Tech Stories

1. Has anyone else played GTA-Vice City? I just got the double set (GTA 3 and Vice City) for my XBox. I moved into a different part of the map and the city was called STARFISH ISLAND! It made running over pedestrians and robbing them blind that much better! [By: GibbDaddy] Comment on Story Comments Yikes, GTA:VC has been out for ages, must admit I got so far and then got bored with it but heh, it is a pretty good game. -fearmyroot yea, it's been out for awhile now. i pretty much beat it on my PS2, i keep it around for when i have a bad day. load it up, grab a tank and blow away cars and people for 10 minutes. I feel alot better :) -Ksnarf When I have my uber days of needed venting, I bring out Street Fighter (Any of the Series is fine), set the difficulty as low as it will go. Then bring out Shin Akuma and go a LART'ing. MechWarrior with infinite Ammo does the trick too. -MaskedMarauder I like this when I get too annoyed with people at work: http://www.funnypics.cc/media/penguin_bloody.php . Can't play it a home; one of my cats keeps trying to get what's in the monitor (nose against the monitor, pawing at it, etc.). -sassicatz Yea.. I been playing that for a while and just freak out and start killing everything -rockytech personaly i popo in either command and conquer or my current fav. Jedi acedemy and just go berserk with the dual sabers. pretty cool graphics. If all else fails i play several kinds of mods for max payne 1. -CrystalMare

2. Go back to public school How often do you get a customer that doesn't know what the colon (:) is? The only starfish I deal with are from the States so I can't really compare starfish from other places, but any of my fellow Canucks I have ever asked all know what a colon is. I know most Americans that post here are very intelligent so maybe you could answer this, is that not something that's taught in 3rd or 4th grade? [By: GibbDaddy] Comment on Story Comments I think I was taught that in second grade. I usualy explain it as the period with another period over top of it..... -Zaxtan the two little dots, you know you can put them over or under each other (Victor Borge) -Olorin I had surgery last summer to have part of mine removed. Now I have a semi-colon! ;) -Tekkie There are still people who don't know what an ampersand is--guess it doesn't surprise me that even though it's taught, users don't care what ":" is called. -snowcrash not to mention "~" the good ol' tilde -Grembo Over here i knew how to use & and ~ but i didnt actually know what they were called till i started using the net back in the late 90s, Just wasnt taught to me. I dont suppose you guys know what ¬ (Shift grave on keyb uk) is called do you -maidtina ¬ is a logical not. I use it fairly often in the printer industry. The EBCDIC character set (AS/400, etc.) does not include the Escape code. Quite often the customer need to send printer commands not included in the SCS command set. We have them send the ¬ in conjunction witht the other codes, then use our interface to remap ¬ to ESC. It is also often used in the QMS Code V printer graphics language (although the ^ or 'hat' is the default). -LaserGuru I learned about a : in 2nd grade and every year after 5th grade. Of course on the phone I have to say "that dot over dot thingie above the dot over comma thingie." It's like teching for Forrest Gump. -ladysethos I had a coworker who called colons semicolons until I corrected him. He was 45 at the time. -thx1138 Yeah, I think a big problem is 1:The average person is a moron (of any race, ethnicity, country, region, etc). 2: A lot of peopleget the semi colon (;) and the colon (:) confused. On top of that, the colon requires the SHIFT KEY and the ; key be pressed at the same time, which is WAY too complex for a lot of people -crackshot I usually have to direct them to it: "OK sir. Look at your keyboard. Do you see the 'enter' key? Just to the left of that key is the 'quote' key and just to the lef of that is the 'colon' key. ----What?--- Yes. Two keys to the left of 'enter'. No. That would be to the right.--- No. Your other left. LEFT!!!--- Yes. That's it. You must hold down the 'shift' key to make the colon. ---No, that's a semi-colon.--- Because it has a comma at the bottom!--- They're used all the time in proper english.----What?----Because reporters don't use them in newspapers.-----Because they are writing to a 4th grade level in newspapers.---- Because they know the average reader won't understand the article if they do.---- Just PUSH THE FARKING BUTTON!!-- OK. Then 'a' then 's' then another colon.---- Ok, look to the left of the 'enter' key. That's 'quote' key. Just to the left of that key is the....." -scooby111 you mean these symbols aren't just to make things like :) with -fuzzyom I'm always saying "use the forward slash on the ? rather than the other one" What is the | symbol called? -Alternatech The '|' symbol is called the 'pipe'. -scooby111 And {} are left and right braces, but we call them curly braces because otherwhise they don't know what we are talking about. (Used in a lot of our codes) -LaserGuru

3. I say about, not aboot Do American's really hear aboot? I can tell the difference between aboot and about and I don't say aboot, it sounds silly. I had to conference a (l)user in with a sales agent. (L)user- So where y'all from? SA-Ontario Canada (L)user-I thought that guy sounded Canadian SA-Why, was his name John or Sally? (L)user-No he kept saying aboot...aboot aboot aboot. So I decide to lay it on real thick when he gets back on the line ME-Okay sir, it's aboot time we rebooted the computer to safe mode, so shut it down and wait aboot 5 secs. and tap F8 aboot once per second. I can hear him giggling quietly and it's equally hard for me to keep a straight face. [By: GibbDaddy] Comment on Story Comments I'm an American, and I have no idea what you're talking aboot. <g> -RiffRaff Pronounce "Z" as "Zed" too. That confuses the shit out of Americans. -Jardinsky *Most* Americans. Some of us either grew up near the border or simply had the fortune of traveling with our parents as they served in the armed forces. :) -snowcrash A chesterfield IS a couch! What a bunch of hosers, eh? -Snakeeye Hams used "Zed" also. -Bioguy GibbDaddy - where abouts are you from - which company do you work for? I'm in Ottawa and I don't say aboot either. Personally I think every Canadian tech (and American for that matter) should rent the movie Canadian Bacon. I know it doesn't have anything to do with computers but it is still super funny to watch,eh? -compaq42 If the film isn't aboot computers what is the subject , eh? -lineswine <ducking> Ham?..:) -nascar I could never hear 'aboot' either, but having lived in the southern states for the past five years, on a trip home this summer I distinctly heard several people say it, including one of the anchors on 'The National'. It's not as distinct as when Americans try to say it, but I can definitely hear it now. -Fuji Yes, some Americans do hear 'aboot'. Me, for instance. I've gotten frighteningly good at picking out accents. -pixel The only one that really threw me for a loop in the UK was vitamin (pronounced with a short i). The Zee Zed thing was quaint.I find the Maine habit of dropping their r's harder to understand. -Hellion Canadian here (I'm in Alberta) and I've gotten the same thing.. "Are you Candian?!" Apparently we also say Process differently. I can honestly hear the difference, albeit non-existant to the Canadian ear. -Jester Some EU asked me if I was from Canada because he told me I have a Canadian accent... Im from Pennsylvania. I should of asked him if he was a starfish as he sounded like a moron. -rockytech

4. Don't lie to me!!! This (L)user is having troubles getting her computer to start up. I tell her to remove all the disks and cds from the machine and restart-it boots just fine, you dumb-farkwad I thinks to myself. She then has the nerve to keep me on the line to ask me why it wouldn't boot with them in there. I explain to her how some cds are designed to boot off of, but she says these are just normal cds, so to tie up my average call time even longer I ask her to put the cds in the machine and restart. (L)user: Hold on it's still booting...ok...now the tray won't open. Me:Won't open at all? Are you in windows? (L)user:Yes Me:Double click My Computer (L)user: Hold on a sec I have to turn on the machine Me:*click* [By: GibbDaddy] Comment on Story Comments <rolls dead eyes> Grasshopper, expecting a (l)user not to lie is like expecting the sun not to shine. -Digital Dogcow Expecting a (L)user not to lie to you is like believing the doctor when he says you may experience mild discomfort during a Proctol exam. -Hellion Rule #1. (l)users lie. I ain't kidding. -scooby111 But Hellion, which is the bigger pain in the arse? -Jonos Jonos - I guess that's subjective as to whether your quantifying it by severity or cumulatively. The exam may be extreme, but once done it's over. The (L)users are neverending. -Hellion Damn! your = you're -Hellion wow. reading that made ME angry and want to hang up. I think I saw my fingers move of their own accord towards 'release' -WildKard

5. The fall of the Industry So some (l)user is wanting me to help her speed up her system. Me: Another thing you could do is purchase some more RAM for your machine. (L)user: How do I do that? Me: Go buy some (duh!) (L)user: Can't I just download some from the internet? Me: No (L)user: Why not? Me:Cause that doesn't make any damn sense!!! [By: GibbDaddy] Comment on Story Comments Tell her yes, point her to a site made specially for this... process her order via paypal... when she inevitably complains it did nothing, refund her money minus $25 re-stocking fee... -namor Tell her it's downloadable at http://www.feetman.com (I told someone that when they wanted a full copy of GTAIII) -catman1229 Holy Shit that offsite link is hilarious. -Phatrician Hilarious. Yeah, I had to restart my whole system in the middle of my damn shift. Screwed up the call flow. Real funny. </sarcasm> Needless to say, I will NOT be clicking any more of your off-site links, catman1229. -Jonos Jonos - Hmmmm, didn't Catman say tell the (L)user to click on it? You clicked on it & couldn't get the page closed? It is bad enough whet (L)sers dodn't do as the nice tech says, when the techs don't listen is is the start of a very slippery slope. Ohhhhh, you're an AOHell tech aren't you? Ahhhh that would explain your neeping.... I suppose your (L)sers habits are rubbing off on you, as it seems right clicking on the task bar item then selecting close isn't known to you (rt click then close worked for me). -lineswine I was going by the insinuation that it was single joke page (going by the post listed above), much like many pages that have been posted here. Unfortunately, my psychic powers that tell me exactly what a page contains ~before~ I click on the link isn't working today. and yes, right-click and close would have worked easily if I didn't sudden get flooded by the same page popping up approximately 30 or 40 times in a 30-second period. It even overrode my CTRL+ALT+DEL so I couldn't end task on IE (which should've closed all the windows at once). -Jonos Also, I really do not appreciate your condescending demeanor based on who I'm employed by, especially since you have no idea who I am or what my technical background is. I was miffed at Riff doing it before, but now I'm downright insulted. "He works for AOL, he must be an idiot". Thankfully, I know not everyone subscribed here shares that opinion, or I would have already told Hawk to remove my name from this site completely. -Jonos Alt+F4 is also a lifesaver -Mephiston Again, it didn't work. -Jonos

6. Canada Maaan! Far Out!!! Got a call the other day, guy sounded like an old hippie. OH: Yeah maaaan, my computer's all messed up and stuff, ya think you can help me out? After going through some troubleshooting he asks where he's calling to. Me: I'm just outside of Toronto, Canada. OH: Canada? Far out maaaan, I just bought 3 books with recipes for cooking marijuana and hashish, thinkin about coming up to Canada to get some ingredients. ME:(laughing hysterically) OH: Where's that place that you can order it off the menu in Canada? ME: I don't think we have that yet, you can only possess it, I think you thinking of Amsterdam. Just made me realize I have something to look forward to when I get out of here. [By: GibbDaddy] Comment on Story Comments Heh, now why do I picture that guy as sounding like Dennis Hopper in Apocalypse Now ???? -Digital Dogcow no must have sound like tommy chong from cheech and chong -postal tech You ever seen your computer boot up...ON WEED??? </Half Baked referece> -Dusty5112 Oh and byt the way, i don't know if anyone has posted this yet but New York and California have the EXACT same law that were instated years before we in Canada did. The only difference is that ours allows for a few more grams than they do. Hmm I wonder why CNN or FOX hasn't mentioned that yet? -Chadius

Customer Misconceptions

EUPOTD (End User Phrase of the Day)

2. It gives it to me, but it won't finish up [2003-07-07]