how about a meme generator thread...

[Broken Crow]

COMET CURSOR!

We had that, or something like it, probably on our win98 machine.

I shutter to think what malware was installed with it.

 

[Kent88]

Yeah, some years ago I deliberately steered a sister of mine towards Mac because 1) I wasn't proficient with Linux yet; 2) I was already trying to do remote support for my parents, which was frustrating enough, and I didn't want to mess with her gear too; & 3) at the time Macs seemed solid and she wasn't running any obscure software that Macs couldn't handle.

These days, I understand SSH well enough and I could probably set up an Ubuntu or Mint install for somebody, spend an afternoon tweaking it, and give them a file and a printout of instructions for what information to have ready before they call me with a problem, and remotely login to update their machine and reboot it, hopefully solving their issues.

But the way things have gone most of my family are in the Apple ecosystem, a lot of my in-laws use their phones, and I don't even tinker with new Linux distros like I did back in the mid-late aughts.

 

[Broken Crow]

Yeah, some years ago I deliberately steered a sister of mine towards Mac because 1) I wasn't proficient with Linux yet; 2) I was already trying to do remote support for my parents, which was frustrating enough, and I didn't want to mess with her gear too; & 3) at the time Macs seemed solid and she wasn't running any obscure software that Macs couldn't handle.

These days, I understand SSH well enough and I could probably set up an Ubuntu or Mint install for somebody, spend an afternoon tweaking it, and give them a file and a printout of instructions for what information to have ready before they call me with a problem, and remotely login to update their machine and reboot it, hopefully solving their issues.

But the way things have gone most of my family are in the Apple ecosystem, a lot of my in-laws use their phones, and I don't even tinker with new Linux distros like I did back in the mid-late aughts.

I had to run window$ for file compatibility but I also kept Free BSD as a boot option on every system I had so that I could easily repair the M$ garbage when it inevitably barfed and passed out.

 

[Kharnynb]

modern techies have it way too easy, I did tech support in the early 2000's when you still had to do modem strings to figure out why a customer wasn't connecting at the right speed.

 

[balrog]

I shudder to think what malware was installed with it.

Um, Windows?

I don't even tinker with new Linux distros like I did back in the mid-late aughts.

And don’t you miss that? I know I do.

modern techies have it way too easy, I did tech support in the early 2000's when you still had to do modem strings to figure out why a customer wasn't connecting at the right speed.

Pfsh.
Modems?!!
Luxury!!

 

[Broken Crow]

modern techies have it way too easy, I did tech support in the early 2000's when you still had to do modem strings to figure out why a customer wasn't connecting at the right speed.

You're doing it wrong!! By the time Window$ Vista came around I told everyone I used BSD, Mac and Linux now and had no idea how Vista worked..... Amazing just how fast people at work stop being available to run out to the street-vendors to grab your lunch for your and family and friends are calling significantly less!

 

[Kent88]

Um, Windows?

I didn't know about Linux until the early-mid aughts, and I didn't switch to primarily Linux until around 2010.

And don’t you miss that? I know I do.

You know, in some ways I do miss trying out all the different distros. Sure, it was probably a nightmare for tech support with all those upstart distros that looked promising but one didn't know which one would be around in 5 years. An "early" favorite of mine was SimplyMepis. That distro was one of the first to be able to test off a liveCD, had nice tools for new users, and the community around it was pretty good, even if a bunch were more of the Debian mindset. But it was a one-man shop and when he decided he was done, that was it. antiX was based on it and that had its 15 minutes. I think the community tried to come together to make something else, but I'm unaware of that even getting 5 minutes, much less 15.

But those were also interesting times for us who had a couple spare machines we saved from the dumpster to see what new distros could make of them. Linux distros were going to absurd lengths to catch up with Mac and Windoze in aesthetics and user friendliness. I remember in particular testing Mandriva Metisse off a liveCD on my main laptop. It didn't run quickly, but it looked fancy.

These days, what are the popular, libre & free to download distros doing to be exciting? I haven't been following as closely, but from what little I've seen, not much.

 

[Kent88]

View attachment 879791

What does GrogNerd's contraption have to do with operating systems?

 

[AzOr]

 

[Snuffy]

I always made them delete their temp files and disable all the stupid garbage they'd installed before a reboot...

View attachment 879777

Depends on the issue, but yeah you gotta start with the basics and work forward thru a process of elimination if it's something you haven't seen before or something that could have multiple causes. Is it plugged in? Is the person in the next cube having the same issue or is it just you? Can you surf any other website normally? Knowing that you establish a baseline and then proceed to the more in-depth confusion indicates troubleshooting experience.

 

[Snuffy]

“Email has been down half the day!”
“That’s awful, did I miss you telling me this somehow?
“How was I supposed to tell you if I can’t email you??!!”
Literally two office doors down.
With a telephone.
Coffee. Because murder is somehow frowned upon.

"Hello, Tech Support"
"Email is down."
Checks email. Working fine.
"Mine is working. Can you surf the web?"
"I'm looking at Google"
"Try cnn.com"
"Page not found"
"Are you using a laptop or a workstation?"
"Laptop"
"Do you have a wifi connection?"
"How do I tell?"
"Look at the toolbar at the bottom right. There should be an icon that looks like radio waves if you are connected or a globe if you aren't"
"I don't have a toolbar"
"Move your mouse pointer to the bottom of the screen and see if it pops up"
"Oh. There it is"
"Do you see the wifi icon?"
"I see a speaker, a shield, a square, a circle, the time and the date"
"Click the circle and then click the little arrow next to the radio waves symbol at the top left of the box that pops up"
"Do I click once or twice?"
"Just once"
"Ok"
"Do you see a box with Wifi at the top?"
"Yes"
"Is wifi turned on?
"How do I tell?"
"Excuse me a moment..." <click click> BAM! <clunk>

"Hello.... Hello?"

 

[nobadays]

 

[Konadog]

 

[Broken Crow]

 

[BrewnWKopperKat]

 

[Hoppy2bmerry]

 

[scrap iron]

 

[Broken Crow]

 

[Hoppy2bmerry]

 

[Broothru]

View attachment 879917

I agree.

 

[Hoppy2bmerry]

I agree.

I’m acquainted with a local brewery owner who believes that pro brewers who offer these are training their customers to move away from beer. Though, he concedes that the reason is more likely that some cash flow will happen. I’m waiting for the fad to end.

 

[balrog]

 

[Konadog]

 

[Broothru]

View attachment 880031

That oughta' do it!

 

[Kent88]

 

[balrog]

Be careful with that.

Remember that positive and negative infinity are kinda the same thing, and you might flip from infinitely weird to infinitely not weird.

<no, I haven't been drinking; I've just been reading about the original development of the meter as one ten millionth of the distance from the equator to the pole, developed during the French Revolution>

 

[Kent88]

 

[balrog]

 

[Agent]

 

[Kent88]