Found myself in a tech support forum looking for help, leaving there very unhelped, unsatisfied and kind of bullied. Tech forums seem to have become the guy that argues the best, is the go-to guy for tech help these days. and that seems to have killed off a lot of people’s desire to visit tech forums. This is my experience with the latest forum I went to… and a little back story.
I was gifted a Motorola Droid Bionic by a coworker. This Phone was built for the Verizon network. The network I have my cell phone service from is Cricket. After some research, I find that I can get my bionic flashed to Cricket’s network.
At the time, I also had a roommate who had an android cell phone, that was on the Verizon network, and she was wanting to try Cricket. Since I didn’t have the money to get my Bionic flashed just yet, we took her Android to the local Cricket store and had it flashed to their network. We compared her phone signal, to the signal I was getting with my old phone. Her signal was a considerable amount better than mine. and my phone was built for the Cricket network. So I decided that I was definitely flashing this new Bionic to Cricket.
That night, my roommate got an update notice to her phone. So.. Like any normal person would do, she clicked the “accept” button for the update request. Next morning my roommate had no signal. She was not receiving text messages and she was not receiving phone calls. She was unable to send a text massage and she was unable to make a phone call. So, back to the Cricket store we went. The clerk was very helpful and asked my roommate if she accepted an update notice, and my roommate like a trooper admitted this with a smile. The clerk said “yep, that’s what kills our flashings. First one is free for you ma’am, but please do not accept the next update or you will be in here again getting your phone flashed back to Cricket and it will not be free”. We thanked the clerk and came back a few hours later to pick up the phone. Sure enough, there was an update notice on her phone, she hit cancel and then fiddled around with the phone a bit and then disabled the notice.
After seeing that, I booted up my Motorola Bionic, connected to my router and searched for an update. No update available. A few days later (pay day) I booted the phone yet again and checked for any software updates I could. None except Facebook but nothing for the operating system of the phone. I take my phone into the Cricket store and pay my $75 to get the phone flashed, come back an hour later to pick it up. Sure enough… Update notice. at the very exact second I saw the notice, the clerk told me “Do not update the operating system (may have said firmware but I have my doubts)”.
So I go home and search for ways to disable the update notice. I came across cricketusers.com . I posted a simple question trying to find where the heck my roommate went in her settings to disable the update notice. This turned into a bunch of over zealous tech tards trying to get me to reflash the phone. all I wanted to know, is where in the menu did she find the setting to disable the notice. Since the roommate wasn’t very techy, she really has no clue what she did. and that is brain murder in it’s self. but she got it done.
So now I know why that place is empty and no one goes there. Techy dudes that get angry because people do not want to follow their misguided misinformed advice. I don’t care if that guy was Dr. Jacob W. Cricket. He wasn’t listening to the issue and how simple the solution could be. Just in a mindset of “I know better, listen to me…. rebuild everything”.
and this is what killed forums. Newbies.