Daddy tech support

[MurphCID]

Well, I recently got a "varmint" that trumps squirrels, rats, 'coons, and 'possums. Last night, between 9:30 PM and 10 PM, I stepped on a bark scorpion with my bare foot and the misbegotten little bugger stung me on my right, fourth toe. I haven't experienced pain that intense since I blew out my knee around 15 years ago. I thought I would just tough it out after taking a couple of Aleve and a couple of Benadryl (the usual recommended treatment) but, by 11:30 PM, the numbness (it's weird to experience pain and numbness at the same time) had spread up to my knee and even the tip of my tongue started tingling (water tasted horrible and it felt like the water was full of sand and gravel when it ran over my tongue) and I was starting to feel a bit light headed, I got more scared than mad and called 911.

I eventually was connected to Poison Control and, after playing twenty questions, they assured me that, even though I was going to be very unhappy for a while, I would be alright as long as I could still swallow saliva and water. They called me a couple of times during the night to make sure I hadn't done something inconvenient (like dying). As a precaution, I left the door unlocked and turned the porch light on so the paramedics could easily get to me if it ever came to that.

The pain is better now (relatively speaking) and is confined to my foot (I always was able to walk on it even though it was significantly less than pleasant to do so). The pins and needles sensation is confined to my foot, ankle and lower shin although my calf muscles still feel a little sore if I lightly massage them. I haven't been able to find the little monster yet (the terminology being used is to satisfy forum regulations) but, when I do (and after I scrape myself off the ceiling), it's going to become a gooey grease spot I'll have to mop up.

I hope you get well soon.

[Lady Fitzgerald]

...I hope you get well soon.

Thanks! It hasn't gotten much better since this morning but Poison Control warned me it could take a few days. It's a bit less painful but the pins and needles sensation is still going strong. It's gotten to be more of an annoyance (just what I needed, another annoyance in my life) than painful. At least I'm able to walk on it.

[DAMIEN1307]

It's gotten to be more of an annoyance (just what I needed, another annoyance in my life) than painful. At least I'm able to walk on it.

Sorry to hear of you painful encounter Jeannie...DAMIEN

A little cartoon below to cheer you up a little...(Its OK to call me a jerk...lol)

https://line.17qq.com/articles/mgngppny.html

[MurphCID]

Wife: "What is for supper?"
Me: What do you want?
Wife: "Tell me my options."
Me: (Annoyed): No, I am not playing that game again. What do you want to eat?
Wife: "Give me options."
Me: Fine, you can have pulled pork, King Ranch Chicken, or chalupas.
Wife: "No I don't want any of those, ask the kids."
Me: (Really annoyed): I am going to fix pulled pork, and you all can eat it or not!
Wife and kids: "WE DON'T WANT THAT!"
Me: (Very annoyed): So what do you want?
Them: Give us options.
Me: (Highly annoyed since this has been going on for 20 minutes): YOU WILL EAT WHAT I COOK OR ELSE!
Them: We don't want that!
Me: Ends up fixing breakfast for supper, everyone happy.
*sigh*
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZQK1F0wz6z4 I have never seen a more true video.

[MurphCID]

Out dealing with some health issues and work issues, so I am a bit grumpy. So I decided to try my hand at installing and using another distro (again):

Me: I am going to install Slackware 14!
Wife: You are going to break your laptop.
Me: No, I think I know how to do this.
Wife: You are going to get mad when you break it.
Me: No, No, I can do this. After all I managed to install and use Mint!
Wife: Ok. Why are you using your System 76 laptop?
Me: It is what I have, and besides I am not totally fond of the Darter Pro.
Wife: I don't think this is a good idea.
.
.
.
.
.
Me six hours later with a totally zorched laptop which will not boot properly due to dependency h*ll, and other issues: )*(!&$^!!!$)(!#@!!!!
I reinstall Mint\
Wife: Told you so.
Me: *sigh* I am such a Noob.

[AZgl1800]

uh, you don't have Timeshift running?

boot the live session and do a restore, all is well.

[MurphCID]

uh, you don't have Timeshift running?

boot the live session and do a restore, all is well.

Oh no, I have to do things the hard way. It is so good and frustrating.... Plus I wipe the drive and install on the bare metal.

[DisturbedDragon]

My house we have a hybrid network of Linux (multiple distros) OSX and Windows. This includes a multitude of ESXi VM's and network shares across all platforms, Mostly, they all hum along without issue. My wife uses Linux Mint, as do I for desktops and laptops. My two teens in the house use Linux Mint through an LTSP server I set up and Windows 10. The Mac is mine for a few pieces of software I use, mainly working on other Macs. There are occasional issues with kids Windows installs as there is inevitably bound to be. I've learned to despise the Oculus Rift. Mostly the networking and security is what I deal with, between the hundreds of smart devices and lights, plethora of firewall rules and VPN connections. Using IPFIRE to manage this and again it mostly just works. Tons of systems, servers and services running for on and off-site use. More rules and routes than you can shake a stick at, but I digress. Whole house is wired in CAT6 on gigabit switch connecting servers and desktops with one N only access point and one A/C access point serving all wireless devices. Oh yeah, and one 16 port IP KVM for BIOS access to physical headless systems.

Daddy tech support is always available but surprisingly mostly needed to support my wifes work PC which runs Windows 10. More for the software her employer uses and their lack of knowing how their own software works. One instance comes to mind with the softphone they use. I got home after a standard ten our work day to find her completely frustrated. The program was not working and not only was her local company tech support logged in remotely but there were three level 3 support people from Oracle also looking at it. This had been going on and escalating for eight hours. She grabbed me and asked me to look into it. You could almost feel the disdain of all the high level "tech support" people on the phone and on her computer. The issue was one with Java. I opened a java console (which none of them apparently thought to do) and ran the program, instantly seeing the permissions issue. Two commands and I had her up and running. It only took a matter of minutes. Everyone instantly disconnected and/or hung up.

[MurphCID]

Daddy tech support is a lifetime calling at our house since my wife once a week manages somehow to trash her email, or browser, or something else. So as I result I (or my oldest daughter) provide tech support. My youngest daughter will have to survive somehow when she heads to college this fall. I plan on getting her a backup SSD drive so that she can back up her iPhone to it. The other day, my wife and I were watching something on youtube and she deeply sighed and told me that she really wished she had a good old IBM Selectric III typewriter instead of her laptop. While I agree those old IBM Selectrics were built like battleships and just kept working, I really don't want to go back to the days of carbon paper and white out.

[MurphCID]

It is three o'clock in the morning. I am wide awake. The dog had to go out at two which woke me up. Then the spouse unit decided to emulate a 747 on take off, so I am up and on the internet. Oh, well, I guess I will play Civ VI for a couple of hours. Then head off to San Antonio to Tellez Tamales for a couple of dozen, and some barbacoa. Yum. Nom, Nom, Nom.

[Lady Fitzgerald]

It is three o'clock in the morning. I am wide awake. The dog had to go out at two which woke me up. Then the spouse unit decided to emulate a 747 on take off, so I am up and on the internet. Oh, well, I guess I will play Civ VI for a couple of hours. Then head off to San Antonio to Tellez Tamales for a couple of dozen, and some barbacoa. Yum. Nom, Nom, Nom.

I'm also wide awake. My bladder woke me up after an hour and a half of sleep and now I can't get back to sleep. I've been trying to bore myself to sleep by watching boring BoobTube videos but I keep clicking on interesting ones (no, not cute cat videos; those would bore me to sleep, though).

You had to say something about tamales. Now I'm off to the kitchen (so much for trying to lose weight).

[MurphCID]

It is three o'clock in the morning. I am wide awake. The dog had to go out at two which woke me up. Then the spouse unit decided to emulate a 747 on take off, so I am up and on the internet. Oh, well, I guess I will play Civ VI for a couple of hours. Then head off to San Antonio to Tellez Tamales for a couple of dozen, and some barbacoa. Yum. Nom, Nom, Nom.

I'm also wide awake. My bladder woke me up after an hour and a half of sleep and now I can't get back to sleep. I've been trying to bore myself to sleep by watching boring BoobTube videos but I keep clicking on interesting ones (no, not cute cat videos; those would bore me to sleep, though).

You had to say something about tamales. Now I'm off to the kitchen (so much for trying to lose weight).

Yep delicioso! Added some fresh corn tortillas ( I only eat fresh ones, otherwise flour tortillas for me), chicharrones, and hot sauce. Nom, Nom, Nom. My oldest enjoyed hers as well.

[MurphCID]

Well it is BACKUP day! Yay (not). Although I did get the youngest a 1TB Samsung T5 SSD backup. This is fast and has allowed me to use her old 500 gb WD drive for the Spouse-Unit's computer. She only has 90 gb left of 256gb, her iPhone photos are eating space like no tomorrow. So I (nicely) asked her to delete some of the old cruft, and was told not to bother her about it she will get to it RSN (Real Soon Now). So I also re-installed Mint 20.1 on the Darter Pro which is fine, I will be giving this laptop to the Brother in law RSN as soon as I have saved up enough to replace it.

[RollyShed]

I really don't want to go back to the days of carbon paper and white out.

White-out? White-out!! WHITE-OUT!!!!!

There are various rules of the Universe. E=MC2 etc. One is it takes three (3) goes to get a USB plug in. First right way wrong angle, second go wrong way up, third go OK.

White-out the symbol side of the plug and it always only takes one go. It also helps to put a dot on the edge of the laptop above the socket.

[MurphCID]

I really don't want to go back to the days of carbon paper and white out.

White-out? White-out!! WHITE-OUT!!!!!

There are various rules of the Universe. E=MC2 etc. One is it takes three (3) goes to get a USB plug in. First right way wrong angle, second go wrong way up, third go OK.

White-out the symbol side of the plug and it always only takes one go. It also helps to put a dot on the edge of the laptop above the socket.

You know, I agree that is part of the Universal Rule of Murphy's law. That is why I really, really like USB-C. Liquid Paper, should have bought stock in the company when I was in college, I used so darn much of it.

[Lady Fitzgerald]

I really don't want to go back to the days of carbon paper and white out.

White-out? White-out!! WHITE-OUT!!!!!

There are various rules of the Universe. E=MC2 etc. One is it takes three (3) goes to get a USB plug in. First right way wrong angle, second go wrong way up, third go OK.

White-out the symbol side of the plug and it always only takes one go. It also helps to put a dot on the edge of the laptop above the socket.

I'm too lazy to do even that. I just glance at the end of the plug; the little plastic insert in the end of the cable or thumb drive connector goes down when plugging them into my laptop, notebooks, or the front panel of a desktop. On the rear I/O of a desktop computer, I just remember (despite having a lousy "rememberer") that the insert in the plug goes to the right (when viewed from the front of the case while reaching around to the back). The only one I have trouble with is the mini USB used for the charging/data port on my Kindle; even with that POS, it never takes me more than two tries.

I admit that I do love USB C, though.

[MurphCID]

I am at work, heading out to work on a background check in another county when my phone rings:

Wife: "HONEY! THE MACBOOK IS NOT SHOWING MY MOVIE! FIX IT!" NOTE: She has a portable DVD drive attached to the Macbook so she can watch DVDs since she does not want to watch any of the movies we have in iTunes on the Mac.

Me: Do what you were shown yesterday please.

Wife: "I don't know what you all did!"

Me: You played movies all day yesterday?

Wife: "It is NOT working"

Me: Try to walk her through using an HDMI cable and using her sewing room TV as a monitor.

Wife: "It is NOT WORKING!"

Me: *&^((!**(&!!!

Wife: "Never Mind, I will just figure it out later when Victoria gets home.

Me: Great.

Wife: "Why can't you fix it?"

Me: I am not there.... *Calls youngest daughter*

Me: Go down stairs, take the HDMI cable out of the Mac, get my Linux laptop (the Darter), plug everything in, and run VLC.

Daughter: "Dad! I am in class, and you know Mommy!"

Me: Please just do it.

Daughter: "OK, you know I HATE the Mac, it is a stupid computer, you can never do anything with it."

The upshot is when I got home, the Wife was annoyed, the Mac was showing movies, my oldest fixed the issue, telling me she would rather use the Mac than do anything on my Linux laptop. *sigh*

[DAMIEN1307]

The upshot is when I got home, the Wife was annoyed, the Mac was showing movies, my oldest fixed the issue, telling me she would rather use the Mac than do anything on my Linux laptop. *sigh*

Thats funny...lol...Today i just built and helped a couple in their 70s, a linux computer tower and taught them the basics how to use it etc...They were amazed that it could startup and be completely usable in 15 seconds and beat the snot out of their three year old Mac...lol

[deepakdeshp]

The upshot is when I got home, the Wife was annoyed, the Mac was showing movies, my oldest fixed the issue, telling me she would rather use the Mac than do anything on my Linux laptop. *sigh*

Thats funny...lol...Today i just built and helped a couple in their 70s, a linux computer tower and taught them the basics how to use it etc...They were amazed that it could startup and be completely usable in 15 seconds and beat the snot out of their three year old Mac...lol

Mac is supposed to give a very smooth user experience.Thats how they justify the high price and that's also the reason so many users buy them. I never used a Mac so was just wondering.

[RollyShed]

Mac is supposed to give a very smooth user experience.That's how they justify the high price and that's also the reason so many users buy them. I never used a Mac so was just wondering.

You're joking..... aren't you?

Two incidents - A Mac laptop a week ago and a USB external disk. Could I put pictures from the laptop on to the disk. No. It wouldn't accept the usual drag & drop. I could do it to a USB stick and then both items, disk and stick, plugged into my Mint laptop and another drag & drop operation.

Second incident, today, an iPad locked up. A bit of button pushing and holding, two at a time got it sorted but Mac's website was no use when checked later. A totally separate website showed the buttons correctly placed and named and how to do it. I had sorted it by then but looked to see what information was available.

My brother with a computer degree and decades of computer work and use, if asked to help with a Mac problem says "No, too complicated."