Computers actually work better with only one anti-virus package on it. Not two. Or three. Lots of blue screens are caused because the computer has multiple anti-virus packages on it and the user hasn't removed the one that came with it when they bought the system.
They also work better with a decent anti-virus package on it. Blueyonder/Virgin PCguard does not count. PCguard is about as much use as a chocolate fireguard and it's always amazing why people use it when the system has more pop-ups and "system" announcements in two seconds than I've had hot dinners in twenty years.
Norton is only very slightly better than PCguard, on the basis that it at least flags up a tracking cookie. McAfee on the other hand, is so useless these days you have to wonder whether people who write software reviews are using the same version of McAfee that are protecting other people's computers. Introduce McAfee to a computer that is choked and it will find absolutely nothing wrong infection-wise with it. Why do people persist in using it?
Saturday, February 28, 2009
Friday, February 27, 2009
Printer Ink
There is no ink cartridge that can fit in every single printer ever made. People think they can go into a shop and say "I want a cartridge for my printer, it's an Epson." Aside from the fact Epson made dozens of printers that take dozens of different cartridge numbers of different dimensions, it's kind of hard what to say at this point. Going "You know what it is, you sold it me" doesn't really help the situation especially when you then mention you haven't been in for months on end and have only just noticed the shop's been painted (twice).
A printer that takes any cartridge you care to throw at it is anybody's ideal dream, just so they can go in a shop and say "I want some Epson ink". Which isn't as much fun as saying "I want some ink for my Epson, I don't know what the model is but I had some last time and they cost *some ludricious figure that probably wasn't right in the first place*"
A printer that takes any cartridge you care to throw at it is anybody's ideal dream, just so they can go in a shop and say "I want some Epson ink". Which isn't as much fun as saying "I want some ink for my Epson, I don't know what the model is but I had some last time and they cost *some ludricious figure that probably wasn't right in the first place*"
Thursday, February 26, 2009
Printer Problems...
Printers that do not print typically do not print for one of four main reasons: 1) They're out of paper. 2) They're out of ink. 3) The printer/system is defunct. 4) The user is defect. Typically reason 4 is the sole cause of reasons 1 and 2.
Customer brings a printer in, claims it doesn't print black. Turns out all the cartridges are empty, which might explain why it doesn't actually print anything. They claim they put a new black cartridge in which, according to the Epson Status Monitor, is virtually empty anyway and they paid £7 for an almost empty cartridge assuming they haven't spent hours cleaning the heads.
Four new ink cartridges later, oh look it'll print anything I throw at it.
Customer brings a printer in, claims it doesn't print black. Turns out all the cartridges are empty, which might explain why it doesn't actually print anything. They claim they put a new black cartridge in which, according to the Epson Status Monitor, is virtually empty anyway and they paid £7 for an almost empty cartridge assuming they haven't spent hours cleaning the heads.
Four new ink cartridges later, oh look it'll print anything I throw at it.
Buttons and Switches
Monitors do not power on a computer. If a technician asks you to press the Reset button on the computer case, please do not start pressing buttons on the monitor and asking whether V-Setting or Clock or "color settings - warm, cool or custom" will do the same thing because it won't. Believe me, I've tried.
Obvious exceptions to this rule include those Sony/Advent units where everything is built-in to a huge monitor (very nice but a pain in the arse to fix when they break) and branded computers that don't have reset switches. Reset switches are probably a computer user's best friend since Windows does tend to show you a blue screen for no apparent reason whatsoever. Yet Dell must get support calls saying "I pressed Reset and it started coming on again" which may explain why they took the reset buttons off their cases.
One of the most ugliest phrases you hear is when customers use the phrase "coming on". How can a computer be "coming on"? Either it's on or it isn't, or your computer is flirting with you. If your computer is flirting with you (or vice versa) something is very wrong somewhere.
Obvious exceptions to this rule include those Sony/Advent units where everything is built-in to a huge monitor (very nice but a pain in the arse to fix when they break) and branded computers that don't have reset switches. Reset switches are probably a computer user's best friend since Windows does tend to show you a blue screen for no apparent reason whatsoever. Yet Dell must get support calls saying "I pressed Reset and it started coming on again" which may explain why they took the reset buttons off their cases.
One of the most ugliest phrases you hear is when customers use the phrase "coming on". How can a computer be "coming on"? Either it's on or it isn't, or your computer is flirting with you. If your computer is flirting with you (or vice versa) something is very wrong somewhere.
Monday, February 23, 2009
Brands
You can use different brands of stuff inside a computer, no problem at all.
There is no concept of "a CD unit for a Dell *insert model number here*" or similar concepts for pretty much all hardware. The only exception is the memory and some Dell power supplies - older computers may not like certain types of memory and Dell power supplies have been covered before. Oh yeah, Dell motherboards are unique as well. No you cannot put them in another case.
Brands are of no consequence, it's no different to having a JVC television and plugging a Panasonic video player and a Bush DVD player into it, then connecting a Sky Digibox made by Grundig. People are happy to mix and match on any other equipment that can be plugged into something else but seem insistent on having a like-for-like replacement inside the computer like it makes a difference.
The car goes along the road regardless of whether you put Dunlop tyres on it or Mitchelin tyres on it. The engine really doesn't give a toss. Most computers really don't care that the hard drive is made by Western Digital or Seagate - long as it can boot from it, it makes no difference.
There is no concept of "a CD unit for a Dell *insert model number here*" or similar concepts for pretty much all hardware. The only exception is the memory and some Dell power supplies - older computers may not like certain types of memory and Dell power supplies have been covered before. Oh yeah, Dell motherboards are unique as well. No you cannot put them in another case.
Brands are of no consequence, it's no different to having a JVC television and plugging a Panasonic video player and a Bush DVD player into it, then connecting a Sky Digibox made by Grundig. People are happy to mix and match on any other equipment that can be plugged into something else but seem insistent on having a like-for-like replacement inside the computer like it makes a difference.
The car goes along the road regardless of whether you put Dunlop tyres on it or Mitchelin tyres on it. The engine really doesn't give a toss. Most computers really don't care that the hard drive is made by Western Digital or Seagate - long as it can boot from it, it makes no difference.
Sunday, February 15, 2009
File Associations
One customer said their computer didn't print stuff off the internet properly and kept asking about File formats for Windows or MS-DOS. It turned out they were loading PDF files into Word, which was probably not a good idea. Apparently the computer's three months old - with date stamps of 2005, 2007 and 2004 on various bits inside. It probably came from Cash Converters as a refurbished machine. Why do people do silly things like buy stuff from Cash Converters of all places?
Programs are not transferrable between computers (many years ago when it was all fields round 'ere, it was possible to do that for programs that actually fitted onto a floppy!), yet people think you can copy a bunch of files across from one computer to another and expect it to work. Believe you me, if we could do that with Windows Microsoft would never sell another copy of Office.
Programs are not transferrable between computers (many years ago when it was all fields round 'ere, it was possible to do that for programs that actually fitted onto a floppy!), yet people think you can copy a bunch of files across from one computer to another and expect it to work. Believe you me, if we could do that with Windows Microsoft would never sell another copy of Office.
Friday, February 13, 2009
Cosmetics
Please don't buy cases with fancy front lights and fans and what not. Or if you are going to, at least buy one with enough connectors to run everything.
Many PC cases come with cheap nasty power supplies. They typically only come with enough connectors to power four devices, the board and maybe a fan. Somebody wanted to run two CD units, two hard drives and, for reasons that were never discovered, FOUR fans and two lights. It later transpired they bought the case purely for the lights, not realising everything else had to take priority so there were no molexes left!
Y-Splitters (power adaptors to effectively split two power molexes into one) are available but not really advocated unless there is no other solution. Bearing in mind any decent power supply should make splitters pretty much un-necessary anyway, things were explained when the computer was powered on and the words "Advent" came across the screen. Yes I'd want to hide its origins too :)
Advent machines are sold through the Dixon Store Group range, namely PC World, Currys and Aldi are fond of selling them. The fact of the matter is they are cheap pieces of crap that people buy for £200 and then try to play World Of Warcraft on them with on-board graphics, then baulk when told the machine is not upgradable because it has no graphics expansion slot as it was cheap.
Many PC cases come with cheap nasty power supplies. They typically only come with enough connectors to power four devices, the board and maybe a fan. Somebody wanted to run two CD units, two hard drives and, for reasons that were never discovered, FOUR fans and two lights. It later transpired they bought the case purely for the lights, not realising everything else had to take priority so there were no molexes left!
Y-Splitters (power adaptors to effectively split two power molexes into one) are available but not really advocated unless there is no other solution. Bearing in mind any decent power supply should make splitters pretty much un-necessary anyway, things were explained when the computer was powered on and the words "Advent" came across the screen. Yes I'd want to hide its origins too :)
Advent machines are sold through the Dixon Store Group range, namely PC World, Currys and Aldi are fond of selling them. The fact of the matter is they are cheap pieces of crap that people buy for £200 and then try to play World Of Warcraft on them with on-board graphics, then baulk when told the machine is not upgradable because it has no graphics expansion slot as it was cheap.
Thursday, February 12, 2009
Perils Of The People
Thick people are a pain in the arse to deal with. Especially when they do not want to change their level of thickness to "ever so slightly less thick than I was before". People who go by what their mates say are typically thick anyway because if their mate jumped off a cliff they'd probably go and do it too.
A customer bought a computer in they had recased themselves. Fortunately they had not fired it up otherwise it would have been tears before bedtime. Their mate had said it was easy to recase a computer, which it is if you know what you're doing. A strange concept people seem to have is that they can take a computer apart because the sides come off. When did you last take the car to pieces because the bonnet comes up?
Anyway this user did a good job of recasing. Aside from mounting the board in the case with two screws instead of nine, three stand-offs instead of nine, plugging front USB connectors into the FIREWIRE take-offs (not a good idea), closely followed by not bothering to plug the front panel in (lights and switches), they did a good job. Not. Fixing this required taking the entire lot out to put new stand-offs in, as they were sitting UNDER the board. Surprisingly, the equipment still worked after we'd de-botched it.
For the unitiated, please don't put stand-offs under the board as they'll only cause it to short out and it's as much good as not having any stand-offs at all. The whole point of having the stand-offs is to keep the board off the metal plate to stop it shorting, plus it grounds the boards and stops it moving around.
The other "perils of the people" scenario:
"You wiped my computer and dumped all my stuff in a folder. How do I move it?"
"Where do you want to move it to?"
"I don't know."
"Well where it is now?"
"I don't know," is the repeated answer from the customer.
"Well if you don't know where it is and you don't know where you want to move it to, why do you want to move it?"
"I don't know. See, before you wiped it, I had... *insert some story about the previous set-up of the computer that is totally irrelevant to the discussion anyway*. Plus I've got a load of emails I want but they aren't there."
"Well what email were you using?"
"I don't know." Calmly take a sheet of A4 paper from the printer and write on it in really big letters, "Bang Head Here". (They were using Outlook Express, a program that more often than not refuses to import anything from a previous installation).
There follows a painful exchange where nothing can be explained or resolved because the customer does not understand anything of what they are being told. They know not how to Google, they know not how to do anything. Break things down to their level, they accuse you of being patronising. Go up a notch and it's over their head.
Abraham Lincoln was right when he said (more or less :)) you can please some of the people all the time, all of the people some of the time but you can't please all of the people all of the time. And some people want the moon on a stick and nothing less.
A customer bought a computer in they had recased themselves. Fortunately they had not fired it up otherwise it would have been tears before bedtime. Their mate had said it was easy to recase a computer, which it is if you know what you're doing. A strange concept people seem to have is that they can take a computer apart because the sides come off. When did you last take the car to pieces because the bonnet comes up?
Anyway this user did a good job of recasing. Aside from mounting the board in the case with two screws instead of nine, three stand-offs instead of nine, plugging front USB connectors into the FIREWIRE take-offs (not a good idea), closely followed by not bothering to plug the front panel in (lights and switches), they did a good job. Not. Fixing this required taking the entire lot out to put new stand-offs in, as they were sitting UNDER the board. Surprisingly, the equipment still worked after we'd de-botched it.
For the unitiated, please don't put stand-offs under the board as they'll only cause it to short out and it's as much good as not having any stand-offs at all. The whole point of having the stand-offs is to keep the board off the metal plate to stop it shorting, plus it grounds the boards and stops it moving around.
The other "perils of the people" scenario:
"You wiped my computer and dumped all my stuff in a folder. How do I move it?"
"Where do you want to move it to?"
"I don't know."
"Well where it is now?"
"I don't know," is the repeated answer from the customer.
"Well if you don't know where it is and you don't know where you want to move it to, why do you want to move it?"
"I don't know. See, before you wiped it, I had... *insert some story about the previous set-up of the computer that is totally irrelevant to the discussion anyway*. Plus I've got a load of emails I want but they aren't there."
"Well what email were you using?"
"I don't know." Calmly take a sheet of A4 paper from the printer and write on it in really big letters, "Bang Head Here". (They were using Outlook Express, a program that more often than not refuses to import anything from a previous installation).
There follows a painful exchange where nothing can be explained or resolved because the customer does not understand anything of what they are being told. They know not how to Google, they know not how to do anything. Break things down to their level, they accuse you of being patronising. Go up a notch and it's over their head.
Abraham Lincoln was right when he said (more or less :)) you can please some of the people all the time, all of the people some of the time but you can't please all of the people all of the time. And some people want the moon on a stick and nothing less.
Labels:
bang head here,
computer case,
email,
recase,
thick,
wiped
Monday, February 9, 2009
Blue Screens
One of the most common causes of blue screens under Microsoft Windows is the underlying drivers that power everything. A corrupt driver will cause a blue screen.
A computer that comes in under the notion of "it blue screens" typically doesn't do it when it's outside of it's usual environment. The logical assumption then is that the issue is being caused by something that's no longer being plugged in. USB devices are good at this. The user typically brings the main box in (without anything else they plug in), we find nothing wrong with it and they go back and it blue-screens again.
The ironic thing it, it doesn't blue-screen on the workbench. Now if we cannot make the computer fall over, there's not really a lot we can do about it. Some people don't quite seem to understand the concept of if we cannot reproduce it, there's little we can do and of course they get a little bit upset that their computer is rather fond of the colour blue. Sadly that's not our problem if we see no blue screens.
Somebody wanted all the drivers updating or replacing if there were corrupt. Bearing in mind Windows uses hundreds of the things, it was never going to happen.
A computer that comes in under the notion of "it blue screens" typically doesn't do it when it's outside of it's usual environment. The logical assumption then is that the issue is being caused by something that's no longer being plugged in. USB devices are good at this. The user typically brings the main box in (without anything else they plug in), we find nothing wrong with it and they go back and it blue-screens again.
The ironic thing it, it doesn't blue-screen on the workbench. Now if we cannot make the computer fall over, there's not really a lot we can do about it. Some people don't quite seem to understand the concept of if we cannot reproduce it, there's little we can do and of course they get a little bit upset that their computer is rather fond of the colour blue. Sadly that's not our problem if we see no blue screens.
Somebody wanted all the drivers updating or replacing if there were corrupt. Bearing in mind Windows uses hundreds of the things, it was never going to happen.
Friday, February 6, 2009
The Memory Scenario
Common scenario time:
"I have a computer/laptop, a Packard Bell/HP/Dell/whatever, how much to put more memory in it?"
"I don't know because I don't know what type of memory it takes," is our reply.
"It's a Packard Bell/HP/Dell/whatever *insert model number that is completely arbitrary to the entire conversation anyway* and I think it's got 250."
"256Mb of memory, okay, but I need..."
"It come up saying something about virtual memory is low. I have 80Gbs of memory."
"No, you have an 80Gb hard drive. Virtual memory is hard disk space. *insert very basic concept of how and what Virtual Memory is*"
"I know nothing about computers." Ah, that old chestnut.
"Yeah but I can't quote you on some memory for your computer until I know what type it takes. It's like going into a garage and saying I want some tyres for my car, they're big, black and round."
The computer typically comes in three weeks later with an 256Mb video card, 512Mb system memory, three anti-virus packages on it (all of which expired months ago), Limewire and WinAntiVirusPro 2009.
"I have a computer/laptop, a Packard Bell/HP/Dell/whatever, how much to put more memory in it?"
"I don't know because I don't know what type of memory it takes," is our reply.
"It's a Packard Bell/HP/Dell/whatever *insert model number that is completely arbitrary to the entire conversation anyway* and I think it's got 250."
"256Mb of memory, okay, but I need..."
"It come up saying something about virtual memory is low. I have 80Gbs of memory."
"No, you have an 80Gb hard drive. Virtual memory is hard disk space. *insert very basic concept of how and what Virtual Memory is*"
"I know nothing about computers." Ah, that old chestnut.
"Yeah but I can't quote you on some memory for your computer until I know what type it takes. It's like going into a garage and saying I want some tyres for my car, they're big, black and round."
The computer typically comes in three weeks later with an 256Mb video card, 512Mb system memory, three anti-virus packages on it (all of which expired months ago), Limewire and WinAntiVirusPro 2009.
Thursday, February 5, 2009
OS Benefits
Why is it that people consider XP Professional to be far superior to XP Home?
Unless you're in an environment that uses the extra features of XP Pro (and most home users are not), then you don't need it.
This would be tragic if not in pretty much every scenario this comes up in, the PC in question has a perfectly valid and happy XP Home product key stuck to it. And the ironic thing is, the XP Pro that's somehow found it's way onto the computer is almost always a cracked copy that'll get flagged up straight off by Genuine Validation.
Unless you're in an environment that uses the extra features of XP Pro (and most home users are not), then you don't need it.
This would be tragic if not in pretty much every scenario this comes up in, the PC in question has a perfectly valid and happy XP Home product key stuck to it. And the ironic thing is, the XP Pro that's somehow found it's way onto the computer is almost always a cracked copy that'll get flagged up straight off by Genuine Validation.
Wednesday, February 4, 2009
Power Problems
Strange concept some people have: They think electrical items run on electricity at home and that said items run on fresh air in any other location. What other excuse do people have for bringing printers in without a power lead?
Printers that take normal figure eight power leads are not a problem; neither are those that for whatever reason end up taking standard three pin kettle leads, nor clover-leaf designs. HP printers tend to use a completely unique power pack for their printers which is pretty much not possible to get on its own. The scary thing is, if the printer takes figure eight, kettle or clover leaf, they'll bring the power cable down regardless. If it's anything else, they don't bring it down, ironically enough.
Of course, not to mention that the apparent problem with the printer turns out to be the fact there's nothing wrong with the printer and the problem is either the computer or (more likely) the person using the computer. Typically the print queue is full, or there's a corrupt job, or said printer isn't the default anymore.
Printers that take normal figure eight power leads are not a problem; neither are those that for whatever reason end up taking standard three pin kettle leads, nor clover-leaf designs. HP printers tend to use a completely unique power pack for their printers which is pretty much not possible to get on its own. The scary thing is, if the printer takes figure eight, kettle or clover leaf, they'll bring the power cable down regardless. If it's anything else, they don't bring it down, ironically enough.
Of course, not to mention that the apparent problem with the printer turns out to be the fact there's nothing wrong with the printer and the problem is either the computer or (more likely) the person using the computer. Typically the print queue is full, or there's a corrupt job, or said printer isn't the default anymore.
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