75% of all Women should not be allowed to touch Computers

Entry posted by theArrowheadian January 17, 2009

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For those of you who don't know, all of you, for the past two days now I've attempted to fix my sisters craptop that is apparently her "baby." I find it odd because usually when a person refers to their computer as their "baby" there is actually something special about it. Her laptop on the other hand just contains about 11 gigs of crappy music and some stupid word documents that are all backed up, which is the only positive, I think.

Lets get into the meat of the issue. Basically she managed to install some fake Anti-virus Adware that just shut down the desktop and closed Internet Explorer. Yes IE I'll cover that later. That was the biggest thing of her concerns that she couldn't get on the internet to read Perez Hilton and of all things she makes fun of me for playing video games, but it's somehow socially acceptable to read the blog of a fat homosexual who changes his hair color like his underwear, and not to mention that he just takes stuff off of other celebrity gossip sites and just draws on a picture.

Note:

For those of you who want to say that I am am homophobic or intolerant, I'm not. I'm fine with everyone as long as they meet one condition and that is don't put it out there like it makes you important or unique, basically don't showboat it.

Now I figure well this should be easy, I mean she has Norton install, I know I hate it too, but I suppose it works for her because she doesn't know any better. So I go to that only to find it expired 3 years ago and then I think to myself well I can just install another Antivirus software for free. Long story short that was useless, but only to find that, get this she didn't even have XP Service Pack 2 installed and the software I attempted needed that. So I go and get the XP SP2 download and put in on the craptop, only to find that she happens to be missing a file that SP2 needs to update. After another dead end I figure that I'll just get a Norton 2006 key online only to find all Norton keygens are available, but 2006. Eventually I found one, but then it was so outdated that I basically wasted 15 minutes finding.

After all of these failures I figure that only course is to reformat the C Drive, but this isn't as simple as the home PC, no no. I need restoration disc that came with the laptop, but guess who doesn't have it? That's right little miss communications major. So that was all last night. From roughly 7PM to 11PM my time. Today the computer was taken to the IT guy at my father's company and normally I think of these guys as stiffs and kinda !@#$% like, but from what I was told he seemed like not a !@#$%. Basically he told them what I already new and suggested the typical good Antivirus software, but my favorite part was when he told my sister, "Why do you have Limewire? Are you trapped in 2003?"

So most of today was spent trying to another windows XP onto the PC in hopes that it would reformat the current one then install itself, but lull and behold the failure that I have brought forth upon this planet.

Now you might not think that is so dreadfully bad, but imagine having to do while being bombarded with repetitive questions/comments like:

"Is this going to break it"

"Maybe you should ..."

"No stop don't do that"

And a host of others that I don't want to reminisce about right now. I got maybe one positive thing in all of it and I will never hear it again. This being "Can you fix it because you're the smartest person I know?" I still don't think it's worth it and flattering doesn't work on me, although it was amusing.

This is only the first case that I will take about. The other is my own mother. She has one use for the a computer, which she finds useless. This use is e-mail and if the e-mail is not connected via Outlook Express, then it is impossible to read. She checks the email about once a month as well so this means it get clogged up with about 150 emails or so and she insists on reading every single one including spam e-mail. So 3 hours later and a few infected emailed purged she finishes and doesn't know how use a word document properly. She then asks for help and even after writing her a guide of how-to's she "misplaces" them and I have to explain for at least 10 more times.

This brings me to my final reason 75% of women shouldn't get a to use a PC. The lack of program knowledge basically. Many times during my schooling projects need creating and what better way to make a project than to make a powerpoint? Simple and it "looks nice" for a minimalist effort put in. Being so tech savvy everyone has to have a flash drive these days and so this handy device is connected to the computer. Once they figure out that their flash drive is not the C Drive which usually takes a couple minutes and being shouted at be 5 different people including a teacher and then being called mean because of their ignorance. So this girl finally manages to find the powerpoint slide show, but how does one start the slide show? Where oh where could that button be? F5? Yes, but that is too complicated of a key on the keyboard to press what next? The box in the lower right hand corner? Too small for this novice user of a mouse to accurately click on. The final option, browse the toolbars for a couple minutes until help arrives in the form of another student with a brain. Now the feature presentation with more "umm's" and "uhh's" than you can shake a stick at is ready to begin.

Now I recognize that not all woman are this way. In fact I've talked to some women while I was going through the craptop crisis and they were able to suggest things that I myself had not thought up. I have no problems with women using computers, but at least take the time to learn what you're using, what is better, and read what you're clicking. It's not that hard.

Later:

I said I'd mention the Firefox vs. Internet Explorer talks I have with my sister. It basically starts with me telling her about extensions and customization of the browser, but for some reason she can't understand. Oh and I forgot to mention she is still using IE 6, so she doesn't even know what a tab is. I just can't go on with just *facepalm*

The thing is I know for any woman who reads this, they probably fall into the 25% of woman who deserve to use a computer. I just think that using a computer has become a part of everyday life and that simple things like the things I listed shouldn't be a problem, but magically are. I guess I just run into these same things so often it's like I'm living in a rerun of my own life.

I don't know what the solution to this problem is. Maybe all women should be forced to use Mac's because then when they do something it will congratulate them upon opening a program. It looks better to my eye so it must therefore be better. That might be the worst mentality to have. I mean I'm all about style and looking good, but if you can't preform you might as well be a mirage in a desert. I have a feeling all the things that Apple advertises that it's Macs can do to be superior to Windows the 75% couldn't do.

I think what it comes down to is lack or unwillingness to learn and do minimal research. I'm not really sure I have anything else I could say.

For those of you wondering why I don't comment on things like Linux or Opera it's because I don't use them. If I did then I would suggest them and from my experience most people think that what they use is superior. To that I say be content with what you like, don't try to impose your will on others and just think of what you like as a well band that you only know about because once it becomes main stream it won't be cool.