No thanks for the admin...

[theogrin.livejournal.com]

First of all, I'd like to give a great big 'you're welcome' to my younger sister, who, in a flurry of innovative thought and wild genius, decided to stand between me and the computer I was supposed to fix -- i.e. hers -- when I made efforts to put a NIC in there. She demanded to know why, when the internet was working for her before the move, she couldn't just connect to the wireless router two feet away. "Because," I said, "because." Of course, that was nowhere near good enough for the girl, so I tried explaining things in a manner I thought even an idiot could understand. "There's no reason for you to use the wireless service when the router is two feet away, and I can just plug you in there." No comprende. So, I decided to go for the simplest possible explanation. "The talky thing in your computer wants to have a nice conversation with the other talky box up there, but it doesn't help when they're shouting at each other. Capiche?"

She finally got out of the way, allowing me to plug in the card. Twenty minutes later, as I finish up throwing her 98 box onto a network primarily populated by XP machines (up to and including a wonky print server), she says, "I just wanted Word..."

Well, no kidding, you wanted Word. Tonight, that is. You wanted a word processing program (with DOUBLE SPACING!!!11!1) that you could use to type up your school report, and I'm quite certain that immediately after you opened it you would have wanted to print the damn document, and half an hour later you would have wanted internet access so you could research the damned thing. The least you could do is thank me for spending an hour of my time, which I could have quite contently used to play my silly little desert game, on your half-braindead computer and your worthless, thankless facade of a human face and voice.

And, second, I must thank my parents for their tremendous understanding of the wireless network, especially why your standard 802.11b router will not have any kind of reception through two thick floors. When I say I'm getting 'no reception', either on the Linksys card (which is dead, as it happens) or the DLink USB (which is annoying), I don't mean 'by all means, remind me that I can /connect/'. It means that while I can connect, a 20% packet loss is not acceptable in any way shape or form. And it also means that if I say I can pay for a wireless router and/or signal booster if need be, you should not give me the fucking 'money talk'. When neither of you have done any hacking work for at least 10 years, I don't need to be told what is and is not an acceptable computing expense. You're welcome to set that shiny router upstairs, where three of the five computers are, rather than downstairs -- and use the wireless card on your own computer, which I was kind enough to upgrade just a few days back. I'm sure you'll grow accustomed to that connection box flickering back and forth like a neon brothel sign on the bottom right side of your screen.

So, to summarize? Fuck you all.

Comments

[harry-whodunnit.livejournal.com]

There are three services you should never ask a close relative to perform:

* donate sperm,
* drive you to the STD clinic,
* and MOST IMPORTANTLY, tech support.

[jecook]

Seconded.

I'm now stuck doing stupid things like hiking to my mom's school every time her printer decids to shit it's pants. ON. MY. DAY. OFF.

I'd rather be shooting, really.

FOrtunately, I was the one who setup the network here at the house. I think I'm the only person out in the community that has their house partially wired for Cat5. (I'd have it more wired, but it was getting quite hot in the attic when we were moving in, so that task has been deffered to wintertime...

[theogrin.livejournal.com]

Ah, I only wish. Because I'm the only one with any semblance of technical skills in the house at this point, I'm the one in charge of making sure everything works 'well enough'. I've dropped Firefox on all the other computers, had them set up with auto-update (except Windows 98 -- I can't upgrade THAT box to XP because of hard drive limitations and that it's a 333mhz with a Voodoo3), and still every computer other than mine hits at least three pieces of spyware a week. Nobody else decides to learn what the purpose of a virus scanner is, and when I updated my folks' installation of Netscape to Mozilla...well, the fur flew. "It has a different name," they say.

I'm almost tempted to switch out to a pure maths degree and tell my family that I am no longer offering unpaid repair time for their quite-literally damned machines.

[trazan.livejournal.com]

> when I updated my folks' installation of Netscape to Mozilla...well, the fur flew. "It has a different name," they say.

Heh. I recently switched from Netscape 7.2 to Mozilla, and it was heartbreaking. ;P I've used Netscape since 2.0 in late 1995, but I don't like the changes they've made in 8 (especially the removal of the mailprogram), so I decided it was about time to switch to something new, but similar. It's pradctically the same, besides a few minor differences, so it's definitely not a problem for me. I've been using Opera for a few years as a backup webreader though, in case I have problems viewing the sites in Netscape/Mozilla.
Wombat

[geekgrrl-ca.livejournal.com]

I moved 200km away so I don't have to deal with this... And if they want help over the phone they can call me on their dime.

[trazan.livejournal.com]

Is the girl in your userpic one of the original members of Gen13?
Wombat

[geekgrrl-ca.livejournal.com]

I believe so, it's actually Danger Girl who was done by the same artist who did Gen13 http://www.dangergirl.com/bio.html

I'm not a fan, I just liked the way the avatar looked at the viewer when I was looking through avatar pics for my (rather dead) forum.

[lannamichaels]

Total agreement. I'm always stuck tech supporting my mom becuase my father (who's more tech savvy than I am) and my siblings (who aren't, but are more patient) refuse to do so. Thankfully, it's nothing hard, since I've lived two states away for the last two years, but every so often I want to hit her over the head. No, Yahoo is not broken. You are on dial-up. RECONNECT, BITCH.

[neferde.livejournal.com]

*WINCES* You just had to bring back the bad memories of family tech support didn't you... :p Like the day mom was starting up her IMac and had an elbow on the keyboard and deleted Every.Single.File.Extention. on the computer and then decided to fix it herself by trying to reinstall OS9.6. Twice. On top of each other. And, when that didn't work she tried installing OSX. -_- We gave her a nice pretty EMachine with 98SE and dial-up after that. It's so much easier to fix that when she breaks it even though I still have no clue how her pressing the power button repeatedly manages to reset the BIOS so it tries to boot from the data drive instead of the 98 drive... It NEVER happens when anyone else touches it, just her... *sighs*

[theogrin.livejournal.com]

I'd say 'dead battery', but...that can't be the case if it's just her, can it? o.o Does she wear odd clothing, like wool and nylon, that can build up an extended charge against each other?

[neferde.livejournal.com]

Thought about that... changed the battery. No difference. She does have a oft-witnessed ability to blow out electronic devices (remotes, microwaves, those electronic washing machines, cars with extensive computers in them, ect.) regardless of the clothing she's wearing that day. My dad and I are convinced she has her own personal electric field that's strong enough to interfere with any sensitive electronics! It's fun making her walk past the Wall O' TVs in the stores and watching them all get little static lines on them.