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A Note About Wizbang Tech Support

A Note About Wizbang Tech Support

July 19, 2006 Site News 13 Comments

Wizbang is getting to be a rather large place. And as we grow, the number of emails from readers with some sort of problem with the site grows as well. – As a general rule all these problems are in some way related to one spam filter or another.

All of us, and especially Kevin and I since we end up doing most of the geeky stuff, take pride in our quick replies and trying to help users as best we can. But, as shocking as it might be to some of you, we are not telepathic.

In the last several days we’ve had a sharp increase in emails that read something like this:

It’s broken, can you fix it? Joe

With no indication of what “it” is or who “Joe” is so we can get a clue.

While we relish the idea you all think we are omnipotent, the truth is we require a bit more information if you want us to solve your problem. (Like a link to the post in question. 😉

We appreciate the brevity but if you’re ever in a position to send us a note seeking help of some kind, remember we are getting hit cold by it and giving us enough information to solve the problem only helps you in the long run.

Thank you and we now return you to our normally scheduled blogging already in progress.

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Paul

13 Comments

  1. cagey1 July 19, 2006

    Joe,

    Get a Mac.

  2. mantis July 19, 2006

    My internets is broken. Why?

  3. Kevin Aylward July 19, 2006

    Not enough pipe tunnel. I blame Sen. Ted Stevens.

  4. mantis July 19, 2006

    Ah, the pipes is jammed! That’s why my internets take so long to send.

  5. mantis July 19, 2006

    I think I located the problem.

    Couldn’t resist. Isn’t Tivo great?

  6. Old Coot July 19, 2006

    Guessing that Lee filled the pipe with monkey poo.

  7. Lee July 19, 2006

    Let’s find some Old Coot we can send in to scoop out the poop – lol

  8. Steve L. July 19, 2006

    Did you ever get Joe’s problem fixed?

  9. Candy July 19, 2006

    I’m a computer teacher, and I’m SO glad I’m not the only one receiving emails & calls like the one above. When you do this for a living, everyone thinks you are at their disposal – for free- anytime they have a problem. Most times I don’t mind, but once in a while it drives me nuts. My favorite was a woman who pulled out her keyboard tray one day, and in the process, pulled her keyboard right out of the back of the tower. She called to tell me the computer was BROKEN. I figured it out in a matter of minutes, turned to her and deadpanned “That’ll be $65.” You can’t put a price on stupidity.

    By the way, Paul – I’ve lost a red sock. Do you have any idea where it is?

  10. Lee July 19, 2006

    Mantis’ graphic link touches on Ted Stevens’ view of internet congestion. Here’s more. Maybe Wizbang should set up an email autoreply with Stevens’ explanation. Sometimes things just get tangled on the Internet….

    From this webpage at WIRED:
    blog.wired.com/27BStroke6/index.blog?entry_id=1512499

    WIRED writes:
    The Senate Commerce Committee deadlocked 11 to 11 on an amendment inserting some very basic net neutrality provisions into a moving telecommunications bill. The provisions didn’t prohibit an ISP from handling VOIP faster than emails, but would have made it illegal to handle its own VOIP packets faster than a competitor’s. Senator Ted Stevens (R-Alaska) explained why he voted against the amendment and gave an amazing primer on how the internet works.

    Stevens explains…

    There’s one company now you can sign up and you can get a movie delivered to your house daily by delivery service. Okay. And currently it comes to your house, it gets put in the mail box when you get home and you change your order but you pay for that, right.

    But this service is now going to go through the internet* and what you do is you just go to a place on the internet and you order your movie and guess what you can order ten of them delivered to you and the delivery charge is free.

    Ten of them streaming across that internet and what happens to your own personal internet?

    I just the other day got, an internet was sent by my staff at 10 o’clock in the morning on Friday and I just got it yesterday. Why?

    Because it got tangled up with all these things going on the internet commercially.

    So you want to talk about the consumer? Let’s talk about you and me. We use this internet to communicate and we aren’t using it for commercial purposes.

    We aren’t earning anything by going on that internet. Now I’m not saying you have to or you want to discrimnate against those people [¿]

    The regulatory approach is wrong. Your approach is regulatory in the sense that it says “No one can charge anyone for massively invading this world of the internet”. No, I’m not finished. I want people to understand my position, I’m not going to take a lot of time. [¿]

    They want to deliver vast amounts of information over the internet. And again, the internet is not something you just dump something on. It’s not a truck.

    It’s a series of tubes.

    And if you don’t understand those tubes can be filled and if they are filled, when you put your message in, it gets in line and its going to be delayed by anyone that puts into that tube enormous amounts of material, enormous amounts of material.

    Now we have a separate Department of Defense internet now, did you know that?

    Do you know why?

    Because they have to have theirs delivered immediately. They can’t afford getting delayed by other people.

    [¿]

    Now I think these people are arguing whether they should be able to dump all that stuff on the internet ought to consider if they should develop a system themselves.

    Maybe there is a place for a commercial net but it’s not using what consumers use every day.

    It’s not using the messaging service that is essential to small businesses, to our operation of families.

    The whole concept is that we should not go into this until someone shows that there is something that has been done that really is a viloation of net neutraility that hits you and me.

  11. Tom Blogical July 19, 2006

    My favorites (and thoughts in response) when in IT were:

    “The internet is down! Get the *&%$*# thing back up now!!!” (The entire internet…? That’ll be a while…)

    “My F&G drives are gone!” (Sounded like they were saying f-ing g drives…)

    “OK, we (a satellite office) just moved into the new building today. Can you reconnect our T1 line now?” (They never told anyone they were going to move, without planning with corporate…it takes at least 3 months to get that order going…my thoughts were…HAAAAAAAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHA!! Time to call Time Warner!!)

  12. _Jon July 19, 2006

    Oh, the computer support stories I could tell….

    My current “fun” is with a PC that was shipped via UPS. It didn’t work when it arrived, so I contacted UPS. They picked it up and returned it to the store I shipped it from. But they didn’t tell me. A week later I get a call asking for status on the PC.

    Eventually, I get the PC and open it. It has been dropped so hard that both optical drives have shifted and broken their faces. The fan & CPU cooler have popped off the CPU. I have a hard time removing that with the correct tool!

    Needless to say, the PC doesn’t work. Amazingly, the hard drive does still work. It’s a Samsung.

    But the “doh” moment is that UPS wants an estimate on the cost of repairs, rather than just cut me a check for the amount of the insurance. And they are mean about it. jerks.

  13. _Jon July 19, 2006

    Oh, this is great!

    Here’s a mash-up of Stevens’ “Internet Tubes”.
    http://evhead.com/2006/07/massive-tangled-up-tubes.asp

    heh