The Doofus Bar Part Two

So what happened to the original post about the Doofus Bar? Who knows? Google just killed it, which is really funny because it's all about...well, you'll see.

All Apple users know that Apple Stores have Genius Bars. If you have a tech question about your new Gizmotron, you make an appointment, show up, and then the genius comes out, waves his wand filled with Jobs-o-Dust and your problem is solved. On your way out, you buy something made in Shenzen for $30 that you could have bought yourself for $0.99 from the same people in Shenzen who sold it to Apple.

On the plus side, it's a great system, because you get face-to-face with the person who is helping you, unlike trying to fix your Dell oh hah hah hah oh hardy har har.

But if you're NOT a Mac user, you don't realize what is going on every waking minute inside an Apple Store. It is total and complete chaos. If a store the size of the Stonestown Apple Store were selling clothing, there would be two sales ladies employed and one would be in the back folding sweaters. In the Apple Store there are a minimum of fifty blue shirted sales clerks, and each clerk is being asked three questions at once by the hundreds of bug-eyed shoppers. There is a steady parade of shoppers into the store and sales clerks into the back room, where they are force-fed herbal tea and encouraged to listen to Mozart.

So when you take your MacBook Pro into the Genius Bar, and sit down on the little stool, and the blue shirt calls your name, and the genius asks you why you have come in, and you tell him the reason is because your MacBook Pro can't reach the internet anymore, because of the error message (This Computer is using a Self-Assigned IP address and May Not Be Able to Connect to the Internet), he may say "Hmmm," but probably before he can say "Hmmm" he will be assaulted by four customers who don't have an appointment but only have "one little question" and by two sales clerks who wonder if anyone has seen Tyrone?

Sooner or later, the genius will stare at you, and your MacBook Pro, as if to say "who the Hell are you and what are we doing here?" Then he'll push away from his stool and say "let me take your computer into the back room and I'll see what I can find."

This is the equivalent of "Your call is important to us."

When he comes out, the genius at the genius bar may have gotten you onto the internet, but only while you're in the store. As soon as you go home, nothing in your whole house will work, including the furnace.

Apple users: forget the Genius Bar. The Great Plotnik says use the Doofus Bar.

The Doofus Bar is called "Google." You type in "MacBook Pro self-assigned IP address" and you will discover that a hundred people have had the same problem and ten of them wrote in possible solutions. Start with the first one and if that doesn't work do the second one. Keep going until one works.

The geniuses haven't heard about these fixes. But now you have.

In Plotnik's case the solution took four tries but the right one took EXACTLY fifteen seconds. The problem was with the firewall. All Plotnik had to do was go to a particular file (provided by the Beautiful Doofus who wrote in the solution to the Doofus Bar), delete the file with one click, then boot off and boot back up. When the computer booted on again it returned to the default firewall setting automatically and worked perfectly. FIFTEEN SECONDS.

The reason the file had become corrupted was these things happen when your computer has to try to find new equipment or software you have installed, like a NEW IPAD.

NOT your modem has failed. Call Comcast YAHHHHHGGGGGHH.

NOT you need to reinstall your operating system YRHGGGHRRGHHH!

NOT Tyrone. Who's Tyrone?