As we all know, one of the drawbacks about being computer-savvy is that you
end up being tech support for the entire family. Case in point: my wife's
uncle.
A few months ago, he bought a laptop to get online, play some chess, etc. So
far, so good. He, unfortunately, is one of those people who thinks he knows
everything about everything, and computers are no exception. Here are some
of Uncle Karl's Greatest Hits:
1. He wanted to download Volksmusik (think lederhosen and accordions). He
claimed Microsoft had a filesharing program. He was referring to Windows
Media Player.
2. He calls IE "Google" because that's his start page. We asked him to start
his browser and to start IE, and he had no idea what we were talking about.
3. His laptop came with an alleged anti-virus program preinstalled. It was
called "Norman". Not "Norton", "Norman". Needless to say, the virus defs
were never updated. My wife, my stepdaughter and I started getting tons of
virus (Netsky) e-mails, all originating from his ISP. The common thread:
we're all in his OE address book. In addition, he said his computer was
running painfully slow. Putting 2+2 together, I explained he most likely had
a virus. He said -- repeatedly -- "no...that's impossible...I ran a virus
scan and it said there were no viruses" (see my statement about virus defs
in the previous sentence).
He was coming down to Dortmund to visit people (he lives about 2 hours from
here), so I told him to bring it down and let me look at it. (One advantage
of this strategy is that it gets me out of actually having to deal with
him.) He brought the laptop...without the power adapter...with ~58% of
battery life. I installed AVG on the laptop, and within a second of starting
it up, it started finding infected files...more viruses than a Mexican
brothel. After all was said and done, there were over 2800 files infected.
Since I was under time constraints due to the battery situation, I didn't
use the newest defs at that point, but the ones I had weren't THAT old. At
this point the battery died, so I gave it back to him to bring home. I
figured I'd take care of the rest of the work (rescanning with new defs,
installing/running spyware detectors) via Remote Support. We finally got
connected...after 11 attempts at getting him to follow the correct sequence
of instructions. Afterwards, all was well.
4. Last night, he had a problem logging into his ISP's website to check out
his account information (https). He kept getting an error page. Here was
his thought as to why: "I haven't logged into the site for a while. I know
computers have all these fine electronics in them. Maybe they needed to get
used to the website again."
Thank $Deity my wife's German is much better than mine (after all, she IS
German). She gets the pleasure of handling most of Uncle Karl's calls
(especially since I have a bitch of a time trying to understand his
dialect). After last night's episode, my wife suddenly developed the
1000-yard stare that any of us that have ever done hell desk know all so
well. I thought it was hilarious and started laughing, because I've been
there and done that, and because it's HER side of the family and not mine.
We were eating dinner, and I was a bit frightened by the way she was holding
her knife. I gently backed away from the table.
He's taking a Computers for Seniors class at the local Volkshochschule
(think community college/adult learning center). I wonder if any teachers
have committed seppuku.
</caffeine-fueled rant>