Technology

Man, I must be behind the times on technology, because I was absolutely blown away a couple of hours ago.

Let me give a little precursor to this whole story. A few weeks ago, I saw Final Fantasy 3 for DS. My wife has a DS, so I picked it up for nostalga, because I used to love that game. So, whenever I go out to smoke, I have been grabbing the DS and playing it (awesome game to pay while smoking, requires very little interaction and not too much attention). So, the wifey has been bugging me to get my own DS so I will leave hers alone. Okay, that brings us to today.

So we go to GameStop and I pick up one of the new DSi's. After I got it home and flipped through the manual, I saw it was wifi capable. I assumed this was for leaderboards or maybe online game play at most. Well, after getting it connected to our wireless network (very easy set-up by the way), I went into the menus and saw downloads. In that section, there was a free download for a web browser. I downloaded it, and sure enough, full internet surfing capabilities. I even went online and ordered some cigars, from my Gameboy.

This stuff blows me away. I remember, what seems like not that long ago, when I first saw a Gameboy, that big ass gray rectangle with the mono-chromatic screen, and I was just amazed that it played video games without needing a TV, and you could carry it around with you! Now, I can go on the internet and buy things, look up world news, check my email or MySpace, or pretty much anything else I want to (even post on this forum, if I felt like typing with the stylus) on my Gameboy. Its ridiculous how quickly technology is advancing.

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Jetmech_63

I had that epiphany whle screwing around with my new blackberry phone. I got it for christmas and it wasnt until a few months ago i realized it's full power. I can go online, look up a place....saaaay a b&m, and download directions directly to the gps on my phone and it tells me exactly how to get there. I can even play games online against other people, do my psych class paper, go online for resources and there is one out now you can video teleconfrence from your phone. Oh yeah...i can also make calls on it

Crazy. Seems like just yesterday i was jumping up and down because i got a nintendo for christmas and could play Duck Hunt on my tv. Want some really crazy ass technology...you oughta see what the F/A-18's I work on can do...simply amazing.

phobicsquirrel

Jetmech_63:
I had that epiphany whle screwing around with my new blackberry phone. I got it for christmas and it wasnt until a few months ago i realized it's full power. I can go online, look up a place....saaaay a b&m, and download directions directly to the gps on my phone and it tells me exactly how to get there. I can even play games online against other people, do my psych class paper, go online for resources and there is one out now you can video teleconfrence from your phone. Oh yeah...i can also make calls on it Crazy. Seems like just yesterday i was jumping up and down because i got a nintendo for christmas and could play Duck Hunt on my tv. Want some really crazy ass technology...you oughta see what the F/A-18's I work on can do...simply amazing.

come on, duck hunt is way more sophisticated than anything out right now, I mean how the hell does that dog keep surviving after I shoot him so many damn times!!!!

lol, I know what you two mean. Though recently Japan made a robot that can climb stairs which is certainly a leap in technology. I mean 8 cores on a little chip (yeah not out yet for the public but will be very soon). Btw jetty, have you ever worked on a F-22 raptor? I doubt it since your in the Navy but even though I love the 18's them Raptors are a work of art. I was down at Sheppard AFB a few years ago and got to get a tour of a squadron and even got to sit in the cockpit. Fantastic planes.

kuzi16

phobicsquirrel:
come on, duck hunt is way more sophisticated than anything out right now, I mean how the hell does that dog keep surviving after I shoot him so many damn times!!!!

I have the 8bit original NES still hooked up to my TV.

phobicsquirrel

speaking of keeping up on technology, I had a customer last night who after talking with her on the phone, and taking half of the 180 dollars for her home networking set up, I show up and she tells me that she mad a mistake and had a 3rd computer she needed hooked up on the network. Well I was okay with it but told her it would be an extra 30 dollars, which was my base price for the other two. She agreed. So I went to hook up the router she had and it was damaged. She acted all shocked, I told her if the thing doesn't power up than I can't do anything with it. She said it was working fine before. I asked her was it hooked up to the modem, she said no. I asked her, was it just plugged in, she said yes. Her son then came home and told me that he was planning on hooking it up but didn't know how to port forward for applications and gaming. I then said, wait, you wanted this also to be portforwarded? I then asked how many applications, he said 2. I then asked if he noticed the lights off on the router, he did and said it happened about a week ago. Well a week ago there was a large pwr surge at the house. I told the mother that the ac adapter probably got damaged. So I have already been there for going on 30 minutes. I told the mom that I could sell her a new router or I could not finish the install and that I would have to receive an hourly payment since she did not give me all the information over the phone for the install, and have all the equipment fire up and ready to go like she said over the phone. (I ask that all the people I service have everything out and turned on before I get there as it takes time to do these things when at their house, if not I will then charge a hourly fee). All in all I was there for about 1.5 hours and it turned out that I made much more than I had originally bargained for since the woman was not able to give me basic information. I told a friend of mine who works for best buy, part of the geek squad (yeah I know) and told me I should have charged much more, well I told him that's why I am making money because I don't price things too high. Anyway I think people let things get too complicated, and just give up way too easy. Yeah it's electronic but the instructions for these things are very easy to read. But I guess when people can't even give you answers to very simple questions and do them as asked then these people are really going to be in the dark when it comes to tech equipment.

betasynn

I work in information technology as a customer support agent at my university. Your story is pretty bad, but here is one of the better calls I've had TODAY:

Me: _____ Customer Services, this is Joe.

Idiot: Hello, my computer doesn't seem to be working. It was working fine five minutes ago, but when I turned on the wireless internet, it stopped working.

(Insert troubleshooting here for five or six minutes.)

Idiot: Wait, should I unplug the computer before or after I turn on the wireless.

Me: It shouldn't matter when you disconnect the ethernet cable.

Idiot: What about the power, though?

Me:...

Matt Marvel

I remember playing Pong on Atari, so every time I hop on my brothers XBOX 360 or see my friend's ridiculous Dell XPS that can run these new PC games, I'm pretty amazed. That's a lot of progression in a relatively short time if you think about it.

phobicsquirrel

betasynn:
I work in information technology as a customer support agent at my university. Your story is pretty bad, but here is one of the better calls I've had TODAY:

Me: _____ Customer Services, this is Joe.

Idiot: Hello, my computer doesn't seem to be working. It was working fine five minutes ago, but when I turned on the wireless internet, it stopped working.

(Insert troubleshooting here for five or six minutes.)

Idiot: Wait, should I unplug the computer before or after I turn on the wireless.

Me: It shouldn't matter when you disconnect the ethernet cable.

Idiot: What about the power, though?

Me:...

oh that's great. oh man.

phobicsquirrel

kuzi16:
phobicsquirrel:
come on, duck hunt is way more sophisticated than anything out right now, I mean how the hell does that dog keep surviving after I shoot him so many damn times!!!!
I have the 8bit original NES still hooked up to my TV.

lol, I wish I still had mine, it died years ago. I see them every now and again. I've got several nes games on my wii, which I still love to play. It just might be that it was basically my first system but I still think NES had some of the best games.

alienmisprint

Yeah, the Wii is my wife's, but I have a few old NES and SNES games downloaded on it. Good times, good times.

bbc020

phobicsquirrel:
speaking of keeping up on technology, I had a customer last night who after talking with her on the phone, and taking half of the 180 dollars for her home networking set up, I show up and she tells me that she mad a mistake and had a 3rd computer she needed hooked up on the network. Well I was okay with it but told her it would be an extra 30 dollars, which was my base price for the other two. She agreed. So I went to hook up the router she had and it was damaged. She acted all shocked, I told her if the thing doesn't power up than I can't do anything with it. She said it was working fine before. I asked her was it hooked up to the modem, she said no. I asked her, was it just plugged in, she said yes. Her son then came home and told me that he was planning on hooking it up but didn't know how to port forward for applications and gaming. I then said, wait, you wanted this also to be portforwarded? I then asked how many applications, he said 2. I then asked if he noticed the lights off on the router, he did and said it happened about a week ago. Well a week ago there was a large pwr surge at the house. I told the mother that the ac adapter probably got damaged. So I have already been there for going on 30 minutes. I told the mom that I could sell her a new router or I could not finish the install and that I would have to receive an hourly payment since she did not give me all the information over the phone for the install, and have all the equipment fire up and ready to go like she said over the phone. (I ask that all the people I service have everything out and turned on before I get there as it takes time to do these things when at their house, if not I will then charge a hourly fee). All in all I was there for about 1.5 hours and it turned out that I made much more than I had originally bargained for since the woman was not able to give me basic information. I told a friend of mine who works for best buy, part of the geek squad (yeah I know) and told me I should have charged much more, well I told him that's why I am making money because I don't price things too high. Anyway I think people let things get too complicated, and just give up way too easy. Yeah it's electronic but the instructions for these things are very easy to read. But I guess when people can't even give you answers to very simple questions and do them as asked then these people are really going to be in the dark when it comes to tech equipment.

yeah, anyone else love reading user manuals? I mean when I get a new piece of equipment(i.e. Soundboard, Camera, PDA, router, computer, etc) that's the first things I do....Read the user manual. I'd hate to pay someone because I wasn't willing to read and try things.

j0z3r

phobicsquirrel:
kuzi16:
phobicsquirrel:
come on, duck hunt is way more sophisticated than anything out right now, I mean how the hell does that dog keep surviving after I shoot him so many damn times!!!!
I have the 8bit original NES still hooked up to my TV.
lol, I wish I still had mine, it died years ago. I see them every now and again. I've got several nes games on my wii, which I still love to play. It just might be that it was basically my first system but I still think NES had some of the best games.

I've still got my original NES that my parents bought for me when I was 5 or 6, several years ago I replaced the chip reader and it worked again as it hadn't for years. I have since downloaded many of my favorite games to my Wii, but I still love that old console.

phobicsquirrel

bbc020:
phobicsquirrel:
speaking of keeping up on technology, I had a customer last night who after talking with her on the phone, and taking half of the 180 dollars for her home networking set up, I show up and she tells me that she mad a mistake and had a 3rd computer she needed hooked up on the network. Well I was okay with it but told her it would be an extra 30 dollars, which was my base price for the other two. She agreed. So I went to hook up the router she had and it was damaged. She acted all shocked, I told her if the thing doesn't power up than I can't do anything with it. She said it was working fine before. I asked her was it hooked up to the modem, she said no. I asked her, was it just plugged in, she said yes. Her son then came home and told me that he was planning on hooking it up but didn't know how to port forward for applications and gaming. I then said, wait, you wanted this also to be portforwarded? I then asked how many applications, he said 2. I then asked if he noticed the lights off on the router, he did and said it happened about a week ago. Well a week ago there was a large pwr surge at the house. I told the mother that the ac adapter probably got damaged. So I have already been there for going on 30 minutes. I told the mom that I could sell her a new router or I could not finish the install and that I would have to receive an hourly payment since she did not give me all the information over the phone for the install, and have all the equipment fire up and ready to go like she said over the phone. (I ask that all the people I service have everything out and turned on before I get there as it takes time to do these things when at their house, if not I will then charge a hourly fee). All in all I was there for about 1.5 hours and it turned out that I made much more than I had originally bargained for since the woman was not able to give me basic information. I told a friend of mine who works for best buy, part of the geek squad (yeah I know) and told me I should have charged much more, well I told him that's why I am making money because I don't price things too high. Anyway I think people let things get too complicated, and just give up way too easy. Yeah it's electronic but the instructions for these things are very easy to read. But I guess when people can't even give you answers to very simple questions and do them as asked then these people are really going to be in the dark when it comes to tech equipment.

yeah, anyone else love reading user manuals? I mean when I get a new piece of equipment(i.e. Soundboard, Camera, PDA, router, computer, etc) that's the first things I do....Read the user manual. I'd hate to pay someone because I wasn't willing to read and try things.

yarp, I agree. I didn't want to pay a tv repair guy to fix my DLP, I replaced the Lamp and color wheel all by my lonesome, that color wheel was a *** I'll tell you...

rwheelwright

phobicsquirrel:
[yarp, I agree. I didn't want to pay a tv repair guy to fix my DLP, I replaced the Lamp and color wheel all by my lonesome, that color wheel was a *** I'll tell you...

I got the new Samsung LED based DLP. No lamp and color wheel! I didn't want to deal with having to replace that ***.

I've got so many stories about customers that I wouldn't know where to start. I once had a customer who bought a new monitor when I was a tech at CompUSA back in 1999. She called complaining that the thing wouldn't turn on. She had it all connected. When I asked if she plugged the power into the wall so look and said "Oh!". That was the end of that. I also fought with Dell home techs that told me that they didn't believe that hardware was bad even though it failed their own diags and my own diags! I told them that they shouldn't be techs and I wanted to speak with their supervisor.

brc81

betasynn:
I work in information technology as a customer support agent at my university. Your story is pretty bad, but here is one of the better calls I've had TODAY:

Me: _____ Customer Services, this is Joe.

Idiot: Hello, my computer doesn't seem to be working. It was working fine five minutes ago, but when I turned on the wireless internet, it stopped working.

(Insert troubleshooting here for five or six minutes.)

Idiot: Wait, should I unplug the computer before or after I turn on the wireless.

Me: It shouldn't matter when you disconnect the ethernet cable.

Idiot: What about the power, though?

Me:...

I run a department specific helpdesk environment for the local university. Our graduate program is entirely online and has about 450-500 students enrolled. Last year I kept getting calls from people all over wanting to know why they couldn't get our university's wireless internet from their home. Apparently, in the pamphlets and materials they received after enrolling in the program they had seen some information about how we had won some awards for being one of the best wireless campuses and assumed that meant they would be able to get it at thier home. These people were calling from 100s and even 1000s of miles away. We ended up adding a basic "What is wireless internet" tutorial to the incoming student materials.

jihiggs

dell sucks, I battle with them frequently about parts, I give them their own error codes for drives with bad sectors, its a crapshoot whether or not they will warranty them. I have on occasion chucked hard drives at the ground to get them to give me the "click of death" so I could tell the dell tech somthing more convincing.

rwheelwright

jihiggs:
dell sucks, I battle with them frequently about parts, I give them their own error codes for drives with bad sectors, its a crapshoot whether or not they will warranty them. I have on occasion chucked hard drives at the ground to get them to give me the "click of death" so I could tell the dell tech somthing more convincing.

It's only Dell home support I have a problem with. Their business support doesn't give me problems ever! I saw I have a bad drive and I get the drive the next day.

burchams

bbc020:
phobicsquirrel:
speaking of keeping up on technology, I had a customer last night who after talking with her on the phone, and taking half of the 180 dollars for her home networking set up, I show up and she tells me that she mad a mistake and had a 3rd computer she needed hooked up on the network. Well I was okay with it but told her it would be an extra 30 dollars, which was my base price for the other two. She agreed. So I went to hook up the router she had and it was damaged. She acted all shocked, I told her if the thing doesn't power up than I can't do anything with it. She said it was working fine before. I asked her was it hooked up to the modem, she said no. I asked her, was it just plugged in, she said yes. Her son then came home and told me that he was planning on hooking it up but didn't know how to port forward for applications and gaming. I then said, wait, you wanted this also to be portforwarded? I then asked how many applications, he said 2. I then asked if he noticed the lights off on the router, he did and said it happened about a week ago. Well a week ago there was a large pwr surge at the house. I told the mother that the ac adapter probably got damaged. So I have already been there for going on 30 minutes. I told the mom that I could sell her a new router or I could not finish the install and that I would have to receive an hourly payment since she did not give me all the information over the phone for the install, and have all the equipment fire up and ready to go like she said over the phone. (I ask that all the people I service have everything out and turned on before I get there as it takes time to do these things when at their house, if not I will then charge a hourly fee). All in all I was there for about 1.5 hours and it turned out that I made much more than I had originally bargained for since the woman was not able to give me basic information. I told a friend of mine who works for best buy, part of the geek squad (yeah I know) and told me I should have charged much more, well I told him that's why I am making money because I don't price things too high. Anyway I think people let things get too complicated, and just give up way too easy. Yeah it's electronic but the instructions for these things are very easy to read. But I guess when people can't even give you answers to very simple questions and do them as asked then these people are really going to be in the dark when it comes to tech equipment.

yeah, anyone else love reading user manuals? I mean when I get a new piece of equipment(i.e. Soundboard, Camera, PDA, router, computer, etc) that's the first things I do....Read the user manual. I'd hate to pay someone because I wasn't willing to read and try things.

No, no, no. You don't read them first. First you try to figure it out without the books and when that inevitably fails THEN you read the instructions!

zoom6zoom

Read 'em? Heck, I used to be the guy that wrote 'em! The hardest part of the job was learning Mandarin. ( j/k!)