Originally Posted By: Matt Finley
Now that's funny. And you're right, I don't see that message anymore. I made the assumption, probably wrong, that USB 3 is ubiquitous enough now.


What's funny about that for me Matt is the concept that Fred The User can perceive that a file loads faster or slower. When you consider that to load a non executable file first the computer launches the executable attached to the file type, again, Fred The User doesn't even understand that to view that picture of Fluffy the Cat you are first launching the program you have assigned to open images. Or to play sound files, or edit word processor docs... Not one bit of that has anything to do with the speed of a USB port.

I used to LOVE walking into a house to diagnose a problem and sit down at a real piece of crap computer with 4gb of RAM in it, double digit gigabytes of temp files, 4 years of browser history and a complaint that "the internet connection is really slow". Well, no it isn't. It's just that everything you do is first searching through your cache to see if that 3mb image is already on your hard drive before downloading it again. All this on a 12 mpbs connection. I did my best to be tactful but at a point you run out of polite ways to say "The problem is that you have no idea what you are doing here." I usually dump my tmp file folder several times PER DAY!

Then there was the call where the issue was the CD burner wasn't working and "making a funny noise". I drove all the way over to that house, opened the CD drive to make sure the CD wasn't all scratched up to find that they had grabbed 2 CDs when they went to put a CD in to burn it. And the one who called me at 11:15pm to tell me that her kids were playing the pinball game and the computer froze, and it won't shut off even with the power button. I said "You woke me up for THAT? Have you even considered pulling the power cord out of the wall?" She sheepishly said "No." I tried to resist but I had to say it. "You are a JUDGE on the SUPREME COURT of Ohio! You are the most brilliant woman I have ever known and it never occurred to you to pull the power cord?" She just laughed and said "Nope. Go back to bed. I'll send you a check." Or the guy who held a Masters in Chemical Engineering who took my suggestion to order more RAM. He ordered an 8gb stick. The next week he called me to tell me he tried to install it and it took some force but he got it in and now the computer won't boot up. I went over there to find he had managed to force it into an IDE slot. I have NO idea how he even managed to make it fit.

Matt, if you come to Herbstock I bet we could trade "IT Stories of the Damned" for hours.

Last edited by eddie1261; 01/05/23 07:08 AM.