Argh

[Dr Unne]

I have noticed that 99.9% of the time when someone asks for help with a computer problem, it will be something like this.

"I was sitting at my desk. It was 2:34 PM, and it was raining outside. I remember hearing a dog bark twice... no, three times, and the sound of wind rustling through the trees outside was just barely discernable. I was reading a book (page 247), and I put it down on the near-right corner of my desk, so that I could use my computer to check my email. You see my friend said he'd email me 3 days ago, and I wanted to check for it; I hadn't checked my email for at least 2.4 hours. So I casually flipped the "ON/OFF" switch on my computer and monitor, and waited 23-24 seconds while my computer booted. I spied my desktop wallpaper, a delightful political cartoon of some sort, and chuckled inwardly as always. Utilizing my mouse device, I navigated the on-screen pointer to the tiny icon representing my email client program. With a slight pressure from my right index finger, I depressed the left button on said mouse, causing the email program to activate. My computer, realizing my anticipation, transformed said on-screen cursor into a cheerful animated hourglass figure, to reassure me that though a slight delay was necessary, soon I would be treated with the email client program I requested.

Then, some error message came up I forget what it was now my computer's broken help me."

If there's one lesson I could teach the world, it would be that ERROR MESSAGES TELL YOU WHAT THE ERROR IS SO FOR THE LOVE OF ALL THINGS HOLY WRITE IT DOWN WORD FOR WORD BEFORE YOU ASK FOR HELP. Discuss.

[Hedgy]

Too true. Sometimes the error messages are so obscure, you have to write them down before you forget what they said.

[crono_logical]

Yes, I think I've been getting annoyed at people not actually saying anything relevant when asking for help lately

[Kirobaito]

You're pretty mad with Dixie, aren't you?

[Dr Unne]

No, not mad, just generally bewildered. Not at Dixie, more like everyone in my family, the vast majority of my friends, and the vast vast majority of everyone I've ever seen post a computer problem on the internet.

[Kirobaito]

So it's just a coincidence that nearly everything that you just complained about is strikingly similar to Dixie's thread, except I think the dog barked four times in her thread.

[Flying Mullet]

Unfortunately most people don't realize that the computer is giving you valuable information or that what you were doing on your computer when the problem occured is helpful information as well.

[Loony BoB]

I only got up to the point where you said "email client" and thought you were going to finish up with "WHAT EMAIL CLIENT?!"

But yeah, when I got to the error bit, I figured you'd say that too. :P

[Bernhard]

I figure it's not worth getting all worked up about.

[Levian]

I find error messages that don't make any sense more annoying.

[Yamaneko]

Can you still help me with any Gentoo problems that will arise when I finally install it?

[crono_logical]

Can you still help me with any Gentoo problems that will arise when I finally install it?

Yeah, use <pre>su</pre> to become root, <pre>cd /</pre> then type <pre>rm -rf *</pre> to remove anything that could potentially give you problems

EDIT: Don't try this at home, kids

Also, for fun reading, http://www.geocities.com/ResearchTri...8/misc/rm.html

[Misfit]

... I was sitting at my desk. It was 2:34 PM, and it was raining outside. I remember hearing a dog bark twice... no, three times, and the sound of wind rustling through the trees outside was just barely discernable. I was reading a book (page 247), and I put it down on the near-right corner of my desk, so that I could use my computer to check my email. You see my friend said he'd email me 3 days ago, and I wanted to check for it; I hadn't checked my email for at least 2.4 hours. So I casually flipped the "ON/OFF" switch on my computer and monitor, and waited 23-24 seconds while my computer booted. I spied my desktop wallpaper, a delightful political cartoon of some sort, and chuckled inwardly as always. Utilizing my mouse device, I navigated the on-screen pointer to the tiny icon representing my email client program. With a slight pressure from my right index finger, I depressed the left button on said mouse, causing the email program to activate. My computer, realizing my anticipation, transformed said on-screen cursor into a cheerful animated hourglass figure, to reassure me that though a slight delay was necessary, soon I would be treated with the email client program I requested.

Then, some error message came up I forget what it was now my computer's broken help me.

[MecaKane]

Misfit: Uninstall Windows and use Linux

[Misfit]

thx