SwampMan was complaining loudly to himself. “This button USED to work, but NOOOOOOO. It doesn’t work now. It hasn’t worked for a long time through different computers, and I’d like to know why the hell not!” STABSTABSTABSTABSTAB at the button because physical abuse always makes electronic things work.
“Did you look it up online?” I asked, rudely interrupting his soliloquy cuss session.
“No. What good would that do? It has been a long time since that thing worked.”
“So I heard. Is it your new keyboard?”
“No, damnit. The button hasn’t worked for YEARS. This is a new keyboard.”
“So, what version of Windows you got?”
“Windows XP.”
Ah, yes. He’d ordered a refurbished computer for his shop because he wanted to keep XP; his house computer also has XP. It makes moving things back and forth easier. I’d been typing into the search engine while we were speaking and had the answer in about ten seconds. “Well, there’s your problem right here. That button doesn’t work directly with XP.”
SwampMan muttered something that sounded suspiciously like “bullshit”.
“Humor me. Hit the button, then press start, then all programs, then accessories….”
He stabbed the keys with unnecessary vigor following my directions, then there was a muttered “Well I’ll be a (very rude and offensive expletive)!”
Ah, apparently we were successful in our endeavor.
“Isn’t it interesting”, I continued, “what we find out if we actually look it up?”
More muttered rude words. Not to worry, though. Tomorrow he’ll probably be saying something like “Isn’t it INTERESTING how much money we can save if we do not hit things with a hammer when they malfunction?” to me, unless he recalls in time that his knees have been malfunctioning for years.
Ah, well. He may still be a little aggravated at me from earlier today. He was worrying aloud about the CNC not working with the new (refurbished) computer, mentioned how he had checked settings several times, and was just about to start checking all his connections to make sure he had power to all of them.
“Oh!” I remarked helpfully, although he had not asked for any. “Did you check to see if you have enough RAM?”
He actually rolled his eyes at me. “What, do you think I’m stupid? Of COURSE!”
“Did you reconnect everything to see if it worked with the old computer again after you got everything disconnected and reconnected to the new computer and it didn’t work?” I’m definitely not a repairman, and I am lazy, so I like to make sure that what I’m putting forth a lot of effort and brainwork into is actually the problem.
He blinked. “Well, no….”
“It’s just me, but I’d like to make sure that the computer or a cable isn’t the problem first before I go tearing things down.” SwampMan likes to tear things down. Well, so do I, but all that is left are teensy little molecule-sized pieces when I do it. He actually takes things apart and puts them back together in working condition, and I just gaze at him adoringly because he’s my hero.
“I never even thought of THAT because everything is supposed to be new. Good idea!”
It turned out that it was a dead parallel port in the refurbished computer. Not to worry. SwampMan throws NOTHING away because he may need it someday. He’s got eight or so old computers sitting around to strip parts out of. He’s very happy that he gets to tear down things after all.
Crossposted at Nuke’s.
A1A South 
no2liberals said,
May 19, 2013 @ 11:42 pm
As per our conversation at Nuke’s, I have a funny story.
Linux looks and feels a lot like Windows, while being totally different.
One night, while clicking on links from News feeds and football forums, suddenly a WINDOWS Window popped up on my screen, screeching loudly with bright red letters, informing me this was a Windows Security alert, that I had been infected and that I needed to click on the action bar for the remedy. I had tears in my eyes from laughing when I clicked on the bar and guffawed loudly with the new message, I needed to turn on automatic updates and click on the scanner so it could find and destroy the 100+ issues it detected.
Having had a good laugh from clicking around on this WINDOWS window and all its doom and gloom, I finally clicked on the cancel button. A new round of loudly colored warnings informing me that my computer would lock up and I would lose EVERYTHING on my hard drive.
Seriously, my ribs hurt.
Finally after ignoring the sirens, klaxons, strobe lights, whistles and air horns, I was able to cancel this silly pest.
I knew it couldn’t touch me, I was using Linux, and updates to programs that Linux doesn’t provide have to be done manually by opening a command box, entering the code and my password.
But think of it, many people aren’t that familiar with their settings, some computers I have encountered by casual users allow third party cookies and have their security set at minimum, while allowing automatic updates.
I can see where someone might have freaked out and allowed that weird security window to do what it said it wanted to do, and have their computer infected or taken over as someone’s bot.
swampie said,
May 20, 2013 @ 5:46 am
Ooooh, that one is SERIOUSLY annoying. We were having severe thunderstorms last night and the electricity kept flickering on and off. My battery back up died (PBUH) and I haven’t replaced it, so every freakin’ time the electricity flickered, the computer and wireless router went off and had to be brought back up. Note to self: Replace BBU at the earliest opportunity. I finally gave up.
no2liberals said,
May 20, 2013 @ 9:44 pm
swampie said,
May 20, 2013 @ 10:29 pm
Thanks! I’ll watch it in the morning when I’m not quite as brain dead as I am right now.
/and my heart is heavy about OKC.
no2liberals said,
May 20, 2013 @ 11:26 pm
Those poor folks, they got road graded.
So many dead and injured children. God Bless’em.