacher calls out the technicians because he can't turn a computer on.

[squirrl]

With modern computers yes it is, when dual cores first hit the scene the X6800 sure was considered aa a powerful dual core :P

Not particularly :P If you get a 3970x and only enable 2 of the cores it's still powerful :P

[piplupgao]

Not particularly :P If you get a 3970x and only enable 2 of the cores it's still powerful :P

well a 4770k with only 2 cores enabled is better the main thing that makes the Extreme processors are the 6 cores

[_wky]

Eh, days come and go in waves for those kinds of people. In general, there's always people claiming that they're already doing something at home, like today I had someone insisting they were using a VGA-to-HDMI cable on monitors. When I showed him what HDMI looked like, he asked me "what's that?" and realized he was using DVI.

 

Then I had a couple trying to convince me that the hard drive capacity was the RAM and vice versa. That's a double-sided coin, because how awesome would 2TBs of RAM be? Not as awesome as having 8GB hard drives o.x

 

On the bright side, working this new job has helped me figure out to dumb things way down for people. Analogies work wonders.

I hear you there! One of my analogies for talking about what each part is/does is regarding a house with people doing things.

RAM is the room so the more RAM the bigger the room the more that can be done in the room at once. The CPU is a group of people that do things. Each core would be a person and the more GHz the faster they can do things (regarding hyperthreading each person can do two things at the same time). The HDD is a storage room that is really packed so it's slow to get to things but holds a lot. That's about it for that one as that's what I think is the limit as I can't think of what the GPU and PSU would do in that analogies.

 

It's not perfect but gets the point across the majority of the time.

[YellowDragon]

I hear you there! One of my analogies for talking about what each part is/does is regarding a house with people doing things.

RAM is the room so the more RAM the bigger the room the more that can be done in the room at once. The CPU is a group of people that do things. Each core would be a person and the more GHz the faster they can do things (regarding hyperthreading each person can do two things at the same time). The HDD is a storage room that is really packed so it's slow to get to things but holds a lot. That's about it for that one as that's what I think is the limit as I can't think of what the GPU and PSU would do in that analogies.

 

It's not perfect but gets the point across the majority of the time.

PSU is the guy on an exercise bike in the basement powering a generator that runs the lights in the house :P

 

A GPU analogy would be multiple people doing laundry at the same time with multiple machines ( parallel processing) so you get a lot of work done really quickly, plus its a good analogy as it renders the GUI or in this analogies the interesting shirts that everyone wears inside the house :P

[_wky]

PSU is the guy on an exercise bike in the basement powering a generator that runs the lights in the house :P

 

A GPU analogy would be multiple people doing laundry at the same time with multiple machines ( parallel processing) so you get a lot of work done really quickly, plus its a good analogy as it renders the GUI or in this analogies the interesting shirts that everyone wears inside the house :P

Very good! Thanks, I'll use that next time I need too.

[TechTheWorld]

When your high school IT teacher calls out the technicians because he can't turn a computer on.

Well im starting to like how the people at school cant really use computers. We were supposed to take a computer test but the computers were down! YES!

[Ruostunut kokis]

Eh, days come and go in waves for those kinds of people. In general, there's always people claiming that they're already doing something at home, like today I had someone insisting they were using a VGA-to-HDMI cable on monitors. When I showed him what HDMI looked like, he asked me "what's that?" and realized he was using DVI.

 

Then I had a couple trying to convince me that the hard drive capacity was the RAM and vice versa. That's a double-sided coin, because how awesome would 2TBs of RAM be? Not as awesome as having 8GB hard drives o.x

 

On the bright side, working this new job has helped me figure out to dumb things way down for people. Analogies work wonders.

 

I have a old 4 GB hard drive connected to my PC via PATA to USB adapter as a USB flash drive alternative. I really should get more USB flash drives and the PATA drive is really slow but it's worth the lolz.

[ScottS1]

My Computing class back in my 3rd year of Academy (High school is the equivalent I think) had a few months where they were teaching basic computer skills, how to type, how to use word, online etiquette etc. My friend and I had to take the class as it was needed to get into the class we wanted next year so we did what we were told but and after 2 classes the teacher knew that we were far ahead of the rest of the class so we were given the book and told what we had to have done by certain dates. Surprise surprise we got our work done and sat on forums and the like looking at PC parts for the rest of the time.

 

Also we had a supply teacher the day before the test and she didn't know that we were naturally good at the class and we were sitting wasting time playing games and such while the rest of the class freaked out and studied. She spent the while lesson telling us that we should get off games and study or else we'll fail.

 

We both got 1's.

 

(1 is the best you can get in range from 1 - 8, 1&2 being an A, 3&4 is a B, 5&6 is a C and 7&8 is a fail)

 

I'm the friend he's talking about, we both got full marks for every test we did, regardless of how little work we did. The tests were marked out of 20 and for every test we both got 20/20.

[_wky]

I'm the friend he's talking about, we both got full marks for every test we did, regardless of how little work we did. The tests were marked out of 20 and for every test we both got 20/20.

[iAsuno]

This happened on Facebook.

Guy 1: *shares a picture of ps4* mom! I want this for Christmas!

Guy 2: don't get that bro! Get an alienware!

Guy 1: yeah, it feels good to play LoL on that.

*facepalm*

[Stephie_Girl]

Someone at work who claims to be the guru asked me how fast my PC was.  I said what part, he said the processor.  I said 4.4Ghz and he's like that's it?  His friend hit 12GHz last week and when I informed him that the record was like 8.9GHz, and he's like nah he uses military components.  I said so does my MSI motherboard

[Ddm5]

I when I say upgrade I'm not referring to the obvious HDD/ODD/RAM upgrades, I'm talking about CPU/GPU.

CPU is actually possible but you HAVE to have a high enough spec laptop that allows switching of said CPU out / replacement, GPU, of course not.

[Lamb]

My nan calls a desktop computer a hard drive...

[bchampion96]

Does anyone on this thread have tips for dealing with non-techies? I normally have average patience, but when someone is ignorant of computers near me or asks for my help with one, I lose my shit. I seriously need to learn how to help them. Any tips? D:

[Spannerhands]

Does anyone on this thread have tips for dealing with non-techies? I normally have average patience, but when someone is ignorant of computers near me or asks for my help with one, I lose my shit. I seriously need to learn how to help them. Any tips? D:

 

Just tell them they need to RTFM (Reed The F**King Manuel)

[Beskamir]

Just tell them they need to RTFM (Reed The F**King Manuel)

Or to just use this wonderfull thing called Google... Although sometimes its a bit hard to explain a 3sentence long problem in google, which is where LTT comes in

[catbutts]

My mom just called me to ask how to plug in a USB headset to her iPad.

[Chatzev]

At school today my friend (technology noob) said: "Alienwares are some of the best computers on the planet!" I had a blood nose from facepalming too hard

[Daanish375]

Sent this to a few of my friends/family after I got fed up with their complaints.

[Guest]

Sent this to a few of my friends/family after I got fed up with their complaints.

 

It's already posted, right on page 1.

[obsidian1200]

I'm really tempted to print out a bunch of Intel Core i9 badges and start sticking them on random things just to get customers to stop asking about them >_>

[BowTies28]

I was in computer class
a girl told me her computer was broken

i looked over to see that nothing was on.

[ShearMe]

I actually have a problem with "IT Professionals" more often than non-techies, believe it or not. For example, at my current place of employment, they've contracted out every system in their building, whether that be their network of servers or their audio/video ghettups. Every single one of these systems is complicated in ways they need not be, and as a result, there's been many occasions where I try to help fix something and end up breaking the entire thing because some numbskull set things up poorly. Why do I have to press the open button on the DVD recorders for them to send video to the recording monitor regardless of whether there's a DVD inside? Why are none of the audio/video devices connected into the audio/video receiver on the rack which is specifically designed for this purpose? Why, oh, why do you have multiple high end servers doing a single trivial task each (a print server? seriously?) when you obviously have an operating system installed and capable of doing all this on a single machine?

[TymmVonD]

The best part about this forum is, a few of these stories are told by people that don't know what they're talking about either. Not to mention, a handful are just made up obviously. Good times though. Good times...