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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
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.
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
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".
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
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.
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.
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.
- 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.
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.
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