I’m about the only one in my family (immediate or extended) that has a clue about how computers actually work. My mom has worked with computers all her life, but the last time she really OPERATED one was when they were black, the size of a couple VWs, and had IBM permanently etched onto the side in blood. Ok, the blood thing may be exaggerating, but you get the idea. For the most part, they’re all end-users who may have installed a program here or there, and may have upgraded the memory in the computer. When it comes to swapping hard drives, changing jumper settings, reinstalling the operating system CORRECTLY, etc., they’re as clueless as I am about fashion (seriously, just ask my wife). While Having someone like me around is nice for my family, as I’m able to keep our computers running far longer than the average person does, it also means I get those frantic calls from my mom, father-in-law, sister, etc. saying “My computer won’t turn on, what could be wrong?” Hmmm…where do I begin? As a joke, I always ask in a sarcastic tone if it’s plugged in. Well, maybe it’s not a joke, but I ask it in a joking tone so as not to be TOO condescending.
I’m writing this post kind of on a whim, as I’m sitting here staring at one of my father-in-law’s business PCs (an HP/Compaq). It’s got a pretty blue screen (no, not THAT blue screen) and says 86% for 131062 MB formatted. Then comes WinXP…then SP2…then the 14,000 updates that have been released since SP2 (except SP3 of course, I’m not that brave yet). It’s normally not a huge deal, but this is the one PC that does his payroll, inventory, accounts payable/receivable, etc. Basically it’s the lifeblood of his business. And of course the data isn’t backed up anywhere, so if this was a REAL emergency, like a total hard drive crash or something, I’d be telling him “I’m sorry….we tried our best to resuscitate it, but there was nothing we could do. She was just too far gone.” As luck would have it, it’s just a few bad blocks on the drive, none of which appeared to contain any important data. So I’m installing WinXP on a new hard drive, and making the old one a slave so they can copy their data over. Once that’s finished, it’ll be time to DBAN and sledgehammer that drive. Oh, and of course I’ll be mentioning (as I do about once a month) how easy it would be to setup a backup solution using an old tape drive and some free software. Or even better, setup some NAS using FreeNAS or one of the SOHO appliances from Netgear, Buffalo, or Linksys.
What would be glorious, is if this was the only computer I had to work on. Unfortunately, it’s not.
My little brother is back from Florida for a couple days, and his girlfriend’s laptop (HP) is acting up, so I told him I’d look at it. Can’t really turn him down. He helped me demolish an entire basement bathroom and laundry room for nothing. Least I can do is take a look at his laptop.
My parent’s computer, after running for about 10 mintues, now says “Thermal Shutdown” and turns itself off. Apparently the fans on the back are not running as they should. Luckily Dell’s sending a Tech with some spare parts out to them next week. God love Dell’s on-site warranties.
Not to mention the 6 computers I have sitting in my office right now…3 or 4 of which I think are still useful enough to turn into a FreeNAS box, a VPN, an Edubuntu box for the kids, and who knows what the other one will be.
Update…I’m now in the “Look, it’s got a GUI, but still has 38 minutes left to install WinXP” phase. I guess I should breath a sigh of relief that he’s not running Vista. Too bad I can’t turn him onto Linux…but it’s tough to teach an old dog new tricks. It’s even more tough to teach an old father-in-law new tricks.
Check out this t-shirt that my wife bought me a while back. I think I need to start wearing it more often.
Oh well. I’ll be up for the next 3 hours installing drivers, hotfixes, patches, service packs, etc. Hope your evening is more enjoyable than mine. 
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