giving up

[JosephLeo]

My dad had a boot sector virus. It wormed its way into the HDD of every PC he had and he could NOT get rid of it. I finally had to replace all his drives.

Couldn't you just manually delete the MBR in Linux? (Im not sure if that's possible, just saying.)

 

[Sevdog]

I'm actually typing this from a PC that I found on a curb with some other trash while driving through town. Its not the greatest PC in the world but once i cleaned up the viruses it works fine!

 

[MrUnknown]

Couldn't you just manually delete the MBR in Linux? (Im not sure if that's possible, just saying.)

yes he could have. hell, windows recovery's fixmbr command will overwrite the MBR.

 

[usacvlr]

The amount of 'dangerous stuff' in a desktop pc is so minute it does not bear thinking about.

As far as CRTs go well there is lead in the glass but it's awfully damned small.

Dosage is everything.

This just boils my blood. In this "Eco-Friendly" era people still throw away things that are contaminated with Lead, Mercury and who knows what else? This stuff ends up in our dumps- who's runoff ends up in our water. God damn it.

When I get into the tech business I am going to make a literature to give to every one of my clients about how to avoid malware and how to recycle your old broken PC.

 

[JosephLeo]

The amount of 'dangerous stuff' in a desktop pc is so minute it does not bear thinking about.

As far as CRTs go well there is lead in the glass but it's awfully damned small.

Dosage is everything.

Yes and the amount of energy a single light bulb uses is so minute that it does not really need to be thought about. But in fact it does.

Believe me, as a recycler I can tell you that INCREDIBLY small items tend to add up extremely fast. Say your city has 100,000 citizens, at about 3 people per household that's 33,333 homes. Most people have about 1 computer, others have 2 or more- I would say 9/10 people own a computer so the average would probably bring it to 11/10 to even 12/10. so lets say 35,000~38,000 computers in your town alone.

Now assume that the average computer lifespan is 4 to 5 years old. That means every 4 to 5 years there will be an additional 35,000~38,000 computers in your dump (assuming none of them ever make it to a recycling center of course)

Lets say that each computer contains 1/10 of an ounce of hazardous material. that comes out to 3,500~3,800 ounces of haz-mat or about 220~240 pounds of hazerdous material which would be about the size of two 5 gallon buckets...IN ONE SMALL CITY! Now imagine your township, then imagine your county, then your state, then the entire country...followed by the entire world.

In the end, there is no such thing as a "negligable amount" of ANYTHING since there are 6.5 billion people on this planet. If any one person uses 1/1000th of an amount of anything that will still come out to 6,500 units of something.

 

[Sinny]

I had a client come in recently just ****** off because the new computer we built him caught a virus. He asked how the hell we stay in business selling machines that catch viruses. it took almost 45 minutes to explain to him how it all works and that it is not the machines fault. He left even more ****** off than when he came in and still couldn't understand how viruses get onto your machine. Im starting to wonder if people (mainly old people) should have to pass a test or get a license to own a computer.

 

[JosephLeo]

I had a client come in recently just ****** off because the new computer we built him caught a virus. He asked how the hell we stay in business selling machines that catch viruses. it took almost 45 minutes to explain to him how it all works and that it is not the machines fault. He left even more ****** off than when he came in and still couldn't understand how viruses get onto your machine. Im starting to wonder if people (mainly old people) should have to pass a test or get a license to own a computer.

Next time explain it like almost all other techs to- compare the problem/feature to a car.

Tell the customer that "Well sir, imagine you purchased a car from me. Let's call that car the "HP dv7" And then you drove on a really bumpy road with potholes everywhere. Let's call that road "Ad Banner Street" although you can also call it "Unfamiliar Email Road" and even "Strange Popup Alley". Once you drive on this road your suspension is going to be in ruins. You can't blame the car dealer because you drove over that road, now can you?

Of course, you could always purchase insurance....(might as well turn it into a sale?)


That's how I explain computer problems with my family. They're always saying "I can't stand PC, why can't windows make a better PC? I'm going to buy a Mac" because they like to read emails from Simba in Cambodia, and Sputnik in Russia...they love their "You're the 999,999,999th visitor to this website. Click here to claim your prize!" ads. And they really, really panic when their web browser "shuts off" and says "you might be infected, click here to do a FREE virus scan".

 

[Sinny]

Thats a damn good idea! I never thought of explaining it that way. Still some folks just should not use a computer. (my grandmother is one) I love how every time I see her she says her computer is screwed up when there is nothing wrong with it.

 

[lan101]

Yeah some of the older folks don't understand this stuff, but I wouldn't make much money at all right now honestly if it wasn't for them!! I would say 4 out of 5 computers I fix is someone 50 or older.

It's not that the younger people know better, it's either they can't pay someone to fix it, they try themselves and fail or their buddy tries and if that fails then they just put up with it LOL!

The bottom line is that most of the older crowd is willing to pay to have their computer fixed the right way and rarely do they complain about price at least in my experience so far with most of them.