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My mom isn't entirely incompetent when it comes to computers. She's better than a good number of people her age. But every once in a while she manages to surprise me with something really dumb.
She calls me when I'm at work, which isn't really a big deal since I can multi-task. She was moving the computer to another part of the room and was trying to connect everything back together. She said she was having trouble getting the ethernet cable into the computer. She apparently had been trying this for half an hour, and it just wouldn't fit.
I figure she had been trying to put the cable into the port to hook the computer to a phone jack. But no, she said she could see the one for the modem, and this port really wasn't it. I ask her a bunch of random stuff that I could think of, like if she's putting it in upside down, or of the plastic clip is bent out of shape. Nope, it's all fine. Finally she tells me that the port is just too small, and the cable just hits the edge of the case. It clicks in my head that this computer has two phone jacks on it - one to hook into an actual phone and another to hook into the phone line. I tell her to look again over the computer for a similar port, because she is not using the right one.
She swears to me that there's no other port. Getting a bit flustered because I know for a fact that there's another port, I have start telling me each port she sees and what is hooked up to it. She starts listing them off until she suddenly stops, and goes "oooooohhhhhh". She had apparently put TWO USB cables into the ethernet port. How in the world she managed that and didn't realize it was wrong is beyond me.
That all sorted out, fast forward another 15 minutes and she calls me again. This time to tell me she thinks she broke the USB hub. I ask her if she's sure, and she said "Well, I think I blew it up. There was a loud POP, a sizzling sound, and it's now smoking." She put the wrong power line into the hub, causing it to overload. Thankfully, nothing was connected to it at the time.
She calls me when I'm at work, which isn't really a big deal since I can multi-task. She was moving the computer to another part of the room and was trying to connect everything back together. She said she was having trouble getting the ethernet cable into the computer. She apparently had been trying this for half an hour, and it just wouldn't fit.
I figure she had been trying to put the cable into the port to hook the computer to a phone jack. But no, she said she could see the one for the modem, and this port really wasn't it. I ask her a bunch of random stuff that I could think of, like if she's putting it in upside down, or of the plastic clip is bent out of shape. Nope, it's all fine. Finally she tells me that the port is just too small, and the cable just hits the edge of the case. It clicks in my head that this computer has two phone jacks on it - one to hook into an actual phone and another to hook into the phone line. I tell her to look again over the computer for a similar port, because she is not using the right one.
She swears to me that there's no other port. Getting a bit flustered because I know for a fact that there's another port, I have start telling me each port she sees and what is hooked up to it. She starts listing them off until she suddenly stops, and goes "oooooohhhhhh". She had apparently put TWO USB cables into the ethernet port. How in the world she managed that and didn't realize it was wrong is beyond me.
That all sorted out, fast forward another 15 minutes and she calls me again. This time to tell me she thinks she broke the USB hub. I ask her if she's sure, and she said "Well, I think I blew it up. There was a loud POP, a sizzling sound, and it's now smoking." She put the wrong power line into the hub, causing it to overload. Thankfully, nothing was connected to it at the time.
I AM the evil bastard!
). Oh well, live and learn...and drink.
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