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The Tech Support Generation
prostoalex writes "Newsweek technology columnist Brad Stone is looking forward to the Thanksgiving dinner with his family next week, spending time in candle-lit rooms, preparing holiday shopping lists and... let's admit it - fixing the folks' computer. 'We are the Tech-Support Generation. Our job is to troubleshoot the complex but imperfect technology that befuddle mom and dad, veterans of the rotary phone, the record player and the black-and-white cabinet television set. Next week, on our annual pilgrimage home, we'll turn our Web-trained minds and joystick-conditioned fingers to the task of rescuing our parents from bleeding-edge technology on the blink', Brad Stone writes. In related news, what other products besides Google Desktop Search, Spybot Search & Destroy, Google Toolbar and Service Pack 2 are Slashdotters installing on their parents' Windows machines?"
Linux.
Suse 9.1 on my parents hp.
Also on my friend's computer i built for him a couple years ago.
They use office/internet. That's it.
Why use windows? A few pros. Many, many cons.
Why not? If they're not using XP, fair enough, but I insisted on installing SP2 on my father's machine as soon as I could get hold of it. Sure, it took him a few weeks to get used to the new "features", but it beats being dragged home from uni to spend a weekend cleaning up spyware...
We are indeed the techsupport generation, but it doesn't have to be that way. We recently got "No I will not fix your computer" T-shirts ( http://www.thinkgeek.com/tshirts/frustrations/388b / ) at work as a fun gift. It has proved really useful. You don't have to say no, pople just stops asking you. Works great.
The only tech support I've had to do after getting (and wearing) this T-shirt, was for a really desperate aquaintaince with a wifi setup problem. I got two full-size fresh lobsters for fixing that, and I didn't even ask for anything.
I do make an exception for my own folks though, but now they are the only ones.
"There is no substitute for thinking" - Bjarne Stroustrup
From my experience Ad-Aware misses some stuff that Spybot will catch. Better to use both, to avoid problems.
Laugh it up but my grandmother runs debian. It was the first computer she had ever used so windows bullshit didnt get in her way
Been there done that. Caused more problems than it created. Not that my parents aren't able to do everything they need to do currently, they are quite proficient. But there are other common programs that are still IE dependent. For example, Turbo Lister.
I installed Firefox on my Mom's machine after Homeland Security's announcement recommending switching to alternative browsers from IE. She had major problems getting Turbo Lister to run correctly and apparently it was a known incompatibility. So I uninstalled Firefox and then Turbo Lister has worked fine since.
Honestly? For the hours I've put in for family over the years doing the most boring technical support work possible, and the bitching I've listened to? It'd be worth it. To the tune of several thousand dollars, easily.
Once upon a time I actually did work tech support. It was better than working for family, and the real tech support job was by far the worst "real" job I've ever had.
Of course most of my family are a bunch of assholes, so that might have something to do with it. Incidentally, the biggest assholes tend to be the ones most computer "savvy", ie. able to get themselves in trouble, but not good enough to get themselves out.
Game... blouses.
Take a look at how IE is being exploited, then talk to me about how your mom needs to use IE for some stupid secondary app. Look at how hitting the wrong site gets crap loaded via the recent IFRAME exploit, look at the newer phishing exploits, pay particular attention to the fact that most phishing exploits specifically are made to look real, and have to ability to launch installers (keyloggers, backdoor IRC channels, ...) because of the fact that IE and security are opposites. Do you want to wait until a keylogger gets installed on Mom's machine, sends back pay pal account, bank account, credit cards, ..., to someone in Eastern Europe, the PRC, or North Korea. Do you want to wait until she gets robbed blind, before you stop and realize that IE is a hazard. You need a good dose of Paranoia. I'll help you. Set up RSS feeds into your favorite news reader, pick up the feeds from sans.org, securityfocus.com, CA, and other reputable security sites. Find out what's going on, because it's only going to get worse. I'm not saying that switching browsers is a silver bullet. there is no such thing. I am saying do everything you can to protect your loved ones from Internet Crime, try to instill paranoia into everyone who uses the Internet. Start off by installing Firefox again, setting it as the default browser, and hiding all links to IE.
I've been using firefox back when it was called pheonix, and it was still more solid than IE.
It's free and does a pretty good job. Norton antivirus kept bringing their P3-1ghz/512mb RAM machine to its knees.
I agree with a number of other posters that I'll likely just pave over my folks' hard drive next time and install some desktop version of Linux to cut down on the crap support calls. Then I'll only get called when the VCR is blinking 12:00....
I got my Dad an eMac.
The result?
- No more support calls
- The first computer my Dad's enjoyed using
- No more rats nest of cables
The other result is when it was time to get a laptop for myself - after using OS X, it had to be a PowerBook.
Oolite: Elite-like game. For Mac, Linux and Windows
You insensitive clod, not all people want NT 4 SP2 on their win 98 boxes.
Seriously though, the first thing which goes on is the latest McAfee Stinger. When that's wiped out most of the viruses, I uninstall their out-of-date Norton - so many people don't realise that the major antivirus vendors are on a rental model and just buy the product and expect it to last forever. Then Avast! Personal Edition goes on, and the PC is fully scanned. After that comes Spybot and Ad-Aware. I use both because each product has its stregths and weaknesses. All of this is done form a CD burnt with the latest patterns so no internet connectivity happens until their PC has been cleaned. And then Sygate Personal Firewall completes the mix of security products.
After that comes Thunderbird and Firefox, The GIMP and Audacity (if they are into that sort of thing. And of course we musn't forget IrfanView.
Not least because they have a very good support forum. Pattern updates are very timely too and its impact on the performance of the boxes I've put it on is minimal.
IEradicator and Win98Lite have destroyed every install I have tried them on. Nothing but troubles after. I can't search on this machine anymore, I can't uninstall certain things... etc.
DON'T use it unless you're prepared to reinstall when it botches the job (installing IE doesn't fix it all up).
Better advice... set your IE proxy server to a nonexistent address. then it just won't work, esp. when security vulnerabilities try to get it to do something nasty.
SYS 64738 NO CARRIER
go to internet options click on the advanced tab and under browsing uncheck the box labeled "enable 3rd party browser extensions" Apply ok and restart. Also delete temp files with offline content included, cookies, and clear history. Do an IE repair as well. Adaware se does a through job but spybot wouldnt hurt.
Why use Thunderbird if you've got Mozilla? I thought most people used Firefox/Thunderbird or Mozilla, particularly since Mozilla has difficulty interacting with a seperate mail client. Or did you mean Firefox?
Why is anything anything?
Chip's challenge has been ported to Linux. You need to keep the original .dat file for levels. The Linux implementation is called Tile World. Enjoy.
Yes they did. Can't remember, but I think it was 1.0 that fixed that. Possibly RC2.
http://mywebpages.comcast.net/SupportCD/OptimizeXP .html
Has quite a few useful tools listed, as well as links to download them. Adaware, Spybot, SpyWareBlaster, FireFox, and a lot more.
Also, for those of you who have relations who won't use FireFox because it doesn't look the same, here's a short workaround: there are skins out there that will make FireFox look like IE (sacrilige, I know). If you get a few extensions and play with them as well, you can get the functionality to duplicate IE (minus those few instances where a page just doesn't load quite right). If you do a good enough coverup, nobody will be the wiser. ALSO, there are supposed to be some pretty good windows-looking-skins for some Linux distros... I believe UserFriendly made a reference to one a while back. If they won't do what's good for them...