There’s an old urban legend in Tech Support circles about the support agent who tells his hapless caller to box up their machine and take it back to the store because “they’re too stupid to use a computer.” It was probably dreamed up by some frustrated support agent walking hopelessly clueless users through the same support call fifty times a day, day after day.

Now, I understand that you may see the quasi-apologetic phrase that you keep using as an excuse may be the naked truth. But no matter how true you perceive the following statement to be, however, still does NOT make it a valid excuse. You MUST stop using these words, strung together in this order:

“I’m computer-illiterate.”

The word “illiterate” doesn’t even really apply. Illiterate implies that you do not yet understand how computers work, yet have a willingness to learn. You, on the other hand, seem to have no desire whatsoever to learn even the basic functions of a computer or how it works. Ignorance of the law is never an excuse for ignoring it, and it is my sincere belief is that you would never, EVER be able to use this kind of excuse at ANY other job.

Say you’re a dock worker. Your foreman assigns you a forklift. If you suddenly forgot which key fits in the ignition, and when the foreman asked you why aren’t getting your job done, used the excuse “I’m forklift illiterate;” tell me: how long do you think you’d last at that job? Or, if you’re a barista, and every single day you accidentally drop a big glass carafe of coffee on the floor, and when your boss asks why you can’t seem to hang onto the expensive carafes full of expensive coffee you keep shattering, you say “I’m carafe illiterate.” What are the odds of you surviving as a barista for longer than it takes to, say, grow a moustache?

The phrase “I’m computer-illiterate,” to you, seems to mean: ” I don’t work in computers, so I don’t have to know a single thing about them, regardless of the fact that my job requires me to use a company PC.”

Therefore, to me, it’s far more accurate for you to say: “I’m computer ignorant.”

Because that’s what you’re really telling me; you’re really telling me “I have no interest at all in how a required tool of my job works, and I don’t care to learn anything about it, and if I can’t do my job due to this lack of knowledge, I’ll simply blame the tool I refuse to learn about. Or you, because you didn’t fix my ‘broken’ PC.”

Well, here’s the thing: if you cannot do your job with the tools required by that job, I have one word that describes the quality of your work:

Incompetent.

That’s right. You are incompetent. Hard cheese to swallow? Tough. Either make a real effort to learn come basic computer skills or contemplate a career change to a line of work that doesn’t require them (and good luck with that).

Now, before all the pitchforks and torches come out, keep in mind: I understand that computers break. If computers worked properly, all the time, then I would be unemployed. Servers misbehave, software gets corrupted, or some bug or other throws a cryptic error message on the screen. Maybe someone one of my peers pushes out a network change without realizing it will cripple the systems of 4 or 5 people in the company. Or maybe a drive quits or a network adapter just suddenly refuses to work. There are a great many IT things that happen that you do not have direct (or any) control over.

I fix the things that break. I keep your computers running. Yes, this means I know more about computers than your average Joe. I do not expect you to possess detailed knowledge of TCP/IP works, how to replace a dead hard drive, or which registry key to tweak to make the proprietary billing system client start working again. That’s my job.

I am talking to you people who call me 5 times a day because you forgot your network password–again–and when I ask you for your username, you go “My what?–again–and I reset your password and you complain that the password can’t be the one you were using last week–again–and I have to explain the company’s password policies to you–AGAIN–but really, none of it matters because I know you’re going to lose your post-it note in fifteen minutes and then call me back. AGAIN.

I am talking to you people who work with Microsoft Word all day long, but when I ask you to copy and paste the text in a document, you have no idea what I’m talking about. You have worked in this job for six years, but the idea of copying and pasting is still alien to you. When I try to explain it, using mouse actions (because god forbid you try to learn keyboard shortcuts like CTRL + C and CTRL + V), I have to then explain the difference between right and left clicking a mouse. And then you will continue to right-click everything until I figure out what you’re doing and tell you to stop, because if I don’t tell you to stop, you’ll keep right-clicking everything.

Nothing in these situations is broken, other than your willingness to open your mind and learn.

And you’re on notice: more and more companies nowadays are identifying people with sub-par computer skills as a liability and turning them loose. Do you think that IT support is FREE? No way. Helpdesks are expensive. Your boss pays out the nose for IT support, and sees your unwillingness to learn how to effectively use the main tool with which you must be productive as a source of lost revenue. While we IT folks are hand-holding you for an hour through a simple procedure you ought to know how to do on your own, or rebuilding your virus-infested machine because you ignored the company policy on not surfing porn at work, you are not only not doing your job, but further, we can’t devote time to making the network better for the rest of the user community. Typical cost for commercial-grade computer support averages $100 an hour, not counting the value of your lost productivity.

There is absolutely no good reason why, in the second decade of the 21st century, when computers have permeated every facet of our lives, you refuse to learn to do anything more challenging with a PC other than check your mail and surf the web. That is completely inexcusable. Being “computer-illiterate,” as you naively profess, is analogous today with being illiterate-illiterate; e.g. you will not land (or keep) a decent job without SOME level of IT savvy. With all the forums, YouTube videos, and other vast resources on the web, there is simply no excuse anymore for not knowing the first thing about PCs or how to do basic PC maintenance. Because right now, all you’re doing is clogging up my queue with your sadly-intentional blundering cluelessness.

Learn what a username is. Learn what “application” means. Stop assuming that calling IT means you can turn off your brain. Make an effort to understand the contraption you’ve been given to use by, and for, your company.

And for God’s sake, stop saying “I’m computer illiterate.” Because you sound ridiculous, and you should cringe hard with utter embarrassment every time you say it.

Seriously: Get savvy or log off.

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Password:

Simple. Use what Cisco Linksys support folks use: a Cisco Linksys router menu simulator!

Here’s a link to all of them. Enjoy!

http://ui.linksys.com/

Six times–six fucking times CompuHost crashed during my show. I’m running an Intel T7500 dual-core Toshiba lappy with 4gb of RAM and Windows 7 x64 Ultimate, and Compuhost 1.86.07H STILL crashed and burned all over the fucking place.

You can bet your ass i am NOT going to be hosting next week’s show with Compuhost.

I sincerely hope that the search spiders pick this up. Because I want everyone to know just how fucking bad CompuHost sucks giant flaming monkey balls.

If you’re a Karaoke host thinking of purchasing Compuhost, Don’t. Run, don’t walk, away from Compuhost.

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CompuHost is a big, giant, steaming pile of donkey shit. It is guaranteed to crash on you at least three times during a 4-hour show. You need a Cray supercomputer to run it properly, and even then, it’ll GPF all over the fucking place.

If you host Karaoke, are thinking of hosting Karaoke, or know someone who might be thinking of maybe hosting a Karaoke show at some point in the future, please dissuade them from using this horrible, miserable program. Save them. Save them from the cruel fate I have been relegated to.

He knew, intrinsically, why we do what we do–he knew why we tick, and most importantly, he knew how to explain it so that his patients “got it,” too. Y’know, it’s one thing for someone to be there for you; everyone has that one person who was there for them during their darkest days–and Richard was, indeed, there for me during the darkest, most desperate hour of my life to date. Friends are important, and their gentle words of reassurance are equally important. But Dr. Hey was much more than just a friend with a pat on the back and a “everything is gonna be alright.”

Not only did Dr. Hey tell you that everything was gonna be alright, but he could tell you how–precisely–everything was gonna be alright. My grief is assuaged somewhat by the fact that he performed this amazing miracle not just for me, but for hundreds of patients over the years. It is assuaged further by the fact that I was amazingly fortunate to have seen Dr. Hey several months before he passed, and was able to articulate to him these very thoughts; I am a much better person for having Dr. Hey in my life and owe him a debt of gratitude that, sadly, I can no longer repay.

A brilliant light has been extinguished; a light that led me and so many others to a peace and profound understanding of ourselves, and it is truly a gift beyond measure and without equal.

Goodbye, Richard. Thank you; thank you for lighting the way for us.

Today, I wake up every morning and read yet another breathless column in Engadget (okay, so they’re more tongue-in-cheek than breathless fanboys) about some brilliant new gizmo or other on the cusp of being turned loose upon a society whose gadget-lust is becoming harder and harder to satisfy. Even ten years ago, the smartphone was regarded as a miraculous conception which represented the engineering equivalent to summiting Everest and whose hefty price tag once made them the exclusive purview of the priveleged few. I find it at the same time amazing and disquieting that the release of a new smartphone garners from a jaded and saturated public little more than a disinterested yawn.

But with each new deliverance of miraculous brilliance upon the consumer electronics landscape comes those that must try to sell them to the public.

Enter Marketing.

One might think that thirty-odd years of having to pitch new technology to the general consuming public would’ve made these people a bit more creative. Sadly, this is not the case, and it was a recent iPad commercial that really drove the point home.

I was watching a “What is iPad?” commercial (watching commercials is something I rarely do nowadays thanks to another miraculous advent: the DVR), during which, one of the “Here’s what you can do with this thing” examples focused on education. Specifically, it showed little Johnny’s little fingers not where they normally are–up his nose–but rather, scribbling some arithmetic onto the iPad’s mock-chalkboard screen:

4 + 6 = 16. Huh. I personally thought it was 23.

Of course, Apple includes educational software in its phalanx of applications to help us consumers justify parting with the outrageous sum of money this thing commands–because at this point in the iPad’s lifecycle, purchasing one requires a pretty significant outlay of liquid assets.

I know this is not new. In fact, this looks fetchingly familiar. Where have I seen this before? Oh yeah–I know where I’ve seen this before! On TV about 27 years ago, when Commodore was pitching the VIC-20! Only then, DVRs were 20 years away from practicality and even a VCRs price-tag represented a not-trivial percentage of the average household’s monthly income in 1982, so I had to watch it live, in a commercial break during Barney Miller:

a^2 + b^2 = nosebleed.

Cliché alert: Aah, the more things change, the more they stay the same.

Personally, I find the inclusion of educational software titles in commercials for gee-whiz gizmos utterly laughable. Why?

Sure, mister, showing the gizmo helping little Johnny learn his ABCs may score some points with your better half, and depending on who wears the pants in the house (y’know, the pants in whose pocket is nestled the spending instruments: credit cards, checkbooks, cash, or PayPal passwords), may even tip the scales far enough over so that running out to the store and buying one won’t land you on the sofa for a week’s worth of fitful, solo snoozing. So tell the wifey anything you like, but I will guaran-$#^@&*-tee you that there is one place that Daddy’s new, pretty, delicate, $699-plus-tax iPad man-toy will never, ever end up. And that place is the jam-smeared virus-laden paws of his seven-year-old, even if he does need to learn his times-tables.

Pitching a new Über-gadget by showing off what educational benefits it can give the household’s domesticated booger factories is like trying to sell Corvettes by pitching to the wife how quickly one can get to the grocery store and back.

Don’t feel much like writing anymore. Not for a while.

Uh, not quite. Windows is a toy car and its box is filled with ads for all kinds of accessories you can buy. Linux is an erector set that you can use to build just about anything you want to and your only limits are the set itself and your imagination.

People who want a toy car and only a toy car will find the erector set very frustrating and usually very confusing. People who want to create and build what’s in their imagination will soon tire of the toy car that’s only a toy car and nothing else.

To each his or her own. I really don’t know why all the emotional ranting. Just choose what you like, learn only what you feel like, and accept the consequences of your own choices. Is that really so difficult?

For some people: Yes. It really is that difficult. Myself included–I’ve used an entirely different OS my entire career; it’s pretty late in the race for me to be switching mounts. Besides, not all of us are super-talented software developers; you have a special, unique gift that affords you the insight and clarity to build whatever you want and need on top of whatever platform you choose. I don’t possess such a gift; all I can do is sing and use pre-built software. And so far, I’m having a very tough time getting Linux to do anything beyond totally frustrate me.

Some people love to tinker around in the garage, and I respect those people a lot (if you’re actually talking about cars, I am one of those folks who loves to tinker in the garage). Some people just want to get in the car and drive because they have to get to work and don’t have the time or inclination or talent to tinker in the garage and build their “dream” car.

In that regard I’m very much like the typical end-users I support: I have a job to do and I have neither the time nor the inclination to build anything from scratch. I want my PC and OS to be useful right out of the box. As clunky and horrible as you think Microsoft OSs software are–and they are, in a lot of ways–they are still very, very useful in the context of what I need to make it do, right out of the box, without expending a tremendous amount of effort building anything; and while the learning curve on Microsoft’s technologies isn’t exactly flat, it sure as hell isn’t practically vertical like 90% of Linux.

I’ll give a tremendous amount of credit to the Linux user community for taking Linux mainstream as a viable alternative to the ghastly cost of Microsoft products; however, I have noted (with no small sense of irony) that the harsh realities of the business world have become a real eye-opener to the Open-Source hobbyist crowd: Red Hat and MySQL both charge Microsoft-like amounts of money for support and patches for otherwise “free” products–if you need them supported in a business context–because even hobbyists gotta eat and can get sued just like everybody else that deals with the commercial world.

But what really, really bugs me is that the Linux crowd stubbornly clings to an outright refusal to compromise and make the damn thing easier to use and deploy–they want to draw in more users (and away from Microsoft), but only if they succomb and learn the insanely complicated incantations and dance moves it requires just to make Linux boot properly, to say nothing of making it do anything useful. And the attitude of the Linux user community whenever I’ve dared to ask for help has been nothing short of shameful hazing; condescending responses of “Well, if you’d just Googled your question a little harder, you’d have found the answer, n00b.” And it would seem that I’m not the only one who thinks so: even the almighty Slashdot has recognized that the Linux user community can sometimes be the biggest hurdle to overcome when one of the Windows crowd tries to break ranks. Granted, the Microsoft user community has much more than its fair share of assholes, too–but it takes a lot of chutzpah to create an absurdly complicated product, refuse to settle on a standard user interface, and then berate newcomers–particularly those trying to make the switch from Windows, the very people the Linux community is trying to convert–for not knowing the subtleties of making it work–and get snotty and snobby with them for asking for help! Learning Linux on one’s own is about as easy as becoming a Mason. Until that is resolved, the Linux community in general have absolutely no business whatsoever mocking a “toy car” operating environment that over the last twenty years has put food on my family’s table and clothes on their backs.

(Editor’s note: I’m as guilty of friendly hazing myself, consistently referring to the Linux contingent here at my office as “Tofu-eating Linux Hippies,” but never once have I refused a legitimate request for help–nor have I ever berated them or attempted to make myself feel superior at their expense–for their choice of platform.There’s the difference.)

Who knows. Maybe I’ll get to the end of this road and actually end up liking Linux. But right now, there really isn’t a whole lot I’m finding enjoyable about the experience. I read the instructions on the websites, and follow them blindly without knowing why they work or why they’re important, and worse, because I don’t know the theory behind the practice, I’m finding it hard to duplicate what few successes I’ve achieved thus far. I cannot recall a time in my entire career where I’ve been this frustrated and this unhappy with what I’m doing for a living.

So what’s the difference, really, between Windows and Linux?

Imagine, if you will, having a craving for a burger, but not just any ol’ burger: you’re craving a good burger, your favorite burger. So you go to your favorite diner–a place where you’ve been many times before, so the staff probably knows you by now–and order your burger. Even if Flo the waitress doesn’t remember how you like your particular burger, it’s nothing to worry about; you rattle off your order, customizing your burger the way you want it. Lo and behold, several minutes later, out from the kitchen comes a steaming-hot burger, with fries on the side, cooked and prepared just the way you asked for it. You lean forward in your booth, grab that juicy pile of Nirvana and take a big bite, and find to your blissful delight that it is exactly what you expected, and boy oh boy does it ever hit the spot. Mmmmmmmm. And y’know what? Even if Flo (or someone in the ktichen) has had an off day and maybe forgotten, say, your cheese, you can always flag down Flo and she’ll be happy to bring you a slice, with a smile.

That’s Windows.

Now, imagine, if you will, having a craving for a burger, but not just any ol’ burger: you’re craving a good burger, your favorite burger. But you promised your buddy Mike (your good friend from Northern California) that you’d stop by his pad for lunch; he said “C’mon over, man; I’ll make you the best burger you’ve ever eaten. Guaranteed. And it’ll be natural and good for you besides, not all full of crap and fat and preservatives that you’d get at a burger from a burger joint.” Well, not wanting to hurt Mike’s feelings, you go over to his place. The first thing that hits you when he answers the door is the smell–it smells unlike anything you’ve ever smelled before; not bad, per sé, but very, very different. Here at Mike’s pad, you don’t get to custom-order your burger–you get whatever Mike puts in front of you. And what he puts in front of you is something… different; it looks like a hamburger, it more or less smells like a hamburger; there aren’t any fries, and there are sprouts on it. You gingerly pick it up off the plate, take a bite, and are greeted with many, many flavors and textures that are decidedly un-hamburger like in origin; you suppose that if you imagined really, really hard, you could pretend you’re eating a real hamburger–but you’re really not that good at hoodwinking yourself; you know that this ain’t no hamburger.

So you ask Mike “What is this?”

Mike replies “That, my friend, is a SoyBurger patty on a whole-wheat nine-grain bun with soy cheddar cheese, organic tomato, lettuce, broccoli sprouts, and garlic garbanzo-bean spread with organic ketchup and mustard. Like it? I grew it and made it all from scratch, myself, from techniques and recipes I got off the Internet that have been perfected by a huge community of organic gardeners and cooking experts! And it was all free!”

At this point you’re probably thinking that maybe Mike doesn’t actually know the meaning of the word “perfected,” because this what you are currently eating is not even close to your vision of the perfect hamburger. However, you’re a polite guest, so you manage to choke the thing down–and end up being sick to your stomach the rest of the day with a nausea that not even Pepto Bismol can put a dent in.

That’s Linux.

If you had Hippie parents and grew up eating that kind of food to the point your system became acclimated to it, that’s fine–you’d probably love LinuxBurgers; but for the rest of us, who ate real burgers at real diners growing up, only one word can sum up what a LinuxBurger tastes like:

Blecch.

And because the company that bought my business unit is heavily into Linux, I have to learn how to like (or, at the very least, tolerate) the smell, the taste, and  texture of something that is masquerading as a hamburger, but is clearly not a hamburger. I’ve relagated my WIndows machine to a backup/security-blanket role only, and have switched to using CentOS for my day-to-day operations just so I can get used to using it. It’s like being on a diet, and I hate it. I’m having serious cravings for my hot, juicy, delicious, familiar diner cheeseburger, and I can’t have one–and it’s making me mental.