British Expat Forum

Last week, a young lady brought me her computer to look at.
She couldn't connect to the internet using the wireless card on her laptop.

It was an old windows '98 machine with some missing drivers etc...
I decompressed the necessary stuff from the install disks, dealt with some conflicts in the device manager etc..., and got the wireless adaptor working perfectly.

She duly came and picked the computer up on Friday.
She phoned me back this morning. The call went something like this:

Her: "I still can't get on the Internet"
Me: "Strange, it was working fine when it left here. What exactly is happening?"
Her: "Well, the computer starts up and when I open up Internet Explorer, it says there is no connection available and do I want to work offline".
Me: "mmm, maybe I'll have to come round and take a look at your wireless router. What make is it?"
Her: "Wireless router? What's that"
Me: "Well, the thing sitting in your house somewhere with an antenna sticking out of it and some flashing lights."
Her: "No, I haven't got one of those..."
Me: "Well, who is your Internet Service Provider?"
Her: "I haven't got one of those either..."
Me: "I think I've just worked out what's wrong..."


Alan.

Sounds like that WordPerfect help desk thing where she can't get anything on the screen and the help desk person goes through all these tests - only to find out that there is a general power failure!!

Boggles the mind - don't it???

Or he one whose computer wouldn't print. Turned out s/he didn't have a printer!

Most of those people could be me Whenver I have to call for help, I need to tell the computer guy (almost always a guy) that I have NO knowledge. If he starts to say "open your program folder and...", I have to stop him and say "what exactly do you mean?". From there it just goes downhill. I am the techies' nightmare.

Don't worry JAJ, been there, done that!

My journey began with the good old golfball typewriter (the sort that you had to put double paper with a sheet of carbon inbetween if you needed a copy!
From there, my progress went from electric typewriter, to word processor (which frightened the life out of me!).......and finally to computer.

After arriving in the hi-tech world of PC's, I decided there was only one more step to take and that was to try the Internet.

So one morning, I clicked on the 'Start' button, clicked on the 'Find' button and then clicked 'On the Internet'
I then spent the next couple of hours wondering why I couldn't 'surf the net' like everyone else could.

And yes!........I did get a computer man in and explained my problem to him
(although, somewhat reassuring to know that I am not the only one who has done this Alan!)