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Family Tech Support
This computer, from "Zeos", I think, had a catchy name which I've forgotten, and was marketed as an all-in-one, "zippetty-doo-da" fast, productivity-increasing, feature-packed system, from a company who'll be there tomorrow. It was, like most computers you'd buy for your mom, immediately obsolete, but great for email. It was also great for playing computerized bridge and pinochle which is as far as my mother wants to go in computer gaming. For a couple years this Pentium 75 zippety-doo-dahed along quite happily, raising my mother's productivity considerably before trying to retire early, by pretending its motherboard was fried. Unable to convince it otherwise, I buried the "fried" motherboard unceremoniously at the curb and replaced it with one scavenged from a derelict PC carcass which was camped in my office.
This "new" PC was even faster than the previous, which made it about as current as writing email on parchment with an ostrich feather dipped in India Ink, but bought me another year of not buying a new system. That was a little over a year ago. A few months ago, that computer died too. So, a new computer was ordered, with a place to plug a complete modern life right into the back. USB ports, Serial ports, Modem Ports, Mouse ports, Ethernet, Fishnet, Parallel ports, Perpendicular ports, car ports, Video out, Video back in, and PDA handheld-infrared-ultraviolet-see-in-the-dark-intradimensional wireless toaster ports, pipe anything and everything into a tiny beige box. This box is great for email, and for playing computer bridge and pinochle.
For a month, my mother became really productive (mom's productivity is measured in forwarded joke emails), and then, abruptly, stopped being productive at all. Concerned about the uncharacteristically empty "Mother" folder in Outlook Express (a subfolder of "Deleted Items"), I sent several emails which went unanswered. It occurred to me that she might have been sucked into some port on the back of the computer and was deadlocked in a virtual game of computerized cribbage with either Keanu Reeves or a rogue supercomputer from IBM, but I didn't follow up on this. The next time I heard from her was on my answering machine - "You can cancel my internet access, I've packed up the computer and put it in the closet. Bye."
My mother's messages often sound like epitaphs, but this sounded particularly dire. I knew that either Keanu had beaten her in cribbage or her computer had died. Despite being totally generic, the new computer was still new and still under warranty, a warranty that the computer gnomes in her closet were unlikely to honor, but which my local computer supplier probably would. I took drastic measures and called her. A frustrated woman answered, close to tears "Well, it stopped getting email two months ago and then one day I turned it on and no picture showed up and I didn't want to bother you because 'You're so busy' and I know it's my fault and..."
She was not particularly helpful in troubleshooting the problem. Furthermore, the computer's condition of being unplugged in a dark closet made successful diagnostics so grim a prospect that I patiently explained the whole "gnome-warranty" thing to her and asked that she send it back to me. Swayed by my logic, she agreed, and several days later a package arrived from her.
Understandably excited by the prospect of fixing a computer I bought because it wouldn't need much fixing, I tore open the package to reveal one unremarkable, heavily over-insured surge suppressor. Remember the surge suppressor? Confusion descended. I felt as though I'd ordered a latte and been handed a stapler. Was it the words I'd used? Did the gnome story scare her? Did I say "Please just send me any object and I'll use it to fix your computer from a thousand miles away." Again, I took emergency measures and called her. I pretended that I hadn't opened the box in case it was an early Christmas present. "Please tell me this is an early Christmas present" I said. "No, it's that damned computer" was the reply that I both feared and got. Because this surge suppressor is about as mistakable for a computer as an old leather boot, I had two painful options; one of making my mother feel like a total boob, and the other of configuring an email client on a mid 90s surge suppressor. Boob it would be. I said, as delicately as possible "Mother, this isn't a computer, it's an old boot!"
On my desk now sits the multi-port roadster of a computer that arrived today from Florida. Sure enough, there's the bridge and pinochle CD still in the drive and, sure enough, it doesn't work. I suspect that the huge dent in the case, indicating some sort of collision, trauma, impact, stampede or other violence might have something to do with that. Maybe the tech gnomes took a whack at it. Whatever. She's my mother. I love her. I'll just fix it.
The trouble with doing tech support for your family, especially if they live in another city, is that I never have the right equipment or software with me to solve what would be a pretty simple issue if only I had a second pc with access to the internet....
- If This Peace Is Fictious, I Shall Destroy It
I was at a LAN party once, and my mom called me via telephone to tell me that she couldn't get the modem to disconnect from the Internet and that it was blocking the phone line. She told me over the phone that she needed the line to make a phone call.
I was speechless
--------
It's OK to be social, just don't tell anyone about it.
Short answer: Don't do it.
Long Answer: Don't do it. It isn't worth the aggravation. When something goes wrong, it's automatically your fault. It doesn't matter they dropped the box while they were moving and unseated the boards. It's still your fault. It doesn't matter that they tested the huge electro- magnet for the science fair project right next to the hard drive. They still expect you to fix it over the phone.
If they can't put it together themselves after you tell them what parts to get and install an OS on their own, just let them buy the Dell and deal with their tech support department.
The night before I left on a plane to another province my girlfriend reminded me that I promised to install her CD-Burner that she got for Christmas. Now, realizing that when I'm away from home it will be much much more difficult to guide her through the process than it would be to stay up at 3 am and install her burner.
After successfully installing the burner and saying our goodbyes, I took off for a 4 month stint in a new province.
Well she got what she wanted and dumped me over the phone! I guess the reverse is true for dumping- it's easier to dump long distance than to deliver tech support.
Lesson: Never solve your girlfriends computer problems completely or she'll devalue your relationship.
Ok, this has *long* been a pain for me: Family Tech Support...
Because you *can't* just tell them to go pound sand, or just tell them that they are stupid....
And you want so badly for them to understand...but walking them through things on the phone- no more, stop, please....
Ok, but the WORST part about family tech support is when they start telling their friends, neighbors, etc, that they have a son (or daughter) that can help them too...suddenly its like when you have a truck: you help everyone move- A tech family member: you fix every damn computer in their circle of friends. Hell, it's getting so bad with my family that I think before too long Kevin Bacon is going to call me and ask me to fix his computer....
Kill me now...
"We are the music makers, and we are the dreamers of dreams."
-- Your Mom
Come on. We've all lived this story, so why post it?
Do you want to hear how I taught my mom how to use email?
Front page slashdot material? Pshah!
Good quote, too many chars. Seriously, the slashdot 120 char limit sucks!
usually involves resetting her desktop to the current grandchild picture... ...which isn't in the right file format... ...which can't be changed on her machine because she doesn't have the app... ...which is on the local server, but can't be installed because first the keyserver software needs to go in... ...so the picture gets e-mailed to me so I can convert it...
and there goes 30-45 minutes because last week's picture wasn't good enough. oi.
"My mum meant to send me a computer, but she sent my something else."
HTH.
Thank you! Now I don't feel so alone...
If this is the primary feature today, it's a pretty sad statement.
I do "in house" tech support for my wife. One of today's gems (bless her)
/, key.
"How do I get a single quote?"
I point (patiently?) at the "/' key.
"I thought that was a comma!"
"What's this key?" (pointing #$*patiently$W%$# at the
All of my immediate family, folks, brother, etc. are running Linux, so I am basically their only tech support. Thank god for ssh, and VNC. :-) I've only had to remote login once though, most of the questions have been over the phone.
I want my rights back. I was actually using them when our government stole them after 9/11.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Magic, this made my day. I can rest safe knowing its not just my family.
In my own personal experience, being a computer professional is like being a car mechanic... Your family and friends, and even people you dont know expect you to fix their computer problems all the time. Not a week goes by that I dont have 10 people at work telling me about their computer problems, another 5 at home (neighbors, ect) and family is the worst... At a certain point I became like the computer guy on SNL... Its parody, but true, most of the time the problem can only be fixed by saying "MOVE"...
Fire in the hands of the village idiot is no tool, but a weapon of mass destruction
I regularly get calls from my mom asking me how to fix things the tech support gurus at the hospital she works at can't fix.
One time she called me asking where the power button was on the new notebook computer they had just bought. It stayed on for two weeks until I was in the area and stopped by. I entered her office to find the entire department standing around the computer looking for the power button. The truly confusing thing is, how did they turn it on without knowing where the button was?
Anyone who works in technical support will know, and most certainly dread this phrase and other similar sentences...
I know I get it all the time - friends, girlfriend, ex-girlfriends, parents, ex-girlfriend's parents, people who live down the road, colleague's friends and family even. Once someone knows that you work in a helpdesk or tech support environment - that's it, bub.
Doomed to be that guy who can "Have a look" and sort it out.
"I hate Cthulhu, Cthulhu hates me, I kill his cultists, He eats worlds for tea"
My Dad, Greatest guy in the world he is, Somehow lost sound in his HP PC I got him 3 years ago.
:/
I failed to notice until a few weeks ago while I was visiting. I saw that for some strange reason there was what appeared to be a tiny white cord dangling from beneath the front cover of the machine. I looked closely at it and realized it was a earbud. Not just any earbud. It was one of those tiny little white ones that still come with cheap AM/FM radios. You know? The one's you use when you listen to the radio in your bed and don't want to wake your wife. SO here sat this tiny little white earbud (actually yellowed since it was probably around the house since the 70's) sitting on his desk. I asked him why he needed it? (Perhaps silent viewing of video files or music?)
No, he didnt have sound. "The sound thingamajig is busted" he said. I take a look at the rear of the PC and notice the speaker wire is missing. SO I scrounge beehind the desk and plug it back in. The speakers are now functional again. I ask him when the sound stopped working and he says, "Oh about a year ago" but I didn't want to bother you.
Something funny about an Old man using a circa 1998 PC with Circa 1960's technology.
There is no spork.
I have to do the 'family tech support' for relatives in a neighbouring town.
:)
I appreciate that its for family, but its a real ballache - especially when you have to take days off from your real job, spend money on fuel and drive over to them only for them to expect it as a freebie because you are family.
I think from now on, if I ever get asked if I can build a 'cheap PC' for family, i'll just point them at the Dell website or somethin
"Hey! Unless this is a nude love-in, get the hell off my property!!"
Yes, there was, and my dad selected it, and made a new account for dear Aunt Nan. Then I told him, "Dad, what we have here is your basic RTFM problem."
"RTFM? What's that?"
"That's 'Read The Fuckin' Manual', dad." (my dad is tough, he can take it)
My dad paused and said, "Well, I just decided to CMFS."
Which baffled me. "What's that?"
"Call My Fuckin' Son"
Alan
oh man, that was too funny.
Reminds me of the story of a mother who printed off and then snail-mailed her son a webpage she wanted him to look at.
Do not install Linux, do not pass go, do not collect $200.
Put Windows 98 on the damn thing, install PCAnywhere and a reasonable personal firewall package that they can't break (ZoneAlarm works just fine) and tell them not to touch ANYTHING that's not on the desktop. In fact, put a piece of sticky tape with 'WHEN IN DOUBT, HIT CANCEL' across the top of the monitor.
I've managed to keep my girlfriend's parents' $100 P166 up and running for ages now like that. I got them a cable modem, they can check their email and play their card games and look at web sites, and they're happy campers. What more could I ask?
And on those occasions when I have to stop by and actually sit down in front of the thing, it usually takes me about 15 minutes (5 to fix and 10 to reboot) and I get a free home-cooked meal out of it...
Cole's Law: Thinly sliced cabbage
so whats the point of this story? & why did your mother send you an over insured surge protecter?
You tried your best, & you failed miserably,
The lesson is:
Never Try
My mom asked me what to do with her old 486 now that she had the "new" computer (my old P120). She sounded sad when I told her to just throw it away. "Are you sure?" she asked me.
I'm sure it's still sitting in her closet collecting dust.
I got new shoes! With laces!
Many years ago I gave my old Cyrix 6x86-133 (iirc) to my parents after I upgraded to a Celeron 333. Well, I set it up and showed my mom how to send/recieve email w/ lookout express, type things in word and even make a simple web page! Everything was fine till one day she calls my oldest sister for help, didn't want to bother me since I was busy w/ school. Anyway she spends ~2 hours on the phone w/ my sister just trying to get word to open. Until finally it dawns on my sister that maybe my mom is not understanding all this newfangled computer terminology. The exchange goes something like this:
... mom ... The computer may be old but its still faster than you.
.lnk file with word perfect!!
sis: Mom what do you do when I say double-click.
mom: I click the mouse twice.
sis: Explain that again in more detail.
mom: Well I click the left-button and then wait about a second and click it again, I want to make sure the computer can register both clicks.
sis: Uuuuuhhh
And now for a father story:
This happened to a friend of mine whose father is a recently retired electrical engineer. It seems that the father calls his son to complain that everytime he tries to run solitaire, word perfect comes up!?! So the son says ok lets try running word-perfect, well that works fine. So lets try running mine-sweeper, word-perfect comes up!?! So after an hour or so of trying different things, basically all of wich result in running word perfect, he realizes that somehow the father has associated
Thoughts on tech, Software Engineering, and stuff
At least she didn't bake it!
If brevity is the soul of wit, then how does one explain Twitter?
Thank you so much for this article. Tech support for family members is a source of great stress in my life, however, none of them have sent me a power bar in the mail. I never realized how easy I had it. ;-)
sigs are a waste of space
So what did his crazy mom do to the PC.. am I the only one that wants to know what was wrong with it. Was there a grilled cheese sandwich on the motherboard? .. bastard...
"I am a kernel in the linux army"
I ended up providing tech support to pretty much all of my family. And that's fine, it is a skill I have that I am happy to share.
But supporting hardware makes me frustrated. I am a computer programmer at heart and I can't stand working with hardware, though I am good at it.
So I have a strict policy. I will fix at most one hardware problem a day. That's it. If I already did some hardware work on my computer, you are out of luck for the day. You have two hardware problems? Well, pick which one you want fixed.
It works remarkably well. I can keep my sanity when fixing other people's hardware. I don't get angry. I don't spend entire days working on the stuff (because it never takes _that_ long to fix a single problem). And most of my family's hardware problems get resolved quickly.
Oceania has always been at war with Eastasia.
So basically, you told your mom to send you the computer so you could fix it. She sent the power supply instead. Ha ha FUNNY STUFF!
/. story again?
How is this worthy of a front page
I feel for you, my parents havent managed to learn how to turn their computer off in the 8 years they have had one, the whole "push the button, no thats the reset button, the larger button" does not take hold. it will never stop. i only wish there were gnomes involved with this, it would make it more amusing, because let's face it, gnomes make anything better
Great read, the pains of pushing parents into the computer age has been one of my continuing traumas ever since I was old enough to dial a 2400 baud modem. Building and maintaining my own machine was always fine, but working on theirs always involved some sort of voodoo and stab in the dark diagnosis. I swear to god "disk image" technology was not created for replication of server setup and backup of critical business applications, but by some guy tired of fixing his parents computer.
I got smart about 4 years ago, after building and repairing (and being responsible for) about a half a dozen various models of pc for them.
I bought them a 800 number.
We all know a compaq and a dell and a gateway and a sony are all the same pentium chip, variations on a theme behind a mitsui cd-rom, sygate/quantum HD, etc etc etc. It's the tech support and the flashy brand name plastic case you buy. So buying one of these machines for a vastly overpriced sum is merely the cost of peace of mind when stamping in HUGE print on the top of the monitor a 800 support number for -anything- that they have questions about, and save those boxes kids, send it back to wherever if there's a problem for free.
Of course it doesn't reduce the flow of calls completely, (do I need to leave the cd in to play music once it's started?) but it cuts down on them significantly enough to make that 800 number worth any price.
1) How do I copy and paste again?
2) How do I open this email attachment?
3) How do I install this new program?
4) What did your nephew do to my computer?
5) Dad bought a new (?), how do I install it?
I do tech support for many family members. My mom actually started referring her friends to me. One thing I have learned is to not be too nice to the elderly. Unless you piss them off a little they won't remember the instructions.
"God fights on the side with the best artillery." - Napoleon, Marshal of France - speaking truth to power
Providing tech support for family members always leaves me feeling empty. When I had my professional support job, I could always hold on to that warm disgruntlement I would have after applying my technical wizardry to solve a problem (read: rebooting, showing someone how to click their mouse, unconscious nodding of the head to show my understanding).
Not so with family though. I once mistakenly let out an irritated groan at my mother's request to help her with the family computer. There is no greater power on this world than a mother's ability to invoke guilt. It just takes the fun right out of the job.
- music for the masses...
A particularly clueless user, who luckily no longer works here, I will call Eve.
Eve INSISTED on storing important HR documents on floppy disks. Tho I explained 20 different reasons why this was a bad idea and better, safer alternatives, she did it anyways.
This lead to "INVALID BOOT DISK" error messages on more than 10 times during a two month span.
As someone who once worked as a trainer, I am quick to politely explain how to fix an issue and many times even a layman's explanation of why.
"Eve, just take the floppy disk out..." etc.
I thought about disabling the option to boot from a floppy disk, but EVERY time she SEEMED to get it.
So finally one day it happened. She called me up:
Eve (stressed)- "I am getting an error message that says 'Invalid Boot Disk' and I did what you said, I took the floppy disk out"
Knowing that FOR ONCE just maybe the hard drive had died, I told her I would come right down.
Luckily, when I arrived Eve was on the phone.
She was right.
She was getting the error message.
She had taken the floppy disk out.
She had NOT, however, read the message that said "PRESS ANY KEY TO CONTINUE"
I waited for a moment, decided that it wasn't worth the effort, and because she was leaned over the keyboard, I turned the comp off and back on and walked away.
She was terminated in next month...
---"What did I say that sounded like 'Tell me about your day?'"---
I moved away from my parents that live in Germany to Tampa. What I made sure was working before I left was my linux box. When my mom want to send me a photo or something I just tell her, "leave it on the desktop", or when I want to send my mom a quicktime movie I upload it to my linux box then copy it over, so she never knows how it got there.
It's funny becouse I talk to my brother sometimes and tell him that he is low in HD space, 3000 miles away.
Sadly my mom said that they might have to move soon to a diffrent town. I hope my server comes back up!
hmm... for fun I enjoy launching DDoS attacks against 127.87.42.5
"Take two aspirin and try again in the morning."
Every time I work on a PC issue for any of my wife's family, I ask them where they keep their data files, so that I don't delete them. Each time the answer is 'I don't know.'
Obviously, everything is in the default directory. Not so bad, if that is the My Documents folder. But all they run is outdated software. "Personal Index to Bible Verses for windows 3.1", Old versions of Family Tree maker.
Of course, there's also all the active tasks. Dozens of active tasks, none of the firewall software or virus protection. They can't tell me what they are or what they do. I have to figure it out and tell them. They don't know why they are running them (they were part of the default install, of course).
I metamoderate, therefore I am
last week i went over to clear her computer of some clutter and i got a london broil dinner out of it plus i actully feel good hangin out with nani for a lil while :)
...than trying to tell your mother how to do something.
"Learning is not compulsory... neither is survival."
--Dr.W.Edwards Deming
I have no problem doing tech support for family/friends, as long as it involves some sort of food and/or drink in return.
I'll gladly come over, but I'll be damned if I'm going out of my way for nothing...
At least there are tools like Remote Assistance in WinXP that can help - I was able to use it a couple weeks ago to save myself a 45-minute drive. I was actually pretty impressed with the performance, considering my in-laws machine was just using dial-up access...
Stop by my site where I write about ERP systems & more
about three years ago, i was in compUSA lookin around with some friends when i stumbled thru the floor models area and there were two, 333 mhz imacs, just sitting there. i got a price, $500 bucks, called home, and after goading them for six or so hours convinced them to get the machine.
they had been talking about getting a computer since i was in jr. high, and they really needed to get into the digital age. at that point i was long out of the house, and they kept bitching that they couldn't figure out why i thought the internet job i had was any good. so i figured, they needed the machine.
bottom line. my "mommy spam" folder has been flooded ever since. for a 50 year old woman who had never seen a computer before, it is her life, completely. she won't let anyone in the family touch the machine, me included. and it sure is a good thing that it has not had a single serious maintenance issue since they bought it. best of all, since it only has one plug, they figure out how to plug it back in after they clean around it.
"You never want a serious crisis to go to waste." - Rahm Emanuel
I've spent the last ten years or so gradually improving the systems they use, and it really takes very little of my time. Last month I showed their lodger how to plug her laptop into the network, and showed my mother how to use LaTeX (plus installed MikTeX/WinEdt) for her book. Sometime next month I will upgrade the firewall from Redhat 6.2 to FreeBSD 4.8, and sometime in the summer I'll upgrade the Internet connection from modem to ADSL. No big deal really.
My wife called me from her job because she needed some tech support for her computer at work. Funny thing is, her employer has their own IT department and Help desk and she knows that. I couldn't believe it. I love my wife and all that, but that was just plain stupid.
It's like "looking busy" at your employment - it's actually easier to do real work than to fake it. - bmo
Who is going to be responsible for supporting this computer?
"Me, of course." he answered.
Are you going to be paid for the support you offer?
"Of course not." he replied, wondering why I even had to ask that question.
"Then," I replied, "Simple choice: Get a Macintosh. If things change, and you find you will no longer be required to support it, suggest Linux for the power, flexibility, and reduced cost. On the other hand, if things change and you will still be supporting it, but find you will be paid for the support, recommend Windows."
This Director soon became responsible for Information Technology Support at our site, and recommended a cutover to an all-Windows environment. Fortunately, he allowed some of us to run Linux, under "no support offered" terms.
Just a story, of course. ;-)
The thing about things we don't know is we often don't know we don't know them.
I just replace the computer every few years.
Fresh install of OS, Applications and then I move the data over. Fairly painless way to keep them out of my hair.
III.IIVIVIXIIVIVIIIVVIIIIXVIIIXIIIIIIIIVIIIIVVIII
What does the screen say now?
NOTHING...IT DOESN'T SAY ANYTHING!!!!
Is there a window open on the screen?
Yes.
What does the text say in the window?
(informative information from open window here)
------
Is your Modem plugged into your surge protector?
No, the modem stopped working after the last electrical storm so I unplugged in from the surge protector and plugged it into the wall. It starting working right away. Now it won't work at all!!
---------
Did you reboot the machine?
Yes.
So, you actually shut down the machine and rebooted?
YES! I REBOOTED.
Are you sure you didn't just log off and back in?
Uhhhh......
-----------
Sigh....
Or that it was a well written chronicle of our geeky, nerdy daily lives? Well, it was not. Neither "normal", nor interesting nor well written.
I enjoyed the read...it was a funny story to which I can relate and to me, was better than reading about some new video card that zitty teenagers like yourself will run out and buy so you can finally accumulate more "frags" than your friends on whatever the game-of-the-week is. This is called "subjective". You'll learn about it when you reach high school.
Furthermore, you don't speak for everyone here, so perhaps let the rest of us decide whether we felt it was "well written", "normal" or "interesting".
Ever since I moved my parents over to Linux from Windows, the only tech support I give is for StarOffice functionality - instead of the OS crashing. It's great!!!
Remote admin'ing is very nice.
Now I just need to get my in-laws switched over. I finally got them off of AOL and Linux is the next step. For the time being, I had them install VNC so I don't have to do anything over the phone (unless they have a network problem)
usually the only problems i have with hardware are from really old components (> ten years), really cheap components, or a computer i didn't test enough before turning loose.
a couple more bucks for name-brand materials and a couple hours of burn-in tests really helps. especially those tests: make sure the components are good before you start using them. i've learned to regret ignoring even the slightest anomaly.
-f
www.blackant.net
I've simply stopped helping family. I rebuild my father in laws total system, he then plugs in an IDE Zip drive with the unit powered up, fries everything and proceeds to tell the whole family I broke his PC? My mother calls and insist she "wants to type a letter" and begins to rail that this can't be right, she needs to set the margins. My wife's unlce still can't add a contact to the AOL address book, and still can't forward email.
I'm amazed just how far the American economy made it with this group in charge?
i once had a tough tech support situation. my ultrawide cock was stuck in this young girl's tight rectum, and she needed to shit. i told her to hold it, but she didn't want to and i was really getting a nice assfuck, so i told her to go ahead and she pushed hard and my cock just slipped out like a huge turd.she couldn't stop, so she just shit on the floor while i jerked off watching her. it was great. i was so hard after she finished, i fucked her stretched anus for an hour more and came bukets inside her tight young asshole. she then had to shit again and ...... well, the rest is history!
My ultimate get out; I write software, everyone knows that's my job. Hardware? Configuring operating systems? Um, no. If I didn't write it I can't comment on it. It's harsh I know but it works.
;-)
Also, should you venture outside and actually meet people NEVER tell them what you do...they all have computer problems in some aspect of their lives and they are only too happy to discuss them. Tell them you design the patterns of holes on Digestive biscuits - but do some research
That was classic AC.
Slashdot, home of supporters of free software, free music, and free speech.Except for Moderators that disagree with you.
Anymore, I recommend Dell. Why? Tech support more patient than I am. I haven't done phone tech support for several years now, but I still have to help Dad select multiple icons. Dell doesn't fix that, they keep the computer running so I don't have to - and can focus my attention on the shift key or click-and-drag.
:)
Same at parties - buy a Dell or a Mac. Both do tech support, and then I just _can't_ work on it - it'll ruin the warranty.
"Sometimes a woman is a kind of religion, she can save your soul & set you free from all your sins" - Bad Examples
there could have been nothing wrong with it in the first place, the mother could have just unplugged the monitor...
or have done a gem like i've had to troubleshoot
a couple PCs weren't working at school, so I went over to fix them. I flipped the switches and sure enough, nothing worked. So i crawled underneat the table they were sitting on to check if the were plugged in. Sure enough they were plugged into power strips. Only problem, Power strip A was connected to Power strip B, which was connected to Power stip A. If only...
My other sig is an import.
I thought this was Slashdot... apparently it's been taken over by Tech Support Comedy [techcomedy.com].
I wish I had subscribed to Slashdot in order to read this important news 10 minutes sooner!
My parents have Macs.
My parents-in-law won't even use a VCR let alone a computer. (Rural Japanese farmers are like that)
If you don't want to repeat the past, stop living in it.
My Brother-in-Law is a victim of the tech-support provided by his own brother who has instead of giving up the ghost and making him buy a new PC for a couple hundred bucks, kept upgrading his box, but keeping the same hardrive (at one point adding first a zip drive, and then a second HD for storage). As a result he had sort of a mismash of hardware with a 16-bit soundcard, and other legacy cards running on a Pentium II system with the original Windows 95 (and no remaining install disks).
Well eventually it was suffering from serious problems (in fact it still is having problems - but is generally working), and then stopped booting into Windows altogether.
Of course this had to happen just days after our most recent visit and likely many weeks before either his brother or I could make a "housecall". Over two hours (free long-distance on weekends is definately a mixed blessing) I carefully walked him through the process of (using only the Windows/DOS command line) of locating the most recent (2 years old!) backup of his user.dat & system.dat files (which being 'hidden' system files are not easy to find or move) and using them to overwrite his current copies. Which, following several reboots, got him into Windows.
That following weekend he went to a computer expo and bought a Win98 ugrade disk for (I think) $10. His system now generally works, but still doesn't shut down cleanly, though I think I will be able to get that fixed during the next "housecall".
Work for Change & GET PAID!
For some reason it escapes my family that I don't know the solutions to problems right off the top of my head and that I have to search for them online... something that they can do rather easily. Despite my repeated calls of "just go to google and type in [search phrase]", they still can't do any troubleshooting themselves. So, here's a tip for all you teenagers who want to play the hero and fix your family's computers. Don't! They will attach themselves to you like leaches well into your 20's and 30's.
"Oh dear, she's stuck in an infinite loop and he's an idiot" -Prof. Farnsworth (Futurama)
Next time, instead of giving her a computer she doesn't need, explain her how to vote properly.
We talked my mother into a pretty iMac after similiar experiences. It runs OS X, never needs rebooting, never gets a kick or a wack on it because it is too pretty. We email each other daily without incident.
Get her a mac.
I've been going through the same strife the past few weeks with my family. In late December I ordered a new computer for my mom, and when it got in I installed the basic software and got it ready for the Internet. Special softare items to remember:
:-P
-FileMaker Pro 4.0 (Mom does some database work for my Dad)
-Canon Digital Camera Software (Sister got a camera for Christmas)
Ok, so I set everything up and a week later I get a call from Dad asking why he can't install Norton Antivirus 2003 (I had already installed a licensed copy from the University), but he ignored me initially telling him that so he went out and bought it anyway. He was mad at me and wanted me to pay him for the Norton CD he bought.
A week after that I get an e-mail from my sister who suddenly can't download pictures from her camera and it's because of something I did to it (keep in mind it's been 2 weeks since I last touched the computer and the day I left she was downloading pictures happily). So it's all my fault that it's not working and I have to fix it IMMEDIATELY so she can get the latest picture of her boyfriend posted on her desktop. It turns out she had been neglecting to turn the camera on when trying to download and she expected me to fix it so the camera wouldn't have to be turned on to download pics from it.
Ok, now let's fast-forward 2 weeks to a paniced call from my mother telling me she can't type on her computer, none of the keys work and they had worked the day before. Turns out dad had just blindly clicked through error messages the day before and enabled the FilterKeys program, blocking ALL keystrokes. I said this and dad proceeded to tell me it was my fault for leaving that program on the computer.... grrr
One other general problem with the computer was on the previous machine mom had the thumb button configured as double-click, which she never told me about and expected me to just know about and that I should have set it up from the get-go, this produced several weeks of grumbling for her saying I didn't know what I was doing (because I didn't have the foresight to install a program she wanted that she never told me about).
At this point I told them they can fix the problems on their own and they all quickly started apologizing...
This is more frustrating than any tech job I've ever done
I spend hours with my fiancee trying desperately to make her understand the simple stuff, like "hotkeys". It is even worse with my future father-in-law. I once tried to explain why different sites have different prices for the same thing. . . ARGH!!!
Once my mothers computer, as she put it, 'stopped working'. So I came over and took a look at it.
The hard drive was broken! So we went and got a new one, and I set everything back up.
Not as exciting as the submitters story, but then my mom isn't a shit-for-brains dizzy cunt.
My grandmother lives about 500 miles away from me, and while on an extended break at her place (god help me) I said that I'd install XP for her (I have since been enlightened).
I installed it. It installed fine. I had all the drivers and they would work perfectly or so I thought.
So I installed the drivers, and they all worked...apart from the modem. This was a WinModem supplied by Tiny Computer, and it refused to play. It connected and stayed that way for about 5 minutes then fell into coma. Boom.
Luckily, this was on my last day there, so I blamed the problem on BT (her ISP) and ran.
Now, the shit has hit the fan and I'm now never allowed near her PC again...whee.
My three conclusions are thus:
1) Always carry a three disc set of Red Hat 8.0.
2) Set fire to all copies of Windows XP you may have.
3) Try and convert old people to being Amish. Saves you trouble.
If you're happy and you know it read my blog
My mom has decided her computer is the best way to manage family protographs and home videos. We spent half of Christmas in a training/debugging session on how to optimise the JPEG compression on the digital camera and how to transfer the pictures into Photoshop to correct exposure problems. We spent a portion of my father's bithday party on how to rip a CD to get that music that so wonderfully match the dance of fireflies she captured on video. That's real family tech support and it is hopeless to get that from Dell.
(insert family meambers name here) turn the computer off --- ok now turn it on and press f8 repeatedly (why is it beeping) oh stop pressing f8 now ---- choose command line --- type as follows please --- c:windows\options\cabs\setup ---- (adjust per os being used) there mom you wont lose any data and your system will be just fine in an hour or so ---- run run for your life
Really. It works wonders. It helps to enforce the fact that your time is valuable. It also has a tendency of cutting down on situations where RTFM is the solution.
Now, before you go and think that this is unreasonable, please consider that:
- My wife's private accounting practice charges my business for all accounting related work.
- My best-friend the lawyer charges me for any legal work that he does.
- My brother-in-law the architech charged me for designing my house.
Why?
Because you don't respect a person's time and skills until you have to pay for them. Admittedly, all of these rates that I pay, and the rates that I charge, are less than what I/they charge regular clients.
Unlike the "help me move and I'll provide the beer and pizza" situations, computer problems are frequently commonplace. I mean, really, if your buddy asked you to move his furniture to a new appartment each month, you'd say "Hire a fscking mover!"
When their computer crashes every month because they run Windows 98 dispite you begging and pleading to switch, are you supposed to provide free help? No thanks!
I do provide free help for my father because he's running Linux and needs all the help he can get. Otherwise, as Bill G. would say, "Stand and deliver!"
Cthulhu saves...in case he's hungry later.
My Mother understands, having been forced to make do on barely-there computers for years, and when i finally said, damn it, i'm just buying a new computer, and my bro will help me pick it out and make it what i want, i then had to explain to everyone other than her WHY i wasn't allowing my other family to help.
Understand that my stepfather has a steadfast refusal to buy new parts, and will instead salvage things (old computers, trees, bits of rock and bark) and try to make them work together, even if they shouldn't. Ever. Even in an ideal world. My brother will actually check to see whether the pieces he's putting in, like the ethernet card, actually have drivers to make them work- which is why a good friend of mine is ALSO no longer allowed to 'fix' my computer. When even *i* can tell something's wrong with what you're doing... well, be afraid. Be very, very afraid.
Or we could discuss the idea of friends who fix friends' computers and start playing with registry files until the darn thing no longer has an identity at all, just a blue screen. We could discuss that, but i'm still in therapy.
Instead, let's go with the caveat: never let anyone near your computer whom you wouldn't trust with, say, the task of making your respirator connect to the other hospital equipment if you were in an accident. I.e., trained professional...
"I'd say 'Have a good time,' but arson is still illegal.
It's funny just because we've all lived it -- and with the news on the rest of the web today, I think a little levity is just what we need on Slashdot --
I was actually doing tech support for my mom, here is the approximate conversation:
Me: Ok, what's the problem
Mom: The computer won't do anything
Me: Can you move the mouse around?
Mom: Nope, the pointer just sits there
Me: Ok, its just froze, go ahead and turn the computer off, give it a couple of secs and turn it back on
(After a few moments)
Me:Ok, turn it back on now.
Mom:Ok
Me:What is it doing?
Mom:Nothing, its still on the same screen
Me:*Dumbfounded*On the same screen? ok, thats wierd. Didn't go through any booting or anything like that
Mom:No
Me:*idea*What button are you pushing to turn it off?
Mom:The one on the TV thing
Me: Ok, I know what the problem is, on the big tower thingie, there should be a power button, hit that.
Mom:I can't find it
Me: *trying not to sound frustrated*Ok, do you see where the cord goes in to the wall?
Mom:Yes
Me:Pull it out
Mom:Won't that hurt
Me: Probably not
Mom:So it might?
Me:*Not wanting to explain it*No, it won't
Mom: Are you sure?
Me:Yes, I'm sure.
Mom:Ok (sounds in background) Done. Me:now, plug it back in
Mom:Done.
Me: Is it booting up?
Mom:YES!! You are such a genious.
*Conversation irrelevant from here on in.*
The flying hamster of DOOM rains coconuts on your pitiful city.
Two weeks ago, my Dad told me that he ordered Call Intercept for the phone line at his new house. He was all happy because he was convinced this would reduce all that unwanted, dirty e-mail he keeps getting. I clued him in.
Also, there are notes written all over case of my fathers computer monitor. I don't think he quite gets the whole "use the computer to take notes" concept.
Send/track messages to 100K people: www.xPressAlert.com
When they tell me how dumb they are with computers and how grateful they are for help from myself:
It's not you're fault computers, BIOSs, operating systems, and application software as a whole are incredibly fragile and often don't work together, and when they don't work together they provide cryptic responses that if you haven't dedicated the last ten years of your life to understanding might as well be in Swahili.
Seriously. If you love your mother you'll get her a (used) notebook. And preferably a notebook without a power brick -- just an AC cord into the back of the laptop. The KISS rule applies. If my mother ever needs to send me her computer, she'll know what part the computer part is because it's the only part. No monitor, no keyboard, no surge protector (well, there is one, but it's hidden under her desk), nothing but "computer".
You were 80% angel, 10% demon. The rest was hard to explain. - Over The Rhine
"Math in a song is good."-Linford
I made no pretense of speaking for everyone here (???!!!), it is exactly this "subjectivity" that I am expressing. Perhaps before giving classes on being subjective you should accept that people might have opinions different to yours. This way, you might learn that insulting people is not a good way to convince them, let alone to encourage a dialogue.
Mother is the best bet and don't let Satan draw you too fast.
But Dave Barry you are not...
"Anyway, long story short... is a phrase whose origins are complicated and rambling...." - Abraham Simpson
About 1996, I had graduated from high school, had $1000 in a savings account, and I wanted to REALLY learn about computers. So I picked up a $900 Packard Bell P133. It was a screamer compared to my parents 486SX33 (also a packard bell). Other than being the start of a massive upgrade path that has no signs of the original computer except for the speakers (literally, I still use them). I sold it to my dad after the first major upgrade. All the way to a 233K6 on a 430TX board. He quickly bought the latest and greatest games, which filled up the hard drive, they required 1.1GB, the HD's size was 1GB. A few upgrades later and a few windows reinstallations late, it was sold to his brother... 400 miles away.
You'd think this is the end, but given the fact that it was shipped back twice and had windows reinstalled both times. You can tell that it wasn't. He eventually upgraded and sold it to my dad's OTHER brother so his kids can use it.
Last thanksgiving I was down there visiting family. And yet again, did a bit of tech support on that old PC. Six years after I bought it, and four years after I sold it, 3 years after my dad sold it, and 1 year after my uncle gave it away.
If you think education is expensive, you should try ignorance -- Derek Bok, president of Harvard
Lucky for the author his family lived at least some distance away. I'm doing support for the gf who is trying to learn HTML and use word and excel and powerpoint etc. It can get quite wearing explaining how it all works a couple of times.
:)
"This doesn't work please can you fix this? What about this? No I'm still not sure", Arghhhhh
Rus
Cheap UK and US VPS
an old P133 Compaq Armada 1540DM for my uncle...
Now the other uncle gets wind of what a wonderful job I did and now I'm fixing his 486/66 IBM Aptiva 2168-62P, with a whopping 48MB of RAM. All he wants is word processing.... and he's right it will do that...
If I get a 386 after this I'm gonna look at it and comment on what an archaic oversized doorstop it is. We have much more modern versions now, only a fraction of the size with 500x the door stopping power.
I've got kids of my own to even out the karma there. And they're more of a handful than me and my siblings were... now that I think of it, I should be requiring my parents to do tech support for ME.
- First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then ???, then profit.
I have 3 brothers and 7 sisters (and the parents of course). Luckily most of the girls have married into techhead types (or at least PC gaming types) and don't need my help any more. You would think that in a family of 11 kids their would be more than 1 geek. But noooo... just me.
To keep the aggravation I won't support the one's who don't buy Mac's, except my parents who needed a PC for their church mission to Argentina, so I sold them my laptop that I knew the configruration of backwards and forwards. The Mac only rule simplifies things for me- exactly 0 hardware failures in about 19 years or so and 11 or so Macs.
But those calls to Argentina to support that 1 PC laptop can get expensive...
This is one of the things that does my head in about living with my family, (which since moving out for the first time at 17 has always been a bit of a headache going back to), my family, father in particular, seem to have a couple of very strange attitudes... the first of which is, when Windows goes wrong, there has to be a way to fix it. There just HAS to be! I paid for this computer and it's not doing it's job! etc! A bug which was causing Explorer to crash when viewing thumbnails of some 100MB or more TIFF images, he expected to be fixed under warranty (!?) - the answer that it's a bug in windows, or whatever software, and nothing can really be done except for work around it, gets me accused of being unhelpful and not giving a shit. Gah! And then, more bizarrely, comes the assertion that Windows is a perfectly good piece of software (despite the fact it's just let him down) and I'm just trotting out some irrational knee-jerk anti-Microsoft bullshit. *sigh*
The other one is one I've noticed more from less PC-literate friends-of-family. People get into the mindset that their needs are "simple", whether they really are or not. For instance: one bloke was a bit scared of using MS Word, so used Wordpad instead. ("it's simpler, it's easier, I don't need anything else"). Until he wanted to do tables. He absolutely HAD to use Wordpad. "it's simpler! I don't need Word! I only do simple things!" - "well, no, Wordpad won't do that, as you said, its simple" - and again I am accused of being unhelpful...
It's funny how people will ask your advice and then not listen to you isn't it?
Thank god!!!!!!
Nobodies Prefect
Tidbits for Techs Technology Blog
Most self-professed "computer geeks" dont know their asses from a hole in the ground.
Imagine if you're trying to get your computer to work, so you call your son/friend/whatever who's supposed to be an 'expert', and he gives you some head-up-his-ass response like "you need a faster sound card" (I heard a guy telling his mom/wife/something that at CompUSA the other day).
Or the ever-moronic "try reinstalling everything and rebooting".
Or maybe the call to ask about setting the screensaver in Windows and get some boring, longwinded lecture on Free software and GNU/Linux and how you obsess about having sodomy forced on you by Bill Gates.
They should get the Dells, but not because it's a burden on you, but a burden on them.
Because you dont know what you're talking about. If you did, they wouldnt be pestering you so much.
After hitting print, the keyboard just froze. That's all he could tell me. He found no other way than pushing The Button. Fortunately, I have ext3 on all partitions... :-)
The box is running KDE 3.0.5a, and while he could move the mouse, nothing happened when he pushed the K button, he said.
I haven't been home to check it out, it is not that far away, though. There has also been some problems with this keyboard. It is old and the connection has been bad at times. Dad insisted he had checked and put it firmly back in several times, and hangs at the same spot every time. After all, he is an engineer... :-)
Anybody seen this behaviour...?
Employee of Inrupt, Project Release Manager and Community Manager for Solid
She thinks a hard drive is one that takes more than an hour...
She thinks a floppy disk is the cause of all her lower back problems...
She thinks a password is what you yell on the toilet to facilitate bowel movement when constipated...
I can never repay my parents for everything they've done for me in my life. My dad is very smart and has been able to offer sage advice my whole life (he's in his 80's, I'm in my 40's). I'm the only one of my siblings who is able to offer advice to my parents. The rest of them must lift heavy objects or rake leaves to give something back.
/. crowd to help those who've helped them so much.
I get warm fuzzies helping them. I help their friends, it makes them proud.
My mother grew up without central heat or indoor plumbing (in Michigan). They've come a long way, and deserve to take it easy in their old age. I'm amazed at the ruluctancy of the
When VPNs are outlawed, only outlaws have VPNs.
Mom (on phone): My computer stopped working.
Me: What are you doing?
Mom: Writing a letter. I tried to check the grammar and it just stopped.
Me: Did you save it first?
Mom: What?
Me: Save it. Save the file. You're in Microsoft Word, right?
Mom: Yes
Me: How long is the letter?
Mom: About 10 pages.
Me: And you didn't save it along the way?
Mom: No, I just type it, print it, and then shut off the computer when I'm done.
Me: Sigh...
The rest involved a late night dash to my folks house. Turns out that indeed MS Word had crashed when trying to grammar check (surprise), but luckily Word was smart enough to recover the document following a reboot.
It's impossible to explain the concept of a "file" to my parents. If they "save", this cryptic box comes up in front of them asking for a file name, file type, location, etc. If you don't understand the basics, understanding that box might as well be like understanding greek.
The other thing is general technology. I KNOW I'm going to be called upon for tech support on any technology item in their house (TV, DVD player, computer, programable thermostat, etc.). And usually I don't mind helping at all, but if I'm going to be doing tech support, I want to be involved in the purchase decision. It's gotten to the point where I've had to tell them that they're on their own if they make an impulse buy of some piece of technology without talking to me first...
-S
--- What parts of "shall make no law", "shall not be infringed", and "shall not be violated" don't you understand?
Well we've entered a new realm of rediculous posting, it was probably either this or an article that was pro-Microsoft and they had to post something.
Anonymous Cowards - Oh God, How I hate you
My sister calls me "My computer doesn't work". We talk over a few things and find out she deleted something she wasn't supposed to delete so we restore it. The conversation continues:
Me: What kind of PC do you have?
Her: It's a Compaq. I've had this over a year so I guess it will die soon
Me: Huh?
Her: Yeah. all my computers die within a year. And I don't like this one. It won't fit in my desk.
Me: Huh? (note trend)
Her: Yeah, I put the box thing in the desk but the door won't close.
Me: Door? (she now thinks I'm a clueless fuck)
Her: Yeah, it has this large box on the side with a door so I always put the PC box in there and closed the door. This one is too big and I can't close the door. It's a pain
She burnt up a computer every year.
If you aren't part of the solution, there is good money to be made prolonging the problem
A friend has a t-shirt that reads:
"No, I will not fix your computer."
It is required attire at all holiday family gatherings.
On friday I received the deceased computer from my mother and then spent the remainder of the weekend pounding my head against it.
First problem I diagnosed was a bad power supply. Out the door and back in 30 with a brand spanking new 300W power supply. Problem fixed, or so I thought.
After restoring the windows image I created when I first set this machine up a year ago (hidden on a Linux partition sharing the same drive) I proceeded to install service pack 3. Strangely though this 127MB "patch" always became corrupted on this machine. All my other machines handled it fine. Some more digging reveals the KT133A chipset in this machine (ASUS A7V133) has a corruption bug when transferring large files. I've tried all the fixes out there: removed the sound card, installed latest 4in1 drivers, installed 3 different BIOS's including the latest beta, installed the PCI latency patch, and nothing. Still corrupts the file. So now I'm off to the store this evening to pickup a new motherboard, chip, and RAM to replace a 1 year old computer(athlon 1.2). This was the first (and last) AMD computer I'll ever buy.
Any suggestions for a budget replacement?
My situation is kind of strange. My mother who has no tech background is pretty easy to work with. She actually listens to instructions and can research problems.
On the other hand, my father who is supposedly technically competent has a harder time. It's kind of strange, because I remember going to work with him on saturdays when I was a little geek (8-9 yrs old). He let me play with mainframes, I made smiley faces on monochrome monitors. I loved to play with old punch cards and especially those rechargable tape-rewinder thingies with the 3 prongs. Fast forward to modern times....my dad can't seem to grasp the whole idea of a PC. He also can't understand how networks function, either.
The worst thing about family tech support, is that you are forever associated with every subsequent problem that arises with that machine. It's yours for life.
I always like when I am asked AOL questions.
:-)
Should I upgrade to AOl 8.0, they say it is faster?
Where did I download a file?
I open the pictures up?
How do I do this? That?
They think because I work with computers for a living I am an expert on AOL. I am an expert because I stay away from AOL
When I am 50 there is going to be some new-fanggled-gizmo that only my offspring will be able to figure out. Caveman to son "The fire went out again son, can you please come over and restart it"
Well, my family has usually gone to my dad for help on computer stuff, but since I started taking an interest, I am now becoming the person that everyone looks to for support. This is an interesting contrast, from someone who basically screwed up windows NT 4.0 in just about every way humanly possible, I learned from almost every way that happened. And now with my sister being in the same college as myself, I am her tech support, which kinda sucks in a way, since her machine is a P3 450, well, its a 600 mhz chip that cannot clock above 450 on that particular mainboard, since it was designed for slot 1 p2s, and was flashed to support P3s.. and she really doesn't know how to maintain a computer, a machine that I was running just fine 256 mb of ram less than what she has now.. runs like complete crap! this thing takes longer to boot that the 486s that I used in my life, 2000 pro is basically waving the white flag and its only been installed for less than 6 months. So now basically, I am going to have to backup all of her stuff on my server, and then reinstall everything, hoping that helps things out until I get something for her... as for my brother I have no sympathy, he has a much nicer computer than her for some reason, and doesn't use it... So at least I don't have to support him.. perhaps I will eventually get the non-gaming family members over to linux... that could help my cause,because once it is set up, hopefully they won't know how to break it..
I just spent a significant portion of my weekend ressurecting a Windows 95 install from the dead. At least this time there was warning, so I could bring diagnostics to work out the problem.
:)
It seems that being related to somebody with computer issues means that you can diagnose the exact problem without even needing to touch the darn machine
Had my parents beaten me to a bloody pulp, I might consider being their tech support monkey something that "evens out the grand scheme of things."
God, there is no way that taking care of me for 15 years is anywhere equal to the tech support nightmare that is my grandmother.
My mom has a computer science degree, but grandma calls me instead. Ugh.
about a year ago my dad called me down to his office to help him get his printer to work. he is stationed a few hours away from the main office, so official company tech support can take a few days to happen. my dad explained that he had recently moved his computer, and after the move the printer stopped working. after going thru the usual check cable, unistall old, install new driver business, i still couldn't get the damn thing to work. i pulled the computer out of the cabinet, to check the cables one more time. sure enough, my dad managed to cram the printer cable in upside down. after struggling to free it, the pins were bent every which way and the shielding was totally fuX0red.
on the other hand, my girlfriend's dad always kicks down a $100 bill when i fix his computers (the problems are usually of the homenetworking/DSL/router variety.)
If it's a software problem tell them you're a hardware guy. If it's hardware tell them the opposite. Tell them you're a Unix guy and this is a windows box.
If that doesn't work, dink with the machine for five minutes and then get that "oh no" look on your face. "What's wrong" they will ask? You respond "You opened a greeting card attachment on an e-mail?". They will say "um, yeah. It was from your aunt." Sit quetly for at least fourty-five seconds. They will ask something during this time. Rub your chin.
And then say. "I dunno."
It's time to wean them. Make them do some homework. Give them a newbie tech site and tell them to read something that leads them to the solution. You know that you are still there as a safety net. If by the second or third time you see them they haven't figured it out, only then do you break down and help. Foster self-reliance by making them do it.
Sure its nice to a good samaritan. But don't ever do tech support for the family. It all starts out nice with your girlfriend and parents. But eventually, you will start getting calls from your girlfriend's mom, you uncle, your cousins, your cousins' best friend. Then relatives you never met and then their friends.
Then when you start say your too busy, they all start to hate you. You get dumped and completely ostracized from your family.
10 years later you die and get eaten by your 7 cats. You wouldn't want that to happen would you?
Not that this has happened to me or anything, I only have 2 cats.
http://upallnite.com/
I hate doing that as much as I hate watching my mom buy a $500 break job. It happens but like a patient Vorgon, I do nothing.
Yet the picture you and the story presents is incomplete. There is a middle ground between boobs and people who bother to assemble PCs in their spare time. Also, barring failure of the machine itself, there's no reason an old PC can't live on for decades usefully serving ordinary needs.
Most people can tell the difference between an extension chord and the box with blinking lights and fans. My mom is in this group.
Her current computer could serve her for the rest of her life. I've only had one computer fail due to hardware failure. My oldest computer was an XT clone purchased in 1988. It was working when I finally dissasembled it in 2000. My next oldest machine is a 66MHz 486 and it's still running as a fanless gateway. My baby girl tried to kill it this morning by repeatedly pressing the reset button but most of it survived. My mom has better sense. Her computer is a rooten-tooten Dell lap top with an extra large screen she bought two years ago. I don't know what kind or processor is in it, but it's more than enough to run email. When the Windoze ME dies, I'm going to take the time to install Debian on it.
I'll go through the costs associated with her options and I'm sure Debian will be the winner. I'll let her call Dell and get their advice. I'll call a CompUSA and see what they have. I imagine either of those options will lead to an OS "upgrade" of one kind or another for no less than $250, weeks of waiting, multiple hours of my time spent digging up Windoze drivers and the sure knowledge that it will flake out again in two years. Chances are Dell does not "support" it anymore. The Debian option will only cost me a few hours of time and the cost of a pccard modem to replace the nasty winmodem. With a periodic apt-get update and upgrade, I'm sure I'll never have to fool with it again but that I could remotely if I had to. Which option would you chose?
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
Always tell $PARENT to push the big button. I did that once with my father when I first set up a PC for him, and he never had to ask again.
Yeah, and my wife calls me all the time to a landline at home, and at work and asks me, "Where are you?"
Do you want to hear how I taught my mom how to use email?
... I'd like to hear all about it, and I bet others would, too.
... and the unforgetable "Insert Disk" message at startup). Having that Epson die meant she went back to using an old IBM typewriter. So I set up an old Mac with a Netscape alias/shortcut in the startup items folder, used her Hotmail account as her home page and set everything to remember her passwords. Netscape would trigger the modem to dial automagically, and then she could check her mail. And, since it was a Mac, having a "on/off" switch on the keyboard was priceless since it meant mom could use the machine like an appliance. Gee, what a simple idea. With that solved, it only took an hour or three to teach her how to use a mouse and find the word processor!
Seriously
Me? My mom hadn't used a computer since our Epson QX-10 died an uncerimonious death in the early '90s (for the uninitiated, that's a CP/M machine that was built around an Office-like suite of software called Valdocs
Maybe I'm not the only one like this, but after my parents' last visit, I'm out of the tech support game officially -- dad only gave me 48 hours to move the data from his old machine before dropping in a new mainboard/CPU/RAM upgrade, so for most of the visit I was holed up in my computer room tinkering. I mucked around for 30 hours straight (pulled an all-nighter, which freaks out parents no matter how old you are), got everything running and instaleld, then they packed up and left for home. I actually kept them two hours longer than they needed so I was ensured that a pristine backup tape was made of the new machine. Add to this experience every other visit I've made over the past six years (where I've spent more than 50% of the visit "fixing" someone's PC), and I've finally made my family realize that it just isn't cool to ask this of me each and every time they see me.
Even superheroes once were losers
Is your current occupation involved with too many buzzwords? I really had to think hard about coming up with an easy 'elevator' pitch. Succinctly describing your technology is a great exercise in instictively determining whether your endeavor 'makes sense' or not.
the short descriptions also make great taglines to other stakeholders in your project (customers, new project members, mgmt, etc.)
When my mom simply asked, "really, what do you do?", it was truly thought provoking.
It was to be a simple deal. My brother would fix my truck, needing about $500 in repairs and I would upgrade my nephews PC. I was tempted to just spend a little more and get him a Dell. This way I wouldn't have to deal with the support. Well, my urge to build it myself got the best of me and $1000, 2 years and a HUGE family fight later the PC is still causing me grief! The next time I need to upgrade a family member's PC, I'll spend a little more and get them a Dell, or some other mass-manufactured PC with support (other than me).
It just annoys me to no end to hear a family member say "he's into computers", this is such a generic term.
What if you make 80mm fan's for a living? Does this quality a family member to install a new OS? I know damn fine PHP programmers who couldn't close all their windows before shutting down if their live's depended on it (and their work usually does)
Network engineers don't know how to install servers, and just because you play games 23/6 does not qualify one to fix them either. Most people can figure this out.
But when a family member refers to you, chances are you are just "into computers" and should be able to "just fix it'
Geek is a six figure word
Not 100% on-topic, but still relevant IMO, is this picture
Please, think of the kittens.
I've been out of school for a while, so now I feel old enough to provide some wisdom. After a stressful period of exams, you will look forward to going home for the holidays. Don't. Stay in school over vacation. While you spent exam week fantasizing about sleeping in and playing video games, your parents were busy notifying all their friends that the "computer genius" would be home soon and available to fix all their problems. Don't say I didn't warn you...
Let's get drunk and delete production data!
I can agree with this, also Tech Support for classmates at school.
I have a 500 MHz Pentium 3 running Windows 98 SE, and my dad (and mom recently) uses Outlook to retrieve his email. Now it's bad enough that we have a PPPoE dialer that requires a certain delay before the regular dial-up networking will work--so I have to explain to connect separately. Then, since Outlook stores half of its settings in the registry, half in one settings file, half under user profiles, and half up its ass, I have to on occasion spend hours logging in and out and in and out changing each user's settings separately.
And I must have pissed off the computer gods, because every time Outlook stops working, it's at 11PM on a school night and my dad is sure it's my problem. Recently he hasn't woken me up late at night to fix problems, but then he says "Oh, Outlook wasn't working last night, can you fix it?" So I log in and it works-"Dad, it works--did you do anything differently?" "No, I dunno..." Luckily it doesn't recur over and over, just once in a while.
Then there's my Mom. She's your typical anti-geek:
- She cowers and asks "What did you do?!?" when you minimize her work.
- She refers to Internet Explorer's icon as "the E," when she uses it at work, but can't figure out whether to click the "E" icon labeled "Internet" or the Dial-Up Networking shortcut labeled "Connect to Internet."
And so on...Tired of free iPod sigs? Subscribe to my blacklist
I love going home and searching though my dad's old tools. I always find another screwdriver that was used to change a power socket... while it was still HOT.
You can't avoid:Death
Taxes
Fixing things for your family
If she's that stupid, do you really want to spend your life with her, or have children with her?
For me it doesn't work like that. See, my dad knew a guy who knew a guy who could get him a deal. So they bought a PC from some local shop. (this is in a small town of 3000 people). So when the thing kept freaking out, they kept calling me. They had the tech come down and replace this part, and that part, and it still kept dropping them from the internet or crashing every 15 minutes. No, I am not kidding, BSOD about every 15 minutes. Hardware conflicts galore.
When I visited a few months before Xmas, I looked at the system - K62-500, all generic parts. I said - you want me to build you a system? I can do it for $200.
"But Jimmy Somenuts built this one for $300. So now we are going to be spending $500 on a computer? We just need it for email and looking up stock prices. That seems like a lot."
If you want it to work, let me do it. I figured at least if I built it, I would know what they were getting. They didn't want to spend the $$ for a new system from somewhere like Dell. And my brother, who is an avid eBayer, kept saying "I can get one on eBay cheaper than that!". But he has no clue about computers, and I didn't want to have to support some garbage eMachine.
So they agreed. I built them a low-end system at the time - AMD Duron 800, 128 MB RAM, 10 GB hard drive (and old one I had lying around), CD-ROM, 8MB AGP card and 56k modem (I had spares of both), floppy, keybd, mouse. I told them if they got me a 19" monitor for Xmas, I would give them my 17" (they were using a 15"). I built it, put a copy of Win98 on it, and that was that. All of their problems went away, and I haven't had a single tech call since. I have their K62-500 running Linux and acting as my backup server right now. I took the piece of junk off their hands in exchange for the parts that I put into the system from my own "inventory". The damn CD drive is a piece of garbage, it failed twice during my Linux installation.
Overall, it was worth my investment to build them a system, because it cut down on the number of questions that I got from them. I was really tempted to install Linux on there, but I wanted to *decrease* the number of phone calls I got from them. :-)
My beliefs do not require that you agree with them.
A Packard-Hell still functional after six years? That's unheard of, man!
Why don't you just shut the fuck up and be thankful your mother is still alive for you to be hateful and uncaring toward her?
Hell, I *wish* my mom was still around for me to teach her how to use a computer. No matter *how* much of a pain in the ass it might be.
Just last Saturday night (oke, the one before this last weekend) I was visiting my in-laws for my father in-law's birthday party. Towards the middle of the party his sister called hoping to get help with a computer problem. She'd had a power outage and couldn't get her computer to boot. So, my father in-law asks me to take a swing at it...
Assuming she had some fried memory or other goodies in there, my immediate response was to find out what her local support options were, and start pointing her down that road. To be nice (What can I do, it's a birthday party!) I spent 1/2 hour walking her through resetting the bios to see if that would shed light on the situation. Wouldn't you know the silly thing starts working as soon as she reboots with cleared settings.
Oh well, at least I avoided giving out my phone number.
When you have built the PC just right - the first time - with everything loaded and running just so, Ghost it. Burn a CD with the image on it. In fact, burn eleven. Make it a bootable CD with the command line that launches Ghost and automatically overwrites the C: drive with the golden master image on the CD. Give them one CD. Keep the others in a vault. If anything goes wrong with the PC, tell them to boot it with the CD. Problem solved.
I have nothing nice to say, so I'm saying this.
Is Slashdot going to be like Segfault or K5 now? Send in your lame-ass "humor" and horribly overwrought fiction! Impress the moderators! Get published on the web! (Special slashdot clause: get published TWICE since none of the staff ever read the site) Be judged by your peers!
Posted with Mozilla
So years ago when my mom was persuing her masters degree she decided she needed to get in the digital age- so she got a Mac Plus. The words spoken to me were "this is not your machine. Do NOT touch it. EVER."
You know where the story goes after this-
I touched it, broke something (the hypercard main page had some icons, but some painted pictures that can be permanently erased with the eraser tool or painted over. Yep, I 'broke' hypercard!) and kept on using it to figure out how to unbreak what I broke. My mother NEVER turned on the machine, so I was not busted, and now I write code for real-time systems. And she has a laptop that she has turned one twice. Go figure.
In the future, I would want to not be isolated from my friends in the Space Station.
This reminds me of my recent Journal Entry, "I've Given Up On Techno-Luddites".
I had been trying for a couple years to get my in-laws to sign up for AOL Instant Messenger. One way to run it is to use the java client in a browser, no download or installation required The idea is: we could save on long distance calls, and get ahold of each other more easily in an emergency, if they would just learn a wee little bit about using an IM client.
You would think it's like asking them to build the Pyramids of Giza...
So, imagine my frustration. These people can't follow directions to go to a web site and type in a couple of lines on a form. I lay partial blame on a culture that is widespread in America. It's the "spoon feed me, just do it for me, I am out of school and I don't have to learn anymore" attitude.
I've decided not to talk about anything tech with these people anymore. It's just too fucking painful. They're card-carrying members of the "My VCR flashes 12:00" club. At least my Father, at the age of 65, continues to learn every day, and has problem solving skills that take him a long way. He doesn't buy the "oh, I'm too old to learn that" meme.
Let's see, first there's Mom. She's had three computers in the last 16 years; the first was a Mac SE from 1987-1997, for the last several years running System 6.x without MultiFinder. She wanted "the Internet" so we got one of the original iMacs for her, and it's still going fine. Minimal tech support from me on both of these. Then for the third computer, she bought (without consulting me, the person she depends on for support) an iBook (clamshell model) right *after* the new white iBooks came out. She wanted Airport, she got it (she *does* love it). But then later she wasted a lot of time when her ISP's dial-in number changed, and she tried to call the ISP to have them help her but... they/she didn't understand Airport, so a 1-minute procedure took several hours, and I had to fix it later. All-in-all, not too bad for 16 years I guess.
;-)
Dad is way more proficient, and started using a DOS-based PC 20+ years ago -- before I was old enough to be able to support him. For the last 10 years, he's relied on a local screwdriver shop to keep his Wintel hardware and software more or less current, and he doesn't fool with the OS or installed software at all. Then my brother has used various Macs over time, and has really had no problems.
OK, enough rambling.
If they had beaten you all the time, why would further punishment via tech support even things out? Wouldn't it tip the scale even more?
after some investigation i opened the pc up and the first thing i noticed was the Processor heatsink and fan was missing.
when asked about it I was told ooh that thing it was making a loud squeal so i cut it cut the wire and removed the fan. now mind you all he had to do was unplug the fan from the power connector and I found the metal retaining clip on the back of the video card. I vowed never to work on family pc's after that incident.
"They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety."
...wouldn't using VNC be cheaper and easier?
Note to M1-ers: a curt but otherwise insightful message is not "Flamebait" or "Troll".
"I do not intend to force my opinions down people's throats, like you appear to enjoy doing"
I can't for the life of me figure out where I have done that, however I'll disregard for now...
"I made no pretense of speaking for everyone here "
I guess your use of the word our in your original reply must have thrown me off. Somehow I took that to mean more than 1 person.
"Perhaps before giving classes on being subjective you should accept that people might have opinions different to yours."
Umm...that's kinda what I meant by my saying "you don't speak for everyone here, so perhaps let the rest of us decide whether we felt it was "well written", "normal" or "interesting".".
"you might learn that insulting people is not a good way to convince them, let alone to encourage a dialogue."
Normally I would agree with you here, I guess.....although it seems to have worked in this case, hasn't it.
I installed a router for a friend who, unfortunately, had subscribed to SBC DSL (pppoe). She was very pleased with her new LAN and wireless access. Then one day she insists that I drop everything and come over to fix her internet access. "I didn't change anything, I swear." Turns out that she had mistakenly unplugged LAN cables, then called SBC tech support. They followed their standard procedure, which is to change the customer's password to "abc123". I plugged back in the LAN cables, but the password I had programmed into the router was now invalid. Who would guess that the user had changed the password, when she never has a chance to get involved in the login process?
For more tech support stories, look here
)9TSS
Questions I had to answer while visiting my parents' house yesterday:
... uh.... things I keep hearing about? Do I need a new CD player?"
"What are these emm pee
"Tell me about color laser printers." (My dad's convinced that if he gets a super high quality printer, the pixelated webcam pics family members keep emailing him will somehow turn into photo quality.)
"Can I compress my hard drive? The computer's been running slow. That'll speed it up, right?" (As far as I know, my dad has never installed a single program on their computer.)
Thinkgeek has the answer Yeah, it's your mom, but you gotta draw the line man.
...and was dying to get started playing with it. No sooner than I plug it in does my phone ring.
It's my aunt, who I hadn't heard from in about 2 years. I thought to myself, how nice. I felt like I had been missed, that someone was thinking about me.
Then I hear, "oh, by the way, I bought a new CD-ROM drive, and your cousin and I decided to install it ourselves. Now the computer won't boot.".
Me: How drunk were you?
Her: We had a few beers...
This phone call went on for about an hour, walking her through the elimination process (turned out to be a master/slave jumper issue).
Now I just play dumb. They all know it's bogus, and sometimes it's hard to stay quiet when I see someone do something stupid, or do something the hard way, but in the end it's worth it.
NGWave - Fast Sound Editor for Windows
I think this kind of thing would be one of the most compelling reasons for me to use a videophone - troubleshooting my family's remote PC problems: "Can you please point the camera at the screen so that I can see what you're doing?"
As a close second, one of those cell phones which take & send pictures might be good enough to greatly improve my remote diagnosis capabilities.
My Father in Law called me one day and told me that he deleted the Internet.
"I deleted the Internet""really?"
"Yep. It's all gone. Can't find a thing"
"Well then... If I were you I would run and hide because I think you are in a lot of trouble"
"Huh?"
"Hang on..."
(I start Mozilla)
"Seems OK on this end..."
To this day, he still thinks deleting a shortcut for Netscape is the same as deleting the Internet
I've come to the conclusion that when a geek gives a computer a newbie they are in fairly regular contact with, the geek becomes responsible for the computer for as long as it lasts. It isn't that the newbie consciously thinks that you are to be held accountable when things go wrong, it's just that from then on they think of you as their own personal comptuer geek, and even one that already knows the system in question, so they go to you first with questions.
The situation is a bit exacerbated when the newbie is a parent that was unsure about getting a computer in the first place, because not only do they turn to you for help but they hold you personally responsible for persuading them to get a computer in the first place!
The moral of the story: be careful of the gifts you give and the favors you do- you may be expected to do them again. And again. And again.
*******
"What good is science if no one gets hurt?!" - Professor Chromedome
I've finally convinced even my mom that I can't do windows. The last 3 times i've tried to help her, i've done more damage than help.
This is because, upon each subsequent "repair attempt" at fixing windows machines, i find myself *actually* unable to fix them - short of formatting and installing windows, that is.
I mean, i honestly don't know how to do it any more.. my Windows repair muscles have completely atrophied in the last 6 years....
I don't know wtf anything is, i don't understand why changing the IP forces a reboot, i don't know which DLLs to uninstall when i uninstall something....
and seriously... what the fuck is up with the start menu in XP? Is that supposed to be "easier" to use? where the fsck did all the programs go? where the fsck is the printer folder underneath the Settings folder so i can see what printers the computer thinks it knows about? and where can i go to get a fscking command line?
I'm 100% totally lost using Windows XP - i feel like my grandafther trying to stop the VCR from blinking 12:00.
so i just tell them all, honestly..i do not know how to fix windows - and i won't help you because I *CAN'T* help you.
But i'll talk your ear off to get a Mac... and if you get one, I can help you then. But i cannot fix your problems with windows.
Mac OS X problems take me 30 seconds to resolve, and most often involve someone being too fearful to just hit a button.
I don't know what to say.. it think i'm getting old.
guns kill people like spoons make Rosie O'Donnell fat.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
I'd be all like, "bitch, get your ass back in the kitchen and cook me a pot pie!"
I should have known that he wouldn't take the time to learn any of it, and would expect me to do even the simplest of support tasks. Myself, being a fairly busy IT professional, now finds myself spending an inordinate amount of time doing "enterprise support" for my brother's home network.
Of course, everything is an emergency because of the various online gaming services he is running, and once he has any problem that impacts his ability to access those servers, he's on the phone calling me.
Why didn't I tell him to pirate NT4 Server, and get him to set up his own firewall on there? Then I could legitamently say "Uh, can't help you. I don't touch MS products. It's against my religion."
-Lokatana
I too was called about computer questions. I remember one time I got called by this girl I knew back in high school. I hadn't talked to her in maybe 4 years. After 45 minutes she plugs in the computer question. It was then I knew. My parents, freinds, co workers etc. But Linux once again saved the day. Sense 97 I have been using Linux on my desktop. So my windows computer has the most up to date "Windows 98". I have only used XP once (on someone elses machine) and was finally forced to try 2K at work when I open word docs. But this caused a very nice occurance. When someone inquires to me about a technical question and they tell me they use anything post 1998 I really don't know anything about there problem and tell them flat out. Once they relized that I can't help them (even though I know tons about computers) the amount of tech support calls I have recieved has dropped through the floor. Of course when my mom calls me and tells me the email doesn't work (linux 386 mail server is down) that is a different call... :-D
-Benjamin Meyer
Do you changes clothes while making the "chee-chee-cha-cha-choh" transformation sound?
that have been chronicled here, why didn't you try configuring an email client on a mid 90s surge suppressor?
My parents just do not get it. They are worse than most, I think.
You have to explain to your parents how to cut & paste? I have to explain to my parent what cut & paste is.
Last time somebody emailed my dad some photos, he couldn't view them. I tried to get him to save the attachments to a file and view them with his browser. He didn't know what a browser was. I eventually had him forward me the message, I uploaded the pictures to my website, and sent him an email with links. He *does* know how to click on a link to open a browser. I think. Last time I checked my web site stats, the pictures had not been viewed.
I once had to explain to my parents how to resize a window. That included pointing the mouse at the corner of the window, clicking and holding the left mouse button, moving the mouse to get the desired window size, *and* releasing the left button. That last step eluded them.
My mom once looked at my XML.com t-shirt and said "What a funny sized shirt you are wearing. Extra-Medium-Large!".
Life is like a web application. Sometime you need cookies just to get by.
My Father-in-law loves technology and all the wonderful things it can do for him. Except like all the other family tech support problems he doesn't have a friggin clue about how to use it.
It all goes back to "The Inability to Infer"
Him -"I'm using this wizard thing and i did what it asked and it won't do anything"
Me - "Click NEXT"
Him - "I can't Find Word Perfect on my new computer"
Me - "Did you Buy it? or install it"
Him - "No"
Him - "I bought a GPS like my rental car had in it and it won't talk to me"
Me - "Is it the same model?"
Him - "No"
Him - "What does RTFM on your shirt Mean"
Me - "Read the Friggin Manual"
Him - "That's Funny"
Him - "I bet you wish you could tell that to alot of people"
Me - "Umm Yeah Kinda"
Him - "I put a password on the computer"
Me - "OK, What is the password?"
Him - "I don't remember"
Me - "You need a new modem"
Him - "I just bought this modem 2 years ago"
Him (after talking to someone else) - "I talked to scott and he said i just need a new modem and he was right it fixed the problem.
Me - Biting Lip in frustration.
My new title at the office is "Vice-President of Everything Else"
get the last 5 minutes of my life back?
Geographically, we are all over from central coast CA to way southern CA so I make sure every house (four of them) has broadband with a way for me to get in (VPN).
But I do have a rule: don't buy anything you don't ALREADY know how to use. My grandpa is a gadget freak and will often buy equipment he has no clue what to do with:
Case in point: his webcam. He bought it, set it up and returned it immedietly. Why? "I do not want to see naked people on my computer screen whom I would run screaming from in the real world." He discovered the "joy" of Netmeeting.
Not good.
My dad is computer illiterate and doesn't understand the difference between "minimize" and "close." My mom is computer literate, but doesn't delete anything. My sister has a new Imac, but doesn't close any programs. My fiance hates her TiBook, and loves it at the same time. My uncle works for EMC, so thats fine. His wife runs her store on a WinXP dell, which is not a good computer to have break.
So here's my advice to family tech support people:
God help you if you're a sys admin. Not only do you support hundreds of users, but you also support the machines they run on, the laptops that the company might (or might not) have purchased for them, but you also get the details on their family machines, their friends machines, and their friends families machines. I don't like to be rude, and I try to cast them off as painlessly as possible. But not a week goes by that I don't get a couple sightings of a Weird Email Message, the Strange Beeping Noise or the Funny Smell They Get When Turning It On.
;)
Then I get housecall requests, and back when I used to take them, payment usually consisted of $20 or less, and a big smile.
There was a time when people at work knew my cell phone number. No kidding, they really did. Of course the little tag of "ONLY CALL IF THE BUILDING IS ON FIRE" next to it didn't give any indication that I don't take support calls on it. I could get, on any given Weekend, up to 15 calls, but usually 1 or 2.
Sound familiar:
My Email Doesn't Work
I've Got A Blue Screen When I Turn On My Computer
What's a Bonzi Buddy?
I Used To Like These Mouse Icons, But I don't Think I Do Anymore Can You Turn Them Off?
Internet Explorer Doesn't Work. It says something about Ex-yew-pee-eye-tee-ee-are caused an illegal operation.
And the list goes on. Everyone just assumes that this knowledge, however it was gained, is a public commodity, and that your time should consist of helping them not only during business hours, but at all hours of the night.
Sure I can see helping the President of the company on a Friday night (though I'll duck out if at all possible), but if Joe Workdesk needs to get his porn screensaver, that he just has absolutely no idea where it came from, off his machine, then I tell him I've never heard of that before, and that he might want to contact an attorney
Heh.
:-)
I solved that problem by telling everyone that I only work with mainframes
Which is at least partially true, since I know nothing about desktops, my job for the last 8 years requiring me to know everything about servers and only servers. And I had that idea after I met people that worked with mainframes only and wouldn't know what is a URL if their lives depended on it. I know, I know, it's not the rule, but that was my experience when working with mainframe people.
In that respect, I always tell my secretary that she knows more about computers than I do, since she's pretty good with Excel and Word (soon to be replaced by their OpenOffice equivalents).
Sorry, this really annoys me: It's "preventive," not "preventative." Don't say "orientated" either, it's "oriented."
Please.
...
If you want me to help you move, I expect to be fed every few hours, and have continuous beverage service throughout. Help put up rain gutters? Same deal. Airport pickup? Dinner on the way back. Fix your computer? Whatchoo got? There's a social contract here, it's simply good manners to compensate people for their time and effort.
A freind of mine is the computer guru for a rural school district and community learning center. As such, he is beseiged with requests for extra-curricular tech support. Sometimes he accepts these requests, and when he does, it is simply understood that there will be a big jar of dried salmon (the local non-cash currency) for him as a thank you. To NOT offer at least a token thank you gift would be unthinkable.
When my music industry pals want tech support, they send cds, concert tickets, and other cool swag. When I help Suzie Homemaker, they send cookies. Now, if you'll excuse me, the "dancer" in the apartment next door can't figure out how to hook up her new printer.
Interociter
-=What do I want? I'm an American. I want more.
Jeez... I've seen a lot of wierd stuff on slashdot that people complained about, but I found perfectly acceptible due to the geek factor, but this is just silly.
Looks like something my aunt would forward to me!
- Preferences: Solaris 10 (servers), Ubuntu (desktops), Solaris 11 (personal servers) -
http://rinkworks.com/stupid/
'nuff said
Luckily, most of my family lives on the east coast, so I've never really had to fix their computers. But, my mom lives out here in Washington State, and I gave her a computer. I used this computer for about a year before I gave it to her, so I know what to expect. And, because it's a Mac, she had little problem figuring it out (thank goodness for one-button mice and computer newbies!). I use PCs at work all day, and Macs at home, and I feel a whole lot better about giving her a Mac than I would had I given her a PC. She's not complaining either, and I was very pleased to hear her say that she managed to hook it all up on her own when she recently moved to a new place.
;-)
I have limits on what I'll do for my family if their computers are running Windows. If they're running a Mac, great... I can work on that more easily. I don't want to fuck up their Windows box, and then spend my family vacation reinstalling 98/ME/XP/whatever on their PC due to something I broke. I figure, they saved money buying a PC, so they should have plenty left over to take it to a professional to fix, right?
VNC
Is it possible your step-father has sexually abused you? Based on your anger towards him, you're either PO'd your mother remarried, or he hurt you somehow.
I don't mind doing tech support for certain family members because the "Will fix for food" rule takes effect and my relatives can cook!!
To this day I inisit that VNC be installed on any system that I _might_ be requested to provide tech support on. Most relatives have a linksys firewall for thier cable modems, so getting to thier machines is pretty easy. My mom lives on the west coast and I'm on the east coast, so suuport has to be done remotly.
I told my mom to reboot windows before she ever calls me on anything. At first she wasnt doing it, every call went like this 'Did you reboot first like I asked" she said no, rebooted, oh its working. Now that she is actually doing it my tech support calls have dropped 90%
Most of the personal stories envolve using Windows OSs on the computer that Grandma, MOM, or whoever, that we tech's end up supporting. Has anyone setup a Linux box for totally tech ignorant relatives and do your tech experiences favor better then those of us that have to support Windows?
Mac users can answer the same question.
Personally I allways been afraid to do so because of the amount of Windows software on the shelves that they might want to buy.
Slashdot, home of supporters of free software, free music, and free speech.Except for Moderators that disagree with you.
Getting Mom onto Internet a Sisyphean Ordeal
This is a direct result of the auto industry's product marketing. "Turn the key and go!" Now everybody expects consumer products to be so simple. Hell, operating your VCR requires more planning and preparation than going to the grocery store.
I do product design for a living, and I absolutely hate to hear the customer say something inane like "I don't want to learn how to use this, I just want to push a button and get the result I want." Like we equipped this box with the ESP option
Folks have become accustomed to instant gratification, and that's a bad thing. My father has the "mass market" mentality regarding both his car and his computer. Since I race cars in what little free time I have, I get support calls for both computer problems and automotive ones. Like I'm supposed to diagnose that oil leak over the phone (solution - don't drive over curbs and you won't crack the oil pan.)
If you want to see something disturbing, take a load of garbage to the dump (waste transfer station, etc.) Watch the people around you toss perfectly servicable stuff into the bin. The big corporations really appreciate this behavior too. Can't fix it yourself? Hey, we're having a sale! Chuck your old one and buy a new one. We'll even finance it for you.
(/rant)
..true geeks still live at home into their forties.
"Well, it stopped getting email two months ago and then one day I turned it on and no picture showed up and I didn't want to bother you because 'You're so busy' and I know it's my fault and..."
What Mom said her is telling. This guy probably -- LIKE MOST OF US -- has a patience problem w/ users. Ive been guilty of it thousands of times (my sisters wont call, my youngest sister stopped asking about computers the day she hung up crying (just after my "just click File. File FILE!"))...
Im sorry, Ive got a patience issue, but can we be blamed? How do you think a plumber feels if people asked them about clogged toilets constantly (dont flush tampons -- 90% solution), or a garderner about dying roses (always water (whatever) -- 90% solution), or a car mechanic constantly asked about squeeking brakes (your wear strips are rubbing, have them changed -- 90% solution).
sheesh, it gets VERY TIRED -- only the most saintly can stand it... dont EVEN try and offer support to your coworkers RE: their home machines.. ive had to install two 802.11b switches in the last 8 weeks because I recommended them as the solution to the "2pcs and 1 DSL connection" (i wouldnt dare offer them ipcop or LRP).
If you're British, it's orientated.
Your sister must be really good looking.
I've found the better looking the girl, the more clueless they are about stuff (except for "how to look good").
Its not their fault... if you were so good that people would open all your doors, do all your work, and actually talk to you just because they wanted to f*ck you, then your life-story might be a lot different.
Mom: Why is my computer so slow?
Me, looking at the dozen icons in the systray: Because you've got all that crap running.
Mom: I need that.
Me: Okay, suit yourself.
A week goes by
Mom: I bought this printer and it doesn't work, I get this exception error whenever I plug it in.
Me: That's probably because of all the crap you have running.
Mom: Why doesn't this work!!!!
===== A not-far-from-reality dramatization follows =====
Mom: Godddamn it!!!! Why doesn't my computer work! You like to play with computers!!!!! Fix it, damn it!!!!
Me: Look, I told you not to install and run all that crap, but you do anyway!!!!
Mom: But I need it!!!!!!
Me: No, you don't!!!!!
Mom: I do too! I think I know a LOT more about computers that you do, mister!!!!
Me: Then what are you calling me for?!
Mom: Because I can! HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA!!!!
"Would it kill you to put down the toilet seat?" -- Maya Angelou
All my family live in other cities from me, and they all have Knoppix CDs I burned them "just in case" anything goes horribly wrong. To get back on the Net where most of the stuff they do with computers is anyway, they just stick the CD in the drive and reboot. They get a GUI, browsers, OpenOffice, and a way for me to come in remotely and fix anything with the file system they might have screwed up by mistake. If Windows doesn't completely hose itself, I also have installed VNC server on their machines, so all they have to do is start the server by clicking on the icon, and I can just fix it myself..
But the Knoppix thing is great, since even if their hard drive dies (like it did once) it still works.
Are you this boring and pointless in real life? Or do you save it all up for us to "enjoy" here on /.?
I'll bet either your father or mother committed suicide just to get away.
No offense.
I don't mind doing it when we visit her. I'll sit at her computer for several hours fixing and tweaking her P166/Win98 box.
/. for information on her modem.
The alternative is to sit and socialize with her and my wife while they talk and argue and argue some more. I'd *much* rather be checking out the tech support forums at
I am NOT a man!
I am a free number!
Check my sig.
The "Value PCs" are the ones for family. No I'm not affiliated in any way. I just LOVE this guy's service and the nice clean builds he does with all the unneeded windows junk, services, etc turned off. He stands behind 5 and 7 year warranties. Uses all top shelf parts as far as Home PC's are concerned. When he shipped a PC to my brother I knew every single part in it. Basically a custom built PC for your family only the custom builder isn't you, and the warranty is outstanding. Not only that, he includes norton firewall, a video tutorial on Windows for newbies, and no "free MSN", AOL or any other junk on there. I own one of the beefy one because I wanted the warranty and didn't feel like building it myself. He did a better job than I would've. My brother got one 18 months ago and I haven't heard anything but good things so far. This vendor responds almost instantly to problems, and will know your mother by name when she calls or emails.
My family said "this is 20-25% more expensive than Dell!" I said, "It's much better, it'll last a lot longer, it's better supported, and if you want me to do tech support for you at all, you need to get your PC here...(see sig)
Michaels Computers has been, and continues to be a thousand blessings when it comes to doing (actually NOT doing) family tech support. For that he is a minor hero of mine. Plus I love the monster box he built me that I can muck around with to hearts content with no worries. He's even emailed me pin-outs on a 2 hour notice. Can I say more?
Operator, give me the number for 911!
But of course, it didn't come with any software! No Windows, no Office, no nothing. The cousin's brother's mother's father's uncle had kept the discs or fed them to the dog (or, as I suspect, never had any in the first place).
So they asked me to 'fix' the computer. I look... windows95 half installed (the background was still that blue that shows up when win95 runs for the first time). A lot of things not installed, like ... calculator.
"Oh, my brother's mother's cousin's uncle installed that for us when we bought it"
Fine fine, this was when things start to get really stupid... they matter-of-factly ask me
"well, you get us a copy of Windows and Office and stuff for free, okay?"
What, do I look like a charity? Do I look like mr. warez or something? I don't pirate software, I'm a goddamn developer myself. Why do people somehow think you get everything "for free" just because you know how to turn a computer on?
Why are geek's mothers always such luddites?
I bought my mother a "hifi" so she could play music. A friend set it up for her and for a few weeks she played music.
She called one day to tell me she couldn't turn it off. She was afraid that pulling the plug would break it:
" It just blinks at me and I can't turn it off! It doesn't have an off button!", she said
"Ok, mom, don't worry. What is it blinking", I replied in a re-assuring tone of voice.
"Computer gibberish! it's saying zero,... "colon", zero zero!", she said in a confused panic.
"That's the clock mom. It will show that even when it's off".
"Do you see a button with "standby" or "power" on it?", I asked
"There's a green button that says "standby"", she replied.
"Well, that's the one to turn it off", I suggested.
"But why would they call it standby? Can't they just call it "OFF"! Do they have to try and confuse me with computer jargon?
I don't want it blinking at me, it wastes electricity!"
At this point I decided it would be best not to go into an analysis of the power consumption of a plasma display. So I just capitulated:
" You can just pull the plug when you're not using it, mom".
The hi-fi lasted about 3 months. First the turntable failed, then my mother gave up. After a year or so, when visiting I asked her if it was working. She said "No it's broken". I plugged it in and it was working fine. She had just given up. I'm thinking of buying her a hand-crankable mechanical turntable...
Here's a kid who thinks France is a world leader.
I think it's the "I post this Slashdot joke every chance I get, and it never gets old" post.
1) I have no life.
2) I copy the same joke seen on a thousand stories since, even though it is no longer original or funny, and even though the South Park episode that spawned it is several years old now, but just imagine a Beowulf cluster of them!
3) ?
4) Stoppit!
I took out an ad in my town's local newspaper that I would do tech support at $10/hour. So everyone in town would know that if I was at your house working on your computer you were going to have to pay me.
(Of course, this was as a college student visiting my hometown of 700 people where everyone read the same newspaper.)
It's ignorance itself to think you know all the answers. -Miles Comer
whenever people ask me what I do, I say that I "work with computers"
I simply respond, "I work with Unix computers."
Very few seem to make it past that.
S-
ps: Oh, and whenever I call a company and they
ask me what OS I run, I make damn sure to say "Solaris" and when they start to go critical, I don't let them off the hook. I love RCN telling me that my computer was "incompatible" with the Internet. uh huh. Actually, RCN asked if Solaris was a new product from ms, I responded "I hope not"
I told her she could get a PC, but I wouldn't do _ANY_ support for it. She got a Mac (blueberry iBook). Since it ran OS9, I should have let her get a PC
So, now my wife is trying to convince her friend to get a Mac. God I hope they get a PC!
Awesome furniture, accessories and cabinetry in Santa Rosa, CA: http://humanity-home.com/
Comment removed based on user account deletion
So my parents had one of those Fujitsu's with the faulty chip on board, and it finally died. Not even my hard drive, so I sent it to my friend who does computer sales, and he sent it back to Fujitsu. After the computer being down for over a month, I was tired of getting the calls asking me when the computer would be fixed, and if I would please call my friend. I finally just bought them a new hard drive and decided that was worth it. I live 3 hours away from them, so it's kind of hard to convince your buddy who is already busy with people who are paying him, to go and fix my parents computer for free. Such is life, but the computer got fixed, and they are back online, but damn. At least I don't live across the road from my cousins anymore.
I have no signature
I'm proud of my Big Iron Momma.
Now I know you're speaking of not committing piracy. But you can get a legal copy of 98 for less than $50 (probably MUCH less (even free) from someone who has upgraded their system). 98's EULA still allows a single transferrance. You can get zone alarm or a reasonable firewall for free. PC Anywhere does cost a pretty penny, but there are free alternatives. The retail prices DON'T matter, but because windows users CAN be smart shoppers (despite their OS). The only additional cost comes from the OS itself & I would imagine that most in-laws would want windows for ease of use and compatibility. Plus, if you get them windows you can shove tech support onto more people than if you get them linux.
People can be smart shoppers rather than extravagent spenders or software pirates.
Once I came home to my mom holding the vacuum cleaner hose up to the computer. When I tapped her on the shoulder she jumped, obviously panicked. She had mistakenly put a cd in the old 5" floppy drive and was trying to "suck it back out" before anyone came home.
Did you ever finish your "Indiana Jones game"?
Is it OSS?
Not everyone deserves a 320i
Everyone's making fun of non-techie computer owners, but cup-holders aside, most of the problems that people have with their computers are because of how complex PCs have become. No one has this kind of trouble with cell phones, game consoles, or DVD players. All this fiddling with BIOS settings, re-installing operating systems, trying to get video cards to work...it's all so baroque and 1970s.
Maybe, just maybe, PCs have reached the end of their useful lifecycle. If you work for a corporation and have on-site tech support, then okay, but not at home. And the alternative doesn't need to be a dumb e-terminal thing either. Anyone who thinks that is narrow minded.
That just made my day. That was about the funniest thing I've read today. Good post! Mod that up, baby! Oh, right, we can't mod articles...
+1 Insightful, -1 Troll. What can I say, I'm an Insightful Troll.
It's a common thing hearing fellow geeks complain about being asked/harassed to do tech support for family/friends/charity. They don't just say "people always come to me when they have problems with their computers" in a neutral tone, they grumble about it or wear t-shirts saying "no, I won't fix your computer". Well, I think that there is a certain amount of hypocrisy in this reaction. Surely enough most of the problems encountered in the family/friends tech support business are not very challenging. But there is also an important factor of self-satisfaction from the fact that you and your knowledgeable mind are needed in everyday situations from everyday people doing ordinary stuff. Not all working people get this kind of satisfaction, being immediately useful to the people surrounding them, far from that. In a way, it's not very different from being a medical doctor; every body wants to ask you a small question. It can be a pain sometimes but it gives good credits and the "hey, i'm useful" feeling. And most of the grumbling is only about unconsciously emphasizing this feeling.
... why did it have to end, I was rolling. On a more on topic note I feel for anyone that supports family. I would be suprised than less than half of us do and its probably more than that so we all know what it's like. My mother is actually the easier one to deal with, she only does what she is told is ok. My father on the other hand.. well lets just say he knows just enough to be dangerous. Cheers
Have you thought for yourself today?
Good advice, but I agree with the original poster, the War Fast File System does suck. I suggest he switch to the newer War Open File System, which contains many improvements.
No stupidity in this story, but here it is anyway.
I was doing some tech support for my Mom and things weren't going well (I think that it was that the bridge active X control for MS zone wouldn't run under a non-administrator user), and I loudly expressed a few choice words about the program, the programmers who made it, and their ancestors. I believe that there may have been some wall banging involving my fists.
Afterwards, my Mom said that she was glad to see that computers were just as hard to use for people who knew what they were doing. It made her feel better when she had problems.
Erm, well, the subject is all I have.
paintball
This was kind of a dumb thing to have on the front page of slashdot, but the discussion is funny.
My girlfriend's parents have a wonderful setup with me. First they ask me what to buy. I, not wanting to put too much effort into advice I know they will ignore, give them a quick answer. 10 follow up questions later based on "what the guy at the store said" or what a relative who is a computer person (ask him for fucks sake!) said, I am forced to research. I give them detailed recommendations and explain why they should buy this and not that, etc. They then go out and buy the exact opposite of what I say.
When the inevitable happens, and the POS breaks, they of course come to me for help. I try, once again, to blow them off and tell them to use the overpriced support contract they bought. They doubt me and call computer-relative again for more bad advice. Computer relative is then put on the phone with me to explain the very simple steps I can do that either a.) will not fix the problem, or b.) will fix the problem but will also void the warranty in the process.
Seriously, I understand what people say about it being family, even though I don't really operate like that. At some point it just becomes rude exploitation of a relationship. If you don't have enough respect for my knowledge to take my recommendations, then you shouldn't have enough respect to trust me to fix your machine. I realize I tend to recommend expensive products, but then again my first machine is 8 years old and has been up 24/7 for most of that time...theirs breaks monthly...
OK, I admit that I laughed myself silly reading the original story... It was too true.
Another support headache that I hate is having my brother-in-law persuade my father-in-law to buy a computer, get e-mail, etc. Then Junior maves several hundred miles away, and I am asked to functiona as a surrogate tech support "because I work with computers"
arrrrgh...
I wish I could just say: "Dude, you are not getting Nothing."
'ta
Mom: Eric? I need your help.
Me: There's a surprise. What's wrong now?
Mom: This thing is running slow. Can you fix it?
Me: Yes, mom, but you're going to have to let me get rid of WindowsXP. This processor isn't designed to handle it, and XP is sucking the life out of it.
Mom: But I don't want to get rid of XP. I'll lose all my programs I have installed.
Me: Wow, the whole two programs you use. It'll be a cinch to resinstall them.
Mom: I don't know. Is this the only way to fix the problem?
Me: Yep, the only way.
Mom: You'ld better not screw this machine up.
Me: If you're so afraid of that, Mom, why the hell did you ask for my help in the first place?
Mom: Um...
Me: Look. Either we axe XP and install 98SE, or you can just sit here and deal with waiting 5 minutes for your programs to load. Your choice. (walks away)
Mom: That's what I get for adopting a smart guy. Alright, do what you have to.
One Hour Later...
Me: Mom, it's fixed.
Mom: Where's the green Start Button?
Me: Mom, it's not in Windows 98. All Windows' are most certainly not created equal. Each new one sucks more than the last one. And that Green button is just plain nasty looking. Now everything is at least halfway tolerable.
Mom: Bring back the green button, Eric.
Me: No can do, mom. Only comes with Windows XP. Noticing the pattern yet? (walks away again) Have fun. I reinstalled everything for you, and even reset your accounts for Trillian. You owe me $150 now. (leaves the house)
This is the kind of crap I deal with almost daily. I hate doing tech support for my parents. Hell, my 7 year old niece could solve these problems for them. Sad, isn't it.
Blog Prophyts - Right On, Man
I could not help but laugh as I read the story. I don't care if it is really true or not, I'm sure we have all felt that way at sometime. (I know I have)
For those of you who 'won't help family' -- Shame on you -- I will ALWAYS help out family. They raised you, cared for you, gave you what you needed/wanted, don't you think that a little time spent expaining "a computer" is a worth return??
As for friends, why not?? I have always felt that knowledge should be shared. Isn't that what the Open Software movement is really about? I am a teacher by trade, and believe me, I am used to repeating myself -- Sometimes it takes a while for someone to learn something 'alien', but in the end it is worth it to help them become a better person.
-- Just my 1/50 of $1.00- Ghost is your friend: Before sending them the system, get it working right, then create a ghost image. Burn it on a CD, and have them put it in a safe place. When they screw it up beyond repair, walk them through the process of repaving their system.
- Knoppix: Those hard drives only last so long.. Once that puppy fails, they're offline for a while. A great disaster recovery method is a Knoppix Linux Live-CD. It pops them into a nice X-Windows interface, with all the expected app's, including office apps and Mozilla. This will get them back up and reading e-mail, bidding on EBay, and all those other important tasks. Maybe they'll even convert to Linux.
- VNC: Don't even try to have your dad explain what he sees on the screen (reading for 5 minutes, then skipping over the important error messages). Just connect remotely & poke around for yourself. This becomes a bit more difficult when both sides are on DSL, behind firewalls.. configure port forwarding on your firewall (or use a linux box as a firewall & do VNC on it).
- Use NT/Win2K: Win98 seems to attract all the garbage that can be thrown at it, and not hold up well. Win2K is much more resilient.
- Use NTFS: It may be harder to debug, but it holds up much better to the power-off's and resets that it will inevitably get.
Finally got both my Mom and Dad (he was the holdout) to switch to Macintosh. They both now have their own iMac G4 flatscreens. Makes things much easier to troubleshoot and handhold. No more worrying about whether the cheap modem stuck in the PC was crapping out or whether the heat in the garage was going to fry the processor.
The IPCC has purposely engineered a massive scientific fraud.
Now, what I don't like? People who get rude about it. They ask your help, ask you a favor, and then get all mad and take out their frustrations on you. This is even moreso when they are at fault (e.g., forgot to plug monitor in). And my personal pet peeve: lies. "I never installed anything!" or "It was like that when I got it." They get all defensive, and I want to say, "Look, I don't care if you look at porn! Everyone's got a hobby. But don't try and BS me because that's a porn program in your systray launching your browser every five minutes! Someone had to install it!"
Or people who never listen or learn. "Didn't I tell you not to download that?" (nod) "Didn't I tell you that you can't trust files from people you don't know?" (nod) "So why did you do that?" (pause) "It said it was a greeting card!" These people would die within minutes on the street. "The nice man told me he would come back with my ATM card when he was done with it!"
I also agree when it's assumed you'll drop whatever you are doing to fix the problem, too. I like to help, but I don't like being taken for granted.
__________________________________________________ ______________
--
Nope. I think we managed to draw a line of the screen, though.
(Also, I fail to see how this is off topic!)
I seriously doubt you've ever done any thinking whatsoever. FOAD.
It's a common thing hearing fellow geeks complain about being asked/harassed to do tech support for family/friends/charity. They don't just say "people always come to me when they have problems with their computers" in a neutral tone, they grumble about it or wear t-shirts saying "no, I won't fix your computer". Well, I think that there is a certain amount of hypocrisy in this reaction. Surely enough most of the problems encountered in the family/friends tech support business are not very challenging. But there is also an important factor of self-satisfaction from the fact that you and your knowledgeable mind are needed in everyday situations from everyday people doing ordinary stuff. Not all working people get this kind of satisfaction, being immediately useful to the people surrounding them, far from that. In a way, it's not very different from being a medical doctor; every body wants to ask you a small question. It can be a pain sometimes but it gives good credits and the "hey, i'm useful" feeling. And most of the grumbling is only about unconsciously emphasizing this feeling.
"Give a man a fish, he eats for a day. Teach him to fish, and he eats for a lifetime."
The biggest mistake people make is that they simply fix a person's computer problem. The person remains completely clueless and uneducated.
Whenever a CU (clueless user) says they are thinking about buying a computer, tell them that they really don't want one. Tell them that a computer is kinda of like a car, only a thousand times worse. It requires daily maintenance, learning insanely complex technical details, frequent hardware breakdowns, and throwing heaps of money at it regularly. Spook the hell out of them. Only go down the route of actually helping them purchase a machine if they still demonstrate a consistent, committed desire to truly invest the time to learn and maintain a computer. Once they've been thoroughly spooked and they've gotten a computer, then you at least know they're willing to learn, and you can hold the lecture over their head if they start getting impatient or agitated over a problem later.
Then, whenever a problem does occur, don't fix it for them. Always refuse to assist with any computer problem over the phone -- it always has to be handled in person, with both of you in front of the offending machine. Don't drive the PC -- make them drive it. You can guide them through steps and teach things as you go through the fix together, but at each step of the way, you need to ask them to repeat things back to you so they can demonstrate actual understanding. No student driver ever learned by having the instructor drive the car for them while they watched.
This all takes painstaking patience. But if you stick to it, you'll find that the person will eventually become the "solve their own problems" type, capable and motivated enough to teach themselves, tinker on their own, and bail themselves out of trouble. Then you're off the hook. Unless the person is one of these morons incapable of learning, in which case you should probably just beat them senseless with an old Compaq "portable" lug-along.
Or, you can avoid all that and just never help anyone with their computer issues, ever, period. Personally, I consider computers a personal, individual matter. I take care of my own, and so should you, the end.
Moderator hint: a comment is neither "Flamebait" nor "Troll" if it is true.
Remember back when GUIs were new and Macs came with a Tutorial that would walk you through the basics?
Here's how to select one thing, how to select multiple things, what are files, what is the clipboard, etc.
Does anyone else think that lack of good, basic tuturials are a major omission in modern OSes? Seems like they could bring a lot clueless users up to speed.
Is tech support for your familys friends, and if you do good job, for your familys friends' friends (pretty soon youll end up doing it for Kevin Bacon ;-) ).
I simply do not get it. If you help someone out in the family, say with moving or some DIY in their house, they'll be polite, offer money or some other for of compensation that you of course reject and you can be sure to count on their help when you need it.
Now If it's tech support, first of all they'll be pissed of. At everyone, because it's everybodys fault but theirs. It is especially your fault if you ever helped them out before, even if what you did was just configure their e-mail client and the problem now is that it "won't boot at all" or something. They'll just be standing there, looking bored, commenting on everything, asking if whatever you are doing won't break the computer, and why it was fixed much faster last time.
God I hate being the tech support dork of the family.
$75 an hour. After all, don't they want to see their Little Boy succeed?
Together, we will drive the rats from the tundra.
Yes, I've posted enough, but here goes :D
:D
1. If your relatives even THINK about buying a "How To Do Just About Anythig On A PC" type book, tell them to cram it up their ass. They will end up hitting themselves with it, as they will only know how to do things one way. And also, send over a copy of RHL8.0 Unleashed.
2. Remember this quote: "If at first you don't succeed, destroy all evidence that you tried." If you end up screwing something else up while fixing/twiddling, blame it on something else...
3: If they call up, ask them to look in the help menu, or just yell READ THE FUCKING MANUAL!!!!! I have had to do this many times!
4: If they ask you for a PC, homebuild it, install Linux and print out a cheatsheet, with all of the commands and help they could ever need on it...also, give them the exact system spec and also what to say to those who want to install Windows
5: All of these are synonyms for "I can't be assed." Learn them.
"Why can't I just use Windows"
"I used to be able to...etc"
"It won't do what I tell it to"
"You do it, I don't know etc."
6: Finally, if you do install Linux (which you should) install KDe and set it up to look JUST like Mac OS X. You then have a cheap computer with lots of speed, Linux power and apps, all of kde-look.org and a dynamite UI. I recommend Mosfet Liquid and the wallpaper at my FTP site.
You should be a happy puppy after keeping to this advice! It worked for me!
If you're happy and you know it read my blog
You sound like the same incompetent tech support at my last ISP. They changed the local POP server that my parents dial into. My parents could send email to anyone with the same domain as the ISP, which included me and the ISP, but not to anyone else. Since I dialed into a differenct server, email worked for me. But unlike you and the ISP, I did not assume my parents were wrong when the said they could not send email, I found the problem.
Any opinions expressed in this message are not neccesarily those of the company.
I am young enough not to have the "parent" problem a lot of you are experiencing. My dad was only about 5 years ahead of me in getting started with PCs, and I'v managed to pass him in the last 20 years in some areas of expertise (in others, he knows a smidge more)
But, HIS father, a different story. The dear man is over 80 years old. Now, don't get me wrong, I love the fact that at the age of 75 or 76 he decided that a PC could be useful for him. And I'm pleased that he decided he was still able to learn a few new tricks. And honestly, its NOT the grandfather that presents/introduces the problems. Its his friends!
*sarcasm on*
See, his peer group are all experts. 80 year old experts. They all know the tips/tricks. The OEM burning software that came with their drive is superior to ANYTHING his son or grandson could recommend. This OEM video player is much better then this commercial application that was recommended. Windows 98 should be replaced with Windows ME! Its newer, its better! Refilling your ink cartridges is cheaper and better. No, it doesn't matter you have ink all over the place, on keyboards, the tile floors, your fingers. You are sticking it to the printer manufacturer by saving money! HP makes the best computers. OEM computers that cost more than $600 arent worth the money. Just get the celeron special, it will be ok. This isn't a virus, its a cute little screen saver. Your email application is locking up? Virus, naw, uninstall OE and reinstall it, yeah, that must be it.
*sarcasm off*
New rules:
1. All requests for family help must be in written form. That way when I ask you a question, and you answer and then your friend helps you argue with me, I have a paper trail.
2. Don't start your support session with the words "a friend of mine is here and he says..."
3. Don't ask a question you have no intention of listening to the response for.
----- LoboSoft specializes in Digital Language Lab
raise your hand if you're projecting your own issues onto other people's posts... you there at the back of the room, put your foot down, that's not funny.
Am i angry when it comes to family computing? Yes, you did pick up on that- but it's more with the various 'friends' who have felt that they were qualified to 'fix' things and so left me with two- count them, two- broken machines in less than three months. And the trouble is... they weren't broken before!!! I don't fix computers, so this has been a source of frustration and annoyance, and so has the fact that more friends and family whom i happen to know will do just as jerry-rigged a job have been stepping forward to volunteer, and getting cranky when i turn them down.
Congratulations, You've just failed distance diagnosis 101. Do not pass go, do not collect your therapist's license.
"I'd say 'Have a good time,' but arson is still illegal.
> If you're British, it's orientated.
Well, _that_ explains a lot about the British...
http://www.thinkgeek.com/tshirts/frustrations/388b /
reason why no one in my family talks to me any more!
My sister called me up at work one day complaining that the VCR didn't work. I knew what the problem was instantly - I had unplugged it from the wall socket (which has 2 outlets, natch, with one being used by the TV) so that I could plug my old NES in.
I told her: "Oh, yeah, that's because I unplugged it so I could plug in the Nintendo. Just unplug the Nintendo and plug in the VCR."
That should have been plainly straightforward.
Her: "Plug it in. OK. How do I do that?"
I found myself a bit off-kilter, trying to convince myself that she was just tech-illiterate and didn't realize I meant the power cord.
Me: "Plug it in. You know. Like you plug in a curling iron, or a hairdryer, or a toaster. Just unplug the Nintendo, and *PLUG IN* the VCR."
Her: "I don't understand what you mean. Plug it in? Plug WHAT in?"
Me: "The power cord. Plug it in."
Her: *getting irritated* "THIS IS TOO COMPLICATED. WHAT DO YOU MEAN, PLUG IT IN?"
Me: *getting irritated* "PLUG IT IN! UNPLUG THE POWER CORD FOR THE NINTENDO, AND PLUG IN THE VCR."
Her: *rummage* "OK, wait, I'm looking at the back of the VCR now, and I see 6 plugs."
Me: "PLUG IT INTO THE WALL."
This seemed to do it. All of a sudden: Her: "OH!@# Plug it in TO THE WALL! You know, you could have been more specific, all you had to say was-"
I just hung up on her.
After dealing with her, I gained a newfound respect for people working in tech support. You couldn't pay me to take that sort of stupidity daily.
i'm amazed that i survived - an airbag saved my life.
Ive found that RealVNC is the single greatest tool for fixing any software related problems with my family. I live a long ways away, so with this I tell them over the phone to fire vnc up, and Ill connect to their computer. Once thats done, I have full control of the computer. I can now do it myself, rather than explain instruction after instruction.
The biggest mistake I've ever made related to this is convincing my (now ex-) girlfriend that she should ditch AOL and use an email address on my server. Less spam, a "permanent" email address, and access using a real POP client.
Boy did that backfire...
First, at the time, I didn't have IMAP or webmail access to the server. Since AOL's client stored all the messages on the server and gave her webmail access, she was not happy with this.
Second, the server ran out of my apartment on my crappy DSL line. The phrase "my Internet connection seems to be down right now", or "it will probably magically start working again in a while" just didn't go over well.
When something did go wrong, it became my responsibility to drop everything to fix it for her, because I was the one who convinced her to use it.
Sadly enough, she was probably better off with AOL.
Lesson learned: First, *never* try to talk anyone into using your server. Offer, maybe. If someone asks, sure. But don't make it your persuasion -- because then its your responsibility.
I speak to my parents about once, on the phone. My Mom told me recently that her computer was broken. When I asked her did she bring it in for repair she told me "No - I fixed it myself, I called Gateway and they sent a new Hard Drive. While I was at it I got some more memory. I put in the memory and the Drive. I had to format the Drive and re-install Windows. I couldn't find the original CD so I went to Compusa and bought Windows. Its working good now" The only things I'd do differently was to but the drive discount and I I wouldn't have used Windows ME but that was all the store had (No Win98 SE). Not bad for a 74 year old !!! My sisters on the other hand - once I had to plug in the speakers because there was no sound and another time I had to press the power button on the speaker!!! My sisters are real good people - but sometimes ...
I guess thats what college does for you!!!
My mom should know, you know? She translated top secret Cruise Missile Techmanuals in the early eigthys from englsh to german. She did the same for the naval Harpoon weapons system. After she had protocolled the radiotransfers for various Apollo Missions a decade earlier. She was often even more tech-savy than my father, who worked as an electronics engineer with the NASA, Airbus and some other cream-of-the-crop companies. And she took DOS lessons when me snot-nosed, then 15 year old kiddie and everybody else still was into Sharp PC (make that "Pocket Computer") 1402 and C64 Commodore Homecomputer. She was the one who warned the townhall definitely not to fall for that 'we'll give you the computers for free' deal from McDonnel Douglas, cause the Software would cost a fortune. And that was back in the 80s. She was something like 20 years ahead of time.i ffsniff...sooooob.
So I actually felt it quite fitting when I gave her my beloved first fullscale working PC, one of the first Notebooks ever. An IBM PS/2 Note N33 SX with 6 MB (4 MB being a Kingston extension for something like 300$). It's worked perfect with Win3.1 and AmiPro and whatever any normal human being will ever need to get along his entire life. It had a HP Deskjet Portable along with it. Sort of something like the printer that was built for just that very laptop. And when she said "I don't need it anymore" I transferred 50$ to her and told her to take that and buy packaging for half of it and to wrap and pack it up _real__good_. And to take the rest and have a coffee and cake on her loving son.
It came in a box with 1 cm room on every face, filled with sad and sorry 2 layers of bubble plastic. Something you get for 5$ max.
It's not damaged on the outside, but it won't fire up and I can't find no lose wires and if I take it apart I just know it will be gone for ever andwhy thehelldidn'tshewrapituprealgoodlikeItoldher...sn
A crying shame, if you ask me. The keyboard is unmatched, even by my workstation im sitting at just now. Just plain a crying shame. Especially when you think that *my* mom *really* should know better. I still get quite mad at my mom when I think of it.
We suffer more in our imagination than in reality. - Seneca
Too bad... I never finished my submarine combat game either.
Not everyone deserves a 320i
I used to get requests all the time for family tech support. Slowly overtime I was able to get just about everyone to get a dell or gateway now when something goes wrong my first response is: Did you call Dell/Gateway remember you spent a few extra bucks on the special tech support line.....You should use it...(or something like that). May not be the most moral thing but the bottom line is it *almost* always works :)
ABout 6 years ago when I was married and living in a small town, there was a lunar eclipse and a somewhat pagan/alternative religion lunar eclipse party 15 miles up in the woods that my wife wanted to go to.
There was a nice big log cabin with a stream running through it, a wood stove, and a big bonfire outside. A whole bunch of people were dancing around the fire, playing drums and various musical instruments and singing songs about the moon. Even the local Anglican minister was there! He was cool.
If it were warmer outside, most of the people would have been skyclad.
So I am standing near the fire and the dancing singing people in the middle of nowhere.... and this guy walks up to me who I do not recognize.
"Are you Jeff Koftinoff?" He asks.
"Yup." I reply.
"My computer doesn't boot. How do I fix it?"
Now I know how doctors feel at parties. I felt like throwing him into the fire.
--jeff++
ipv6 is my vpn
I just walked through my girl friend in phone on how to format your HD and reinstall Windows.
Wasn't as bad as I had anticipated.
Took bit over a hour to check over phone that she had proper back-ups and all installation media was at hand.
It was quite odd to instruct someone to use the command line, when she had never ever touched command line interface ever before. The concept of typing commands was unfamiliar to her.
Me: Ok, now type 'd-i-r space slash A - D' and tell me what it says
Her: Invalid command or file name.
*grinds teeth*
Me: Honey, could you double check you typed it right?
And so on... Miraculously enough, I think we got the machine sorted
Bot Assisted Blogging
We had a baaaaaaad breakup (she cheated and ended our two-year relationship quite evil-ly).
...and the professor was a hardass who didn't take kindly to excuses ...AND she'd already gotten a one-week extension, so if it wasn't in she'd get a ZERO on it... ...and would I PLEASE SAVE HER????
:)
I did some minor tech support for her in the months after. Nothing big. And then I did this...
I get a call from her saying that her computer was completely dead (wouldn't even boot) and that she had a paper worth 50% of her final grade due in the morning. (3rd year university course)
So I went through the standards - is it plugged in, what was the last error message, etc. It really sounded like she'd picked up some kind of nasty virus.
So she asked me if I would pleeeeease come over to fix it? There was no one else there who could! Please?
I said no, you're screwed.
And hung up.
I later found out from a mutual friend that she failed the course.
Evil of me, I know. But score one for the good guys!
I can deal with my parents, because they relied on me to set up the hardware and have the sense to listen to what I tell them. I also built their machine myself (it's an old gaming box of mine) and set it up with NT 4 locked down so they couldn't screw things up too badly. NT 4, for all its many faults, is pretty stable for generic office desktop use and doesn't usually eat itself spontaneously the way Win95 and '98 do.
My pastor, OTOH, doesn't quite seem to comprehend (despite being told on at least a dozen occasions) that I haven't used any breed of Windows for much other than making Powerpoint presentations and playing games in about 5 years. I work at a supercomputer center, fer cryin' out loud; I deal with Linux and various proprietary Unices all day, not this Winders crap. Yet somehow I get called on to do the "hard stuff" on the church's computers (running mostly '95 and '98), despite the fact that other folks in the church community know much more about Windows than I do...
Examples of the resulting fun include the following:
These aren't particularly egregious when you've got a couple hours to spend on them. However, when you're got 30-40 minutes tops and you often have to squeeze in some rehearsal time too (I also play in my church's praise band), it tends to make one feel a bit harried...
...but I have to add my own story. The year - 1987. I'm at college and am the family tech support. My parents have one of the early IBM PCs with twin 5 1/4" drives. ("Yes, child, in the early days PCs didn't have a hard drive.") I had managed to acuire a copy of DOS and an early version of WordPerfect that would run on this machine.
One day I get a phone call from my mother saying that the computer won't work. I asked what she was doing at the time of the failure.
"Getting rid of things so that I have space on the floppy disks."
"Hmmm...Go on."
"Well, I deleted a file and suddenly the computer wouldn't work any more."
"What was the file you deleted?"
"I don't remember the name."
"Did you look at it before you deleted it?"
"Oh, yes."
"And?"
"It was just gibberish and funny symbols."
Sigh.
Managed to track down a friend who could restore the files, fortunately.
"The plural of anecdote is not data."
My own immediate family is actually pretty reasonable when it comes to computers. I've fixed my sister's computer once or twice, and when I told her "don't download and install this crap anymore or your computer will get messed up again," she took it to heart, and now she's doing a lot better. Also, she never blamed me for her computer failing.
Also (and please excuse my cliched comment here), if you're setting up a computer for your grandma who just reads email and plays bridge, Linux may be a good option. It's not vulnerable to most of the malware/spyware/adware feces that slows so many computers down. Just do her a favor and don't spend three hours preaching to her about the virtues of open source. She just wants a computer she can use.
i always thought that about their mens' propensity for wearing womens' clothes. or maybe that was the french
We had just upgraded our home PC so my wife thought it would be a good idea to ship the old one off to her dad.. No problem..
We set it all up for him in advance and shipped out a monitor, PC, keyboard, ect via UPS..
Shortly after it arrived we got the call ( as expected). He has it all setup but nothing happens when he turns it on..
We go over the power cords but everything sounds ok..
My worst fear was the CPU fell out of the slot.. I figure since this guy is a master carpenter he can handle a screwdriver.
I told him I thought the CPU might be loose and he'll need to open the case to check..
Just look around for the big silver heat sink with 2 fans on it when you get it open.
No problem.. He'll get a screwdriver and call me back when he has the cover off..
10 minutes later he's back on the phone.. It's open but he can't find a silver heatsink with a fan on it anywhere.. hmmm
Me:What do you see?
Him: Well there's a bunch of wires, boards and a big tube.
Me:A tube???
Him: Yeah a tube.
Me: Did you open the monitor?
Him: Thats the PC isn't it?
Me: Umm no.. Don't touch anything in there.. Just put it back together. We need to open the big square box up that all the cables hook up to.
Him: ohh the power supply..
Me: Umm yeah sure thats it.
Him: ok I'll call you right back (click)
After he got "that other box" open he found the CPU and got it back in it's little slot..
After that everything was great.. till he bought a printer later that week at wall-mart..
If you think it's expensive to hire a professional to do the job, wait until you hire an amateur. --Red Adair
We all like to joke about being the "tech support guy", but I can't understand the attitude some of the replies to this post have. You're supposed to help your family and friends when they have a problem that you can solve. To do otherwise is selfish.
You're accountable to your friends and family, and you're first priority should always be to contribute what you can to help them get ahead. They would do the same for you.
How many of us have a relative who insists on calling both RAM and hard drive space "memory"? Mine even manages to find every possible ambiguous situation for confusing the issue, such as "It says here on the box that I don't have enough memory to install this." And then she insists that I know what she really means and that I'm being stuborn.
The net will not be what we demand, but what we make it. Build it well.
Well, if Monty Python is any judge, that would be the Brits, definitely.
:)
And I defy you to find an 'f' or a 'ph' anywhere in the word 'lieutenant'!
I like fish-n-chips, though.
And the Clash.
I guess that mostly makes up for everything else. Fish-n-chips-n-the-Clash.
Canada has a _long_ way to go to make up for William Shatner, though.
Hi Donald,
/. editor or book reviewer that I can recall). Perhaps some of these professionals (sic) should take a cue from your writing style.
You have a serious knack for writing, and I mean that sincerely. (Better than any
I really enjoyed your narrative of the events. Keep it up.
Corporate Gadfly
Jonathan Archer: the most beaten up Enterprise captain in Star Trek history
My mother-in-law was shopping on Ebay but doesn't have her own account. So she printed out the items she wanted and faxed it to my step-father-in-law who was then under orders to bid on it. He works in the same office as my husband, so it became hubby's job to teach the mom how to cut and paste links to email.
Don't ask me: I'm just the laughing observer.
Ungrateful relative, 2:00am: "Hey Bob, you know that land you let me hunt on? Well, there was this bog and I wasn't sure if I should go around it or not, so I tried to go through it. My truck is stuck in the mud. Will you come over and pull it out for me? I'll cook you dinner?"
Bob: "What were you doing driving off-road at 2:00am through a swamp?"
Ungrateful relative: "Of course I know how to use a comp^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H hunt! It's not my fault your land is covered in bogs."
Bob: "I'll be right over..."
Three days later...
dinner time: **ring**, **ring** Ungrateful relative: "The toilet in your cottage is plugged. I'm not sure how to work one of these things."
Bob: "Do you see a plunger?"
Ungrateful relative: "Is that the one with with the twirly 'e'?"
Bob: "I'll be right over..."
The next day..
Ungrateful relative: "I was trying to drive out of your camp but my truck won't start. I think your bog screwed it up?"
Bob: "Did you leave the lights on?"
Ungrateful relative: "Why, does that matter?"
Bob: "I'll be right over..."
etc...
I really am amazed at how people think Linux is still hard to use. These people remind me of the "math is hard" Barbie.
I introduced my family to Linix back in the 1.2.0 kernel days,w ith a little tweaking of the twm config. They all picke dit up easily, wven my computer-phobic wife. My daughter, after prolonged exposure to WIndows at work, still prefers Linux. I'm the only geek in the bunch.
Other than occaiosnally installing software, or config'ing some new port or service, I haven't had to do much. And I don't need VNC to do remote work.
And we've never had a virus via email.
My brother, OTOH, who set up Mom's windows box, does hadve to do a bit more, from what I undertstand. 8^)
she couldn't find the 'Any' key.
paintball
Give them broadband, and a win-terminal. Let them connect back to your house via VPN to your terminal server.. you control all the software the support, everything.... little for them to break either..
Problem solved..
If they are really smart, make it X instead of Terminal Server....
---- Booth was a patriot ----
but I refuse to talk to endusers. Period. Not Happening.
As for support at home (wife, 3 kids - one PC each) it's very simple.
Daughter & younger son:
I install Linux and lock the box down and they don't have the root password. Never a problem. Occasionally they ask me to install a new application. Other than that, it just works. Annual support hours: 2
Wife & older son:
Need to run Windows for work/school. What a freakin nightmare. They already know the routine. Reboot. Then I typically ignore them for a few days. Then we reinstall and eventually reformat. Then I'm pissed for another two days. Funniest part is when my daughter makes fun of them. Annual support hours: countless
MY mother-in-law always has the same problem.
MIL: It doesn't work.
ME: What does the screen say.
MIL: It said something about a problem.
ME: What problem.
MIL: I don't remember I shut it off already.
ME: Ok I will check it next time I am there.
You would think she would get out of the stone age and learn to use paper and pencil.
Next visit the machine boots no problem. OR it runs scandisk but I tell her I can't find any problem.
"Your having a bad day when the voices in your head put you on hold"
This was probably my favorite:
Family member: "Why isn't my friend getting this email"
Me: "Oh, well it looks like you typed a '1' instead of an 'l' in her email address"
Family member: "Oh. Well, how does the internet know the difference?"
It took me 15 seconds or so to even think of how to respond, I was so suprised by the question.
Here in the dorms, I get quite a few questions, but I don't mind. I like working with computers enough that taking a few minutes to solve a problem is a nice study break. For bigger problems I just say that I'd be happy to do it when I have some free time.
Strangest computer problem at school? That would have to be when my floor's janitor brought his computer into my room unannounced and asked me why the RAM he installed wasn't working. To this day I wonder how he knew that I'd be able to help him out. [It was the wrong kind of RAM for his mobo btw]
-.-- -.-- --..
One fish / Two fish / Red fish / Blue fish
ShyaOS - Think Differently!
OK Thats nothing, I used to work in the tech department of my university, and an art professor used to call with all his problems. Favorite one:
I can see all the files with the As and Bs but nothing else.
Solution: Walk over to his department and teach him how to scroll.
OK now that Ive warmed you up, heres the real story of a computa fixa:
I'm originally from central Afghanistan. People there have kids plentiful because they dont have to pay rent or send them off to college. I had 22 uncles and aunts from my fathers side (from 3 grandmothers) and 11 from my mothers side. I have over 100 first cousins...
Now being popular as the only geek around in this family isnt fun. Add to this the fact that everyone needs a computer for emails, homeworks and offical documents, and that everyone likes to pay less than what the brand names ask for, so they would like to assemble their own systems.
Guess who they call when they get a virus? Guess who they blame the toast power supply on? Now you really see the scale of this equation? The place where I buy the computer parts, the sellers become a good friend of mine, I'm his biggest business. I've assembled up to 10 systems in a week. I'm scheduled to build 2 this weekend.. and I'm not even in my home town. I'm in Toronto where I work at a manufacturing company fixing guess what? and in the evenings I head for a real estate firm where I have a contract to fix and maintain guess whats?
I'm halfway through college, and really interested into embedded computer design, far away from hardware maintenance and microsoft. I'm too busy and poor to study right now. Busy fixing computers.
"Give orange me give eat orange me eat orange give me eat orange give me you." -Nim Chimpsky
Because I have my mom and dad running linux. Have for years, since before mozilla came down the pike. They were perfectly content with the old binary-only netscape and staroffice. Now they run mozilla and openoffice, and those are the only types of application that most non-technophiles really ever run. Oh, and the gnome games, of course. [Mom couldn't get by without solitare and mah-jong]. Linux not ready for the desktop? Phhhht.
---
the pen is mightier than the sword, the sword is mightier than the court, the court is mightier than the pen.
Ever heard of cell phones? Or neighbors?
My mom passed away in 2000 so now I can only wish that I could do family tech support. My brother does not use computers and my step dad never calls with PC problems. Maybe I could do tech support for YOUR family? ;-)
first post!
I installed Cygwin on my father's computer, so that I could use sshd. I put an icon on his desktop that starts a bash shell. The shell prints out:
enter "./help" to initiate a help request.
Yes, it's redundant. But, it saves me from getting email when he just clicks the icon. He has still clicked the icon and carefully entered "./help", and swore up and down that he never did so until I showed him the email with the date and time.
The shell scripts starts sshd. VNC is already running and incoming port 22 is open on the firewall. I login to sshd with an ssh client that is set up to open a secure tunnel to port 5901. Then, I just launch VNC viewer on localhost:1 and I can do whatever I need. Since I already have a bash shell, I can do a lot of things through the command line (without much bandwidth needed). Since the desktop is shared, I can also walk him through any problem that he is having.
When I'm done, I use the bash shell (via the ssh client) to kill the sshd servers, closing the connection and any access to his system. There are two password layers, but I'd prefer to leave it closed.
Now, if I could just get him to quit opening viruses. He got hit by Klez, while he was dithering around, trying to find his old version of Norton anti-virus so he could get the upgrade rebate.
I knew my mom-in-law would want tech support. Even though she would call me on her nickle, I wanted to minimize it. So, I had her get a Mac.
Little did I know, but Apple ships these things with IE and Outlook. The only questions have been about IE and Outlook. I have replaced IE with Netscape, but have not replaced the email client as yet.
-- Stephen.
My 67 year old father has been using WebTV for years. I am proud that he is on the web and buys things online but I cring every time I see how bad webpages look and how hard it is to navigate. I so badly want to buy him a cheap e-mail/web browsing computer but I know I will be the one fixing it all the time. The WebTV never breaks and all he does it press the power button to get online. I am so tore.
I build my own PCs but I buy my parents
PC's from companies like HP and eMachines
and signed them up for AOL. The reason?
These companies operate help desks so my
mom can solve her own problems.
That said, it was pretty ironic when my
mom started complaining about how her
Win98 machine kept freezing up. It turned
out that she was leaving it up for weeks.
I told her to just reboot it every day and
stop stressing that her Win98 software was
not reliable enough to stay up for weeks
at a time...
...obviously if you don't want all those dumb responses, you would configure the Mailer Daemon to be slightly more articulate. Does he actually expect people to parse through the gobblety-gook, and understand what a "non-fatal" error is? What's with sending warning messages anyway?
....Ya, this will probably be at the bottom of 500+ comments, but I just want to say to all those who complain about "having to fix their relatives computers"...be greatful you have relatives with computer to fix. My father is deceased. All my grandparents are deceased, and my mother is close enough that she probably doesnt even remember how to use a keyboard...and im only 24.
what i would give to be able to have relatives that i can bitch about....
I lost my concept of community when my community lost all concept of me.
They are the experts. However, the supply runs out after six years (unlike a junior high school) so you have make more them on a regular basis!
Okay. Yeah, it can be a royal pain in the butt, especially when they are out of state. Everyone calls me for help. I just tell them I'm a un*x specialist (including linux and OS X), and I don't work with stuff (windows) that breaks a lot.
:-)
Now, back to the parents. Think back... Can any of you folks honestly tell me that you NEVER caused your parents more grief than their computer caused you?
My family is small (unfortunately made smaller recently by the loss of my mom in Florida last November) so yes, my support load went down a lot, but if all I had to do was provide PC support to get my mom back, that would be a fair trade.
I also have to wonder how many kids you folks have. I have a nine year old and a 7 year old, and yes I provide them support. Remeber, your kids get to pick your nursing home someday.
I live 400 miles from my mother. I have tried to help dear mom on numerous occassions over the phone - which is similar to slamming yourself in the head with a large brick.
Once she came up for a visit and brought her computer along for me to fix it. It was so badly screwed up from several viruses that I just formatted and reinstalled windows.
Another time she paid my expenses to come down and fix her system. It was horribly infected with spyware via our friends at Kazaa. There were other fun things on it, too. Fortunately, formatting wasn't necessary this time.
While I was there I removed Microsoft Lookout and installed Pegasus. I also removed Internet Exploder and installed a Mozilla browser. I warned her, if she got another virus infection from using Outlook or IE (meaning she had reinstalled them), I would remove windows, install Linux, and lock down the box so she couldn't mess it up again.
BTW, you can learn a lot about your family when going through their computers. My nephew used my mom's computer a lot. Seems he was very into Asian lesbian porn (which was probably the source of many of the spyware items I found). The look on his face when I asked about it was priceless, especially since I asked him in front of his girlfriend. Yeah, I can be a real bastard, but I bet he doesn't surf for porn on his grandmother's computer anymore!
As for those wonderful forwards from family. I fixed that problem a long time ago. Since I run my own email server, I have it configured to block anything with "fwd: fwd:" in the subject. Family never bothers to clean up the subject, so the typical crap from them is "fwd: fwd: fwd: fwd: fwd: Email tax proposed!!!!!" They get a bounce message, "Multigenerational forwards rejected by the mail server.", which I am sure they don't understand. That's a good thing because it means they won't try to resend it.
-- Will program for bandwidth
"- Use NT/Win2K: Win98 seems to attract all the garbage that can be thrown at it, and not hold up well. Win2K is much more resilient."
My parents were both still running Win98SE on their machines up until recently. My mom still runs 98SE, which definitely sucks for the most part (although it gets the basic tasks done).
I just upgraded to XP for my dad though, and it is a good improvement even over 2000. It is just as stable, and the desktop is alot easier to navigate for the 50 year old parents who require 3 different types of glasses (1 for using the computer, 1 for driving, etc..). The entire desktop is alot cleaner (atleast in classic style, I dont use the new XP look) and it was alot easier for my Dad to navigate around vs 2000, especially when I was on the phone with him trying to have him click here-there to fix something.
She's had a laptop for years. Not a single problem in all that time. Of course, that's because she doesn't turn it on (because it's not set up, yet), or let anyone touch it (they might break it!).
I suppose I should be grateful. Doing family tech support from San Francisco to Budapest would not be fun.
-- Will program for bandwidth
I will fix it once. I may even fix it twice. I MAY even do it a third time. After that BITE ME!
This makes it sound like the stuff your family does for you is interchangeable with your tech support on a per-incident basis. I'm not sure that's fair.
My boyfriend's sister needed help with their family's computer a while back. I drove an hour to get there, grumbling all the way; did an hour's worth of light, easy work fiddling with their settings and giving her pointers; then drove back. Not how I wanted to spend my Saturday, but her husband spent a whole day fixing our roof once in the blazing sun. As far as I'm concerned, we still owe them a few hours of whatever help they need, and then some.
Try this for your shutdown woes...
read through the whole thing though- there are like 4 pages that link to eachother, and the first page worked for me- I flipped some setting*, rebooted, and then next thing I know when I shutdown I get that pretty "its safe to turn of your computer" screen.
*IRQ Steering
This option allows several PCI devices to share the same interrupt request line (IRQ). If the BIOS is not fully compliant, this option may cause your computer not to shut down properly, even if two or more devices are not sharing an IRQ. To disable PCI bus IRQ Steering, follow these steps: (go to the web page for details)
In the future, I would want to not be isolated from my friends in the Space Station.
My father introduced me to the world of computing when I was just four years old. His company had bought an IBM System/360 for the Accounting Department and I was in awe. Keypunch machines, card sorters, massive line printers, banks of tape storage, a huge console with blinkenlights. This was back in the day when system administrators still wore long white lab coats.
/., only because there was a relevant article on the front page. I received an e-mail about an hour later, with "What's all this about 'Hot Grits'? Is that something like Java? And what's a 'Beowulf cluster'?". I am grateful she didn't click on the wrong link, you know the one I mean.
I watched as my father, a CPA and comptroller, pulled himself into computer literacy by his bootstraps, poring over COBOL manuals and making flow charts with those green plastic templates. We assembled a DigiComp, and learned binary math together.
Fast forward forty years: he's retired, using a white-box PC running Win95 and three different versions of AOL to send mail and browse the Web. Every time I visit I need to diagnose a minor problem, a balky modem, not enough disk space, or just do some maintenance, like a defrag or scan, or clean up the cruft on his Taskbar (damn you Real Player!). I do it happily, because hey, family. At least I save my bitching for Slashdot.
My mother, on the other hand, is reasonably clueful. Maybe this has something to do with the fact that she writes software for payroll systems, or can rely on her employees for advice and assistance. Sometimes she'll ask me about tech stuff, but it's often general questions about things like Linux or XML (her products run on Windows).
Again, I'm happy to help when I can, though once I sent her to
So there's the two sides of the coin: one parent needs help with AOL, while the other can answer any question I might have about C++, even if troubleshooting hardware is outside of her skill set.
k.
"In spite of everything, I still believe that people are really good at heart." - Anne Frank
After 2 full new systems, 1 replacement CPU, 2 sticks of new RAM, 2 new HDD, 1 new Floppy, 3 new video cards, 1 new network card, 1 new modem, over a dozen Windows re-installs, countless PC Anywhere connections and numerous lectures on the problems of saying "Yes" to everything on the web, my mother in law called me to ask my advice on buying a new answering machine. Seems the old one broke after one of their almost weekly power surges. "They're quite common down here, but they've never caused any problems before, so we don't really take any notice of them."
At least I can say with confidence it wasn't my tech skills letting the side down.
-------------------------------------------------
My mother had been a WebTV user for a couple of years, but she was getting frustrated at the things she couldn't do, so I arranged for her to buy a new Compaq Presario. (At the time, I worked for Compaq and got it through the Employee Purchase Program, but without telling her, I subsidized her purchase by a few hundred dollars.)
It was the bottom of the line, with a Duron 800 processor, but it was more than enough for her and she loved it. She immediately started downloading every program she could find and wondered why her "puter" started acting strangely.
Soon after I visited (she's in Florida, I'm in New Hampshire) and I brought her a copy of Norton AntiVirus (the Compaq-installed CrapAfee AV had silently stopped working months ago) and got her ZoneAlarm as well. Thankfully, she had not yet gotten a virus - how she had managed avoiding that, I don't know. She was happy.
A few weeks ago, I get e-mail from her saying that when she used the new Kodak digital camera my brothers gave her, she would get "insufficient resource" errors (the Presario had Windows Me.) She told me that she had deleted a lot of files, but the errors remained. I explained that this wasn't related to files, and that upgrading to XP would take care of the resource problems. She knew XP, as she used it at work. So she goes off to Staples, buys and installs an upgrade.
For the most part, it went very well. But she soon wrote to say that her "puter" was very sluggish, and she was getting errors about "memory". Firing up the Remote Help facility (I had never used it before, and it's quite nice), I soon realized that the system had only 64MB of RAM, which was insufficient for XP and the things she was running.
As it happened, a few weeks earlier my Asus A7V133 had died - I replaced it with a P4S8X, but then I had these two 256MB sticks of Mushkin PC133 "Rev 2" RAM doing nothing. So I sent them to my mom, along with a printout of a Compaq booklet showing how to install them.
Bless her, she was actually willing to open the box and install the memory! I had her move the existing stick to a different slot, but when she was done, the "puter" was dead - no video display.
Several calls, with helpful suggestions, were made, but to no avail. She then proceeded to take the box to a woman in her office who "knows these things" and the problem was solved - my mother simply couldn't push hard enough on the DIMMs to seat them in the socket!
So now her "puter" is purring along with 576MB of RAM ("enough to pilot a starship," she says), and all is well.
My mother had done hardly anything with computers for most of her life, but she has found a new calling. Yes, for a while anyway, she forwarded jokes and hoaxes to me, but she has gotten into newsgroups in a big way and runs a web site with helpful information that a lot of people have thanked her for. Her calls for tech support are few and far between - she manages to work things out on her own most of the time. I'm very proud of her.
Oh, she still uses her WebTV while in bed!
Until last year, when my dad's secretary was starting a home business, and he volunteered me to do some brochures for her.
On the more relevant topic about doing tech support for a large, extended family, I have a bit of advice. Find a young cousin, niece/nephew, whatever, that has geek potential. Give that person an old computer, direct them to Slashdot, do whatever is necessary to corrupt them properly. Then start shifting the burden of responsibility.
I wish I had thought of this earlier--I've got a young cousin who's currently taking over some of the duties for me. (I didn't do anything to steer him early on, but I might apply that to some of the other branches of the family.) And it's fun to have another geek in the family for reunions. :)
Cheers,
Mzilikazi
Random Musings at Rum Smuggler
Nice piece... it rung true in my ears. With fond feelings I remember cleaning cat hair out of the heatsink fan on my mother's P2 400... interesting how cats love to rub against those cheap side panels with cut out gratings. That and sleep on the keyboard. ;)
If you are one who receives such support from a friend or family member there are some fairly simple things you can do to thank them and retain their services. These are suggestions from just such an individual and may not reflect your generous geek.
1.Thank Them. Don't gush. Don't thank them more than twice for a single incident.
2.Feed Them. Most geeks like free food. In spite of the traditional pizza and soda jokes, they really like good home cooking or a nice restaurant. They usually do no indulge in such pleasantries.
3.Clean off your desk before they arrive. While they are gracious about the clutter, it probably frustrates them to some degree.
4.Gifts. You have to be careful with gifts for a geek. Collecting floppy disks and AOL CD's is a bad idea. Most geeks desire gifts that are fairly expensive and are too modest to ask for such a gift. Confront them and ask what they really want, but only if you are prepared to spend more than $100. Gift certificates for tech stores are good. Cash is king. Say something like "I cannot afford to pay you the full value of your services, but I wanted you to have this to know that your generosity is appreciated". It will go a very long way. Don't buy them a gadget unless you are sure of the exact model they want. It is not wrong to say to them "I want to buy you a [insert gift item]. Which one should I get?"
5.Cards. A thank you card sent via US Postal Service is good. Do not be offended if they do not keep them very long.
6.Be patient and gracious. They see things differently than you - that is why you called them.
7.Keep you documents and CD's. Your favorite geek will probably tell you to keep your program CD's and some paperwork in a safe place. Just put everything in a single file folder and have it on the desk when they arrive. The tools they need to fix or upgrade your computer are in there.
8.Listen. When giving advice, they have your best interest at heart. Don't forget that you called them because you believe they know more than you about this. You don't have to understand everything they say. If you find something confusing or hard to remember, ask them to explain it again or write it down.
9.Ask questions. It is very difficult to understand what you want when you say something like "my icons are not right". Instead, rephrase it into a question like "how can I fix my icons?"
10.Storage. If you live withing a few blocks, offer them a corner of your basement or a closet for storage space. Many geeks live in apartments and could use some extra storage.
11.Gas. Offer to buy them a tank of gas for their trouble.
12.Old computer stuff. If you upgrade and don't plan on using your old computer or printer offer it to them. Frequently they will give the hardware to someone else who doesn't have one. You may have already been the recipient of such hardware or software and don't even know it.
13.Time. Respect their time. It is likely they are helping more people than just you. Use phrases like "is this a good time to call?", "what time works best for you?", "do you have time now?", "what do I need to have ready when you arrive?" It is easier to get support when the environment you create for them is pleasant to them.
14.Kids. Offer to babysit for them.
15.Internet. Offer to buy them broadband. Understand that this may be a perpetual expense or it could be for a limited time period - most service providers have term commitments.
Keep in mind that if you were to pay a company to send out an individual you would likely be paying $75 - $125 per hour plus trip charges. So, even if you are paying them a thank-you is still important.
--- "1.21 Jigawatts!" -Doc
When my wife was in grad school she used to volunteer my computer repair services to her friends. After the umpteenth time being asked advice on software I had never used, I told my wife to tell her friends that I was a gynecologist and was willing to give free exams to her friends. She got the point and I was no longer barraged with tech support calls.
Salaam
My wife's family was having all sorts of AOL troubles and slowdowns which weren't solvable by the means they had tried: screaming and accusations. So, one weekend we made the 4 hour drive to visit them and I checked out their computer. I hit ctrl-alt-del to see what is running, expecting 3 or 4 apps.
...
I had to scroll down 2 screens to see everything.
Every piece of spyware, adware, malware was there. ISP software from ISPs they don't use. Tons of programs HP included for no good reason. Random apps of unknown orogin. Kazaa. Napster. Multiple installations of AOL. Everything.
It runs much faster now.
I can't tell you how many people have had this conversation with me:
Them: "I am having such-n-such problem"
Me: "What OS?"
Them "Windows 97"
I have had people adamently insist they were runing "windows97." I think I've also heard of windows99. It's probably better than 97.
My mom lives about a 5 hour drive away, but she comes up to visit every 2 or 3 months. I have her fairly well trained to bring her wintel box minus all the peripheral stuff. So every time she visits, I give her system a quick checkup/tuneup. If it needs something, I go out to CompUSA with her and we pick it up. She's always enjoyed shopping so very much while I tend to avoid it, so it's a nice mother-daughter bonding thing. For the most part, the frantic weekly support calls have dried up.
The Digital Sorceress
I almost crapped my pants the first time I booted XP. Where was everything? The desktop had a recycle bin, and that was all. Very frightening. Did it even install correctly, I wondered?
:)
Well, yes - and in my opinion, no. But XP can be fixed. (Or at least made backwards compatible for those of us who are used to the old style.)
First, change to the classic Start Menu:
To change to the "Classic" Start menu, right-click Start, and click Properties. Click the radio button in front of Classic Start menu, click Apply and OK. This will fix the Start menu to look the old skool style, and also fix the desktop to display My Computer, Network Neighborhood, etc. Why a Start Menu setting fixes the desktop I don't know.
Second, disable simple (crippled) file sharing:
Open Windows explorer. Go to Tools | Folder Options | View.
Scroll to the bottom of the list of advanced settings and un-check Use Simple File Sharing (Recommended).
Click OK. This will fix the OS so that you can see the permissions on each folder.
Those two things should go a long way. I also change the windows explorer to Explore mode by default (so much faster to see the whole tree), and show file extensions. These are more advanced settings, so perhaps only suggest them to more computer literate people. Still, at least you won't get: "this file doesn't work" and ask them what kind of file it is. They have no clue because the extensions are hidden. The problem being that truly clueless users will strip the extensions off when renaming, rendering a file useless until the extension is re-added.
Or maybe you should just ignore this post so that you don't have to repair a family members broken OS
// harborpirate
// Slashbots off the starboard bow!
I use VNC to admin my parent's computer, but it's a pain in the ass to call their cell phone (dial-up access take up their real phone number) and talk them through getting, and then giving to me, their IP address.
So, one time when I was connected to their computer I emailed my mom a dyndns.org client. Now whenever they dial up, the computer goes out to dyndns.org and updates it's IP address so they don't have to know it and get it to me.
They call me with a problem and all they hear is "turn on the computer, click the little phone icon that makes the computer dial and screen, sit back, and enjoy the show".
My family is mostly Mac users, so I do not get many calls from them (since they have few problems and I do not know anything about Mac's except how to replace them with PC's or recommend they replace them with PC's). So my family is pretty great about not bothering me.
As karma would have it, I moved into a condo and am now constantly assaulted by seniors with computer questions. Do not get me wrong, I love to see people excited to use a computer but I do not understand why they think I care that they have a problem with theirs.
I think I am going to inform them of a new problem of mine. I can no longer hear a voice unless it has $50.00 in its hand... I will then hope that these people are inherently cheaper than annoying (or I will get some cash).
So, my wife's family's scanner wasn't working, and neither was their phone line. The called us on their cell phone a bitched endlessly, and we told them to call the freakin phone company.
Well, to make a long story short, the phone guy pulled the USB scanner cable out of the phone jack and everything worked again.
That one is even better than a friend's mom who jammed a 3.5" floppy into a 5.25" drive.
(See, Gramma, just 1 + 2 = 3! See? See?)
How many now would have this kind of problem? So...
By the time everybody in his/her early teens is in their 50's (2040 - 2050), will they still be the technical pains-in-the-asses to THEIR children?
They say the first thing to go is your penis. Well, it's either that or your brain. I forget which...
The thing she just can't learn to deal with, is the "print monitor". When stuff is queued for printing, and then there's an exception (out of paper or something) the OS's printing service pauses and even after you fix the problem at the printer, it does not resume until the user tells it to. She can't get it into her head to bring the print monitor thing to the foreground and tell it to resume. Instead, she tells her app (Claris Works) to print again. And of course, nothing comes out.
I have showed her many times. And she doesn't get it.
Even classic MacOS is too much for some people. If she had something like Windows or Linux, it would be totally impossible.
If you have a Mac, try using VNC Thing to control Windows machines!
Anytime a family support call comes my way, I know it 's hours down the drain.
At least 10 years of the mantra:
'only run and install programs which you will use'
has done no good.
Can't we just accept the fact that your normal Windows desktop bogs down/crashes when the number of processes > 25 and/or when you have 3 or more hardware attached processes scanning ports/usb stuff all of the time.
This sounds bad but I act like I don't know much about hardware. I tell them, "Yes I work on a computer but I have no idea what goes on inside of one."
Ricky Silk
kung foo ezine let me waste your time.
I maintain systems for my parents (one local, one 1,500 miles away), inlaws, friends, etc... It's pretty easy. All you do is patch the snot out of things when you install, carefully instruct them on the basics, and add one proviso:
"I'll be happy to work on your computer anytime if you bring it over to my house."
I have a fully stocked "lab" at the house and plenty of time to play. Amazingly enough, my inlaws will drag the computers all the way in when things go wrong. Not a bad deal.
Shortly after I moved out of the home my mother called me up once to ask me...
:)
For my phone number.
I gave it to her, and chit-chatted, lettting her know I was okay. I don't know if it was just a really bad execuse or if she was just a bit off her rocker that day. Mental illness -does- run in the family
I've also found that the attitude of just about anyone in my family is that because I work with "computers" I must be up for technical support.
In fact, while my work may be technical (I'm a systems analyst) I'm no more qualified to diagnose why Windows can't see a CD drive than Greta Garbo.
Doesn't stop me from trying though. When I fail, the pitiful looks on people's faces are similar to if my profession were garage mechanic and I couldn't fix their car.
Maybe this is what working for the Secret Service is like - not even your mum can know what you do for a living.
"And the meaning of words; when they cease to function; when will it start worrying you?"
The Zeos Pantera baby, best computer I ever owned! In fact, the company was so horribly mismanaged I got 2 free Zeos Pantera's, which cost like $3500 at the time, LOL.
FUNYN SIG!!
YOU'ER TEH LOL!!!
no, seriously dude, it sucks...
It would be amusing if that sentence meant something in french, but whereas it is written in french, it simply isn't a meaningful insult...
Try something more like:
Les français sont tous des lâches!
(if you want to keep the 'cowardice' meaning...)(But don't keep the cheese/snail/frogs-eating... as it is neither negative nor a meaningful qualificative!)
After trying one to many times to walk family members through seemingly simple processes over the phone, only to nearly loose my sanity, I set up the following rules for "Family Tech Support."
.". Install software for them, rather than trying to pick up in the middle of a botched install.
1) They tell me what kind of computer they want and and send me the money.
2) I pick a computer and peripherals that are PC99 color coded compliant. I set up the computer and everything on it along with pcAnywhere, then FedEx it too them.
3) They are told to call me when the package so that I can make sure they don't try to jam a fushia connector into a lime port.
4) They then call the cable company and get a cable modem.
5) During the workday, while monitoring various routers, firewalls, servers, call recorders, etc.. . It goes kinda like
Run report on Company A web server. . . Check.
Patch Company B Exchange server. . . Check.
Troubleshoot Company C call recorder. . . Check.
Install Deluxe Mah Jong tiles for mom. . . Check.
Works great. I can do preemptive maintenance, log in and watch them recreate problems they are having, or simply call them up, take there mouse and go "see you just click here and. .
It has added years to my life. Cause let me tell you, there is nothing more stressful than trying to be really cheerful and loving to your grandmother after she "deleted all those documents on the hard drive that she diddnt create."
AN easy fix for your last problem: let 'em bring it over. That way you have all the tools, internet access and you can even just plug their HD into your machine. And you don't have to deal with their comments etc...just tell 'em "Kom 'm maar over een paar dagen ophalen." :)
;)
OTOH, that approach doesn't convey to them the fact that computer troubleshooting can be somewhat difficult and time consuming at times...which means they'll give you just the one beer instead of the sixpack or kratje you deserve
-- Waht? Tehr's a preveiw buottn?
I provide support for my familyt and neighbour without too much hassle. The trick is that I put them all on the network, lock down the computers, use a smaba server with roaming profiles so they load all their settings from the server, and none of them have the ability to install anything or have local accounts on their computers.
When another neighbour insisted on helping our networked neighbour to install program and was very upset he couldn't, and demanded the admin password, I offered to unlock the computer after I disconnected her from the network and shared internet feed. That was the end of that.
I don't do support for computers I can't lock down.
CM www.cometenergysystems.com Blog: http://caribbeanrenewable.blogspot.com/
Sent him a BH6 with Celeron 566 on a slocket with SDR / hdd / cd etc.
:)
Machine was giving him trouble and seemed like a hardware fault - almost like something was loose, bad conn on the dimms or something.
30 minutes into the conversation the board is on the desk on top of some paper (no static bags around) running fine.
He re-built it over the phone too (in his 60's now) no worries - machine has worked fine since
an the point of this being on /. is????
gee, glad to know that your mother's smarter than half of my clients, but....did I really need to read that rediculous story? I think not
I run servers that cost more than my house. Almost everything I do is command line based.
My moms questions are usually along the lines of printers, outlook and other things like that.
It's kinda hard to explain why, with a CS degree and a job running tons of equipment, I have no idea why the printer keeps spitting a blank page out.
Take off the superman cape and step away from the phone booth. Once you realise the implications of "The internet is broke", the path to tech support becomes clear.
-=sig=-
modem, cable, dsl, whatever... get internet working and you can usually save the day with whatever else. Just being able to google for tech support pages if there's something seriously wrong will save the day, not to mention you can get any other drivers/fixes/whatever there too.
Kjella
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
I've found that when dealing with family and technology, patience is key. Remember, your family is not too removed from you. There's a reason that you're interested in technology.
I look at my dad, my mom, and my grandpa, and realize that they were into technology long before I was even born. You are not giving your family enough credit if you say that they cannot learn it. If you do that, you're saying in effect that the reason you know technology is some sort of miracle.
I'm sure you can think back to the first time you screwed up, and had to fix it yourself. Let your family do the same, with some patient guidance, and soon your 54 year old dad will be coding HTML without Frontpage and FTPing it to his web server. Mine is.
learn these magic words and you'll never have to endure the frustration of doing dumb tech support for your family and friends again:
"I'm sorry, i don't know Windows so i have no
idea how to fix your problem".
these words (and variations on the theme) will save you many hours of time wasted in futile attempts to diagnose and fix some stupid Microsoft problem - by stupid problem, i mean either a stupid flaw in the software or a stupid user error.
This works especially well for *nix geeks, but it has been known to work for people who do Windows support as their day job. Your bothersome family & friends have no idea what you're talking about anyway so they will never spot the contradiction.
1) Get them a C64
2) Install Contiki
(http://dunkels.com/adam/contiki/)
3) When it breaks huck it and go yard sailing!
Ack, holy shit, switch jobs with me for a day! I used to think the same thing until twelve months of unemployment moved me from programming into computer/electronics repair. I work in the Services department of a major consumer electronics store and it really opened my eyes. It's not that computers are too complex; it's that some people mix with technology as well as oil does with water. Here's a short list of ID10T errors and FUBARed equipment I've seen in the last week NOT related to computers:
And if I had a dollar for every person who wanted to return a cell phone because they get an occasional dropped call ("no ma'am, that's related to the service coverage, not the phone") or lost PDA data because they took the batteries out ("no sir, it's not like your 'hard drive' [read: computer]") I would have retired to Key West by now.
We want some answers and all that we get
Some kind of shit about a terrorist threat
- Ministry
I've read all the comments, and the bottom line seems to be: don't offer free tech support to relatives. It will go unappreciated both because it's free and because as a child/relative you don't seem as impressive as an outsider.
I have had to learn in other contexts that working for free does not pay off. There are exceptions of course - when the requestor clearly understands the value of the services requested. In general, you merely cheapen yourself by undertaking such tasks.
Some posters praised the give-and-take of a helpful extended family, citing relatives who fixed cars or furnished plumbing supplies. Surely, they say, it's reasonable to delouse the spyware-infested PC of such a relative. I don't find this idea attractive. I'd rather buy my own food than have Uncle JoeBob bringing over free Pizzas from his Pizzeria since I reinstalled Windows XP for him. I work for a living and buy what I need with money. I prefer it that way. I can spend my pay on almost anything, not some limited range of available relative-favors. And I can shop for vendors on a level playing field, and hold them accountable.
The worst aspect of this free tech-support is the assumption of responsibility for the host of ills that plague Windows PCs. Once you've laid your hands on the accursed box your fingerprints last forever. And your carefully-considered advice, which you've cheapened by giving for free, is weighed against the babblings of some local "expert".
I'm suprised that so many slashdotters are caught in this particular trap. I went through it very briefly before closing the support valve forever. If you lack the hardness of heart to say no, then I suspect life has some education in store for you.
Greets!
Well, a couple of supervisors in the Uni where I work (as a researcher, NOT tech support) have decided that linux is the way forward for their research groups - so anyone that arrives at the group gets a nice shiny new linux desktop - even if they've never used any UN*X before in their life - now the kicker - our Uni doesn't support any OS other than their current favourite current flavour of windows - so who gets asked to do all the support and training? That's right - me. After a while of figuring out it couldn't hurt to help people out I put together the following form - which the guys take with then the next time they meet their supervisor- I release it now as free to use for the community:
----
Today I did the following for your linux users:
A long list of things - usually including one install, one reconfig, software install and some hardware driver issues.
Please circle one of the following as your prefered method of payment:
- Shiny new gadgetry
- Server-class hardware you've decided not to use since you got that shiny new 4 processor machine on the latest grant
- Beer / Malt whiskey
- Cold hard cash
----
Works quite well!
PS - weirdest thing I ever got asked by my dad:
"This linux thing you installed doesn't work"
After a long discussion about the dual boot facilities on his machine (he'd been interested in trying out linux and I'd put a basic install in a gig on his machine) I found out he had deleted the phone number from UKLinux - an ISP here in the UK that I'd installed when he was having probs using his own ISP! AAAggghhhh!
Raist
The problem with the rat race is, even if you win, you're still a rat!
I forwarded this article off to my mom and grandmother. Just as a joke, but damnit it came and smaked me back in the face, here's what i got from grandma this morning.
>>>>>>>
Hi Dear -- what a lovely run-down on our computer experiences. I printed it off - but another BIG problem! It is 25 pages long! I have done everything I can thing of
to stop it from printing 25 pages and haven't succeeded - I just keep putting the same
printed pages in again & again, but I'm using up all the ink, I fear.
I tried typing in 1 copy of 2 -- but it still does 25. What next.??? How c an I stop it from running off copies like wild? I tried to "Cancel" it, & no help.
I'll learn --but when????? Hope the ski-boarding was fun. Love, Gr. P.
>>>>>>>
those are really great tips, thx :-)
thanks
As you might deduce from my nickname, I am on the other end of the story: an actual mother. I just wanted to tell you that I make my living online - as a web consultant - and that from the days 5 inch floppies it was my (now-adult) sons who taught me how to do all this. They were amazingly patient -- "see mom a folder is like a drawer in your file cabinet and..." etc.
I now pass it on to all the other middle-aged ladies here in Washington DC (there are so so many....) who, unlike me, never wanted to use computers and all of a sudden have grandchildren who want to send them email.
I tell you this only so you know that all your good efforts are not in vain. Moms remember such things.
Many ATX motherboards can be configured to allow power-on from places other than the power switch.
So, the mouse and keyboard get some power even when the machine is "off", so that it can detect mouse-clicks and key presses.
But you probably knew that.