Experiences with non-techies

[Peter Smyth]

This kind of reminds me of how one of my monitors gets a signal. I have a chain of mini DP to HDMI (plugged into computer) -> 2 ft HDMI cable -> HDMI to DVI (plugged into monitor)

 

To be fair to your mom, at least she is trying. I know some people who call thunderbolt "Apple ports" so whenever people with macbooks have a presentation that requires them to plug their laptop into the projector they ask if someone has an apple port adapter so they can use the projector port... *sigh*

I'm surprised she didn't come home with a really expensive one.

[Marinatall_Ironside]

Ok so this happened to me today.

 

A friend of mine wants me to help him build a PC because he wants a desktop rather than his laptop.

It also has to have an A10 processor on it. As in he would rather die than have Intel processors because they are "expensive piles of crap" and "AMD are the only people that make good processors". The following is what occured in our conversation:

 

me = me

friend = fr

 

fr: here I have made this build on PCPartpicker, is it any good?

me : i'll have a look for you

me: I've made some changes to it so that is has more performance and less energy consumption

fr : wtf you changed the processor to one with less GHz and a higher price!!!!

me : its a better A10 processor so it will run better and give you more performance in-game

fr : nah fam im changing it back, why would I want less GHz?

me: *facepalm* alright, fine.

 

Another conversation with this guy ran along the lines of:

 

me: that AMD A10 has an integrated R7 Graphics card in it

fr  : really? cool!

fr: sooo if I got a graphics card on top of that it will theoretically double my performance, right?

me : uh no, you see its more comp....

fr : BUT I WILL HAVE 2 GRAPHICS CARDS RUNNING AT THE SAME TIME BECAUSE THE ONE IN THE CPU IS RUNNING ALL THE TIME

me : thats really not how it works because you have to have the display plugged into the graphics card for it to output graphics to it

fr : but surely the graphics card in the CPU is boosting the graphics card that is plugged into the motherboard? Otherwise why would they put it there?

me: no, thats really not how it works, the iGPU does not boost the graphics card because they have nothing to do with each other.

 

I have stopped talking to my friend for a while because my brain hurts

Almost just like my parents. *Sigh* AMD fanboys/elitists (However you want to put it I don't care) always trying to make AMD sound better than Intel when it's been proven for almost several years (Correct me if I'm wrong) that Intel has the upper hand. Until Zen comes out and it proves that it matches Intel.

 

Compatibility doesn't matter with processors as it has to take whatever you put in to the system. It's up to the manufacturers of the motherboards on what hardware is compatible with what. If your hard drive is crashing, get a better hard drive.

 

To add on top of that, I would love to be proven wrong by my parents about Intel's performance when Zen comes out. If Zen doesn't perform better in single-threaded apps compared to the i5 and multi-threaded apps compared to both the i5 and i7, then Intel it is for me since I do have work to pump out in a timely manner.

Edited January 13, 2016 by JurunceNK

[cleb]

"If you don't have an OS doesn't it just boot into Dos?" - buddy of mine who is in cisco and programs games. Reminder that there are different kinds of techies.

[adams]

You're good to your Mum! 

 

I've been considering upgrading my Dad's workstation for his birthday. He currently has a 1st Gen. Core 2 Duo Macbook Pro (2007) that's still going strong, but we've started to notice that because it no longer gets OS updates due to its age, some content doesn't display correctly in Safari and Chrome is somewhat slow on the system. 15" rMBP in NZ? $3,700. Ouch.

I got it for free from a guy since it had bird poo on the DVD drive, I replaced it and it is now running Windows 10 (Came with Windows 7 key)

[babadoctor]

there was a gif for this i wanted to get

i FOUND IT!!!!

THANK YOU @Peter Smyth FOR REMINDING ME OF THIS THREAD!!!1!

NOW

THIS IS THE GIF

[Peter Smyth]

You're good to your Mum! 

 

I've been considering upgrading my Dad's workstation for his birthday. He currently has a 1st Gen. Core 2 Duo Macbook Pro (2007) that's still going strong, but we've started to notice that because it no longer gets OS updates due to its age, some content doesn't display correctly in Safari and Chrome is somewhat slow on the system. 15" rMBP in NZ? $3,700. Ouch.

I assume you know what your on about, but have you tried other web browsers?

[Belgarathian]

I assume you know what your on about, but have you tried other web browsers?

 

Yeah, it's just showing its age. Chrome works, but is slow, same goes for Firefox, IE (on OS X is just yuck), etc. It's a Core 2 Duo, 4GB Ram, 120GB HDD... 

 

https://support.apple.com/kb/sp13?locale=en_US

[BlazingGunnerFTW]

lol *snip*

nontechies need the godsend that is lastpass...

[DigitalHermit]

There's a few places I've been to where there server room has electronic lock mechanism (RFID+Password+fingerprint) but a friggin huge sliding glass window with the standard lock on the wall facing the hallway...

at least the glass is tinted... but no way is that glass tempered glass...

[Belgarathian]

This thread: http://linustechtips.com/main/topic/526253-brand-new-build-graphics-card-not-detectable/

[Maximoose]

Get a new TV. Suddenly, no one knows how to use the computer, their phones, tablets, the radio, or their alarm clocks.

[Fgtfv567]

There's a few places I've been to where there server room has electronic lock mechanism (RFID+Password+fingerprint) but a friggin huge sliding glass window with the standard lock on the wall facing the hallway...

at least the glass is tinted... but no way is that glass tempered glass...

Where did I misplace that sledgehammer... Oh of course! I left it in that server by whathisname to grab some server hardware and hard drives with financial credentials on them....

 

Wasn't there some sort of AMD crap that could make them somehow work together?

I thought I read that somewhere, but I don't know. It also seems weird.

With some people, I completely give up in picking parts for them.

It's never good.... The classical GHz wars (some will think a 3ghz core 2 quad outpowers a modern i5 2.8ghz quad), the usual talk about insanely high clocked RAM, and people almost always cheap out on the PSU.

They somehow think "if I slap a 970 on this it'll be a beast PC"

And they couple it with the shittiest CPU on a crap cheap motherboard with a Walmart graded power supply, and then yell at me when it doesn't run well and blows up after 2 months.

Frankly, some people should stay with consoles. Especially the ones that refuse to learn.

Yep, this is absolutely possible, but only with 240s and 250s. Besides that guy under me, I'm surprised no one's mentioned it... 

 

You can crossfire some discrete R7 GPUs with the iGPU in an A series AMD CPU.

[sportydodo]

Every time a teacher's pc stops working they always assume the worst and start checking all the wires and randomly pulling them out and putting them back in..... except the PSU ofc.

[Belgarathian]

Has everyone seen these stories? 'Tales of IT': 

 

 

 

Part 1: http://imgur.com/gallery/iJD8f

 

Part 2: http://imgur.com/gallery/AOz0d - Thanks @matjojo for part 2. 

[matjojo]

Has everyone seen these stories? 'Tales of IT': 

snippy snippet

 

that sounds good, let me just ruin all my evening reading every single one

 

so, update: they are really good fun, managed to hit about an hour of reading time with some eating in between, here is part two : 

 

http://imgur.com/gallery/AOz0d

[TGROBBO]

This morning my sis said that her browser history was taking up all the space on her ipad (16gb). She has had it since Christmas... The biggest tech related face-palm happened just then... 

[vanished]

This morning my sis said that her browser history was taking up all the space on her ipad (16gb). She has had it since Christmas... The biggest tech related face-palm happened just then... 

Well lets work this out then.  Lets say the average URL is 150 characters in length; ie, 150 bytes.  Say the device had 10 GB free, with the rest used up by the system, apps, photos and so on.  That means she's visited over 71 million webpages since Christmas.  That's more than 41 pages per second, non-stop 24/7 since Christmas day.  I suppose with a good connection and a bot controlling the browser it would be possible...  :lol:

[Belgarathian]

Well lets work this out then.  Lets say the average URL is 150 characters in length; ie, 150 bytes.  Say the device had 10 GB free, with the rest used up by the system, apps, photos and so on.  That means she's visited over 71 million webpages since Christmas.  That's more than 41 pages per second, non-stop 24/7 since Christmas day.  I suppose with a good connection and a bot controlling the browser it would be possible...  :lol:

 

She probably 16gb - iOS install and formatting leaves ~ 12gb... Then the 1000 pay-to-play apps she downloaded, ~5GB, 10,000 selfies ~0GB. 

 

Lets be honest, that iPad was full from day 1. 

[Cvdasfg]

Has everyone seen these stories? 'Tales of IT': 

 

 

 

Part 1: http://imgur.com/gallery/iJD8f

 

Part 2: http://imgur.com/gallery/AOz0d - Thanks @matjojo for part 2. 

these are gold thanks for sharing!

[Alir]

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.

 

Probably will tbh.

 

A life without a computer is no life at all.

[Alir]

Oh crap 1000+ pages

[vanished]

*snip*

Actually that Adobe one is a little familiar, but mine went differently

• Director of department says he can't sign a PDF (I had previously created a whole digital signing system to replace the paperwork they had been using)
• I figure hes probably got Reader 10 (we had noticed that for some reason this version wasn't working but newer ones were, so...)
• Go check it out, yup Reader 10
• thinks "this should be easy, I'll install 11 and we'll be done in under 5 minutes"
• downloads
• Try to just install 11 without removing 10, don't want to leave director with no way to view PDFs
• can't install; "newer version already exists"
• (what the hell adobe, no: this is the newer version)
• takes plunge, removes 10
• tries to install 11
• still doesn't work (oh crap)
• finally resorts to reader DC (I had been avoiding this since as many of you may know they massively changed the interface and some people are't good with handling those kinds of changes)
• works (thank god)

It was a lot more dramatic (for me internally at least) than it sounds, but whatever

I especially didn't want to mess this up since I wasn't actually IT... just an engineering intern

[WinNut]

not exactly computer related but still technology. some girl at school was complaining that the elevator was taking too long to come and she didn't even press the button to summon it.

[suspiciouslyBee]

My friend thinks mods are only cheats, he plays console only.

Same kid that said he "haxed" XBOX and thinks ram makes a computer faster no matter what.

Peasants are hard to ascend sometimes.

[Belgarathian]

not exactly computer related but still technology. some girl at school was complaining that the elevator was taking too long to come and she didn't even press the button to summon it.

 

I'm guilty of this. Stood there for a full 10 minutes until the janitor that had been watching me the whole time walked over and pressed the button.