Technical Challenged Family
OK, so let me explain why I refer to the wife's family as America's Most Technically Challenged family, and remember, it's my job to solve any tech related problem for them, usually via the phone.
So, couple of weeks ago, they upgrade their cable service to get cable modem, and upgraded cable TV line-up. They used to just get the really basic cable package -- cable plugs into back of TV, and you get 50 channels... now they have a package that requires a settop converter box.
Before, the only device they had to turn on/off was the TV; now they have a settop box as well. Not really a problem, since the cable company gave them a universal remote with each settop that can be programmed to control the TV as well. The day of the installation, I was down there to get things working for them, and programmed the remotes for their TVs and demonstrated how to use the remote.
"Just press the red "All-On" button, and it will turn everything on. Press it again, and it will turn everything off. The volume controls the TV volume, and the channel buttons control the settop channels."
Everything has worked smoothly, until a couple of days ago, but knowing they were coming up for the 4th of July, they just waited until they were here to ask me about their latest problem.
"Richhh..." -- seems like mom drags my name out a little when she's about to ask me about a problem.
"Richhh, the cable has been great, and we love it. Except, now the problem is that we accidentally turned the TV off manually, and now we can't watch TV. When we press the "All-On" button, the TV turns on, but the light on the little box goes off. When we press it again, the TV turns off, but the light on the little box comes on. We haven't been able to watch TV for a couple days now."
"Are you serious?"
"Yeah."
Can anybody think of the solution?
Turns out that the wife's sister did. She figured out to turn the TV on or off (not sure which) manually, and it has been working for a couple of days now... Mom just wasn't aware of it.
Oh, and just to give you some background on Mom and Dad... Mom used to work for the NSA and Dad was an engineer for a defense contractor. I would tell you what either of them did, but both had classified jobs. Dad's last project before he retired was related to the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter
So, couple of weeks ago, they upgrade their cable service to get cable modem, and upgraded cable TV line-up. They used to just get the really basic cable package -- cable plugs into back of TV, and you get 50 channels... now they have a package that requires a settop converter box.
Before, the only device they had to turn on/off was the TV; now they have a settop box as well. Not really a problem, since the cable company gave them a universal remote with each settop that can be programmed to control the TV as well. The day of the installation, I was down there to get things working for them, and programmed the remotes for their TVs and demonstrated how to use the remote.
"Just press the red "All-On" button, and it will turn everything on. Press it again, and it will turn everything off. The volume controls the TV volume, and the channel buttons control the settop channels."
Everything has worked smoothly, until a couple of days ago, but knowing they were coming up for the 4th of July, they just waited until they were here to ask me about their latest problem.
"Richhh..." -- seems like mom drags my name out a little when she's about to ask me about a problem.
"Richhh, the cable has been great, and we love it. Except, now the problem is that we accidentally turned the TV off manually, and now we can't watch TV. When we press the "All-On" button, the TV turns on, but the light on the little box goes off. When we press it again, the TV turns off, but the light on the little box comes on. We haven't been able to watch TV for a couple days now."
"Are you serious?"
"Yeah."
Can anybody think of the solution?
Turns out that the wife's sister did. She figured out to turn the TV on or off (not sure which) manually, and it has been working for a couple of days now... Mom just wasn't aware of it.
Oh, and just to give you some background on Mom and Dad... Mom used to work for the NSA and Dad was an engineer for a defense contractor. I would tell you what either of them did, but both had classified jobs. Dad's last project before he retired was related to the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter
Labels: complaints, family, wife
posted by Rich B | 9:20 AM
1 Comments:
And I bet their VCR blinks 12:00!
My grandmother's clock on her microwave was alway an hour off for half the year because she did not know how to change the time for DST.
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