Tante just called

She just called and started reciting to me the error message she saw on her computer screen. What the FUCK, seriously.

I am not your fucking helpdesk. I guess it is because my *censored* call me everyday (even when I am on leave - I am so looking forward to my coming break, that people are starting to be surprised that it isn't going to happen for a while yet, given how excited I am) to resolve stupid project-related problems, so by the weekend I have no patience to help others fix their fucking computers. Ever since I moved nearby, she has been showing up immediately after a quick phone call and expects me to drop everything to fix her fucking pc. I hope that thing catches fire.

Turned out, her pc couldn't recover from "configuring updates stage 3 of 3 0% complete."GG. I tried all kinds of options like safe mode, restoring from last known stable configuration, etc. Nothing worked. So I asked her for her OS disc. She apparently threw the discs away with the box despite my reminding her many times before to hold on to the proprietary discs. Well done, genius.

She only had the first half of my system restore discs (for some miraculous reason, I did a system restore disc for her before), but apparently the other half is missing. So too bad, I told her I couldn't do any more, other than give her ACER's hotline since me and B1 do not have VISTA (fuck VISTA) installers.

She later came back to take her internet dongle, and declared to me that she would fix it herself. Good, don't find me next time.

Updated!!!
She smsed me this morning,"I call Acer, he told me that there is an eRecovery installed in the computer. He has emailed me the details. I will bring my computer to you on Sunday 9 June."

*imploded already*

I did not take a Computer Engineering degree to fix your computer

Checking through my posts, I appeared to have grumbled about this before.

Don't you find it extremely irritating that people just take it for granted that you can and will fix their motherfucking IT problem? Even Bruder is guilty of it. Mein älter Bruder who used to be able to fix his pc by himself, has joined the legion of helpless relatives who ask me to fix their laptop/ desktop (so far no one has asked me to fix their iphone).

A Tale of Relatives and Free IT Support

(Note: the blog title demonstrates that this is an entry that was written some time back in June but was not published until now. I am housekeeping the blog and cleaning out some of the drafts.)

Did you know that Office 2007 is deeply entrenched within your new Dell, Acer, prebuilt pcs?

I found it the hard way when I was asked by my aunt to downgrade her office version. I encountered two problems (1) I can't seem to get the office uninstalled by using add/remove programs (that would be due to the delightful Vista, goodbye Vista!!! My aunt insisted on buying her laptop before Windows 7 came out...) (2) Even if I force delete, the jokers will appear again the next time I boot up the pc again, albeit this time with more complications.

Turns out because I have to also wipe out thoroughly the Office 2007 installation files (and other stuff of course, such as registry keys)... I ended up following Microsoft's instructions here.

Have you noticed that just because you have a computer-related background (e.g. software, hardware or both), relatives just naturally approach you to fix their IT problems for free even if they have purchased onsite repair services from the pc companies? You could be a DBA by occupation and still they expect you to take their laptops to bits and add their memory. Worse still, they treat you like helpdesk support (well, if akin to an oracle, I'd not mind so much *haha*), and expect round-the-clock service and immediate/within-business-day response (this depends on how much of a arschloch he/she is) from you. And the very worst of it all is when you are trying your best to understand the problem, they stand next to you and say really mean things like "you don't look like you know very much" and yet they still automatically call you the next time their computer takes a piss. What the fuck!!! Seriously.