In the world of tech support, there is a special scorn reserved for “newbies” or “n00bs”, people that are new to computers and are often afraid that their machine will burst into flames if they click the wrong thing. Personally, I never understood the hate. Yes, newbies are annoying… but weren’t we all newbies at one point in our lives? There are a million things I don’t know, and I know that if I tried candlemaking, caulking, coffee roasting, or stamp collecting I’d be an annoying newbie to all those with experience.
The people that I hate are those that have “just enough knowledge to be dangerous”. For example… calls like these:
Knowledge Is Dangerous Guy: “I was hoping you could help me.”
Me: “Sure, let’s first get some basic information about your system.”
KIDG: “Well, it’s running Windows Vista SP2, but it has two network cards.”
Me: “Two network cards?”
KIDG: “Well, I didn’t want to spend the $30 for a router, so I set up a virtual machine running Squid, which is connected directly to the cable modem…”
Me: “Ummm… OK…”
KIDG: “But I didn’t think that was safe, so I set up Internet Connection Sharing on an old Windows 2000 computer I had lying around, so the Squid output from the virtual machine is forwarded to the Windows 2000 machine, and…”
Me: “Wait… what?”
KIDG: “… now, I used to have ZoneAlarm and Kerio installed on the Vista box, but that didn’t work out so well, so the Squid box sends the output to the ICS machine, which runs it though ZoneAlarm before sending it to Kerio on the Vista box…”
Me: “Wait…”
KIDG: “…and when it goes through Kerio, it’s then sent to Norton Internet Security’s firewall.”
Me: “Wow.”
KIDG: “But I think the problem is with the HOSTS file. See, I’ve been keeping a list of 12,000 ad sites I don’t want my computer connecting to in the HOSTS file… plus I’ve got another virtual machine for outbound traffic running a VPN client that routes all DNS requests to the root server in Zurich, and…”
Me: “Do you have any another anti-virus programs on the Vista box?”
KIDG: “No, just the one. What do you think I am, stupid?”
Me: bangs head on desk.