A good number of you are pretty tech-saavy and as a result end up being the unofficial tech support person for your friends and family. Heck, I bet a fair number of you even do some tech support professionally. I myself spent a good solid 8 years doing front-line helpdesk work for both my High School, and later at my University. Today I do some higher-level support, but most of my work is centered around infrastructure projects.
Some time ago I wrote an article about a Computer Help spoof book idea I had called "What Every Computer Geek Wishes You Knew: But doesn't have the patience to tell you" The concept was to have it be a light-hearted jab at the ridiculous, but extremely common, tech support questions we receive on a daily basis from those in our lives who are forced to deal with technology, but are frightened to death by anything more complex than a toaster oven (and lately, even THOSE are getting too complex).
The concept was broken down into three sections...
1. "Ok, what do you see on the TV part?" - A guide to computer hardware and basic terminology
2. "No, do NOT open that E-Mail attachment!" - What every user needs to know about staying safe online
3. "The Proper Care & Feeding Of Your Helpdesk Slave" - How to treat your helpdesk/IT guys to get the best service possible!
4. "What Ted the computer guy doesn't feel like explaining" - A Q&A style section with one page dedicated to one common question or issue.
Throughout this "help book" there would be little anecdotes of both stupid users, and stupid tech support people. The whole thing would be done in a humorous tone, and it would be as much comedy as informational.
Well, that was the concept for the whole thing, but putting it all together in a book is a bit of a large task. So instead, I think it might be a fun exercise as a series of articles here on JoeUser. Maybe when it's all done it could be rolled up in a PDF or something, I'm not sure yet.
The thing is, while I've spent a lot of time doing support, I've forgotten all but a few gems of user intelligence. This is where you, the reader, come in. What are your favorite personal tech support stories? Most frustrating moments? Most common points of confusion?
If you've got 'em... post 'em! If you don't want to do so publicly, email them to me at mike@evilsysadmin.net with the subject "Idiot Users" I'm looking for all sorts of funny stories (ones you've experienced personally please, trying to avoid the email forward stories or the urban myths of computing).