"Put a link on the Internet" to .. what?

[lihan161051.livejournal.com]

OK, this isn't nearly as good a story as teenage horse porn, but ..

"I want to make a link for people to type in my email and be directed to my web page."

OK .. where? On what page? Or did you want to embed it in an email you're spam- uhh- sending out to people?

It went downhill from there.

The worst thing about teaching idiots buzzwords is that they use them as indiscriminately as they use everything else, and bumble around until they find a meaningful combination by accident. The best thing is that they're usually trying to do something that's not even theoretically possible because what they think they want doesn't actually exist, or they're trying to do something I don't have to help them do on the phone. Like edit the HTML for their site.

(oh, and the real beauty of this one is that she turned out to want the search engines to bring up her page when people searched for her email address, which is something that will usually be done for her when the search engines index her page. Assuming she didn't want her page to pop up every time anyone types her email for any purpose in anything, which is something I'm kind of glad people like her can't do ..)

Comments

[canray.livejournal.com]

"No no no! I don't want it on the Internet, but I do want it on the World Wide Web!", Vice Principal at my High School. Late 90s.

Ah, those were the days...

[sheryls.livejournal.com]

i hate that. my family uses "server", "computer", "modem" and "monitor" as if they're synonyms.

also my family thinks programmer = web designer. sigh.

"oh you're a computer programmer? can you design my company's website for free for me in your spare time?" sure! it'll be white with black text. have fun!

[sunfell.livejournal.com]

I ran into the monitor/hard drive/modem mixup all the time when I sold computers. It sometimes got rather confusing. It was worse when they thought that I didn't know what I was talking about, because I was just a woman.

Sigh...

They'd point to a monitor, and ask for that computer. They'd point to the CPU and ask for a hard drive or a modem. One guy was convinced that his TV would work for a monitor. "I already have a TV," he insisted.

Yeah, but these aren't Commodores, dude...

[sheryls.livejournal.com]

i get that too :/ i worked at a computer store (the sort where you can buy components/do custom builds/etc) and people would walk in, and go stand in line to talk to one of the guys when i was free. and i'd have to go over and be like "hey, *I* can help you, sir."

i still get it on occasion, although not since i've gotten my latest job (i'm a .NET Developer, in past jobs i've gotten it on the phone with clients).

[lihan161051.livejournal.com]

tangential .. series of tubes .. :) .. triodes or pentodes? :D

(from having tuned up the IF strip of a National NCX-3 by ear, twiddling IF cans until the speech suddenly became intelligible on 20 meters .. lol)

[sunfell.livejournal.com]

Klystrons.

;D

[sunfell.livejournal.com]

And the word 'tweaker' means something totally different to me. I never left my office without a few in my pocket. Beryllum or plastic, of course. Couldn't have anything ferrous near the TWTs or Klystrons...

[lihan161051.livejournal.com]

The only thing I hate more than idiosyncratic terminology is idiosyncratic usage, especially when people don't realize that specific words have specific meanings. And as if it wasn't bad enough that people don't have a clear understanding of the meaning of the words they're using (especially if they're used to people thinking they're smart when they scatter those words around indiscriminately), I've seen some of them actually build whole systems of misunderstanding on their perceptions of what they think the words mean. Scarily internally consistent systems, in some cases.

That's usually about when they get to me. And they try to argue with me based on those systems of misunderstanding. Those are usually very long calls. sigh.

+1 on the family equating "$relative has skillz" with "$relative can be shanghaied for free professional services". Mine used to bring something to me to fix on every single visit, until I "forgot" my tools a couple of times, and made a point of "forgetting" when they called me ahead of time to set up a whole day's worth of work for me while I was there. (If I came for Thanksgiving dinner, I'm not all that thrilled about having to replace a power supply in one of the in-laws' old 286's, especially if said 286 has that lovely smell of chainsmoker on just about every internal component ..

[sheryls.livejournal.com]

OH MY GOD THE SMOKER COMPUTER.

nothing worse than opening a computer and having it smell like a freaking ashtray. actually, it's worse than an ashtray, it's like sticky, sickening, at least 4 year old tobacco resin. ugh. once we thought one of the computers in for repair was a beige case..and it was sticky to the touch. one of my coworkers shot the Fantastik at it...and as the brown dripped down the side, we realized: that case was grey.

yu-uck. and all the dustbunnies inside have solidified and..alsdkfja;sdlkfja.

thank god i quit smoking. and when i did smoke i didnt do it indoors.

and yes. usually every holiday we go to my fiancee's parents house, at least one day is spent blowing the dust out of their pc, ridding it of the 13 viruses and 200 pieces of spy/ad/malware they've managed to build up. "it just got so slow for some reason!"

[lihan161051.livejournal.com]

Oh, it's at least anorder of magnitude worse than an ashtray. I grew up around chainsmoking parents, I know ashtrays. The crud that condenses inside a computer over years of being around smokers is a whole hell of a lot nastier. And toxic. Rumor has it there are serious OSHA regulations about working around or breathing that stuff .. although most places that actually do repairs ignore most of them.

What's even funnier is people think we don't *know* they smoke around the computer ..

[tjernobyl.livejournal.com]

Worse: Heavy smoker with a rabbit cage next to the air intake...

[sheryls.livejournal.com]

UGH.

[sunfell.livejournal.com]

I suppose that I am fortunate- only my sister has a computer. Unfortunately, it's a Windows ME that she refuses to upgrade or replace. And her monitor is dying.

And my other friends- with few exceptions- know how to fix their own machines.

[bekscilla.livejournal.com]

I was coming down with a cold the other week (you the *worst* day of the cold process? it was that day), spent from 9am-5pm at a stargate convention and went to my aunts house for a family bbq. Her friend's kid and her kid's friend from boarding school BOTH asked me to help fix their Sims games. I kinda yelled at the second one - when you're sick, and tired, the last thing you need is 12 year olds bugging you.

[photosinensis.livejournal.com]

See, my family has some knowledge about hardware, to the point that they can build their own boxen. Sadly, I'm the only person in the family who ever bothered to learn how to manage software, as I was the only one who bothered to play with most of the stuff my father picked up.

When it came time to set up a network, I again was the only person that could figure out what was going on. My father thought ethernet was a kind of Internet service, and that two pieces of 802.11g equipment would not work together simply because they were made by different people¹. He still continues to think that I may have trouble opening files that he sends me because I refuse to use Windows and he refuses to use anything but Windows.

[photosinensis.livejournal.com]

Oh! Forgot the footnote.

1. Such as routers and PCI/PCMCIA/USB network interface controllers. I'm not talking about specialist stuff.

[lihan161051.livejournal.com]

Oh, the things people do when they try to build a LAN. When they don't know what they're doing. :D

When the device that all the computers are connected to, that in turn is connected to the cable modem, ISN'T a router, but is actually a hub, the fact that only one computer can get onto the Internet starts to make a bit more sense ..

[karopanda.livejournal.com]

Some people shouldn't be allowed on the interwebs, or at least not be allowed to take up space in a corner of the interwebs. Maybe email space, but not like...URL-havingness space.

You'll have to forgive me. The coffee just wore off, and I started at 6AM. Durr...

[spiker-uk.livejournal.com]

Well, as long as they're all hemmed into MySpace, who cares?

[karopanda.livejournal.com]

It is nice having them all herded into one little area like cows up for slaughter, even if they do break the url-havingness rule!