Mouthbreathers!

[nando]

I am pretty forgiving when it comes to asking people to find stuff they would normally never use, like a MAC address. iT IS WHEN i SEE AN EMAIL LIKE THIS AND THEY TELL ME THAT THEIR SHIFT KEY IS BROKEN THAT DRIVES ME INSANE. No you numb skull, your caps lock key is on. These are people who are 30 and under who couldn't have graduated college without a basic understanding of computers yet can barely function in the work place.

somebody called me once because their laptop keyboard was "broken" - it would randomly type numbers, /*-+ signs, etc. their num lock was on.. lol

[pureaudio]

I am pretty forgiving when it comes to asking people to find stuff they would normally never use, like a MAC address. iT IS WHEN i SEE AN EMAIL LIKE THIS AND THEY TELL ME THAT THEIR SHIFT KEY IS BROKEN THAT DRIVES ME INSANE. No you numb skull, your caps lock key is on. These are people who are 30 and under who couldn't have graduated college without a basic understanding of computers yet can barely function in the work place.

[Bishop]

No, it's buried. It's kinda easy to find if you know where to look, but for most people, they would probably never find it just browsing through the menus.

[nando]

Don't get the wrong idea. I'm certainly not going to flip out on some kid because he doesn't instantly know how to find his MAC Address. I am more than happy to help them along, especially considering how deeply it is buried in the Xbox menus. I just think it's amusing that most people I talk to see IP Address and assume that is what I am talking about when I just told them it was the MAC address that I needed. I guess the word "Address" throws them off.

Edit:
And of course, since I posted this rant 4-5 people have called wanting to register devices that have all had their MAC Addresses ready for me. Mmmm, crow, it tastes delicious, haha

wouldn't it be printed on the bottom of the xbox? it's usually right on the device, no need to go through a bunch of menus. but then MS isn't exactly known for sticking to standards. :p

[PaladinReed]

I don't really think this is ridiculous. This is just a typical rant about morons. Much akin to the ones posted by 90% of everyone else in OT. And being ignorant myself, I definitely would not have asked if he were talking about the IP address. If i had been asked to procure a MAC address I would have just merely stated, "and where can that be found" if I had no idea what he was talking about. And the comments about the state of applicants to systems of higher education here in the states is really very sad. Not too far off base IMO. OP, I can dig it.

[thearkitekt]

remember your typical xbox online player has all of about 20 brain cells left from the constant drinking and yelling of the word "bro" to other "bros" about how "brotastic" the last game of halo went...

[wildstoats]

Don't get the wrong idea. I'm certainly not going to flip out on some kid because he doesn't instantly know how to find his MAC Address. I am more than happy to help them along, especially considering how deeply it is buried in the Xbox menus. I just think it's amusing that most people I talk to see IP Address and assume that is what I am talking about when I just told them it was the MAC address that I needed. I guess the word "Address" throws them off.

Edit:
And of course, since I posted this rant 4-5 people have called wanting to register devices that have all had their MAC Addresses ready for me. Mmmm, crow, it tastes delicious, haha

[Atreus]

what optimator said.....

just go to run>cmd>ipconfig /all

make flyers of that and post them everywhere. lol.

[nando]

dude, people still call their towers a "modem" and the screen the "computer". Something like a MAC address is foreign to 99.9% of the population, even the basics of HTTP, DNS etc. have no meaning to them.

[wildstoats]

I think so. To you and me, a MAC address and an IP address are two COMPLETELY different things that are not even remotely related. To this kid who called you, he probably doesn't know even what an IP address is or does.

I think that is beside the point though. I don't think that asking people to remember one acronym and one word and then find the corresponding phrase on their screen is asking too much. They don't need to know what the technical difference is between an IP Address and a MAC Address they just need to find the values that I specified. Seems pretty simple to me.

I think you need to brush the crumbs from the entire tin of Danish butter cookies that you devoured for a morning snack off your XXXL t-shirt and get in touch with reality.

Do you have a book of tech guy cliches or are you making these all up on your own?

[shiboujin]

Yeah, wasn't exactly what I thought the job was going to be when I started. They hired me in as a server administrator / intranet developer but when your company consists of 3 people you end up wearing many hats.

Hahaha I'm a programmer, they said similar things. I work with clients almost daily.

[shiboujin]

In the IT world, you get it all the time. If you can't deal with it, you're in the wrong business lol. Half my work day is explaining IT terms in analogies. It's annoying but computers are made to serve the average person, not the savvy.

FYI MAC addresses are unique identifiers. your IP address changes, your MAC addresses is "hard coded" into your network card. There is a theoretical overlap but for the most part, your network card has 1 MAC address and it never changes.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MAC_address

[Optimator]

I am just expecting too much?

I think so. To you and me, a MAC address and an IP address are two COMPLETELY different things that are not even remotely related. To this kid who called you, he probably doesn't know even what an IP address is or does.

I think you need to brush the crumbs from the entire tin of Danish butter cookies that you devoured for a morning snack off your XXXL t-shirt and get in touch with reality.

[wildstoats]

I am sure you will be flooded with these requests due to the influx of new students, so I'd suggest you suck it up, Sally, and start doing your job as a help desk employee.

Yeah, wasn't exactly what I thought the job was going to be when I started. They hired me in as a server administrator / intranet developer but when your company consists of 3 people you end up wearing many hats.

[Alkasquawlik]

To be honest, asking if it was the IP address would've been my first question also.
The rational being that sometimes there are different names for the same thing. I remember looking all over the place for a special cord I needed for school (I forgot what it was called), and when I went into one store, they said it was just an Ethernet cable.
Same thing, just a different name.