Comment On Reality Support, Telephatic Support, and New Thing Support

I'd love to have supported Reality. The punnage would be endless.

There will be no FRIST message in this story.

e^(2πi) st!

Once there was an elephant
Who tried to use the telephant...

See how much productivity you're costing us all with your nonsense, Google?! The recent Pac Man stunt was NOTHING against this!

“Reality is corrupted”

“Are you sure you wish to destroy Reality?”

Matt Smith, is that you?

Captcha: mara... oooh, well played, captcha system...

PRT SC key

Well there's your problem. My keyboard has a key that is clearly marked "Print Scrn", but my laptop has "prt sc" (all lower case). I don't have a "PRT SC" key!

Isn't it time we had a support/helpdesk section all of its own? Support stories invariably go into the "Featured Articles" section but there are easily enough to warrant a dedicated section. Good for navigation too, because a lot of non-coder types like to avoid the technical articles and have a nice read of the stuff they understand, like support and interview stories.

There are a whole slew of new editors, anyone up for it? Remy just introduced a syntax highlighter after all these years, he's got to be our man hasn't he?

I'd love to comment, by my Internet Explorer has a new thing that I've not seen before. I can't quite describe it, but it's weird and has all sorts of computery symbols like ``CAPTCHA'', ``Submit'' and ``Preview''.

Rebecca:

Once there was an elephant
Who tried to use the telephant...

Well, that's irrelephant isn't it?

When then I wrote a comment.

I saw that "Reality is Corrupted" thing before, too.

I'm pretty sure it was at a Dead show.

"I figured a screenshot was in order.

After a grueling thirty-minute exercise of locating the Print Screen PRT SC key, loading Paint, pasting, saving, and then emailing, I waited another few minutes for the rather large attachment to show up."

This is perhaps one of the only nice things about working in corporate IT, where you know that all of your users already have a remote control client installed on their machines.

Unless it's incredibly obvious what the problem is, I've gotten into the habit of just remoting into their machine right away and having them SHOW ME the problem. It really makes life a lot easier. Especially when there are a bunch of applications that I'm expected to support, yet really aren't all that familiar with myself.

I've never understood why some people are unable to distinguish between their browser window and the content therein. They all have TVs so it's hardly an alien concept. If they saw a shot of some broken glass in a TV program, would they ring up their local repairman to get their "smashed screen" fixed? How do they even know they own a TV if they can't tell what part is the content and what part is the TV?

am i the only one who can't see the screen shot?

FC:

Rebecca:

Once there was an elephant
Who tried to use the telephant...

Well, that's irrelephant isn't it?

Yes, but it was just a bit of irrevephant humor.

One was on a Friday night, and came in while my friends and I were indulging in our weekly “rent the worst movie you can find.” When then the pager beeped, I wrenched myself back into Reality and went to the nearest payphone.

FTFY

dave:

am i the only one who can't see the screen shot?

what screen shot?

Anon:

PRT SC key

Well there's your problem. My keyboard has a key that is clearly marked "Print Scrn", but my laptop has "prt sc" (all lower case). I don't have a "PRT SC" key!

Mine says

Prnt Scrn
SysRq

Whatever that means...

GalacticCowboy:

Anon:

PRT SC key

Well there's your problem. My keyboard has a key that is clearly marked "Print Scrn", but my laptop has "prt sc" (all lower case). I don't have a "PRT SC" key!

Mine says

Prnt Scrn
SysRq

Whatever that means...

Oh that's no good at *all* - I've got "Print Screen SysRq" - how on earth am I to know which button to press?

GalacticCowboy:

Anon:

PRT SC key

Well there's your problem. My keyboard has a key that is clearly marked "Print Scrn", but my laptop has "prt sc" (all lower case). I don't have a "PRT SC" key!

Mine says

Prnt Scrn
SysRq

Whatever that means...

Mine says PageUp.

It never seems to do what it should do.

GalacticCowboy:

Anon:

PRT SC key

Well there's your problem. My keyboard has a key that is clearly marked "Print Scrn", but my laptop has "prt sc" (all lower case). I don't have a "PRT SC" key!

Mine says

Prnt Scrn
SysRq

Whatever that means...

I win. Mine actually says "Print Screen" right on the button.

Captcha: transverbero - a Spanish word that changes spelling based on the gender of the person/thing performing the action

GalacticCowboy:

Mine says

Prnt Scrn
SysRq

Whatever that means...

Hard to believe that the system request key is almost 40 years old. Our keyboards are showing their age. Pretty sure we don't need that alternate graphic key anymore either.

Maybe the Print Screen key is telephatic. It plays only phat beats on television.

Knux2:

GalacticCowboy:

Anon:

PRT SC key

Well there's your problem. My keyboard has a key that is clearly marked "Print Scrn", but my laptop has "prt sc" (all lower case). I don't have a "PRT SC" key!

Mine says

Prnt Scrn
SysRq

Whatever that means...

I win. Mine actually says "Print Screen" right on the button.

Captcha: transverbero - a Spanish word that changes spelling based on the gender of the person/thing performing the action

And mine says:


PrtScn
SysRq
Insert

Good luck getting it to even do a screenshot if you've hit the F Lock button at some point. Makes me wonder if the "F" in F Lock is for a censored word that you say when you realize that it's responsible for not getting the screenshot?

There's a face at the top of my screen and it won't go away help!

All this computer hacking is making me thirsty. I think I'll order a Tab.

Anonymous:

GalacticCowboy:

Mine says

Prnt Scrn
SysRq

Whatever that means...

Hard to believe that the system request key is almost 40 years old. Our keyboards are showing their age. Pretty sure we don't need that alternate graphic key anymore either.

Millions of Europeans beg to differ.

No! no! I mean an elephone
Who tried to use the telephone—
(Dear me! I am not certain quite
That even now I've got it right.)

Knux2:

GalacticCowboy:

Anon:

PRT SC key

Well there's your problem. My keyboard has a key that is clearly marked "Print Scrn", but my laptop has "prt sc" (all lower case). I don't have a "PRT SC" key!

Mine says

Prnt Scrn
SysRq

Whatever that means...

I win. Mine actually says "Print Screen" right on the button.

Damn, you must have one of those fancy, high-end keyboards.

>My palm immediately and instinctively went to my forehead.

Now I know why I found the name "Palm Computing" so funny.

Evil Code Monkey:

Knux2:

GalacticCowboy:

Anon:

PRT SC key

Well there's your problem. My keyboard has a key that is clearly marked "Print Scrn", but my laptop has "prt sc" (all lower case). I don't have a "PRT SC" key!

Mine says

Prnt Scrn
SysRq

Whatever that means...

I win. Mine actually says "Print Screen" right on the button.

Captcha: transverbero - a Spanish word that changes spelling based on the gender of the person/thing performing the action

And mine says:


PrtScn
SysRq
Insert

Good luck getting it to even do a screenshot if you've hit the F Lock button at some point. Makes me wonder if the "F" in F Lock is for a censored word that you say when you realize that it's responsible for not getting the screenshot?

my "F" lock says "Func Loc". better than Tone Loc i guess.

ggeens:

Anonymous:

GalacticCowboy:

Mine says

Prnt Scrn
SysRq

Whatever that means...

Hard to believe that the system request key is almost 40 years old. Our keyboards are showing their age. Pretty sure we don't need that alternate graphic key anymore either.

Millions of Europeans beg to differ.

Like that's ever made a difference.

I dealt with PMS every day, all day.

And this, my friends, is why you should never have more than one girlfriend at a time.

ggeens:

Anonymous:

GalacticCowboy:

Mine says

Prnt Scrn
SysRq

Whatever that means...

Hard to believe that the system request key is almost 40 years old. Our keyboards are showing their age. Pretty sure we don't need that alternate graphic key anymore either.

Millions of Europeans beg to differ.

Uh oh, everybody hunker down, there's going to be an ineffectual UN resolution coming our way in five to ten years! Which we'll veto!

EatenByAGrue:

I dealt with PMS every day, all day.

And this, my friends, is why you should never have more than one girlfriend at a time.

I've heard they get into sync, so they'll all be crabby at the same time. That's why God invented fishing.

Anonymous:

GalacticCowboy:

Mine says

Prnt Scrn
SysRq

Whatever that means...

Hard to believe that the system request key is almost 40 years old. Our keyboards are showing their age. Pretty sure we don't need that alternate graphic key anymore either.

Sure. Apart from a bunch of characters required in other languages and a bazillion shortcuts, there is no use whatsoever for AltGr.

Just because you don't need it doesn't mean that it is useless, you know.

Sylver:

Anonymous:

GalacticCowboy:

Mine says

Prnt Scrn
SysRq

Whatever that means...

Hard to believe that the system request key is almost 40 years old. Our keyboards are showing their age. Pretty sure we don't need that alternate graphic key anymore either.

Sure. Apart from a bunch of characters required in other languages and a bazillion shortcuts, there is no use whatsoever for AltGr.

Just because you don't need it doesn't mean that it is useless, you know.

Yeah, we've covered this and the concensus was "screw those guys". Their fault for not speaking English.

Anonymous:

I've never understood why some people are unable to distinguish between their browser window and the content therein. They all have TVs so it's hardly an alien concept. If they saw a shot of some broken glass in a TV program, would they ring up their local repairman to get their "smashed screen" fixed? How do they even know they own a TV if they can't tell what part is the content and what part is the TV?

C'mon, you know full well there are a lot of people who don't even realize they have a "browser", nor any idea what that might be.

I recently spent quite a bit of time trying to get a customer to navigate some browser menu, forget which one, maybe View Zoom or Edit Preferences... the point is, she literally could not see the chrome around the edge of the content area. She'd been looking at it so long her brain had just become used to blanking it out.

emmayche:

>My palm immediately and instinctively went to my forehead.

Now I know why I found the name "Palm Computing" so funny.

I always loved the term "Palm Pilot", until I learned it was a hand-held computing device and not another term for a useless wanker.

Code Refuser:

"I figured a screenshot was in order.

After a grueling thirty-minute exercise of locating the Print Screen PRT SC key, loading Paint, pasting, saving, and then emailing, I waited another few minutes for the rather large attachment to show up."

This is perhaps one of the only nice things about working in corporate IT, where you know that all of your users already have a remote control client installed on their machines.

Unless it's incredibly obvious what the problem is, I've gotten into the habit of just remoting into their machine right away and having them SHOW ME the problem. It really makes life a lot easier. Especially when there are a bunch of applications that I'm expected to support, yet really aren't all that familiar with myself.

It's not even a matter of being in corporate IT. We have an EchoVNC client that we usually use where I work, but if that doesn't work, we just have customers hit up ShowMyPC, or any of the other, similar sites out there.

Asking a customer/client/user to describe something they don't understand is a waste of time.

mine says:

PRINT
SCREEN

which is strange because it doesn't perform either of those commands

The SysRq key does still serve a purpose - especially in *nix systems.

The F-Lock thing reminded me of a recent support issue I had. One of the users at a remote office set me a message telling me that our custom in-house application was acting strange. It normally runs a database search when you press F3 on the search screen, but every time she pressed F3 Excel opened. Knowing how archaic and proprietary our in-house app is, I was 99.9% sure it should be impossible for it to run Excel.

So I remote in to the user's computer, run a few tests on the app and it works fine for me, so I had the user try it for me, and sure enough Excel opened. Totally baffled at this point I had her reboot thinking maybe the computer's subjective reality had become corrupted. (Wink wink.) Unfortunately it still did the same thing after the reboot at which point I said "I'm going to have to run some tests and get back to you."

30 very confusing minutes later I actually looked down at my keyboard for some reason and noticed the Excel logo on the F3 key and I felt like an idiot. I promptly sent her an instant message that said "Press the F-Lock key and try again." Sure enough, problem solved.

Anonymous:

I've never understood why some people are unable to distinguish between their browser window and the content therein. They all have TVs so it's hardly an alien concept. If they saw a shot of some broken glass in a TV program, would they ring up their local repairman to get their "smashed screen" fixed? How do they even know they own a TV if they can't tell what part is the content and what part is the TV?

That is because for 90% of the people their higher level cortex shuts down as soon as you put them behind a computer.

The other 10% ends up in IT.

Anonymous:

Pretty sure we don't need that alternate graphic key anymore either.

I like having a Compose key (which is what I've repurposed that key for) as it makes it much simpler to type things like “interesting” symbols intuitively.

dave:

am i the only one who can't see the screen shot?

Every time I try to view it weird computer things appear.

Alex, you have no shame. It's 'telepathic'.

GalacticCowboy:

Anon:

PRT SC key

Well there's your problem. My keyboard has a key that is clearly marked "Print Scrn", but my laptop has "prt sc" (all lower case). I don't have a "PRT SC" key!

Mine says

Prnt Scrn
SysRq

Whatever that means...

Mine is
PrtScn
SysRq

The people who design keyboards should do a Reality check

ggeens:

Pretty sure we don't need that alternate graphic key anymore either.

I have a Danish/Norwegian keyboard, and I use AltGr all the time. I have to press it to type these characters: {}[]@£$€