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Easing the Job of Family Tech Support?
DarkDevil writes "Ever since I was introduced to computers at a very young age, I've been the resident tech support for a household of 7 users. I've been in a cycle for the last ~8 years where something happens to my parents' computer, I spend a week or two trying to non-destructively fix the problem (and try to explain to the users what caused it and how to avoid it), and then if it's not easily fixed I'll reformat and start from scratch. Most often, the level of infection warrants a reformat, which usually ends up taking even more time to get the computer back to how my parents know how to use it. 4-8 months later, it happens again. Recently, I found ~380 instances of malware and 6 viruses. I only realized something was wrong with their computer after it slowed down the entire network whenever anyone used it. My question for Slashdot is: are there any resources out there that explain computer viruses, malware, adware, and general safe computer practices to non-technical people in an easy-to-digest format? The security flaws in my house are 9, 26, and ~50 years old, with no technical background aside from surfing the internet. Something in video format would be ideal as they are perfectly happy with our current arrangement and so it'll be hard to get them reading pages and pages of technical papers."
get them all macs
> no technical background aside from surfing the internet Sounds like a perfect audience for an OS with fewer security flaws.
bomb the us up set someone
problem solved.. at least until linux malware becomes prevalent
I keep sticking a knife into my eye every three months. Can anyone provide detail instructions on how I can do this without causing so much pain?
Sometimes giving an answer to the asked question isn't appropriate. Sometimes you have to tell the asker that they are looking at it all wrong.
See my journal for slashdot ID's by year. Mine created in 2005. http://slashdot.org/journal/289875/slashdot-ids-by-year
If you revoke their admin rights and keep their software (acrobat, flash, java, windows) patches up to date you will reduce your clean up burden. But it comes at the cost of a maintenance burden. Pick your poison.
1. Reformat Computers
2. Setup Restricted Accounts
3. Win
I've found the best thing is to treat them like a corporation. Make sure their accounts are only user level, and either hold on to the Administrator password or make sure they know the real reason to use it. Done that with a few family friends I do work for and the amount of trouble i've had has dropped drastically.
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"And may your days be long upon the earth."
An insight into Mentoring & coaching
One day a man finds a cocoon for a butterfly with a small opening, he sits and watches the butterfly for several hours as it struggled to force its body through the little hole. Then it seemed to stop making any progress. It appeared stuck.
The man decided to help the butterfly and with a pair of scissors he cut open the cocoon. The butterfly emerges easily, but something was strange. The butterfly had a swollen body and shrivelled wings. The man watched the butterfly expecting it to take on its correct proportions. But nothing changed.
The butterfly stayed the same. It was never able to fly. In his kindness and haste the man did not realise that the butterfly's struggle to get through the small opening of the cocoon is nature's way of forcing fluid from the body of the butterfly into its wings so that it would be ready for flight.
Like the sapling which grows strong from being buffeted by the wind, in life we all need to struggle sometimes to make us strong.
When we coach others it is helpful to recognize when people need to do things for themselves.
I have systematically made all my family members get Macs over the years and this has reduced requirements for my support services to near to nothing. I have tried a few on Linux and that helped but they tended to be the most technically literate. Others who insisted that Windows was all they could use got XP with non-administrator accounts and I would remote desktop in as needed. That worked pretty well but not as well as a Mac and that person (my wife's 92 year old grandmother) is about to get a Mac mini.
I can't understand why you have people who only want to do basic tasks with anything other than an non-admin account? Even on a Mac I reserve the admin rights for myself.
"I have the attention span of a strobe lit goldfish, please get to the point quickly!"
In my experience, it is not an issue of easy-to-digest material, and explanations that they understand. It's a hard mental block. I've been in the same cycle for 10+ years, and my parents have said, flat out, they they "just can't learn". I've tried written, step-by-step instructions; I've tried demonstrating; I've tried tutorials. It's not the information or how it is presented. It's a mental block about learning new things.
"Why can't it just work?", and the fact that it doesn't is put on my shoulders as the "tech" generation. And that's that.
What really gets me angry is that they are helpless to do anything in their daily lives without their computer, and blame me for that fact (Cause *I* created all malware and put it on their computer, clearly), while simultaneously ridiculing my choice of career as worthless, because "technology is not important". The irony is lost on them. Completely.
The war you are facing is a cultural one, not a technical, or information/communication one. It's one better asked to a psychologist than Slashdot. Best of luck.
Your post says a lot about your family dynamics... there is a cycle going on here where they use the computer willy-nilly, and then when it gets screwed up, they know that you will fix it for free. What you need to do is make them pay for your services, so there are some stakes behind them asking you to fix it. That will probably curb their behavior when it comes to installing every toolbar known to man.
There is probably one major offender, and you could probably do some detective work to figure out who that person is if you tried.
I was in exactly the same problem, compounded by the fact that some of my relatives were a long distance away. My weekends were spend "fixing the computers" of in-laws and relatives.
So finally, I announced that I will stop supporting Windows. I moved 3 households to Linux (Ubuntu) and gave each user several hours of instruction on email, pictures and browsing. One user decided to buy a Mac instead.
The request for support are now down to one every couple of months for something trivial, generally a forgotten password.
I have my weekends back.
I got my mom a iMac 5 years ago & have maybe spend a total of 7 hours working on it since then. Two of those were upgrading the RAM & two more were upgrading OSX.
I had never even touched OSX until we opened that iMac up. I had no problems setting it up & she has had no problems using or maintaining it.
There is a war going on for your mind.
Create a limited access user profile for non-tech savvy family members. Lock it down as much as possible. Or use the guest account feature that clears the profile when the user logs out.
Using an operating system other than windows is a good idea also, but unrealistic that it will result in a better situation for the tech support family member. Your virus issues will be replaced with compatibility complaints. If the family doesn't want to learn how to avoid viruses they don't want to learn a new operating system.
I agree. Family tech support is a no-win situation. I solved the problem by moving 1,000 miles away. If that's not an option, you're left with either saying "no" or committing multiple homicides, whichever seems easiest.
Sounds like it's time to transition your support job to the next generation.
You know? It's pretty damned sad that OS stability and security has to be offered as a separate frickin' package to the OS itself.
Quo usque tandem abutere, Nimbus, patientia nostra?
Their cost is a second hard drive that they pay for, typically this is well under $100. It's more work up front on this, but teaching them basic safe browsing, automating what they don't want to deal with and have an image (and the ability to freely blow away the boot drive) are all things that will save you time in spades in the long run. I've significantly reduced how often I have to perform the friends and family computer work this way, and they feel better knowing that they have regained some level of control over their computer.
Everything you said is true, but what is an average person supposed to do about malware riding on downloaded programs? People like you & I have, through years of internet use, developed a sixth sense for "good" vs "bad" on the internet, but you can't teach an average person how to identify a "bad" download. For them, it pretty much comes down to one of two options: (1)take everything, including the malware, or (2)never download anything, ever. I'm not sure the latter is a realistic option...
If they cannot acknowledge this lack of trustworthiness, there is nothing you can do.
That's the key. ,when it took them that long to learn how to use the damn current one?
People will talk about locking down the computer, or making them use linux or a thin client, or whatever. But it is too late. Do you honestly think you can convince your parents to use a different system
My dad was smart and bought his mother something along the lines of a dumb terminal. It goes on the web, and checks email, and that is it (It might even be running linux!). But his case was easy, this was her first computer.
Really, the answer is: You're boned. If you have tried a few times to explain out to them why they shouldn't open the email that says "I Love You", your cause is lost. These aren't clients/employees, you can't tell them "well, sod off" and quit.
Do Or Do Not, There Is No Spoon, There Is Only Zuul. Everything in the above post is probably opinion.
My usual approach is in the form of an analogy.
"You're driving down the road, and you stop at a traffic light. A man, dressed like a mechanic, approaches your car and says 'I think your car has a problem. Please pop the hood, and let me do a free analysis." Do you let him?"
"You get a package in the mail. You don't recognize the return address. You open it, and inside is a device with a note that says 'want a good laugh? press this button'. Do you press it?"
"A stranger walks up to you on the bus, and says 'My name is Rev. Kwame. I want a reliable person who could assist us
to transfer the sum of Twenty Million Five Hundred Thousand United States Dollars ( $20,500,000 ) into his / her account.This fund resulted by way
of gratification from a contract awarded by us under the budget allocation to my Ministry and this bill has been approved for payment by
the concerned Ministries.' Do you give them your bank account number?"
Etc.
My mom switched to Mac. Result: I only have to really do something semi-serious (i.e. more than 30 mins work) once every 2 years. My (mentally handicapped!) brother uses a Mac. Aside from an occasional correction of his mail settings via ARD Admin I'm hassle-free.
My brother and his g/f still use Windows. I just spent four f***ing days reinstalling Windows XP because Vista figured Autocad was either already installed, couldn't be installed, or shouldn't be installed. I told them it was the last time and I would only support them if they bought Macs. Microsoft is a group of clueless arrogant monopolists as far as I'm concerned. Apple is also arrogant but at least they make something decent. Vista scared me into fits and out of family tech support for life unless they pay me $ 75,- an hour. That got their attention, I can tell you. After some "but what will we do then?" comments of disbelief I explained my motivations to them and told them the truth: Windows is a bloated platform with no vision designed by a company that is run more by lawyers than by true genius and I've given up on them completely. Sorry if this is a bit rantish (I suppose it is a rant) but I really want to underline it for you in simple terms: M$ is your problem.
I think Apple has several ups over Windows:
- it's designed to be learned by playing with it
- it gets out of your way instead of in your face
- it has a much, much, much clearer structure; people can find the things / settings they need more easily, and with less actions. Try setting up a dual monitor and occasionally attaching e.g. a beamer. It only costs 1 or 2 clicks after the 5 whole clicks you need to configure it the first time around. Try doing that in Windows and you're at least 20 clicks farther, and of course something or other b0rks along the way every f***ing time
- supporting it remotely is pretty much hassle-free aside from opening a port here and there (or else you could use something like Teamviewer)
- if you ever DO need to reinstall, the migration assistant will keep your settings whole, and you can drag/drop the software from the old installation; it's MUCH easier than reinstalling everything from scratch.
If you're in doubt, download it and stuff it into a VM and play with it. See how long it takes you to get mail etc set up. Now don't get me wrong - no OS is perfect, and OSX has its idiosyncrasies like any other - but it has a lot less of them, and any issues are usually fairly well documented. Just stay away from newest releases until the 10.x.1 update is out, at the least, and you will do fine.
A positive attitude may not solve all your problems, but it will annoy enough people to make it well worth the effort.
"You're the shithead that broke it. You fix it, or you pay Best Buy to fix it, or you pay me to fix it. Those are your choices."
As you can tell, after ten years of this, I'm fed up with trying to support my idiot family.
I'm tired of giving-up my weekends doing what amounts to my fulltime job - for free.
"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - historian Evelyn Beatrice Hall
Have you considered making their system into a VM host?
This is exactly what I did with my son. I installed vmplayer, created a VM and locked everything down so that the only internet access that he has is via the VM. The one difference from the parent is that I do not back up and restore any files, that is his problem. When he screws up the current VM, I just remove it and drop in a copy of the original VM. I am done within a half hour. You should have seen my son's face the first time that he screwed up the VM. He could not believe that I just blew away the VM with all his data on it. He learned very quickly after that to keep backups of everything that he wants to keep.
It's not so much a sixth sense as it is keeping skepticism as the default response.
And if it was bundled MS would end up being sued by Faronics for abusing their monopoly position, the EU would sanction MS until they removed it, and everyone would complain about how evil MS is for trying to take over another sector of the computer business.
Of the two options, I like the unbundled, doesn't bloat my OS further, option.
Necessity is the mother of invention.
Laziness is the father.
No I'm not trying to be smug. I simply refuse to maintain windows computers. Linux is not an option for most people. Ergo, a mac. Someday perhaps macs will be rife with trojans too. I'm not living in a dream where macs are perfect. But the very problem raised here is solved by a mac. So why fart around. Is your time worth nothing? if not these folks can cough up $599 for a mac mini. You don't have to use a mac, cause you are not the one with the problem. But they do.
Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
Reasonable and useful analogies. However ...
"You're driving down the road, and you stop at a traffic light. A man, dressed like a mechanic, approaches your car and says 'I think your car has a problem. Please pop the hood, and let me do a free analysis." Do you let him?"
In a GUI centric world, the average user doesn't understand the source or meaning of error messages, warnings, or confirmation dialogs. They're just another window that pops up on what they believe to be an "appliance". It isn't the window they're interested in, and not knowing what to do with it, they just want it to go away.
"You get a package in the mail. You don't recognize the return address. You open it, and inside is a device with a note that says 'want a good laugh? press this button'. Do you press it?"
A package in the mail has all it's shipping information clearly printed on the outside. With email, the information is in the headers, most all of which are routinely hidden (what is visible is often useless or suspect). The average user has no idea headers exist, and will reject any prodding that they learn how to read them, replying that they clutter up their screen (like viewing file extensions).
Moreover, they certainly don't want to know about MIME structures. Attachments? If it's like a package in the mail, how to know what it is if you don't open it?
"A stranger walks up to you on the bus, and says 'My name is Rev. Kwame. I want a reliable person who could assist us to transfer the sum of ... Do you give them your bank account number?"
An example that's more "real world" to the average user. Regrettably, in the real world, people (especially older folks) do fall prey to scams or otherwise obvious fraud.
For 8 years they have relied upon you to solve their issues and apparently not learned anything! they are "non-technical" but have been using computers this entire time? I'm sorry but after that many years of using the damned thing if they haven't learned anything it's because you're always there to help them - stop helping. The excuse that they're non-technical doesn't fly after that length of time IMO. If they are so disinterested in the device but rely on it so heavily then there's a serious disconnect.
They aren't learning anything because they don't have to. If you always had someone to wipe your ass you probably would never have learned but somewhere along the way your parents decided it was time you did it yourself and TaDah YOU learned. Think of it as AA for computers - they have to hit rock bottom before they will get off their butts and bother to learn anything. A once in awhile help session is one thing but not to the extent that has been laid out here. Do they even bother to sit and watch while you fix their stuff? Or do they get to go off and do other things all the while whining that they want their computer fixed? Make them feel pain, make them sit and watch silently if you work on the computer for them and answer questions if you want. You're being taken advantage of and it;s not helping anyone except maybe you a little as you find out ever more innovative ways to solve their issues.
Here's another thought - stop trying to fix their computer. Simply reformat the thing, patch it, and walk away. Let them have to go through the pain of fixing it up the way they like it - maybe with some ramifications they will begin to get a clue and understand the cause\effect that's going on here....
Build it, Drive it, Improve it! Hybridz.org
Wait... so, you installed Ubuntu for someone and left them to use it with no discussion. It would appear that you never let him see it boot before handing it over, and never discussed the differences. And, as you say, he refused to use it.
I assume this level of casual computer fixing is reserved for family members, yet you say he took you to court. If your family are taking you to court, I think you have other things to worry about than the computers. If he wasn't a family member, why the hell were you fixing it for free and/or not discussing/explaining the solution?
The reason it's like that is because developers are too lazy to test with a regular user account.
Obama's legacy: (N)othing (S)ecure (A)nywhere and (T)error (S)imulation (A)dministration
Just thought I'd note that this is absolutely, positively the wrong thing to do if the problem is malware and viruses.
Don't listen to those who tell you to give up or make it unpleasant for family to turn to you for help. If you are at least a halfway decent person, chances are you got that way because your parents didn't give up on you when you needed help and education. Time to pay back the favor. I'd guess that re-educating them on computer use may help things, but will not fix them. My suggestions:
Be prepared.
When re-imaging a system:
Doing all that will take a lot of time, but can mostly run without a babysitter.
If their computer has enough power to make it worthwhile, you could also set up a VM machine for them to run in. Start with a known-good OS image, create a VM from it, clone the VM, and let them run the clone. Erase the clone when it gets buggy, re-clone the original, patch it, and off they go again.
(1) - There are a number of different ways to do backups with little or no further hardware investment. If there is a network available with more than one computer attached, I might load one system with cheap disk and back up to that. Otherwise, I'd get an external drive with a USB connection and dump my backups to that as needed. Or you can get a USB key and back up to that, although that won't give you much room for incremental backups. Or back up to DVD+R, although restoring from DVD might not be convenient on a system with only 1 CD/DVD drive if you are running from a live cd.
I prefer rogues to imbeciles because they sometimes take a rest.
Get a mac or install linux. Staying with Windows? You might want to see what Einstein said about people who do the same thing over and over and expect different results.
In your situation, a mac will pay for itself. If they don't want to learn to use linux, tell them to get a mac and be done with it.
Sure, they'll have to learn how to do a few things differently ... but they're obviously going to have to anyway, so have them bite the bullet one way or another and be done with it.
If you don't, or don't stand firm, you have only yourself to blame next time you waste a weekend.
I gotta side with the old man on this one. While I do think the law suit is much, it seems like you installed Ubuntu w/o his consultation. In that case, you're definitely in the wrong.
Some people think differently then the way you think. Especially with older people, they don't see the UI affordances. If you watch them take notes on using Windows, it'll always start with "Click on the Start Button". Ubuntu was something he wasn't use to, and therefore he couldn't do what he wanted.
True, but 9 times out of ten, it is easier and faster to change the OS than the human's behavior.
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
Congratulations! You are the first person in the history of Slashdot to type "MAC" and not mean it as a borderline-illiterate abbreviation for "Macintosh". Excellent work.
My Ubuntu experience:
My best friend of 20 years is a linux/unix sysadmin and in his spare time sets up clusters with petabyte storage for universities, oil companies, physics labs, etc. He is a Linux zealot (lovably so, not the annoying kind) and has performed many OS conversions with friends and neighbors. So I buy a new windows vista box a year and a half a go and he says, "Lets dual boot it with Ubuntu!" To which I respond, "Great! I'll buy beer and pizza, you come over and set it up while I watch." I was genuinely excited about the prospect. I had heard Ubuntu was not only simple to install but also to use so I was definitely game.
The result? After three plus hours of unsucessfully plumbing the depths of the web for working wireless drivers, I released him from his obligation and we all get drunk. Later, I blow the partition off the drive and mentally assign Ubuntu and Linux in general to the "failed experiments" category.
Maybe the driver situation has improved, but just watching the lenghts that he had to go to made me realize that even the "easiest of all Linux OS systems" can still be a giant pain in the ass.
When the only tool you have is a claw hammer every problem starts to look like the back of someone's skull.
I installed Ubuntu to head off a lot of these problem but he refused to use it.
It doesn't matter if it's friend, family or client.
It doesn't matter if your are working for a cold beer and a plate of pretzels or charging twice the going rate for your "professional services."
You never make fundamental changes without asking.
Without informed consent.
If I ask you to secure and return my Windows system -
I expect you to secure and return my Windows system - not to replace it with whatever Linux distro and Open Source apps that suit your fancy.
"What part of "No" didn't you understand?" That is as sound a way for a judge to approach a suit for breach of contract as it is when he considers a charge of rape.
I actually have to agree, although I'd argue part the issue is that the person asking the question doesn't have a massively high level of technical competence if it takes them so long to solve these sorts of problem which compounds the issue.
I had the same problem with my Dad, and although it didn't take long to fix each time, it was annoying because having spent all day fixing stupid IT problems back then at work, the last thing I wanted to do when I got home was exactly the same thing.
The real solution is summed up in the parents title "Give up". I told him that it was the last time I'm going to fix it and he'd have to take it to PC World who'd charge him probably £50 or more if he wanted it done after that. I explained every time that he was getting the problems because he was clicking stupid things or opening attachments he wasn't expecting or giving his e-mail address out to any web form that asked, yet only when under threat of having to pay to get the problem fixed did this actually sink in with him, because since then, he's never had a piece of Malware again.
The more you help these people, the less reason they have to pay attention and not be stupid. Force them to think for themselves or they'll simply never bother to and you'll be stuck supporting them forever.
I have the same problem with more family members in more locations so I tell them to buy a certain small form factor HP computer or a certain Lenovo laptop. I can UPS them a replacement very quickly at their expense. Each has a backup drive and some use cloud storage. Now they all want Netbooks. Any ideas on the best all around Netbook?