Imagine Search & Rescue showing up to find all these floating butts.
Worst part of the job is seeing with people you know in decline. People you’ve known for years forgetting the simplest things, like how password work, in conjunction with usernames for sites. Pull out a book and it says Google - password = 1234, So you have to ask what their username is and Google says that username doesn’t exist.
One guy’s car suddenly was stuck in Park. Couldn’t move so I went over and looked. I got in, shifted it into Reverse and Drive no problem I watched him try, and he wasn’t putting his foot on the brake to take it our of Park… he’s driven that car for over 7 years. Then one day POOF a mental data corruption, No CHKBRN -f
OMG I get so stubborn I miss the obvious.
he website I’ve run for the commnity for over 25 years has an rss newsfeed from CbC on the news page. Three tabs with top news, BC news, sports. Stopped working earlier this year ater a Wordpress update. witched to anotherRSS plugin but that failed a couple weeks ago.
So I researched every possible cause, updated all the Wordpress site in my plan to version 7.0 and the php to 8.3, tried all sorts of other RSS plugins that didn’t do what I want and hunted every possible cause of the native Gutrnberg RSS block erro, talked to several a couple GpDaddy techs who were actually BanglaDeshi script readers that didn’t know aCMS backend from a frontend let alone what RSS was - tore my hair out for 2 weeks and actually was surprised that someone in toen phoned to ask what was going on with the news page (someon here actually looks at the website! Yay!).
So I acceidentally pasted in a BBC feedlink inot the native RSS block instead of the CBC one and BLINK it worked fine. It was the CBC not me, WordPress, GoDaddy or a coding conflict. (some of the site id hand bombed html), Aiiiyeeee!. I even tried using AI to help code an HTML reader with multiple tabs within one column of a div… OMG I’m OLD - 15 tears ago that might have taken a day.
So I quickly switched to Global TSS feeds, changed the tab plugin for a prettier one I ran across and went live.
After mt hair grows back I’ll add some custom css to agjust the font sizes in the feed but no rusk at all.
I’m actually still on a high from that one person who called when that one page was down.
Oh God another one. Had a computer since DOS days, one of the first to sign up when I opened the dialup Internet here in 1995.
Windoiws 11 with Microsoft Defender, Total AV, Macafee and Avast running on top of the built in Windows Security.
Adwcleaner crashed as soon as it tried to clean. Hitman Pro managed to find and remover 79 PUPs ad riggering cookies etc. Remnants in every single browsrt’s extensions. Pribacy & notifications not set properly. Power setting at default for 5 years - lanks ater 4 minutes, sleeps after 5.
Didn’t know the URL bar was Google Search and Edge was Bing [ all 3 start pages set to Google.com.
She is one of the most intelligent and highly educated women I’ve met here in over 30 years.
But not in geekdom and freely admits it. Like she knew to send her husband when the ex mentioned carpentry or plumbing problems. I admit ot still trying to bring my own skills at those up past useless to merely inept.
I’m gonna show her CTRL + and - so she doesn’t have to do stretch on the touch screen…
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Blatant honesty: If your computer was working perfectly it would be worth $100 - $150. It is not worth “fixing”.
It is your fault you didn’t back up your files and forgot your passwords
things people hate to hear
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My favourite is when someone wants me to do some tech work, but doesn’t think they should pay for it.
“My cousin can do this for me.”
“Ok, then bring it to him.”
“No, I want you to do it, but you charge too much.”
“It’s 2 hours of work, this is what my hourly charge is. If you don’t want to pay it, then come mow my lawn, or do my taxes, both should be about two hours.”
“No, that’s not the same thing.”
“Ok, sorry, can’t do the work for you.”
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Ok, here’s an actual one from just two days ago…
“Hi we are a commercial real estate company in Edmonton that have some property in your town that we would like you to do some drone photos and videos of …”
Me: “No problem, my rate is usually $750 per job, but I’ve worked with your company before, so I can do $600. Meanwhile, here are some shots I already have of the target area, that I can sell you for $250 until the winter is over, and we can do fresh shots with nice green landscape.”
“Thanks, here’s the $250 for those shots.”
… months later …
“Hi, it’s summer now, can you go take some summer shots of the property?”
Me: “Sure, here’s a preview of 30 shots I took just now, from lots of different angles. Let me know if you want video clips as well. I will send the original raw photos, and I can do a 3D model and orthophoto as part of the package.. Tell me where to send the $600 invoice.”
“$600? That’s insane! I usually pay $150 - $250 for drone work!”
Me: “Ok, no problem, delete the preview photos I sent, and you can find someone else to do the work.”
This is a real estate company, who should know that different markets have different prices. The reason I’ve done work for them in the past is because I’m cheaper than the guys they usually use, which charge for travel, per diems, etc. I charge $750, but these commercial guys are usually charging $2500 or more. I know that’s their range, because they often contact me to do their work!
lol, so this person now has to learn a hard lesson. What’s worse is that the person CC’ed others in her company, so when I replied, I was sure to include and reference the initial e-mail I sent with the $600 quote. And I’m sure they’re all going to tell her how cheap that is compared to others who do commercial drone stuff.
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I have acquaintances that regularly ask me for tech support. I tell them that I like technology as a hobby, it’s not my business. I’m happily retired and have been for 10 years. They get really pissed with me when I won’t do free or paid work for them.
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This AM I converted my iPhone 15+ from a physical SIM to an eSIM. It was dead simple within cellular settings. I read online that Tim Cook announced that cellphone prices are increasing soon due to the RAM shortage. I decided that now is as good a time as any to buy a new phone. I just ordered an iPhone 17 Pro Max. Should arrive this week! Woo hoo!
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Had a couple phones from Telus. Waited most of Weds and Thurs for delivery. Fedex dropped them off at 4:15 Friday so forget any setup help.
Arranged callbacks this week that didn’t happen until after the shop closed.
Didn’t think I’d need help. but they screwed up massively. They think that I OWN the Mens Shed, it is my company. I found it under my personal account. And the username for business connect was mine, but not with the same password. That took hours online to fix. Then the default afmin code for the router wqs different.
Got more help from Google AI than customer service. Got one handset working and even finally found out the assigned phone number. Now the 2nd handset won’t register itself on the system.
Meanwhile just did 2 more for laggards that ‘can’t’ upgrade to 11 snd no ones gonna make them buy a new computer… doan hafa fi dwana, ain’t gonna, can’t make me
upgraded them and added $35 to their fee.
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My iPhone 17 Pro Max arrived yesterday. It was an absolute joy to set-up. The file transfer from my iPhone 15+ to the 17 Pro was accomplished in minutes. The eSIM transfer and activation was painless and flawless. It’s nice to have a stellar camera again. I’m very happy with this purchase. I love Apple innovation.
Friday AM: lady with Mascon email stopped working in iPhone. being Telus owned, they’re switchig to Google mail hosting. Not yet though, Sent an interim password link to move. To the mail that didn’t work. After 1 hour of rep repeating what I knew and not listening, promised to resend the link within 48 hrs. o the email that didn’t work.
PM": dialled 411 for Telus, gave Prince George as city/ AI could not find any listings for company named Telus.Spent 2 hours eventually with a texh who got to the let me look that up CLICK followed by the callback CLICK! (look Boss customer hung up twice)
SAT: tried to order a label maker from Brother, entered name, credit card etc, clicked PLACE ORDER and got a screenful of text detailing a JSON error. Tried again an hour later hung on a spinning circle trying to get to shopping cart.
Went back to MY TELUS to see what changes the tech did yesterday in the IP phone portal. No longer took me to my accounts, multiple pages of ads to buy new services, no menu choice to get to my accounts… finally fluked on the link and bookmarked it. Can’t manage what I want to manage thru their manager interface. Must be managed in the router itself, must go thru it all again Monday to get the passwords to retrieve voicemails, to reset / renove passwords and access the route myselfr.
Does abyone write code and then test it out first? Like see if it actuqlly works properly?
Meanwhile the guy I just set to Win 11 called an has a completely different version than anyone else. Ya know, no start button flag on the taskbar, no Settings that looks like a gear, when ou type in printers it shows his but if you click on it no options like 'print a tewst page. Eggh! Eddh! It USED TO Eggh! Edhh! I SHOULDN’T HAVE TO
Thank God someone else is looking after the till and debit machine for the shop. We both started siz weeks ago and at least we have partly working phone…
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3rd one this week with a screen saver. How Windows 95. Ikey can figure out how to turn it back on. Maybe
2nd one with a user completely unaware of file handling or basic computing concepts. Titally unaware what that big red line on the C drive means… over 100GB of pics just dumped into the pictures folder, no sub-folders, Same with documents. only 10GB free on C: no external…