Experiences with non-techies

[deWaardt]

An old man and family friend, so to say, had asked me to go install him Windows on his iMac as he needed it for work(?). It'd been a couple months I didn't see that computer when I last repaired all the software-side damage he had done to OS X.

He managed this time to literally break the color schemes of the monitor without even touching the calibration settings in the preferences. I myself wouldn't even know where to begin to do such thing on my Mac. The white was so strong and bright it could hurt my eyes on the long shot. I discovered he had installed the "cleaning utility" known as MacKeeper, a legitimate way to bring your computer to its knees with ease because you were smart enough to fall for the trap while browsing the Internet. He accused the computer of doing strange stuff with windows... yea.

I removed 14 installers of it, cleaned the library but the damage had been done already. I made a new account and told the man to take his stuff and copy it on the new one, then delete the old account. He was like "no I can't begin adding everything a-new!". Yes you can, you did the damage, I fixed it again for free. As long as you're not paying me for the services that's the way I do things. Got other stuff to do to care that much about your endless stream of issues you're having (and causing)...

At our school I regularly find Macbooks with the software completely fucked up.

Some of m panicking during boot because some idiot deleted system files..

One of them was so bad, it ran extremely slow with 100% RAM and CPU usage, would freeze on the desktop seconds after bootup, and when I took it to ICT, they said "It's fine, it's working, right?"

The next day I had to work with the exact same macbook.

Booted into single user mode and did "rm -rf *"

Went back to ICT, "Now it's no longer working fine. Could you try to fix it now?"

The average bootup time of core 2 duo iMacs and Macbooks at our school is around 5 minutes.

I don't even know how they managed to get them THIS slow.

[Allshevski]

x32 based processor's

Like a boss...

[Eragon769]

Them - "hey I need advice on buying a computer"

Me - "sure id be happy to help you pick something out or ill build a great computer for you"

*week later*

Them - "yeah, i just decided to buy a computer from Best Buy"

Me "......................."

Yeah I made a bunch of parts list and tried to explain the PC building process to my friend once...

Then he went to best buy and got an AMD 6300 and an Nvidia GT 730, for $900 dollars. Then he asked me about upgrading the graphics card. He only plays Minecraft and cs:go but decided he wanted an r9 nano but didn't want to upgrade his horrible 300 watt psu that came with the piece of crap or the cpu. Needless to say I now avoid the topic of PCS while talking to him

[Eragon769]

Back in the 9th grade 2 other buddies of mine and myself started our own school project. Our project was to dismantle a computer, make our own case, and assemble the computer inside the case we built ourselves. For the longest time a friend of mine had been saying that he knows pretty much everything about computers. Turns out he didn't know anything, but i'll get back to that.

I went to a very cheap-ass school, so there were always trouble with the infrastructure there, so as you probably guessed the computers at the school crashed all the time. Also note that all of the computers were "hooked up" for lack of a better term to ONE Server. This was a big school with around 200+ computers all hooked up to this one server. (Recipe for disaster). Since all of the computers were connected to the same server that would mean that if there was one single error on the server, then all of the 200+ computers at my school would simply not work.

These computers all went down the drain atleast twice a week making them completely and utter useless. And everytime the system went down the teachers always asked this friend of mine that thought he knew everything about computers. Let's call him Bob to make it easier to follow. Anyways, The teachers would always have Bob look at the computers, and tell them what was wrong. Ofcourse he didn't know what he was talking about, so he said the following: "Yeah, mhm, okay. Yes it seems that you have gotten a network system error inside the processor, it will be back up in an hour". Yes, that is ACTUALLY what he said, let that sink in for a moment. Oh, I totally forgot; The time he said that it was a "Network system error inside the processor". the teachers were trying to figure out why there was no sound from the speakers. Turns out the audiojack was not plugged in.

Anyways I got really off-track here. My friends and I were assembling the computer into the case that we had built ourselves. When suddenly Bob came by. My friends and I were kind of annoyed at Bob, so we asked him "which one of these components is the motherboard"? I bet anyone here on the forum would be able to point out which component in a computer was the motherboard, right? Bob pointed at the HDD, of course we all laughed, because this was proof that he knows nothing about computers, and was just spewing bullshit all the time. After we all calmed ourselves down, I said: "well surely you know this is the graphics card, right? (I pointed at the CPU). Bob said: "Yes ofcourse, how dumb do you think I am? That's when I almost broke out in tears laughing.

---

Since that event he stopped claiming he knew everything about computers and was an "IT-Guru". Anyways, my buddies and I delivered in our assignment, and got ourselves an A.

Cheers!

My school had 150 desktops from 2002 and 60 used laptops from 2010 and 150 chromebooks all on a "server" that wasn't a server at all! It was 3 hard drives sitting in a box in the central office connected to the computers via the wifi network.

[Speedbird]

what was rm -rf * supposed to do? I have half an idea, but I'm not really sure about it lol

Though I hate when people don't show any respect for the things they use when they're not theirs. I doubt they'd ever tamper with their Mac or PC system files; for sure I wouldn't. The worst thing I can do is check the specs out of curiosity.

rm -rf / removes everything on the hard drive.

[deWaardt]

what was rm -rf * supposed to do? I have half an idea, but I'm not really sure about it lol

Though I hate when people don't show any respect for the things they use when they're not theirs. I doubt they'd ever tamper with their Mac or PC system files; for sure I wouldn't. The worst thing I can do is check the specs out of curiosity.

it basically means delete everything on the hard drive.

 

It was literally the only way I could get our lazy IT department to fix that macbook. I was forced to use it, no choice to get another one because "this one was working fine"

ignore the fact that it froze up immediately after bootup...

Only after I completely ruined the entire thing, they reimaged it.

 

 

No, we're not allowed to fix it ourselves.

[gamergeek]

hello i ame his friend who touched the gpu

[MDPS]

Hate it when people talk to me about old parts (CPUs and GPUs mainly) and say things like "We have such advanced tech. Why would we ever need these old parts? They [manufacturers] should've just made GTX980s and Skylakes." Don't know if its a non-techie thing or just the inability to grasp the concept of "progress".

[Admiral Naismith]

When non-techies touch your PC.

 

When non-techies download things to your PC.

 

When non-techies double-click downloaded things to your PC.

 

When non-techies f*** up your PC.

 

--

 

Gave my sister my old 'Frankenstein' laptop. I call it that because it was like an American Car. It has problems the day you buy it, constantly needed 'fixes', etc. but still works a decade later (it's almost a decade old now). It's eaten 5 hard drives (cooling problem that I fixed), held together with ducktape, missing keys, has a modified cooling system, etc.. It's traveled across the country twice and basically forced me into technology; had to adapt to survive. Regardless I still love that thing. It still runs well (with occasional fixes) despite the sh*t it's been through. Back on topic. Sister has it now. Within a month it's gone from being a old but still works system to being a general POS that might as well be tossed. Everything is slow, it has viruses and sh*t, files all over the desktop (the horror), etc..

[Bhav]

I posted this in off topic, and realized I should have put it in this thread:

This one time at work, a co worker asked me if I play video games and on what console. I replied 'Oh no, not on a console, I play on my PC'.

He replied ....

'Pee Cee??????? Do you mean like old games?'

I wanted to harm him and set fire to the store.

[Fgtfv567]

I posted this in off topic, and realized I should have put it in this thread:

This one time at work, a co worker asked me if I play video games and on what console. I replied 'Oh no, not on a console, I play on my PC'.

He replied ....

'Pee Cee??????? Do you mean like old games?'

I wanted to harm him and set fire to the store.

I can actually understand his thought-process. Back in the days of the NES, consoles were the most popular place to play video games at home. During this time, Windows PCs were marketed as office machines meant for word and the like, it'd be a while until PCs had amazing hardware and devs supporting the platform with amazing games like Doom and Wolfenstein.

And I understand your thoughts. Today, core PC gaming is amazing. Steam, hardware upgrades, mods, 4K support, not having to get rid of your library with a new console generation. How could anyone doubt our tried and true gaming machines sitting besides us in their glowing LED glory?

Hate it when people talk to me about old parts (CPUs and GPUs mainly) and say things like "We have such advanced tech. Why would we ever need these old parts? They [manufacturers] should've just made GTX980s and Skylakes." Don't know if its a non-techie thing or just the inability to grasp the concept of "progress".

I think it's definitely the latter. I'm sure those people know about how tablets and smartphones have brand new models that come out every year. They just might not be very familiar with desktop hardware.

 

When non-techies touch your PC.

 

When non-techies download things to your PC.

 

When non-techies double-click downloaded things to your PC.

 

When non-techies f*** up your PC.

 

--

 

Gave my sister my old 'Frankenstein' laptop. I call it that because it was like an American Car. It has problems the day you buy it, constantly needed 'fixes', etc. but still works a decade later (it's almost a decade old now). It's eaten 5 hard drives (cooling problem that I fixed), held together with ducktape, missing keys, has a modified cooling system, etc.. It's traveled across the country twice and basically forced me into technology; had to adapt to survive. Regardless I still love that thing. It still runs well (with occasional fixes) despite the sh*t it's been through. Back on topic. Sister has it now. Within a month it's gone from being a old but still works system to being a general POS that might as well be tossed. Everything is slow, it has viruses and sh*t, files all over the desktop (the horror), etc..

Jesus, maybe it is better for some people to have locked down OSs and ecosystems like your sister... My jaw would drop seeing all of that hard work (with the duct tape and effort) turned into your grandma's PC from the 90s..

[Bhav]

Oh all those times when I had dumbass illiterate relatives visit, and they want to see / play on the super PC ....

AND THEY KEEP TOUCHING MY MONITOR LIKE A TOUCH SCREEN FCKING AAAARRRRGGGGGHHHHH!

And that was YEARS before touchscreens even came out.

[Fgtfv567]

Oh all those times when I had dumbass illiterate relatives visit, and they want to see / play on the super PC ....

AND THEY KEEP TOUCHING MY MONITOR LIKE A TOUCH SCREEN FCKING AAAARRRRGGGGGHHHHH!

And that was YEARS before touchscreens even came out.

Ah yes, the story of how 2-in-1's were created:

 

MS employee: Alright Jimmy, you can play on my PC, but you have to be well behaved.

Jimmy: Hurr... Durr..... OK!..... *touches screen to start CSGO*

MS: Aah shit, what are you doing?! You're smudging my HD monitor!

Wait.

 

*The next day at a board meeting*

MS exec 1: PC sales are stagnating! How do we fix this?!

MS exec 2: Ooh Ooh! People like Twitter! How about the hashtag: #PCdoeswhat?! and then we make a whole bunch of cheesy ads and put them on TV and the Youtubes?

Exec 1: Todd you idiot! Everyone's on MySpace! You uneducated onion!

Employee: *Bursts in* I got it! What if we reached out and touched our laptops?!

*Everyone stops in awe*

Exec 2: But people want tablets, Apple sells their iPad on brand recognization alone!

Exec 1: Damn it we need to think!!! *Snaps laptop backwards*

That's it. The next fucking idea.

 

In my opinion, they're not that great. I need to be able hold a tablet with a single hand, and that's not possible with me, can't do it. I had my doubts about the Surface Pro 1, but fuck by the 4th iteration, they've hit ingenuity.

 

Edit: PCdoeswhat?! is a real hashtag made by MS and there are ads for this hashtag

[Bhav]

Oh, and when they try to use my mouse and complain that the cursor is moving far too fast cos they drag it across the table when I have it set to move across the whole screen with like <1cm of movement because I don't like wrist strain ....

And this one time I try to sell a pair of AMD GPUs on eBay after upgrading to a faster single card and I mention 'selling these because I upgraded to x', and some dumbass messages me ... 'How can you be selling two identical cards after upgrading? This obviously looks like a scam'.

No Mr, you look like a dumbfck who has never heard of Xfire / SLI. Oh yes I thoroughly enjoyed ripping him apart for being dumb and thinking I was scamming.

100% positive feedback too you bitch.

[Fgtfv567]

Oh, and when they try to use my mouse and complain that the cursor is moving far too fast cos they drag it across the table when I have it set to move across the whole screen with like <1cm of movement because I don't like wrist strain ....

And this one time I try to sell a pair of AMD GPUs on eBay after upgrading to a faster single card and I mention 'selling these because I upgraded to x', and some dumbass messages me ... 'How can you be selling two identical cards after upgrading? This obviously looks like a scam'.

No Mr, you look like a dumbfck who has never heard of Xfire / SLI. Oh yes I thoroughly enjoyed ripping him apart for being dumb and thinking I was scamming.

100% positive feedback too you bitch.

I feel the exact same way about the steam controller. I remember how when Valve released the first demo video, everyone complained how many swipes it took do a 180 turn (it was 2, still understandable). Now that I have it, I turn the sensitivity up to at least halfway on the slider so I can make gentle turns with gentle glides of my thumb. When I use my mouse, I use a very small portion of my mousepad...

[Bhav]

OMG and now I remember more eBay fails. Now this issue isn't specifically tech related, but every time I list an item I put in the description 'Paypal only, no purchase offers outside of eBay / Paypal, Delivery only no collection' etc.

I still get swamped with hundreds of requests for:

Hi, I can't pay by PayPal, can I come to collect and pay cash in hand?

Hi, I can't afford the item yet (something that was just £70), because not enough money in my bank, can I pay cash and collect, or can you reserve it for me until I'm paid next week?

One dumbass that was asking to pay cash in hand actually made an offer through PayPal / eBay. I accept. He replies 'Why would you accept when I told you I can only pay in cash?'. NO YOU FCKING DUMBASS, WHY WOULD YOU SUBMIT AN OFFER FOR AN EBAY / PAYPAL ONLY ADVERTISED SALE IF YOU CANT PAY THROUGH PAYPAL?'

/Report, report, report, fraudulent scummy scammy beggars breaking the 'no transactions outside of ebay' TOS. I hope they were all banned.

[WkdPaul]

There are as much idiot on the selling side though ... like that guy selling an Asus LGA775 with the CPU ... in the description he states the CPU is a i5!!

 

Or another seller that has a LGA775 mobo that gives the specs of a AM2+ mobo, but has LGA775 in his title ... how are these people ACTUALLY able to make money selling stuff on eBay????

[vanished]

There are as much idiot on the selling side though ... like that guy selling an Asus LGA775 with the CPU ... in the description he states the CPU is a i5!!

 

Or another seller that has a LGA775 mobo that gives the specs of a AM2+ mobo, but has LGA775 in his title ... how are these people ACTUALLY able to make money selling stuff on eBay????

Because the people buying are just as clueless

[swampi800]

Singles clubs?

[WkdPaul]

Singles clubs?

???

[deWaardt]

There are as much idiot on the selling side though ... like that guy selling an Asus LGA775 with the CPU ... in the description he states the CPU is a i5!!

Or another seller that has a LGA775 mobo that gives the specs of a AM2+ mobo, but has LGA775 in his title ... how are these people ACTUALLY able to make money selling stuff on eBay????

I am not surprised.

[Akolyte]

Singles clubs?

ooooo;

Is somebody single and ready to mingle???

 

No, but seriously.  I think a lot of us on here are already single (including me).   There is no need for a singles club, the whole forum is pretty much a singles club lol. 

 

rm -rf / removes everything on the hard drive.

Not everything when you count the other things on the hard drive.  

But, everything from the OS root directory upwards.   If you didn't run the command as root you have a little hope, but unlike Windows Linux pretty much lets you do anything if you are running commands as root user. 

 

An old man and family friend, so to say, had asked me to go install him Windows on his iMac as he needed it for work(?). It'd been a couple months I didn't see that computer when I last repaired all the software-side damage he had done to OS X.

He managed this time to literally break the color schemes of the monitor without even touching the calibration settings in the preferences. I myself wouldn't even know where to begin to do such thing on my Mac. The white was so strong and bright it could hurt my eyes on the long shot. I discovered he had installed the "cleaning utility" known as MacKeeper, a legitimate way to bring your computer to its knees with ease because you were smart enough to fall for the trap while browsing the Internet. He accused the computer of doing strange stuff with windows... yea.

I removed 14 installers of it, cleaned the library but the damage had been done already. I made a new account and told the man to take his stuff and copy it on the new one, then delete the old account. He was like "no I can't begin adding everything a-new!". Yes you can, you did the damage, I fixed it again for free. As long as you're not paying me for the services that's the way I do things. Got other stuff to do to care that much about your endless stream of issues you're having (and causing)...

That's pretty terrible. 

 

I've fixed so many computers and now don't even want to anymore, I know it seems rude but I flat out refuse sometimes to fix people's computers.  They want me to fix it for free, simply because I'm still in High School.  

 

The thing that people fail to realize is that even though IT guys are normally at home all the time.  Most of us (at least me) works on Servers for people, when I'm not working on servers I'm coding websites for the servers, when I'm not coding websites I'm writing apps, when I'm not writing apps I'm reading Cert books to get my certifications before I leave high school, when I'm not reading books I'm studying for school, when I'm not studying for school I'm either listening to music or sleeping.  Or in the bathroom. 

 

If someone asks me to fix a computer, they don't understand that a few people are probably going to complain because the servers aren't being maintained or because I was supposed to be working on the app, or because a friend of mine told somebody else that 'I' would make them a website!  

 

Mom: Hey, Coop, can you take a look at my computer for me?

Me: Sure, what's the problem?

Mom: It's slow.

Me: .....Okay, when is it slow, and do you think you know what caused it?

Mom: I don't know, it's just slow...

Me: :[

 

Come to find that the reason her computer is slow is because she has about 500 files sitting on her desktop, and every time she downloads something she feels the urge to click the link 7 times... as a result downloading files 6 or 7 times over.....facepalm....

I hate it when people do that.  I'm just happy my mom has a Mac lol.  She clicks every download she sees, so with gatekeeper I can make sure that she doesn't fill OSX with crap.  

 

A lot of people don't realize how to properly maintain an operating system.  If you want to toy around, use a virtual machine but your main OS needs to be clean.  There are a bunch of 'people' who install crap on the main server!

That is why you never give server access to people who aren't certified or trusted.  The owner keeps on wanting to, but I don't know whatever. Especially since it's a Windows server.  We might be getting a couple Linux servers too, so we can actually have a good web server. 

 

And the other one will be a HoneyPot....  hehehe. 

[WkdPaul]

I am not surprised.

 

... yeah, pretty sure it's not a G3!!! (had a G3 & G4 decades ago! lol)

[Fetzie]

 

Just to completely remove all doubt and obscurity once and for all:

• Having too many desktop icons should not significantly impact system performance
• Having too many desktop icons should not significantly impact RAM usage
• If RAM usage is too much, the system will be slow, but that's not really relevant here because of the above

 

 

Having a large amount of data on the desktop (so actual files not just links) will slow down boot times because it loads the contents of %userpath%\desktop when you log in.

 

what was rm -rf * supposed to do? I have half an idea, but I'm not really sure about it lol

Though I hate when people don't show any respect for the things they use when they're not theirs. I doubt they'd ever tamper with their Mac or PC system files; for sure I wouldn't. The worst thing I can do is check the specs out of curiosity.

 

rm = remove

-r = recursive (so everything inside the location you specified)

-f = do it without asking for confirmation every time

 

so rm -rf / will delete everything in root, and everything in every folder connected to the root directory of the drive, without asking for confirmation. It's like performing /format c: but you can do it while the OS is running.

 

You may find this interesting: http://www.ee.ryerson.ca/~elf/hack/recovery.html

[vanished]

Having a large amount of data on the desktop (so actual files not just links) will slow down boot times because it loads the contents of %userpath%\desktop when you log in.

 

Like, it loads all that data into RAM or something?  What do you mean by "it loads the contents"?