Today is Tech Support Thursday, and that means a new post in the Parallels series.

Working on cars vs Repairing a computer

This one is really not a very good parallel, but I do think its a funny comparison, so hear (read?) me out.

What people think when they see you working on a car:

Women: There’s a manly man, working on his car.

Men: [rush over] What’re you working on? Mmmhmmm. Yup.

What people think when they see you repairing a computer:

Women: [pointing finger] NEEEEEERRRRRD! [laughing]

Men: [pointing finger] NEEEEEERRRRRD! [laughing]

When people find out you’re great at working on cars:

Hey man, I’ve got this problem with my car, think you can look at it?

When people find out you’re great at working on computers:

Here’s my computer, fix it, NERD!

The truth is, both repairing a car and repairing a computer are hard work. Both require a great deal of technical skill and precise measurements. As cars progress, a good mechanic also needs to know a great deal about the engine computer.

But, we all know who gets more respect, after all, a computer guy can only keep you from getting on Facebook… not from getting to work.

Today is Tech Support Thursday, and that means a new post in the Parallels series.

Parallels is a series comparing Technical things to their real-life equivalents in a mostly silly way.

Today’s Parallel:

Defragging Your Harddrive (PC) or Repairing Permissions (MAC) = Cleaning your desk.

You’ve had it happen, your productivity is slowing, you don’t access things as quickly as you used to. Sometimes, you think that you’ve lost a file and just can’t find it.

Then, it’s time to clean your desk. So you go through all of the drawers, clear off the desktop and try to make sense of those notes you made 5 months ago about a project you completely forgot about.

Defragging or Repairing Permissions can be like cleaning your desk – something you wait to do until there is no way you can get work done without it.

OR

It can be a way to procrastinate. Look, I work at a college, I know how it is. I’ve witnessed the mentality that says, “Yes, I have that huge paper due… but my desk – wow, it is so dirty –  I should probably clean it.”

Ever been there?

Maybe you’re not in college anymore, and you’re just bored out of your skull “But, wait… when was the last time I had my harddrive defragmented? Maybe I should do that…”

Now you may be thinking: Is this just a rambling post that makes not much sense? Maybe… but then again you may just be thinking about doing some computer maintence or even cleaning your physical desk now. See what I did there. I planted a thought without having to go multiple layers within a dream within a dream.

So there you have it, whether essential or procrastination, cleaning your desk/defragmenting your hard drive certainly are parallels that exist in the real world.

Today is Tech Support Thursday, and I want to start a new series: Parallels.

Parallels will be a series comparing Technical things to their real-life equivalents in a mostly silly way.

Today’s Parallel:

Gaming on Windows ME to Eating just before going to a water park

Trying to play a game with Windows ME was like eating just before going to the water park.

You see, I had a nice HP desktop, and borrowed a copy of Return to Castle Wolfenstein to try out on my new machine. Once I installed the game, I started it up… and waited… and waited… and waited.

I went to make a sandwich, mmm, sandwiches, and came back to see – “LOADING.”

I worked on homework, yes the very thing I was trying to avoid, for 10 minutes to look up and see – a black screen! What is going on? Rather than try to do anything I got frustrated and lay down on my bed to rest my eyes.

I then bolt awake to the sounds of the game starting up. Finally! I check the clock and notice that it is 30 minutes later. And that is why gaming on Windows ME was like eating just before going to the water park

You get to see all these people super excited and jumping into the pool, riding the water slides, and you have to wait 30 minutes because you just ate.

Aka, it stinks.

What’s a parallel that you can draw from your technical experiences?