Everybody knows I am a Mac person, right, and loathe pcs when I have to use them, right? Why make a machine that is intentionally difficult to navigate and user unfriendly? Yeah, I know we could have the argument all day (the comparatively low price is a check mark on the positive side of pcs). So a friend asks me to help her learn to use her computer (pc, of course) and I figure, how hard can it be?
What’s worse is she has a 13 year old boy, and shouldn’t he already know how to do everything on a computer, inside and out? Wouldn’t you think? Because it’s just instinctive to boys? But no. So yesterday at one of our impromptu lessons, she asked me to figure out why the laptop is not wirelessly connecting to the printer. It did once, about a year ago, but it’s never done it again since. A fine starting point, knowing something is capable of working, but for some mysterious reason. . . isn’t.
So I pored over the printer manual pdf (useless), reinstalled the software, looked hard at the network set-up, which saw all the devices on the network, but for some reason put the printer off to the side and said it wasn’t connected to the network. It SAW it on the network, but not connected? So, long long long long story short, I eventually got it on to the network.
I am so proud of myself. I didn’t actually do any teaching that day because I was too frustrated, but at least I learned something.
But… but… but… I love my PC.
And Mac’s befuddle me when I have to work on one.. so I guess it kind of works both ways. AND not being Mac smart, I really can’t compare the two.
I had a laptop once that would NOT NOT NOT recognize the Wifi signal and I never got it to do so and the maker of the computer never got it to do so either… I sent it back.
Good for you to persevere long enough to fix her printer issues. Half the time I fix something on a computer I have no idea what I did or why it worked, it just does!