People Divulge The Most Surprising Computer Skills That People Still Don’t Know How To Do

It seems like the younger generation is often the generation in charge of having basic computer skills and walking our older counterparts through how to use them.

Teaching them how to save something as a pdf, or how to install a firewall and how not to download creepy solitaire game from third party websites takes up a lot of our time..

Eventually, though, you expect they will pick up some skills of their own.  When they don’t, it can be incredibly frustrating to go through what you consider a simple process again and again and again.

So when Redditor anushitech polled Reddit:

“What is one computer skill that you are surprised many people don’t know how to do?”

People saw it as an opportunity to vent.  And vent they did.

Cyberspace: The Final Frontier

“I remember my aunt wondering why her document wasn’t in the My Documents folder on our family computer.”

“She had saved it in her own My Documents folder on her own computer the next town over and apparently assumed there was only one Windows 98 communal My Documents folder in existence.”-b*ttboy3

“I taught a computer course several years ago.”

“I remember the biggest thing for most completely-new computer users was not looking at their hand while moving the mouse, and being terrified of breaking the computer by accidentally closing a window or something.”

“Oh, and knowing whether they should single click or double click – this was a major preoccupation for some.”-timmyrey

“I teach web design at the college level. Used to teach community weekend workshops. Html and css with some expected knowledge of computer basics.”

“Local workforce development group would enroll people to update their skills, but would never actually check for prior knowledge. Had to teach how to hold a mouse, that right-click meant use the right mouse button.”

“Had to teach how to open and save files. That the web was not loaded onto a computer and that you needed to connect to the internet first.”

“Not a lot of actual html taught some weekends, which was a shame for those who really wanted to learn. Waste of time for everyone.”

“I started sharing curated resources for web design. started pointing people to a basic into to computer class that should be taken before mine.”

“Kept making requests to have someone vet the students before putting them in my class.”

“Finally gave up when i had a student who wanted to use her ancient flip-phone so she could take work with her.”

“No internet on the thing so made her user a school computer. She got pissy when something wasn’t working.”

“Turns out she was trying to go online with Windows calculator. No idea how she even got there. She eventually went ballistic when the code she typed in her email wouldn’t work (again, wanted to save the work to take with her).”

“I have almost eternal patience, but couldn’t take an irate woman screaming in my face because aol email won’t work for writing code.”

“The class was supportive and I patiently let her leave early. I decided teaching those weekend workshops weren’t worth it after that.”-mister-chad-rules

Going The Long Way

“I once had a guy send me a picture of his desktop. I asked for screenshot of his screen as it was generally easier then asking for the IP address which our company puts on the desktop.”

“Guy couldnt figure out how to screenshot his desktop wallpaper but figured out how to take a photo with his phone and attach it to an email.”-pixxie84

“Working in phone customer support, the number of times I’ve had an old person do a Google search for a web address instead of going to the url has made me realize most middle aged and elderly have no idea what a browser or address bar are.”

“‘Type “site url” into the address bar,’ I say. ‘I did! The page isn’t here!’ they say.”

“9 times out of 10 they were just on a Google page and I lost a week of life expectancy.”-taburde

“I’ve tried to incorporate spreadsheet skills into the chemistry labs I teach, and at the intro level some of them are REALLY uncomfortable using it for repeated calculations, and instead want to just work it all out one by one.”

“Some of these students are the same ones who complain that I give way too much work…”

“That’s not to say I’m not still learning new functions in Excel (just learned about sumifs and countifs recently, which def simplifies my gradebook calculations), but I really feel like everyone should have a grasp of the super basic stuff and have a concept of what a spreadsheet can be used for.”-caffeinated_tea

There Are More Ways To Do One Thing

“I was training a new 22 y/o coworker and noticed a lot of her typing mistakes involved both the first and second letter of a sentence being capitalized.”

“I inquired about it and her response was ‘sometimes i don’t turn caps lock off fast enough’… i was puzzled but kept it cool…”

“I decided to watch her type a little later on and sure enough she would hit caps lock every time she needed a upper case letter followed by turning caps lock back off…”

“When I told her what the shift key did she was genuinely ‘mind blown.’ She had just graduated college.”-Satanic_Nightjar

“People are generally pretty computer illiterate. I’m not a tech guy whatsoever but a basic understanding of shit will save you so much time.”

“I used to work at a Planet Fitness and good god do the managers need basic training in computer skills.”

“I was treated like a god for knowing how CTRL+F worked and having a basic understanding of Snipping Tool for printing out QR codes.”

“They used to really push us to sell Gym Essential Kits and when writing reports on how much they sold they would bring up the report and count one by one.”

“I was a front desk guy and had to show my regional training manager that if you just press Control + F and type in an individual employee’s name, however many times it came up minus 1 (it showed the employee’s name one extra time) was how many they’d sold.”

“This saved us hours over the course of a week. In typical manager fashion, he went ahead and took credit for this and promoted his real-life friend who was bad at their job.”

“F**k that place. I’ve never seen a company with that much incompetence at a manager-wide level.”-PrecariousAchiuwa

“As a teacher, I’ve been saying this for years. Kids and teens these days aren’t as tech savvy as they claim to be, or rather we claim them to be.”

“They grew up in a world populated by apps, very user-friendly apps.”

“90% of apps have the same structure- the lines or dots to indicate the menu, same style controls or swipe methods, etc..”

“They know which apps to find and can navigate them very efficiently; however, ask them to do intermediate level tasks on a desktop or even successfully using their browsers when researching and they struggle quite a bit.”

“Things I learned in tech/computer class in the early 2000s is not really taught anymore.”

“Instead, it’s heavily focused on programming and apps, and while very cool and likely a marketable skill, they seems to skipped basic functions and tools.”-ElZarigueya

“Google how to fix their problem. Apparently I have some superpower where I see the error code or know the name of the software and a brief description of the problem and get helpful google results with little effort.”

“Everyone else seems to just say ‘I don’t know how to find that…’ and then treat me like some kind of mystical wizard afterwards.”-anon_e_mous9669

The little tips disclosed here about computer use could really save you time and work one day if you didn’t already know them, so it might be a good idea to break out that notebook and write some of these down.

At the very least, we can all avoid becoming another story on AskReddit.

This Is How Often Should You Be Shutting down Your Computer

A lot of us are unclear on this, so here are a few tips about how often you should or shouldn’t turn your device off.

Years back it was said that users should never leave computers in idol status or sleep mode because it used up precious battery life, made them overheat, and essentially gave the computer itself a shorter lifespan. With new technology, this is no longer the case. Many computers no longer have fans running constantly and are built to fall into battery saving mode.

There are three “power” states your laptop can perform: Full shut down, sleep mode, or hibernation. Let’s talk about them, shall we?

Photo Credit: Pexels, John Petalcurin

Full-shut down

This means exactly what it says—the computer is turned completely off. To continue operating a healthy and fast device, you should do this weekly. This is especially important if you run a ton of applications or surf the internet. Cashed copies of website attachments and ad blockers clog up your device, and a full shut down clears them out.

Brad Nichols, a technician with technology repair service company Staymobile says, “Those things just have to be reset at some point so they’re not always running. It just builds up over time, and the more you use it, the slower it will get. It resets the computer and gives it a fresh start.”

Sleep Mode

All laptops have this option versus shutting down completely. I think of it as a cat nap for my Mac. In most cases, sleep mode occurs when you leave the laptop opened. When you return, the screen is dark and you can tap a key or wiggle the mouse to wake up. Things are still running in the background, but this can save the headache of booting up our computer, which takes time.

Hibernation

This puts your Mac or PC into a deeper sleep. It will shut down more items on your computer than sleep mode, but some apps will run in the background.  Overall, however, less power is used.

If your still worried about using up too much power, Geek Squad Agent Derek Meister says that if you shut off your computer completely, “You’re talking maybe a dollar’s worth of savings on your electric bill. If you’re worried about cutting down your energy costs, you’re better off unplugging chargers that aren’t in use or turning off a printer until you need it.”

Determining the right method is up to you, as the user. My advice would be to combine these methods depending on how long you step away from your desk. And do give your laptop a rest once a week.

They need it, just like us humans.

The post This Is How Often Should You Be Shutting down Your Computer appeared first on UberFacts.

This Hack Reveals That Private Instagram Accounts Are Not so Private

It’s a battle keeping your photos and posts private on social media – no matter how many times you update your privacy settings, Facebook and Instagram always change them (Facebook owns Instagram).

And now there’s a creepy work around where your followers can easily get your photos and videos and share them. It doesn’t matter if your account is public or private – your followers can distribute your pics and vids either way.

And that’s not supposed to be the case.

Photo Credit: Pexels, energepic

Here’s how the simple hack works

  1. Open up Google Chrome
  2. Go to the Instagram photo you would like to ‘rip’ the URL from
  3. Right click anywhere in the browser
  4. Click “INSPECT”
  5. A side bar will open. Click on “NETWORK” at the top tool bar of the sidebar.
  6. Click IMG

Photo Credit: Google Chrome, Nicole Flasco

Below this tool bar a list of several small thumbnails with apear. You can right click the IMG and copy the web address. I tried it and this is a valid fact.

According to BuzzFeed News, this is possible for public feeds, “private feeds and stories” and “can be viewed, downloaded, and shared publicly…”

Is this the same as taking screen shots of photos?

A Facebook spokesperson says yes.

“The behavior described here is the same as taking a screenshot of a friend’s photo on Facebook and Instagram and sharing it with other people. It doesn’t give people access to a person’s private account.”

The report says no.

“There is a difference between being able to screenshot a private image from a webpage and being able to easily publicly share the URL of that private image with un-authenticated users. These public URLs contain some basic info about the photo or video they link to, including details about how it was uploaded and photo dimensions. They also prove authenticity; you can’t fake one. Beyond this, deleted photos and videos are being stored and accessed on Facebook’s content delivery network after a person took an action to remove them from their profile.”

Photo Credit: Pixabay

The other issue with ripping the URL is traceability. All of your IG and Facebook data is hosted by the social media company’s content delivery network. Currently, Instagram tracks who sees your content. However, if someone grabs the URL, traceability is lost. Now your photos can be used without your permission, and you’d never even know they were floating around the internet.

We’ve all heard the news about Zuckerburg and the privacy issues Facebook has gone through in the past. He promised users that Facebook would shift to being a privacy focused network. So far, I’m not sure things have gotten better.

It this a flaw in Facebook’s security? Or is it unavoidable given internet browser permissions to view HTML? Let us know what you think!

The post This Hack Reveals That Private Instagram Accounts Are Not so Private appeared first on UberFacts.