He woke up Windows XP from sleep mode and deftly defeated twelve notifications to update Norton AntiVirus. With a resounding click he opened Internet Explorer 6 and gazed deep into its depths, past the Yahoo toolbar, the MSN toolbar, the Ask.com toolbar, and the AOL toolbar. And then did he see, at long last, that The Google did load.

It's FUNNY because it's TRUE!

This could have been written about my friend in Ohio, Daisy, and her grandson, John.

This is how my sister's computer looked the last time I was at her house. And this is about two weeks after a friend of hers did a clean Windows install for her because it was riddled with spyware.

I once tried to give her tech support over the phone.

Me: Okay, now go back to your desktop.

Her: [Pause]It's not on a desk, it's on the dining table.

I'm so glad I'm out of any sort of profession that presumes I have to keep up with computers. Now I can blame old age and say "I am not the computer guy any more" It is liberating.

Except my mom. I just can't bear to see her go without her lolcats.

My dad is the computer guy for the family (and my bff's family) as my response is always "I don't know. Did you ask Dad?". He will love this.

Despite having my college degree in English, I am now the official IT person at my company, because I made the mistake of not answering "NO!" after being asked the following question:

"You cleared that printer jam the other day; can you build us a website?"

I'm pretty competent with a computer, but just wanted to say how much I love the true whizzed, especially the generous ones who post step by step solutions online.

I have a pseudo IT job for work, and I'm my mother's computer support. She just started with computers a little over a year ago, and she's in her 80's. I just have her doing the basics, so no spyware issues, and I've got good preventive measures in place. The thing that has saved me much trouble is a program called TeamViewer which allows me to remotely see her desktop while she is looking at it. It's hard to talk someone through navigation over the phone, especially if they don't know the "language" of it. Now I can just point at it, and say click this or whatever.

I made the mistake of not answering "NO!" after being asked the following question:
"You cleared that printer jam the other day; can you build us a website?"

AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA oh dear. It's sad how true that rings. As I keep pointing out to my family and friends, just because I'm comfortable poking around on their computers (and/or googling for likely solutions) doesn't mean I know anything they don't know.

I am seriously considering printing this out for Mom: Congratulations; you are now the local computer expert! Her usual solution to any computer problem is
A) experience the problem.
B) stop everything until I can come over in a few days or weeks. Yes, even when it's a problem that could be solved by force-quit.

Cute. Like others, I'm stuck with the 'computer guy' tag at work and get asked about everyone's stupid questions. I managed to avoid this for about 3 years when I started here by carefully never admitting that I could fix things, until someone noticed that I fixed a problem on my own laptop without resorting to the help desk and word quickly spread from there. Once you get stuck with the 'computer guy' tag, you never lose it, unfortunately.

This is hilarious! I read it out loud to the bf and our visiting friends.
I set my bf's mom up on her new Kindle not 3 weeks ago, so this hit a little too close to home.
I told bf to get her the $79 version but he thought he was being nice and got her the $99 version, and the $99 is touchscreen and not as intuitive (for non-computer folks, I find) than having buttons that act predictably.
It's interesting to see how many ways someone can not understand directions.
Also, what comes naturally to us, like "click at the top" for instance, doesn't translate properly and the click is an extended press or something that brings up all different secondary menus that are supposed to be "hard to get to."

This is how my sister's computer looked the last time I was at her house.

There honestly should be a death penalty for any developer or marketing drone who even once suggests their "product" install a custom toolbar. Sort of a "one strike and you're fed to a pool full of flesh-eating beetles" thing.

Second that, Thorzdad!! Oh, the time I can't get back hunting down and un-installing those nasty things, meanwhile asking myself again WHY I didn't see the stupid installation box had already been checked.

Also eligibile for flesh eating beetle tank: everyone that pre-checks boxes on their websites in order to swamp your email with marketing spam.