No, they will blame the road …
“The internet isn’t working!” when their computer won’t turn on.
Updated one Win 10 Pro laptop to 21H1. Seems okay. Will do the other laptop in a while.
OMG why did you do that, don’t you know Windows updates are dangerous!!!
Just dis 20H2 to a laptop still running 1809…
also wondered just WHY everyone must set their browser’s start page to Google? Must be so they can type in FACEBOOK or WWW.COCACOLA.COM and search for them.
(the 1809 laptop had the Firefox start page set to BING and the Edge start page to GOOGLE… 
)
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The Bulkley-Nechako District is doing a FB survey on local Internet service. Check the comments for the parade of stoopid. They had a bad link on their site at first but I guess their tech decoded that from the responses…
Can’t open the link - my Internet service is crap
Can’t open the link - my internet is so bad I cancelled it
Where I live I only get three bars on my computer’s Internet. They should build more towers
BTW - the “other” bookkeeper just called. The printer doesn’t work… and equally astonished how lights work… and how backing up Simply Accounting is exactly the same on different computers (the old one was a Dell, this is an HP. How was I supposed to know?"
Arrghhhh! Working with OLD farts!
I told the wife that I am an old fart, but if I ever start acting like them to sneak up behind me and push me off the damn bridge!
Called in YET AGAIN about that office printer. Always says it’s offline when one of the two women sit in front of it. I decided that as I’d replaced their laptop with a desktop that they no long had to disconnect from everything and place in a safe, behind two locked and alarmed doors, I’ connect it USB just so they couldn’t MAKE MORE PROBLEMS.
It was set up HP’s wifi direct, about the simplest way possible and when I pulled it away from the wall to connect the USB - there was a network cable in it. It was from in a box, inside the bottom of the desk and of course “It wasn’t me, I don’t know who did that”
Then got accosted by the senior who’s daughter gave her a new computer that was ‘all set up’. And didn’t tell her the logon password. SO she phoned… and it booted Windows 10 all set up to work just like windows 8… with a Microsoft account she didn’t tell her the username. Winver told me 1903 so I took it home rebooted with a 21H1 stick and reset it to work like normal people want it to.
I’d copied her docs, pics, desktop folder to USB and put them back. Went to set up her mail…used the three logins saved in her old Chrome passwords. NFG
So I decided to install he Office, but there was an external drive in the box, not software. Underneath, YET ANOTHER password for her email than didn’t work either. I then noticed a receipts folder on the desktop and she’d told me she saved ALL the receipts from her ISP. That were sent to a slightly different email address! One that didn’t work with any of the password either. AAAIIIIEEEE…
She couldn’t tell me her password, honestly how was SHE expected to remember her password? She couldn’t even show me how she got her email, not even what she clicked on to get it. FFS her Chrome opened to an error page, she’d type www.google.com into the URL bar, then facebook into the google search and get there that way.
OMG
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Loading Win7 Starter onto an ancient AspireOne. The wife got me a Canon Selphy 15 years ago when we started dating and I pulled it out of the closet to make a high quality print of a painting of my dog.
Turns out support died at Windows 7 and no Mac or Linux.
I have hundreds of refills I scooped at a Staples clearance in Terrace many years ago and damned if I’m gonna buy the newer Selphy the little i use it. The supplies are the same on the new one though if I ever do.
I can still use it if I connect to my newer Canon camera, though with the iPhone, I use that maybe once a year. The damn thing was handy to give Mom snapshots when I saw her, but she passed almost a decade ago.
Used to be a fan of Netbooks years ago and this Acer’s too cute to ever throw out. Lives in a drawer with an original 7" EEE.
OMG it left 16K free space… so I hunted for hours for a copy of XP (tossed all mine ages ago) and used that. Installed at glacial speed! That old Atom 270… yawn.
So after day of dicking around, the Selphy’s paper feed doesn’t grip. THAT was why I shelved it years ago.
What a waste of time. Maybe i will order a new CP1300. Looks like I have $200-300 of consumables that fit one.
Get back to fixing that iMac tomorrow.
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I still have the original 7" eee around here somewhere. It’s running Xubuntu, I think.
My latest project was recovering the data off a 2014 MacBook Air that was dead. Unfortunately, Apple seemed to use some preliminary / non-standard NVMe SSD in 2013 and 2014. So I couldn’t just pop the SSD out and put it in an external case.
It took about 30 minutes just to take the thing apart. Apparently, whoever tried to take it apart previously used the wrong screwdriver, and stripped all the little screws. All of them. Every single one. You’d think after failing on the first one, you’d google which screwdriver you’d need. Nope, they doubled-down.
Anyway, after taking it apart, I was able to get the SSD out.
Luckily, my kid has a 2013 MacBook Air that is working just fine. So I swapped the two SSDs and did some unix magic to decrypt the drive and copy all the files off.
Also, Chromebooks have replaced Netbooks for me. Cheap, easy to hack. You don’t care if they break or you lose them 
Here’s one of my favourites, running Xubuntu:
Dells are almost as much of a PITA. a 5480 where someone had put in an M2 SATA in the NVME slot. IT worked but the hole to screw it down is 2 or 3 mm off, so by the time the guy used it, it had popped loose. Double sided sticky… which took longer to find than to fix the system. Local hardware store guy looked at me like I was mad, he’d never even heard of double sided stickies, except for the absolute shit he sold for weatherproofing windows the couldn’t even stick to itself.
Came back yesterday, his kid dropped the laptop and it no longer worked. Sure enough he’d dropped it so hard it broke the sticky tape.
And sure as shootin’ (as he lives remote and can’t be phoned or texted) he again forgot to bring the power supply, supply the logon password, or have $40 on him until next payday…
BTW I got a dozen of the stickies (not the dollar store one that won’t even hold a photo in an album, the ones that will hold an old fashioned phone jack on the wall for 20 years) AND a set of small suction cups (what? never even heard of small suction cups…) to open the iMac for $5 at Princess Auto.
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OK another adventure!
This time she said everything had been hacked. Probably an old boyfriend who knew her computer login password. She said she changed it and now it wont let her log in. So I did the USB boot, rename cmd to osk add user administrator thing and went on. Wiped her password. Had to settle her down, there’s another user now! Told you it was hacked! So she re-entered the new password, wouldn’t log her on.
So I logged in, asked wtf she wanted it to be and logged out. Wouldn’t take it. She’s picked ‘Smartblonde’. Tried it three times, if you entered that as a password you simply wouldn’t log on. Incorrect password! Tried something else, it worked fine. Removed my login.
Within hours - texts that it won’t even turn on. Comes over, it was never turned off. Just sitting there on the HP logo. Shut down/restart - slower than the 2nd coming. Windows take minutes to open.
Ahah! disk problem, NO IT’S NOT SOMEONE IS DOING THAT!!!
chkdsked. sfc/scannow stalls. downloads at a crawl, won’t install crystaldisk
SO I warned her, probably have to test the disk, wipe it and do a fresh install or even replace her disk. Will be like when it was bought.
did a few more tests, when I readded my test account, it took hours to access her files. They were mostly partly downloaded Chrome files, DOTdownload extensions. No documents, only links and 4 or 5 pics. They would not copy/paste to USB stick to rescue them.
Wiped disk partitions and did absolute fresh 21H1 install. tweaked everything, power, privacy, notifications, updates, etc. Added AdobeDC, Firefox and LibreOffice like I always do. Tested it overnight, all day - works like a charm. Way faster, but still a spinner drive.
So I give it back, warn her she has to add her login password if she wants and reset all her data. New install, everything gone.
Hour later - texting again- the internet says it’s disabled and won’t reconnect for four days and two hours
WTF? There’s nothing in windows that says that!
Click your network icon, make sure wifi is on and airplane is off.
WHY???
-because airplane mode kills your wifi so your plane don’t crash…
TEN MINUTES LATER
My password is GONE!!! The only pictures of my Gramma are GONE!!! They’re doing it again? How do I get THEM off my computer.
-lengthy re-explanation later
WELL I’M REALLY MAD!! So hoe do I STOP THEM???
-made the error of telling her not to be paranoid, hackers want your bank and stock accounts or to ransom your files. Who’d want what was on her computer, and why? It was 99% that it was a drive corruption from a power bump or s bad program install.
Well haven’t heard anymore and then realized… she’s bipolar and off her meds again. I probably mortally insulted her telling her not to be paranoid. Those un-copyable files were probably all the anti-vax and Jesus shit she’s been soaking up for the last year or so and this proves that I’m not her friend of 30 years but ONE OF THEM…
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Update- today she’s all over FB stating ‘someone’ broke into her computer and destroyed her drive and pics of Granma. Who would do such a thing?
Yes, that’s the big question. Who? If you find THEM, slit their throat with Occam’s Razor…
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OK HP x360 is as annoying as a Mac. Hidden screws, RAM and M2 slot underneath the mobo. Took an hour to dissasemble… not one part still good. Egghhh!
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All PCs are worse, I promise to not whine about Macs again. 2 identical laptops in 2 days, 2 different sound devices in them. Like PCs are built for the cheap with whatever cheapest part is available to Dell or HP. Both had annoyinbg problems that took extra time installing Windows 10… one turned out to have IDT sound which is an ordeal to make work. The other would not in any circumstances EUFI boot from USB, had to set it back to Legacy. I have both versions of installer sticks!
Next I got a Dell with the same problem… had too look up multiple times just to get BIOS to go into Legacy, stupid proprietory BIOS. That one does have TPM and Secure, but if they want 11 when it’s out they can pay me to convert the SSD and re-enable EUFI
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FYI when the iOS 14.5 upgrade happened, you can no longer upload to your samba server. Hadn’t used it for a while and spent hours discovering this bug they haven’t fixed, Mine’s already 14.7.1
Damn! Spent many hours setting things up and adding links to all my PCs Macs and iOS devices.
This after the wireless MS app to send Photos to your PC stopped working years ago.
BAck to cables and Dropbox again…
Got back to that stupid iMac… tests show the hard drive is OK. Just will not install an OSX, neither El Capitan nor Snow Leaopard (found it’s original disks).
But the damn thing will install and run Raspian x86 from USB and Window 7 from external CD. So I’ll try Snow Leopard from external CD, failing that Win 7 then an upgrade to Win10.
Tempted to try Ubuntu Mate 64 with a Mac theme like I did on my Pi and I know Raspian works.
You mean in the files app? Mine’s still working great on the latest iOS (and the latest iOS beta). I map one of my drobos and upload files all the time.
What kind of iMac is it? I recovered one recently and put Linux Mint (XFCE of course) on it. Gave it to a kid.
Next one I’m going to try is an old MacBook Pro, which I’m going to do with Zorin Linux. Which might be my favourite new distro.
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Cool!! I’ve been installing Debian 11.0 (released Aug. 14th) on a lot of my old units. I’m using the non-free ISO which includes firmware. I’m not a Stallman purist (don’t hate me). Haha.