Family Tech Support

Donald Scott sends in this short yet resonant tale about doing tech support... for your family. A couple weeks ago I got a package from my mother in Florida. It arrived by express mail, insured for four hundred dollars. In it was a surge suppressor. One of those big rectangular jobs that your monitor sits on and your computer sits under. I recognized it as the same one that, in the mid 90s, I personally placed under the monitor and over the computer that I bought for my mother.

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.

Comments

Lack of Equipent

[KosovoYankee]

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....

Re:Lack of Equipent

[Koyaanisqatsi]

I know. And that's why I *allways* have a Knoppix CD with me.

Saves so much time!

Re:Lack of Equipent

[tedgyz]

I have started to assemble a "toolkit" with all my critical fixit software. I also am trying to get an equivalent hardward toolkit with a variety of cables, a spare HD, etc. I figure the family isn't going to go away, do I might as well do my duty.

Re:Lack of Equipent

[Ashran]

> The (albeit few) family members (and others) that has a Linux distribution haven't got nearly as much troubles as the ones using That-Other system. People using Macs hardly ever has problems. Hm..
A Linux Desktop is hardly userfriendly that why you give your average mom a Windows PC.
And since she is the average mom and not a Pro-User using Linux she will have more troubles which she can't solve than the Linux guy/gal who usually is more into PC's.

Its not Windows is giving more problems - its usually less computer savy people using Windows.

Re:Lack of Equipent

[Andrewkov]

pack a suitcase with spare HD, NIC, modem, screwdriver, and various boot-up / install / rescue disks as I can manage.

Airport security won't like that at all, trust me.

Re:Lack of Equipent

[Martin Blank]

Critical supplies for fixing my family's Windows computers:

* Installation CDs for all versions of Windows
* CD-RWs updated with the latest service packs and patches for Windows (one for 9x, one for NT/2K/XP)
* CD-RW with various disk utilities, AV updates, Ad-Aware, etc.
* Toolkit with two of each kind of tool
* Victorinox Swiss Army Knife, computer tech edition
* Small bottle of Advil
* Several cables of varying types and lengths
* One Trident PCI 512KB VGA card -- it's old and crappy, but more reliable than anything else I have when nothing seems to want to work
* Two 32MB PC133 DIMMs
* Two 70ns 16MB SIMMs (mom's old computer)
* Small bag of various jumpers, screws (fine- and course-thread), motherboard mounts, etc.

Finally, I make sure that all of the computers have Netmeeting installed on them. I have been called more than once on some critical issue while at work, so I just connect in with NM, have them set up Desktop Sharing, and let them know when I'm done. XP's Remote Desktop is useful, but only when I don't need to see a problem replicated.

And I never, EVER go to their houses without at least my primary CD case. I can improvise on tools, but it's a pain to find cab file 17 for Windows 98SE when you have no internet access and no CDs, and the file has been deleted from the hard drive to make space ("I only had a couple of gigathings left!").

Re:Lack of Equipent

[mstockman]

I have used various flavors of VNC (don't forget about RealVNC) to support friends and family across the country. (And one memorable experience talking a new Mac OS X user into enabling SSH so I could connect and figure out where all of her disk space had suddenly gone).

I have found that the most difficult part by far is talking them through opening a port in their plug-it-in-and-turn-it-on NAT router (Linksys, usually) for whatever connection I'm trying to establish. Especially when each router has a different UI.

So, I agree that remote connections are *the* way to go when helping family long-distance, I also wanted to point out that there are more steps than "just install it and I'll take it from there."

Re:Lack of Equipent

[mivok]

Okay.. I dont have mod points to mod you up, so I'll have to reply instead.

Half the family/friends tech support calls I get are...
'I can't get it on the internet! Make it work'

Re:Lack of Equipent

[donutz]

The steps you should tell a family member are: goto tightvnc.org ... click open, check all the boxes, click ok. Then you tell them to go to "whatismyip.com" and read you what it says

But when your mom is running a non-port-forwarding dsl router, or you forgot to forward the VNC port when you set everything up for her (oops!), then you need to have her start up VNC, then right click the tray icon and choose "Add New Client". Tell her to type your IP address there (because you already set up your end to forward port 5500 to your desktop and started VNCViewer in listen mode) and bickety bam! You're connected.

Re:Lack of Equipent

[Anonymous Coward]

Small bottle of Advil

And for thoae very desperate cases, a small bottle of cyanide. For you, or the family (whichever is appropriate).

Re:Lack of Equipent

[Ashran]

Who is maintaining the windows machine? Are you? With the same care as your own box?
Just asking :)

Sure your Box just works, as does mine - because we both take great care of the whole system.

Re:Lack of Equipent

[ktakki]

Amen to that, but with a caveat...

With the exception of text mode, Knoppix is just too bloated for older machines, and by "older" I mean anything less than a Pentium Pro 200, and even then I doubt you'd find it usable.

I recently had to diagnose a couple of computers a friend had found while dumpster diving, a P166 and a P-II 350, both with 32MB RAM. KDE ran like frozen molasses on the 166, though it was fine in text mode and I found out what I needed to know. The 350, however, a six-year-old Dell Optiplex, GX1 wouldn't boot from the CD, not even with the boot floppy inserted in A:\ (one of its problems was a busted IDE controller). I ended up using old Slackware boot/root floppies instead.

So yeah, Knoppix is useful when it's useful, but I'd suggest having a back-up plan, like the Linux-on-a-floppy distro, or Tom's Boot Disk, or even a Windows Rescue disk or DOS boot floppy, just in case.

k.

Re:Lack of Equipent

[ncc74656]

Yeah man, share the wealth. What's this "sends their IP" script?

If you have Cygwin and mutt installed, it would be as simple as this:

#!/bin/sh

ipconfig | mutt -xs "Mom's current IP" foo@bar.com

Put the script on the desktop and you're good to go. Cygwin...it's not just for geeks anymore. :-)

(I used it on my dad's computer to take the pictures copied from his digital camera and automatically shrink them down to a size that can be emailed. All he has to do is copy the pictures into the appropriate folder and double-click the script. It then shrinks the image dimensions by 75% (it's a ~3MP camera) and applies a bit more compression than usual. It took just a few minutes to knock the script together, once I had downloaded Cygwin and netpbm.)

Re:Lack of Equipent

[jusdisgi]

Well, that sounds reasonable on the surface....but as it turns out, it isn't.

First I think the idea that Windows is blameless because "these people just can't use a computer" is just a struggle to let MS off a hook they hung themselves on years ago. Basically, it's this: computers are complex. If you want non-professionals to be able to interface them, you really only have 2 choices: make it a closed box that does a few things well and simply (i.e. like a mac) or defer the setup and administration to someone who knows what he/she is doing, and set up a simpler, more limited interface for everyone else (i.e. like a *nix) ...which is really just a decentralized option #1...the user is still left with a relatively few things to do, which work well and are simple.

Of course, that simple interface the admin sets up is everything. Yet Linux/Unix have many options here, and they pretty much cover all the bases.

And by the way, some of these WM's are much simpler than Windows ever was or will be. But more on that later...

The point is, Microsoft never chose one of the two options. They told the world they could have their cake and eat it to, made a system that *looks* simple, but has a ton of complexity hidden from view and waiting to break. As a consequence, most users don't have any clue how Windows works, but they feel comfortable enough that they poke around everywhere anyway. Most of us have terrible stories about windows users doing things they shouldn't have, and wouldn't have been *allowed* to do on another system. Take for example the fellow I talked to who just went through his system deleting everything he didn't recognize to save space. A *nix would not let this happen.

Someone once told me that Windows lends itself to "cowboy admining." He was right...the design encourages people who don't know enough to do what they are doing to go and do it anyway. And this goes for users too.

Oh, and that's just the part that deals with the users. It ignores the fact that sometimes parts of windows just break without any explanation, for no reason, when nothing was changed. Don't ask me to explain it.....I haven't seen the code.

But here is the main point: If a true guru, who knows both Windows and Linux extremely well, were to exert the same amount of time and energy setting up a Windows box and a Linux box for his two mothers (it's a hypothetical, give me a break!) I feel quite strongly that he would have less trouble thereafter with the Linux box. He would set that machine up with a simple window manager that allowed extremely simple running of a few programs, run ssh and vnc, and leave it alone forever.

But this isn't just a guess...my mother used Windows on a computer I set up for her for years. So did my father. But then when it came time to get my grandmother on the internet, I was assigned the task, and I figured "what the hell." I set her up a nice gnustep desktop with less than a dozen places to click, each corresponding to a program she really would use. That was 2 years ago. She is 81, and uses email, web, icq (not that much...although I do see her online and chat with her sometimes) and some games.

In those 2 years, I have not had to touch that machine.

My parents were both quite impressed. They had limited interest in Linux already, and had seen it on my computers, but they assumed it was beyond their technical skills. Seeing Granny using it daily changed their minds. When Mom's computer broke in an unpredictable way for the 30th time during that same 2 years, she asked me if we could avoid continued problems by switching her to linux. She has been running Mandrake 9 with KDE for about 6 months now, and I have not had to fix her machine in all that time. Dad, for his part, wants to make the switch, but I don't want anything to do with his rather old and crufty laptop, so we agreed that when he is ready for an upgrade, I will pick the hardware for him, and put linux on it.

So don't give m

Re:Lack of Equipent

[Anonymous Coward]

A cellphone, some pliers, a little circuit board, and some cables, and a security guard even BOTHERED you?

Fuck, they sure do grow security guards stupid, don't they? Either that, or far too self important. Some of these security guards just need their retarded asses kicked.

Tech support for your family??

[Chazmyrr]

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.

Re:Tech support for your family??

[true_majik]

Chazmyrr says: 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.

This is one reason I stay away from building custom PC's for relatives. If the PC breaks down, they expect me to fix it ASAP. It doesn't matter that they download and execute every file e-mailed to them, or that they click on YES for every Active-X control in websites, or as Bull999999 already mentioned (a.k.a. AOL, Real Player, Bonzi Buddy, Hot Bar, etc)...No, it's my fault. :(

Re:Tech support for your family??

[Ballsy]

...and then, if even for only a moment, remind yourself that they provided for you for at least the first dozen or so years of your life, and that this is really a small favour for them to ask in the grand scheme of things.

Re:Tech support for your family??

[hazem]

That's great for my parents - I'll fix their computers any time. But what about aunts, uncles, cousins, etc. No thanks!

I got in this trap a couple years ago and built some computers for relatives that lived 90 miles away. The computers worked well, but as mentioned before, they would install every little thing that came alog. I soon burned up days of time and $$ in gas - It would have been better if I had simply bought them the Dell.

Re:Tech support for your family??

[bongk]

It saddens me that so many people have this attitude. I do tech support for a lot of the people in my (extended) family.

However, in my family, if you can do it, you just do it. My uncle who is a plumber gave my hundreds of dollars worth of pipe, etc when I was remodeling (not to mention lots of advice). And he's roto-rooted our drain for free. Another uncle lets me hunt his 40 acres of prime forest. My in-laws sanded and refinished our floors. I could go on and on.

You just help out if you have the skills, and don't worry about what your getting in return. It all comes around.

Re:Tech support for your family??

[greysky]

Mom's car need an oil change? Don't do it. She'll only blame you when the car eventually breaks down.

Dad need help putting up new drywall? Don't do it. He'll only blame you when there's water damage.

Sis need help picking out a PDA? Don't do it. She'll only blame you if it doesn't work just right.

Friend need a ride to the airport? Don't do it. He'll only blame you for the turbulence.

Girlfriend need a cat-sitter? Don't do it. She'll only blame you when it dies a month later.

Re:Tech support for your family??

[gl4ss]

well.. custom built pc's for relatives have their plus sides too, they're easy to upgrade, you _KNOW_ what parts are in there(unlike typical dell*), replacement parts are available for pennies still after couple of years(where they might not be available at all for the computers built of non-standard parts.).

it's just best to make them understand that the magic you do to their machines isn't real magic but just something they can do by themselfs if they can read.

and not even trying to do over the phone support on issues that are too complicated to walk through , or nearly impossible to get the right information for diagnosis over the phone.

it sucks having to go to somebodys place and open up their computers beforehand to just know if they can buy that agp card or not.

Re:Tech support for your family??

[chhamilton]

true_majik says: This is one reason I stay away from building custom PC's for relatives. If the PC breaks down, they expect me to fix it ASAP. It doesn't matter that they download and execute every file e-mailed to them, or that they click on YES for every Active-X control in websites, or as Bull999999 already mentioned (a.k.a. AOL, Real Player, Bonzi Buddy, Hot Bar, etc)...No, it's my fault. :(

I repeatedly came up against this problem. Having built my mother's computer, and performed ongoing tech support, things really fell to pieces when I moved 300 miles away. In fact, after only 4 months (with lots of over-the-phone tech support), the computer was so clogged with drive-by-downloads/trojans/viruses that it completely stopped functioning. Over Thanksgiving I cleaned everything up, put on AdAware and various Anti-Trojan/Anti-Virus programs, and hoped for the best. By Christmas, it was totally screwed again! This is due in large part to my younger siblings clicking yes to every offer of increased download speed, enhanced surfing experience, etc... (not to mention my 15 year old brothers penchant for internet pr0n)

It had gotten so bad that I had to take the nazi-sysadmin route, upgrade them to Win2K, create every family member individual accounts, and then severely restrict them so that they could no longer download/install new crap. After a little education about reading email, a scheduled virus/trojan/spyware cleanup, and a new firewall, things have finally smoothed out a bit.

I'm sure everybody here has similar experiences... it just seems that the geek of every family gets automatically assigned tech support duties. Hell, my family complains that they never hear from me, but the only time I hear from them is when it's computer related!

Re:Tech support for your family??

[Anonymous Coward]

What a surprise that 90% of slashdot readers are selfish fucks.

God forbid you should use your knowledge to help someone else, your *family* even, out.

I've seen the arguements in this thread, and they all boil down to: LOOK AT ME! I'M AN IMPORTANT GEEK! MY TIME IS MUCH BETTER SPENT MASTURBATING TO alt.binaries.pictures.furries.fetish THAN HELPING MY FAMILY MEMBERS GET EMAIL!!

Geez. All this whining about "wasted time"... I can't believe you think you have something more important to do than help out your friends and families. Nice priorities guys. People like you really make the world a better place.

Re:Tech support for your family??

[crazyphilman]

In all seriousness, though...

The only people I help with computer-related problems are my mother and father, and possibly my sister, and then, ONLY on the weekends. My approach is, if something is seriously wrong with the computer, they turn off the power and I look into it on Saturday morning. Telephone tech support NEVER works... Unless you enjoy frustration, that is.

The nice thing is, this works out very comfortably. I can generally straighten out the problem without too much trouble, and they appreciate it. They're cool, they usually give me a beer, or some iced tea, etc, and it ends up being a pretty good time.

I think the main thing is, as long as no one tries to take advantage of you, it can stay friendly and be a relatively cool thing. It's all about mutual respect.

Re:Tech support for your family??

[cascadefx]

I agree with this. My uncle, God bless him, helped me out a ton while I was in college and beyond (loans, meals, a place to stay, extra cash...).

He actually asks me for help all the time and I am glad to help. The other day, he custom cut a new shower curtain rod for me with this metal working tools.

I don't know my way around a workshop and he doesn't know how to offload his digital pictures from his camera. Stuff works itself out.

Re:Tech support for your family??

[Anonymous Coward]

Technically, that should logically be 24/7/52... Then I remember the sorts of people who came up with and use the expression.

Re:Tech support for your family??

[Grizzlysmit]

I can see both sides of this, it all depends what your family is like mine are all pretty smart, so stuff doesn't go in one ear and out the other, also I not the only geek, so that means we can help eachother, plus share look out for the non geeks in the fam, (big big family -- roman catholic parents), but if my family abused me when they stuffed things up, blamed me for every problem, then I'd probably feel like some of these others. But as it is I lucky, my family repects my proffesional opinion, every one appreciates what other family member do for them. I'm just sad for folk who have such unreasonable families.

Slow News Day?

[FortKnox]

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!

PCAnywhere

[fuzzybunny]

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...

Re:PCAnywhere

[Anonymous Coward]

Put Windows 98 on the damn thing...

$100 (if you can find it)

...install PCAnywhere...

$50-100.

...and a reasonable personal firewall package that they can't break (ZoneAlarm works just fine)

$50

...my girlfriend's parents' $100 P166...

Hmm. $100 + $100 + $50 + $50 seems to equal $300, which about covers the price I paid to build my mom a nice new Linux PC that doesn't feel like a $100 P166.

And mom doesn't have too many problems with it. I just got E-mail from her today, in fact.

and I get a free home-cooked meal out of it...

Funny. I don't have to bribe my mom to get free home-cooked meals.

My solution

[yamla]

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.

Remote assistance

[TopShelf]

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...

Re:WTF???

[Ballsy]

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".

Amen, brother.

[mbourgon]

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. :)

70 years old power user

[PolR]

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.

Re:Family Tree Tech support: Wood for the fire....

[gblues]

There's a solution to that:

Charge money.

I do tech support for several of my in-laws. I have no problem doing it, because I charge them $25/hour to do the work. And they're fine with it.

Now my parents are another story, but.. well, they're my parents. And my mom is a geek-in-denial so when it breaks I can be reasonably sure that it's really broken. :)

Nathan

I love my parents

[PhipleTroenix]

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.

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 /. crowd to help those who've helped them so much.

it's easier than that if you use free software.

[twitter]

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.

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?

Not Funny.

[mdxi]

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!

Re:Lack of Equip(m)ent

[Anonymous Coward]

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!

Shouldn't need to be like this

[Junks Jerzey]

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.

Great Story

[gentgeen]

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

Advice from my extensive experience in this area

[-tji]

- 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.

Tutorials

[psydeshow]

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.

Re:My story from just last week...

[ChaosDiscord]

...I "am good at computers"...makes you an instant expert at anything powered by electricity.

Actually, it's basically true.

"Good at computers" often just means, "pays attention to what is going on, reads the screen, reads the directions, and isn't deathly afraid of simple experimentation." This is why little kids often find computers easy, they don't have any fear and they view reading the documentation as an acceptable price to pay for playing with the cool toy.

Given those qualifications, you're qualified to do lots of things and look like a hero to others. You may not know the specifics of the stereo, but I expect you'll be comfortable skimming the docs and plugging things in. If it doesn't work, you'll not panic, you'll just jiggle cords and try testing each connection one at a time until it does work.

I work in tech support

[nicotinix]

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