I always find it entertaining when friends try to get technical and blunder. Yesterday we had a friend trying to describe her new ADSL modem she got. She wanted to set it up in her house and really had no idea how to do it. When describing it, she referred to it as having “whiffy”. It took us a couple of seconds to realize that what he was trying to say was that it had Wi-Fi. J She called it “whiffy”, like what you might call an old pair of socks that are in need of a wash!

 

Then we explained to her that she needed a dongle and even showed her one. And for the life of me, I could not explain to her how it was connecting to the modem without a wire. It had no aerial, so it didn’t make sense to her that it was sending and receiving stuff wirelessly.

 

Another friend yesterday was trying to setup her digital set top box. And even a simple thing like cabling AV equipment into the back confused the living daylights out of her. She had to get a switch as her TV only had one set of AV connectors. She was able to get the set top box to transmit a signal through the switch to the TV but the DVD only played the sound. She was convince that she needed another cable from the switch to the televisions and it took her a little while to realize that what she needed was a cable from the DVD player to the switch which she had not connected. She really didn’t understand it.

 

I could spend days talking about times when even techie friends said funny things in relation to technology. I’m sure you’ve all got similar stories to tell.