Computer Stupidities

[blockguy123]

I love this one

Friend: "You know that antivirus program you installed on my computer for me? It keeps popping up some sort of message about a trojan or something while I'm surfing on the internet. It doesn't seem to be doing anything about it because I keep getting the message, so I uninstalled the antivirus program. And now I don't get that message any more."

[Ad Bot]

[e-maxx]

Overheard in a computer lab:

    Boy #1: "The domain doesn't have a www. What does that mean?"
    Boy #2: "It means it's not on the world wide web."

I used to work at the IT Support Desk for a university. A librarian at one of our libraries was surfing the web one day and came across a site that said it was best viewed using the Internet Explorer browser. So she called me and said she needed a "browser" to view this site, and could we install a browser onto her system?

I told her that if she was viewing the site already, she was already using a browser, but, unsatisfied with that answer, she went over my head to the Directory of Libraries and said that we were being uncooperative about providing her with a browser.

Two students, who had spent the better part of their class hour bragging about their computer skills, were becoming increasingly frustrated while browsing the Internet. They were trying to access a site that didn't exist, but they were absolutely convinced the trouble was something else.

    Student #1: "The damn keyboard locked up again!!!"

Actually, a page was loading.

    Student #2: "Here, you have to pull the wires out." (yanks network wires out of the back) "When that happens, just pull those wires out and shove 'em back in. Does it work now?"
    Student #1: "No, it says, 'Reading File...Done.'"
    Student #2: "Oh, ok...that means your keyboard server is down. There's nothing you can do about it."

While working at the university computer lab one evening, a student came over to ask me why her computer was running so slowly. She said that she was just surfing the Internet. I went over and examined her screen and noticed that she had approximately 230 separate browser windows open in Internet Explorer.

She thought that she could only use each one once.

Emailed to the owner of a web page:

I got here by some nefarious route. I was trying to get to [an email address] or other similar sites. I distinctly dislike being hijacked in cyberspace to see something I did not ask to see. If this happens again I will make a formal complaint to my local federal district attorney. Thank you. Do not do this again.

[InvisibleName]

Friend: "You know that antivirus program you installed on my computer for me? It keeps popping up some sort of message about a trojan or something while I'm surfing on the internet. It doesn't seem to be doing anything about it because I keep getting the message, so I uninstalled the antivirus program. And now I don't get that message any more."

OH GOD, SUCH AND DUMBASS.

[Pentium]

Oh god lol

    Customer: "I need help with this dialer. The police have already shown up to my office twice today."

Police? Ok, whatever.

    Tech Support: "Ok, let's check out the settings. Do you have anything entered for getting an outside line?"
    Customer: "A nine."
    Tech Support: "Do you need to dial a 9 for an outside line?"
    Customer: "I'm not sure. I think so."
    Tech Support: "Could you double check?"
    Customer: "Sure. (pause) Nope. Turns out we don't need it."
    Tech Support: "Ok. Then remove it. What do you have for the area code?"
    Customer: "One and then [area code]."
    Tech Support: "Uhm, you don't need the one. Windows 95 automatically adds that."
    Customer: "Oh. So you mean..."
    Tech Support: "Yes, your computer was dialing 911 and then the phone number."

[Legodude77]

Tech Support: "Tech support. May I help you?"
Customer: "Yes, my microwave isn't communicating with my computer correctly anymore. I'd like to bring in my microwave and my computer."

speechless.

[Socky]

I had this conversation recently with a lady who swore she had been using computers since forever.

Tech Support: "All right. Now click 'OK'."
Customer: "Click 'OK'?"
Tech Support: "Yes, click 'OK'."
Customer: "Click 'OK'?"
Tech Support: "That's right. Click 'OK'."
Customer: "So I click 'OK', right?"
Tech Support: "Right. Click 'OK'."

Pause.

Customer: "I clicked 'Cancel'."
Tech Support: "YOU CLICKED 'CANCEL'???"
Customer: "That's what I was supposed to do, right?"
Tech Support: "No, you were supposed to click 'OK'."
Customer: "I thought you said to click 'Cancel'."
Tech Support: "NO. I said to click 'OK'."
Customer: "Oh."
Tech Support: "Now we have to start over."
Customer: "Why?"
Tech Support: "Because you clicked 'Cancel'."
Customer: "Wasn't I supposed to click 'Cancel'?"
Tech Support: "No. Forget that. Let's start from the top."
Customer: "Ok."

I spent the next fifteen minutes re-constructing the carefully crafted setup for this lady's unique computer.

Tech Support: "All right. Now, are you ready to click 'OK'?"
Customer: "Yes."
Tech Support: "Great. Now click 'OK'."
Pause.


Customer: "I clicked 'Cancel'."
And people wonder why my mouse pad has a target on it labeled "BANG HEAD HERE."

[BanishedLetters]

I had this conversation recently with a lady who swore she had been using computers since forever.

Tech Support: "All right. Now click 'OK'."
Customer: "Click 'OK'?"
Tech Support: "Yes, click 'OK'."
Customer: "Click 'OK'?"
Tech Support: "That's right. Click 'OK'."
Customer: "So I click 'OK', right?"
Tech Support: "Right. Click 'OK'."

Pause.

Customer: "I clicked 'Cancel'."
Tech Support: "YOU CLICKED 'CANCEL'???"
Customer: "That's what I was supposed to do, right?"
Tech Support: "No, you were supposed to click 'OK'."
Customer: "I thought you said to click 'Cancel'."
Tech Support: "NO. I said to click 'OK'."
Customer: "Oh."
Tech Support: "Now we have to start over."
Customer: "Why?"
Tech Support: "Because you clicked 'Cancel'."
Customer: "Wasn't I supposed to click 'Cancel'?"
Tech Support: "No. Forget that. Let's start from the top."
Customer: "Ok."

I spent the next fifteen minutes re-constructing the carefully crafted setup for this lady's unique computer.

Tech Support: "All right. Now, are you ready to click 'OK'?"
Customer: "Yes."
Tech Support: "Great. Now click 'OK'."
Pause.


Customer: "I clicked 'Cancel'."
And people wonder why my mouse pad has a target on it labeled "BANG HEAD HERE."

that has to be the best one yet

[Legodude77]

-snip-

[Pentium]

    Tech Support: "Ok, sir, to finish opening your account, I will need you to provide a credit card number."
    Customer: "All right, hold on."

[some rustling sounds]

    Customer: "Ok, do you have it yet?"
    Tech Support: "Well, no, You haven't given it to me yet."
    Customer: "Sure I did. I just stuck it in this slot in the front of this computer."

[KoopaScooper]

This is the reason why I don't want to show people a floppy disk drive

I work for a large university in New England where we have a number of public computer labs that we must maintain. Every summer we do a number of upgrades to keep the machines somewhat current. Last summer, we added a number of zip drives to the forty or so Macs and PCs we had in a couple of our labs. Shortly after the installation was complete, we realized the problem we had just opened up for ourselves -- many users had never seen a zip drive before, and, of course, floppies fit quite well in that opening. Literally within hours, we had our first test case.

Apparently the user's diskette had gotten caught on the loading arm unit within the drive and was hopelessly stuck. By the time the call got to my level in the chain of command, two of our student techs had already been forced not only to dismantle the machine but also the zip drive to extract the ornery media.

As I walked in, one of our rather computer savvy student techs was handing the disk (without the metal slider -- it had been wrenched from the disk in the removal process) back to the user. He suggested to the user that he make a second copy of his disk. I agreed, assuming his logic was to salvage what data the user had on the disk. But our student tech said, matter-of-factly, "...because there's no metal protector anymore, your disk is more susceptible to viruses."

I almost died. He honestly thought they were airborne.

[Trymos]

   Customer: "Hi. I have a Macintosh. I had a disk that I wanted to put in the computer, but it wouldn't go, so I pushed harder, and it wouldn't go, so I pushed REALLY hard, and now it's making funny noises. I think there was a disk in there already."
    Tech Support: "Unplug the computer, now."
    Customer: "I don't want to lose my paper!"
    Tech Support: "Unplug the computer right now. Your paper is lost. Your floppy drive is lost. If you're lucky the Mac will be OK. Unplug it now."
    Customer: "But I don't want to lose my paper!"

After a few more repetitions of this, I heard someone, presumably the client's roommate, scream. Then I heard the dorm fire alarm go off in the background. Those things are awful loud, but she didn't seem interested in unplugging the computer, fleeing the fire in her room, or anything else other than arguing with me. Figuring I was doing her a favor, I hung up.

the direction humanity is heading in.

replace i don't want to lose my fire with i don't want to lose my xbox 360 internet and call of duty.

replace computer fire with cooking fire.

[Electrk]

Friend: "The program is written, and I'm debugging it."
Boss: "What's wrong with you people? You make programming more difficult than it needs to be. I have Frontpage Express to write web pages with, and when I write code with it, I never need to debug it. If you were as good of a programmer as me, you'd never need to debug either."

...

[dorkdotdan]

Fact: Boston Computer Museum sells chocolate bars shaped like floppy disks.

Fact: Three year old kids see daddy boot his computer using a floppy to play games.

Fact: Computers are warm inside...even some quite expensive computers.

I don't want to talk about it.

[otto-san]

...

if someone said that to me i would do a frontflip off a painting of a crocodile

[Socky]

GUYS HELP

MY KEYBOARD ISN'T WORKING