Your brother just got a new digital camera. Your mom got a GPS device. Your grandfather got a Falcon Northwest gaming rig with six cores and a graphics card that requires its own physical plant. You’re stuffed, sleepy, and just want to watch TV. How do you distract these hordes long enough to get in another turkey sandwich and viewing of A Christmas Story? Follow these easy steps:
1. Distract – When sis walks up to you with a new DSLR, pick up the camera and set it to manual. Then fiddle with some dials. Then take some pictures – preferably bad ones. Then say: “Look, I’m no good at cameras/laptops/PDAs/iPhones. Set this thing on automatic for now and then read the manual.” You can also write down a list of helpful websites they can visit, CrunchGear being one of them, and encourage them to teach themselves to fish.
2. Disrupt – Bring your own piece of tech – an XBox 360, a Wii – and install it onto their equipment. Point out some of the ports they’ll find on the back of their new TV and then begin playing. Once you’re done, they’ll ask you to help them get their own tech to do what yours did. This gives you an opportunity to run through a basic checklist on a device you already own and understand and can teach on your way out the door.
3. Delineate – Feign ignorance after a certain point. Turn on your Mac? Sure! Best location to get porn? Wha? Install your webcam? Sure. Get it to work with Yahoo? Nope. Pick out a great camera? Buy the Canon I own. Find a way to get cool visual effects in Microsoft Paint? Not my department.
4. Detroit – None of your relatives live in Detroit, except Matt’s. Go there for Christmas. Don’t answer your phone. The city could use the tourist dollars.
These four tips will help you stay sane and happy during this weekend full of debauchery.
OR… just live right now, you’ll be unemployed, can’t afford such gadgets, and none of your family members will have gotten any due to the cost.
Therefore you can just go about playing your Wii, while eating that turkey sandwich with A Christmas Carol playing in PIP and the worst they’ll bug you for is money to by an espresso, ’cause their unemployed too. ;)
I feign total enthusiasm to the point they get annoyed and look elsewhere. Helps when you ham handle their new toys too.
If my grandfather got such a rig, I’d be “helping” him out full-time.
I turn it into an appointment — “Sure, I can help you after the holidays, why don’t you make an appointment with me to get together; I can come over for supper & beers some night and work on it.” $10 says you won’t get a call unless they’re serious, and if they are, you get food and beer. :)
Thats funny but true come any time with the family as any computer or tech issue you get leaned on to resolve for them while you are visiting.
I knew my Computer Engineering degree was good for something ;)
,Michael Martin
http://www.googleandblog.com/
“Sorry, but I’m a scientist. I can’t actually DO anything.”
All of your comments are funny. I got a call today from one of my friends asking me about their new computer because it wasn’t getting a DHCP address from RoadRunner. People think I don’t work or I just have a lot of free time. Greg Ellison
Or… you could just stop being a prick and help them out.
You live alone don’t you.
And you in your mum’s basement? Tis the season to screw the intellectually unfortunate? Makes you feel good huh?
I’m just glad there are two geeks in my family. I mysteriously vanish.
Holidays the time to screw the intellectually fortunate? Because as far as I know, I celebrate holidays too and enjoy having time off work where I am not REQUIRED to work with idiots and whatever they have broken. I don’t ask the morons to come over and have a look at my car or put in new plumbing or roof my house for free.
We followed the distract tactics this year. Brought our studio photo gear and took family portraits. By the time everyone had a pic with everyone else (and the dogs) the whole crew was so exhausted that they left us alone. We also got lots of laughs out of it.
This shit was better when Matt Hickey wrote it. He was the good one. I can see why he fucked off to Gizmodo.
My sweet aunty cursed me out when I failed to remember her 3 year old email password from when I set up her computer!
“Damnit Alan! Why can’t you recall something simple like that?”
I feel your pain. I just tell them I do not remember other people’s passwords, and if they forget they are on their own.
I would ask that brother with the digital camera to let me try the new toy, and I would play a bit with it.
What is it with you tools taking every opportunity to bash Yahoo? (Spurned lover?) Hopefully your partner, Matt, will help you overcome your “Y” fears. Sad-sad-sad… especially in the holiday season.
Why? Because they suck. Yanghoo is a douchoo.
Enjoy the Christmas spirit.
Wish I had read this yesterday. : )
At 7 am CHRISTMAS MORNING, with a small child asleep in his bed dreaming of Santa loot (honestly, what boy dreams visions of dancing sugar plums?), I was up the road at a neighbor’s because their A/V identified the US Dept. of Transportation as a threat. Her truck driver husband needed to leave that afternoon with the permit they were trying to download from the site.
I wasn’t able to convince Trend Micro that the DOT really was a safe source, so I created a Gmail account for them, sent the file there, opened it in Gmail, printed, saved and fled.
I was back home by 8:30, and had cinnamon rolls ready when the kid woke up (Thank God – my husband would have divorced me on the spot if I had screwed up Christmas morning because I was off nerding).
The fun part of the story is that they had been messing with the file since before Thanksgiving, but still waited until CHRISTMAS MORNING to ask for help.
Three words…
I Use Linux
Trust me, it works for me! (And yes, I do use Linux)
ALL my relatives live in Detroit. Crap.
Then go to Hawaii. If they call you say “Sorry, but if you want me to fix it you are going to have to swim out here”
The last time I clicked… Web 2.0 was driven by ‘user-generated content’. We need excited newbies to learn how to use, and stay excited about, their new tech-toys! Try to think longtail!
If they can’t fiqure it out, and are afraid to ask, they end-up with an expensive paper weight and won’t be visiting CrunchGear or generating any content… other than a loathing for geeks.
I don’t help old white people for free, since they likely t voted for Bush, and hence they don’t care for socialism.
Or you could just send them over to Mindovo Technology Concierge – a new startup out of Chicago. Your relatives will love it and your phone will stop ringing.
http://www.Mindovo.com
Enjoy the Christmas spirit. I would like to help my friends. So i give a small gift to my friend. That gift is very useful to as. It is a computer.
————-
Vanessa
Steakhouse Finder – best steak houses and steaks
New DSLR? Tell them to take a class at the local Community College and to join a camera club.
I was once inclined to be “Mr. Fixit,” but I’m over that now.
The typical scenario involves spending Saturday afternoon installing the previous two service packs, 40 updates, removing crapware, chkdsk, defrag, installing security software, scanning PC and removing viruses.
Invariably, you’ll get a whiney phone-call that goes something like this: “What did you do to my PC? It runs slower now.”
I’m done!
And you in your mum’s basement? Tis the season to screw the intellectually unfortunate? Makes you feel good huh?