Posts by Rob-T

User demanded a ‘wireless’ computer and was outraged when its battery died

I'm still struggling with my kids (both mid - late teens so shouldn't have any excuse) insistence on calling a USB cable for their phone a "charger". Does my head in every time!

But every time they say they need a charger, I hand them a charger not a cable. Words have meanings after all!

Techie fixed a ‘brown monitor’ by closing a door for a doctor

Re: Intelligently stupid people

In my first job after uni (early 2000s) I called the IT help desk in a panic that my machine had just randomly turned off and I couldn't get it to restart!

Before they'd even managed to come down, I realised that while stretching my toe had nudged the switch on the power socket on the wall (my only excuse for not realising it is that steel toecaps were required so I hadn't felt it). I called them back very sheepishly to explain that I'd found the root cause of the problem and they hadn't even logged it in the system as a call yet, so I didn't have to live with the infamy of having it officially recorded that I'm a muppet!).

After three weeks of night shifts, very tired techie broke the UK’s phone network

Re: You can always rely on diggers...

In a previous job some very old "temporary" buildings (that had been around for more than 30 years) were being knocked down to be replaced with shiny new offices. All the network cabling for half the site (approx 700 employees at that point in time) ran across the roof of those buildings. So before any demolition or building work was started, time and effort was spent to bury all those cables safely underground instead.

Can you guess what happened on the very first day of the demolition?

Microsoft tells abandoned Publisher fans to just use Word and hope for the best

I only use it once a year, but...

I only use Publisher once a year... I create the programme for an amateur musical theatre group's annual production. Doing that in Word would be an absolute nightmare!

For a start, in Publisher you can edit a 2-page spread and have a photo that spans across both pages. As far as I'm aware, that's not (easily or accurately) possible in Word or PowerPoint.

I guess come 2026 I may need to look into some of the suggestions given here (I've already bookmarked Affinity).

Nothing's working, and I've checked everything, so it must be YOUR fault

Re: Too Many...

"things rarely go wrong for no reason, it's nearly always something that's been changed"

My ex would so often complain that the computer had "just stopped working" or "just started doing this" and swear blind that she hadn't done anything. Invariably I found that some new piece of software had been installed... which she'd deny installing (despite the fact that I'd set it up so that to install anything needed the admin password to be entered, so couldn't have "just installed itself" as was so often claimed).

GPU makers promise relief is at hand over chip shortages, prices expected to fall in second half of the year

Re: I, for one, shall remain patient.

I got a GTX960 six years ago when I built my current PC (the photo of the pile of boxes for my build showed up in my Facebook memories yesterday). Over Christmas I bought a second hand RTX2060 (as well as a few other upgrades... a friend has referred to my PC as "Trigger's broom") and sold my GTX960 for only £20 less than I bought it for SIX YEARS AGO!!!