They think when I tell them to turn the monitor on that they need to push the button on the CPU.

I assume that was a typo, or do they really think they have to open up the computer casing and then have to find a button on the CPU? (which won’t be there)

What I also hear very often is that people mix up “Internet Explorer” and “the internet”. E.g., they would say “The internet crashed! What do I do?”

I sympathize with newbies too, but still find in funny when I hear them say something completely off the wall.

Wow! That’s all I have to say about that one…

I can relate to this one all too well but it’s been more of an issue with some of my students. They think when I tell them to turn the monitor on that they need to push the button on the CPU. They are just kids though, so I’ll give them a break.

Great point! Sometimes when Ryan and I are at the store we like to listen in on some of the conversations going on between sales reps and customers. Some of the funniest experiences I can recall have been at the Apple store when the Apple folks weren’t getting their Vista facts straight.

My grandma will soon be using ubuntu. I just need to get this hard drive cleared off.. The only two people in my family that ever really use Windows at this point are my dad and my older sister.

I’d say the most common issue was people using “hard drive” instead of “base unit”. This works both ways, as the number of times I’d have to ask for the hard drive to be returned and then wonder why I had the whole case arrive on my desk.

I once had a monitor – a screaming 15″ model – on which the cable was going bad. If you twisted it just right, it worked, but otherwise the screen looked all weird. Well, one time I was helping the IT guy at my school and he brought in a monitor that was looking all weird and he said it needed to be degaussed. He said it as if degaussing a monitor was right up there with open heart surgery. I thought well ok, and degaussed it. Then I told him about my monitor and gave the cable a nudge. He stood there for several minutes playing with the cable, trying to see if his twisting it was really was what causing the screen to go back and forth.

I don’t know if Gmail does this any more, but it used to, when you have an address in the email, it would display a link with the address and underneath it said, “Map it.” I got an email from a church secretary (I had set up the Gmail accounts which is why she was emailing me) asking me if I knew how to print just one email, and if I knew how to keep people from mapping our (email) address. I don’t think I still have the email, so I’m not sure if she mean email address or street address. I had no idea what she meant by the mapping, so I asked her to clarify and she sent me an image in a Word document showing me. I was so dumbfounded I never replied. I hope she figured it out. Oh, and the “print all” doesn’t print all your emails, so I can almost understand the confusion there.

Boy, I could go on…