Experiences with non-techies

[DigitalHermit]

I'm an IT guy for a "hobby" and some people ask me where the any key is... COME ON!!!

 

If they ask me that I always sarcastically tell them that it's the reset/power button... (lest they legitimately need some help)

[Scruffy90]

This sums it up on my end. Can't recall how often I see this .

Sigh . . .

[Cwazywazy]

"Intel Core iS"

 

Heard my mom say this when looking at buying a new iMac...

To be fair her vision is pretty bad and she's kinda old but like ugh.

"Intel Core i2"

 

I'm guilty of accidentally saying that instead of Core 2 Duo before..

[Fgtfv567]

I'm an IT guy for a "hobby" and some people ask me where the any key is... COME ON!!!

Whenever I see the "Press any key to continue" I like to pound on my keyboard randomly trying to press as many keys as I possibly can.

[max_n_cheese11]

I get blamed for EVERY computer/electronic device failure ever wether it's an ac controller, pc, phone you name it! somehow it's my fault, oh these headphones stopped working....wtf did you do to them? .....

I broke my headphones (well, earbuds, but still, I'm too lazy to fix them) ...

[Wooth]

I just got paid $50 to plug in and set up a throw away $400 computer. Happy days

[Cree340]

Doesn't cost over 2 grand, not that shitty, not that overpriced

Its less powerful than a Macbook Air (yes I know its a core M), only has 1 port for display/power/data (plus headphone jack) and has very little key travel on the keyboard (because its so thin). It can be $1599 (USD) and has very little functionality for that price that makes it basically a high end netbook. There's a smaller target audience for this computer since its not suitable to be anyone's primary computer since its so limited in its price bracket. This is coming from a person (myself) that has owned (and also uses) both PC's and Macs (Apple rMBP 15", Apple MBA 11", the PC I built, Acer Timeline U, Sony Vaio Pro 13, Surface Pro 3, etc) so I honestly have no bias against what apple makes. 

[Fgtfv567]

Its less powerful than a Macbook Air (yes I know its a core M), only has 1 port for display/power/data (plus headphone jack) and has very little key travel on the keyboard (because its so thin). It can be $1599 (USD) and has very little functionality for that price that makes it basically a high end netbook. There's a smaller target audience for this computer since its not suitable to be anyone's primary computer since its so limited in its price bracket. This is coming from a person (myself) that has owned (and also uses) both PC's and Macs (Apple rMBP 15", Apple MBA 11", the PC I built, Acer Timeline U, Sony Vaio Pro 13, Surface Pro 3, etc) so I honestly have no bias against what apple makes.

When I wrote that earlier today, I didn't know about the single USB port or that the core M is that underpowered... 1.1 GHz... What the fuck were they thinking?!

[BlazingGunnerFTW]

My aftermarket charger broke. (charging connector broke) and then my mom said: We dont need to buy a new one, we can have dad glue it and see if it works....

[BlazingGunnerFTW]

When I wrote that earlier today, I didn't know about the single USB port or that the core M is that underpowered... 1.1 GHz... What the fuck were they thinking?!

Mac pros are great workstations. they are actually great for the hardware (especially GPU's) and just dualboot windows and there you go.

MacBOOK pros.... are slabs of aluminium. well thats it. slabs of aluminium with a fucked up 2304 x 1440 display. Then I feel sorry for Intel HD Graphics. UP to 3840 x 2160. –Apple

The camera... 480p.... thats amazing and high end... and only for Facetime... Thats nice???

[Boink]

Its less powerful than a Macbook Air (yes I know its a core M), only has 1 port for display/power/data (plus headphone jack) and has very little key travel on the keyboard (because its so thin). It can be $1599 (USD) and has very little functionality for that price that makes it basically a high end netbook. There's a smaller target audience for this computer since its not suitable to be anyone's primary computer since its so limited in its price bracket. This is coming from a person (myself) that has owned (and also uses) both PC's and Macs (Apple rMBP 15", Apple MBA 11", the PC I built, Acer Timeline U, Sony Vaio Pro 13, Surface Pro 3, etc) so I honestly have no bias against what apple makes. 

Between the price, the limited I/O, and low speed, Apple did a great job of limiting their target audience with this one. Add to that the strange resolution, inability to upgrade after purchase, limited upgrade options during purchase (and expensive ones at that), and the fact that it's not that much thinner than the Macbook Air with half the functionality, I'm fairly certain this thing will flop. Sadly though, Apple backed themselves into a corner here. They have a reputation of constantly making things thinner and lighter, but the only way to make the new Macbook better is to make it a bit thicker.

That said, I know some people who will probably buy it just because it's made by Apple.

[jayctech]

Between the price, the limited I/O, and low speed, Apple did a great job of limiting their target audience with this one. Add to that the strange resolution, inability to upgrade after purchase, limited upgrade options during purchase (and expensive ones at that), and the fact that it's not that much thinner than the Macbook Air with half the functionality, I'm fairly certain this thing will flop. Sadly though, Apple backed themselves into a corner here. They have a reputation of constantly making things thinner and lighter, but the only way to make the new Macbook better is to make it a bit thicker.

That said, I know some people who will probably buy it just because it's made by Apple.

A lot of people will buy it because of that.

And because "It's expensive, must be good. It's thin and light too! BONUS!"

[CtW]

Recently, my mom asked me for help getting something from a shelf in her closet (i'm ~6ft tall, she's 5'5") and when I came in, she was watching house of cards on her iMac with her secondary monitor turned to face the wall. I asked her why she didn't just turn off the thing and she said "I didn't want to loose the work that was on it" I then had to explain how monitors worked to her.

[jayctech]

Recently, my mom asked me for help getting something from a shelf in her closet (i'm ~6ft tall, she's 5'5") and when I came in, she was watching house of cards on her iMac with her secondary monitor turned to face the wall. I asked her why she didn't just turn off the thing and she said "I didn't want to loose the work that was on it" I then had to explain how monitors worked to her.

http://static.comicvine.com/uploads/original/14/146053/3059129-quadruple+facepalm.jpg

[Thorium19]

Well yesterday I had to spend a significant portion of my lunch using headroom.com and their headphone graphs to explain to my "friend" why beats create a distorted and skewed sound signature and so are not suitable to be used for music production (he wanted a pair of headphones to use when making his own music, he plays guitar and bass guitar but also does some work for his band in audio production). He didn't seem to get that having a flat sound signature is important to making music as you can hear all the parts equally, whereas beats create muddy mids and have seriously skewed bass and treble so will not give you a reliable feel for where most of the music is based. Eventually I convinced him, and another friend who I know has some good quality pioneers yet still wants a pair of beats, that something like the Audio technica ath m50X would be a far better bet for audio work.

[Dude]

My nan just asked me if being connected to her BT Hub will use up her data connection which she pays 2.50 a day for.

I spend hundreds of hours at her house explaining stuff to her and have been paid a grand total of 15 quid for all my hard work. So if I spend exactly 100 hours there and earn 15 quid. I earn 15 pence an hour.

[soup]

My aftermarket charger broke. (charging connector broke) and then my mom said: We dont need to buy a new one, we can have dad glue it and see if it works....

 

That quite often happens to me I have lost count of the times wife has said "see if your dad can glue it.  To be fair lots of times I can get it working (sometimes solder sometimes glue ) but "see if your dad can glue it" seems to be the default answer to EVERYTHING.

[Dazza477]

I once had an old man who didn't know how to use a mouse.

I asked him to drag the mouse across the screen to click on something, and yeah, you guessed it. He literally picked up the mouse off his desk and full on swiped it across the screen.

'facedesk'

[Felix0411]

Hello,

 

Probably the most simple and frequent mistake people make is "Ermahgherd! This PC has 32Gb of RAM! Most powerful PC ever!" What they don't realize is that it costs £3,000 and it doesn't have a processor that would take advantage of that extra memory. Unless they do video editing etc. (which I can assure you they do not) the extra RAM is wasted. They just want to run TF2. 

[Felix0411]

Hello,

 

Probably the most simple and frequent mistake people make is "Ermahgherd! This PC has 32Gb of RAM! Most powerful PC ever!" What they don't realize is that it costs £3,000 and it doesn't have a processor that would take advantage of that extra memory. Unless they do video editing etc. (which I can assure you they do not) the extra RAM is wasted. They just want to run TF2. 

 

Well, this is probably one of the most common mistakes. I guess I'm not the first to say this.

[DigitalHermit]

Hello,

 

Probably the most simple and frequent mistake people make is "Ermahgherd! This PC has 32Gb of RAM! Most powerful PC ever!" What they don't realize is that it costs £3,000 and it doesn't have a processor that would take advantage of that extra memory. Unless they do video editing etc. (which I can assure you they do not) the extra RAM is wasted. They just want to run TF2. 

 

Well, this is probably one of the most common mistakes. I guess I'm not the first to say this.

 

Now why would you quote yourself??

[PotatOS - Andrew]

I once had an old man who didn't know how to use a mouse.

I asked him to drag the mouse across the screen to click on something, and yeah, you guessed it. He literally picked up the mouse off his desk and full on swiped it across the screen.

'facedesk'

Common mistake with older people, never gets old though.  Although maybe you could have been more specific and said "cursor" instead of "mouse".

[Sybre]

I once had an old man who didn't know how to use a mouse.

I asked him to drag the mouse across the screen to click on something, and yeah, you guessed it. He literally picked up the mouse off his desk and full on swiped it across the screen.

'facedesk'

Well in all fairness, it works.

[Darkman]

Common mistake with older people, never gets old though.  Although maybe you could have been more specific and said "cursor" instead of "mouse".

My grandma would probably think cursor has something to do with a cursed computer...

[BlazingGunnerFTW]

If they ask me that I always sarcastically tell them that it's the reset/power button... (lest they legitimately need some help)

Tell them. "Go ask Best Buy".