Support whizz 'fixes' screeching laptop with a single click... by closing 'malware-y' browser tab

Back when I worked for a rather dodgy ISP in Accrington, we had continual virus problems. Strangely though, these always followed a fairly well defined infection pattern which led me to believe that the user has a lot to do with computer virus infections.

Virus trouble always started in Sales or Marketing, and spread from one to the other. Then the same few senior managers would get infected machines, then some of the Web designers. Not all, and always the same ones.

Over in the NOC, the database engineers on completely susceptible Windows machines never got viruses. Neither did any of the engineers, but then we were using RedHat Linux.

Many years ago, when the Anna Kournikova virus was making the rounds, I was working in a very small company. One day the boss said "...Uhhh, I think I got a virus" . A quick check proved nothing bad happened. I told him this was why we were using Pegasus and that he was a pervert.

"Unfortunately salesweasels are a nice, plump target for ne'er-do-wells as salesweasels will open any email from any sender, even if it looks highly dodgy"

Because they lack any ability to recognise dodgy emails they can't recognise that the emails they send also look dodgy. The same seems to apply to the fund-raisers currently employed by archive.org.

Re: Darned tech!

"Just rebooting the machine won't fix anything."

Happened to see an episode of one of the air accident investigation programs on TV once which covered the BA flight that flew through a volcanic plume causing all the engines to stall. In their reinactment they showed how the crew had spent the several minutes (while the plane was losing height and seemingly heading for an inevitable crash) repeatedly going through the engine shutdown and restart process (a lot more compicated that just tunring it off and on again!) until eventually one engine restarted and they were able to stabilise the flight.

Re: Darned tech!

/Me: "WTF??? We just did the same @#$&*! thing half a dozen times!"

Tech: "Yeah, but I understand what's going on"/

I do this every day - the users know enough to try a reboot, then they call me. My first response is usually the same, and 9 times out of 10 it works. Cue grinding of teeth.

Re: TUBE

I remember the tricks of getting PCs to ork with dodgy peripherals. Some places had but one keyboard that was fully working, and this keyboard travelled around the room being plugged into machines to let them start without error, after which the usual keyboard got swapped back in again. Keyboards that threw errors on start-up check quite often worked perfectly otherwise, you see.

My PC was making an irritating noise the other day, so I closed the browser tab that was playing the Chris Evans Breakfast show and the irritating noise miraculously stopped...

Build your own PC

I've been building my kids gaming PCs for a couple of generations of machines.

A few years ago, I was building one to wrap an put under the tree at Christmas for my youngest son.

The build went fine, and the system was working perfectly, so I checked and tightened all the screws, and put the cover on, and then wrapped it.

Christmas morning. Wrapping paper comes off, and the system was connected up. The power button was pressed, and... nothing. No lights, or fans. Nothing. I spent the rest of Christmas day going through the build, including replacing the power supply and removing all of the adapters. Nothing. A disappointed son returned to using his really underpowered old machine that struggled to play his games.

Eventually decided that the motherboard must have failed between testing and unwrapping (unlikely, but the only thing I could think of). Online on Christmas evening to order another motherboard, with the most expensive delivery option to get it as soon as they could get it to me.

Day after boxing day, it arrives (yes, really). Out with the first board, in with the second. this would fix it! Only it didn't. No change.

I was baffled. I ended up doing a case-less build on the kitchen table, using a switch wiring set from a decommissioned case, the new power supply and the first board, Surprisingly, everything powered up without problem. Put it back in the case, nothing.

So, thought I maybe the switch set? Left the board in place, and used the set I'd used in the case-less build. Everything worked!

Finally I had a clue, so I checked the wires in the case. Remember when I said I had tightened the screws? Well, I had been careless, and the wires to the power button were caught between the case and a flash card reader that was where the floppy would normally be. During the build, everything was working fine. As soon as I tightened the screws, the sharp metal edges scissored the wires to the power switch, cutting them both. Result, no contact to turn the power on. A quick swish of the soldering iron, some heat shrink, and a happy son that could finally get his new gaming rig running.

So the moral of the story is, even if it was working before closing the case, check that it still works before re-packaging.

Still, I found a use for the extra motherboard building a franken-machine from spare parts I had knocking around (which included the case from my son's old machine), which with a wave of a Ubuntu CD (no unused windows licence available), became my first machine that I didn't have to share with my family!

Re: LOUD NOISES!!!

Yep, used to often diagnose those over the phone.

User: My computer* is beeping all the time.

Me: Remove the file that's resting on the keyboard.

User: How did you know that?

Me: Years of experience!

*Or terminal, I do go back that far!

Re: LOUD NOISES!!!

"I walked in, removed the large stapler from their keyboard, and walked out without saying a word."

Strange, sometimes random strings or repeated strings of characters on the screen caused by well endowed ladies leaning across the desk.

Re: I was that luser

I've had that happen on a friend's laptop before. WiFi isn't working, so they bring it to me. I can't get it to go through Windows - and there's no glowing red light to tell me it's switched off. There's no shortcut button on F8. Or obvious switch.

Then I put on my glasses and check the sides of the laptop, and lo! I find it. The 5mm long black slider, with no telltale LED and a tiny WiFi symbol etched in black on a black background.

Bastards! Have these fuckers never heard of UI design? The owner had never noticed the switch before, it wasn't in an obvious bit of the casing and they've got normal eyesight. The only reason I found it, is that I suspected it might be there.

I also hate those things because they seem to be switched off by default and only turn the WiFi on when the driver boots up in Windows. So when fixing another friend's laptop I couldn't get the Linux rescue CD to download up-to-date virus definitions - and had to do it manually.

Re: I was that luser

"I wanted to watch training videos."

As opposed to having been told to watch them?

Re: For old times' sake

But in the manual it had the instructions to create a "Start of Day" disc, that had the OS and whatever software you wanted to use on it, so you could just chuck that in and work.

Although I never created on for Graham Gooch's Test Match Cricket, for some reason - and loaded CP/M first.

Simpler days... And better manuals.