Julie R. Neidlinger: Lone Prairie Art Works (via Mowser)

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Re-Run: Tech desk. It's free!

written by Julie R. Neidlinger 0 comments link this post

::This post originally ran November 16, 2004. I was talking to my sister Jacqui, telling her about this incident, which made her laugh and led to this re-run.::

The phone rang. My sister, in a somewhat distraught state of mind, was on the other line.

"My monitor won't work! It's black, with the light blinking on the front!"

Hmm. Monitor. That's a new one. Last time it was the CD-ROM.

"Well, OK. Try this."

Since her cordless phone had conveniently died that evening, she had to yell instructions from the kitchen to my nephew.

"Cody, push the power button in and hold it for a few seconds...does it turn off?"

Pause.

"The light is off."

"OK," I said. "See if you can turn it back on again."

Pause.

"Yes, but still no picture."

"I hate to state the obvious, but are all the cords plugged in tight?" I asked, meaning the port at the back of the computer, not the power which was obviously functioning.

"Yes, yes. I checked that already. It happened, the monitor went haywire, when I (long story of evening's events here)"

"OK. Well, try this."

"Didn't work."

"Try this."

"Still not working."

"Try this."

"I'm going to put Cody on the line and I'll go do that."

Pause.

"Hi auntie."

"Hi Cody. Is your mom at the computer?"

"Yep."

"Have her try this."

"Um, it didn't work.

"OK. Tell her to give the monitor a gentle whack."

What the heck. Works sometimes, I figured. In the background I heard a sharp thump. If that was gentle, her spankings must be brutal.

Long pause. My sister was back on the phone, hollering in the background for Cody to go brush his teeth.

"I give up! I'm going to drop-kick the thing."

"That was some gentle whack..."

"I need this computer by this weekend for (long reason here)."

"Just calm down now, we'll get this fixed." I thought for a moment. "How about trying this?"

"Nope."

"This?"

"@#$!#$@#!"

I was stymied. Just to be sure, I decided I would ask my sister to verify the connections.

"How about going to the computer, gently pulling the cord from the back, and checking to see if any of the prongs in the serial port are bent. If not, gently plug it back in, but make sure it's all the way in."

Exasperated sigh. "OK!"

Long pause. She was back on the phone.

"I don't believe it! It's on now. I guess the plug was loose on the back."

Yep. First rule of thumb for tech calls: make sure everything is plugged in correctly.

"Well, glad to see it's working. See you next week."

"Yep, next week."

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