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Comments: 932 +- Ask Slashdot: Easing the Job of Family Tech Support? on Thursday November 12, @12:10PM
Posted
by
Soulskill
on Thursday November 12, @12:10PM
from the shock-collars-and-a-willingness-to-yell dept.
from the shock-collars-and-a-willingness-to-yell dept.
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security
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technology
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."
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MS SteadyState (Score:5, Informative)
Try MS SteadyState
http://www.microsoft.com/windows/products/winfamily/sharedaccess/default.mspx
Re:MS SteadyState (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
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Re:MS SteadyState (Score:5, Insightful)
Of the two options, I like the unbundled, doesn't bloat my OS further, option.
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Re:MS SteadyState (Score:4, Informative)
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Re:MS SteadyState (Score:5, Insightful)
"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.
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Re:MS SteadyState (Score:5, Funny)
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here's where we get to hear someone spew (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:here's where we get to hear someone spew (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re:here's where we get to hear someone spew (Score:5, Insightful)
Same here. Please mod parent up. Its the damn truth!
Unsure what all the hating of Apple hardware is on /. lately.
Solid Unix based OS that your parents would never know about. Google developers use them.
It's actually not about being hip. It's about getting work done.
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Re:here's where we get to hear someone spew (Score:5, Funny)
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Re:here's where we get to hear someone spew (Score:5, Funny)
I had to sell my black turtleneck sweater to pay for my Mac. Oh the irony!
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Re:here's where we get to hear someone spew (Score:5, Insightful)
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Install Ubuntu (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Install Ubuntu (Score:5, Insightful)
... and if it has to be Windows for some strange reason. Give them Limited User accounts. You'll be the sole Admin (and you won't use it yourself... just User for day to day tasks) and because of that you'll have to approve or disapprove all software that has to be installed.
I have this modus operandi with my family and it works very well. Technically, you have to see a family as a small business operation where you are the IT guy.
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Re:Install Ubuntu (Score:5, Interesting)
no technical background aside from surfing the internet. Sounds like a perfect audience for an OS with fewer security flaws.
In the same situation, let me relate my story: Over at my parents' for the WE almost a year ago I had yet again to reinstall the whole shebang after a hardware improvement was 'refused' by XP. After a day and a half installing XP, downloading SPs and updates, downloading all apps, configuring them, etc, it crashed during the XP3 install. Wouldn't boot. I had 2 hours left.
As an experiment and a last minute move, I installed Kubuntu. 10 minutes for the install, 20 minutes to configure custom icons on the desktop links to firefox, kmail, dolphin, Xsane and a SD card image transfer script. I didn't even show them the result, just as an experiment. And I left. They called only once after 2 weeks: "Yeah it works fine, but we don't have skype anymore", which I promptly remotely installed. I consider this experiment a great success.
On the other hand, in order to escape Linux, my sister bought a Mac.
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Related question (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Correct User Access (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Re:Correct User Access (Score:4, Informative)
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.
Absolutely, I did this for my brother's machine, compared to my parents machine it's remained extremely tidy and worry free!
The only issue is Firefox updating. On Windows XP, Firefox cannot update itself when running in a non-admin account. (Bugzilla:407875 [mozilla.org]) Probably means my brother is running a months-old Firefox..
Makes me wonder if Internet Explorer would actually be safer for him, at least it would get updated automatically.
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The butterfly Parable (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Re:The butterfly Parable (Score:5, Funny)
So you're saying that the next time Mom asks for tech support, he should bind her up in duct tape, leaving a little hole and saying "fight your way out Mom! It will do you good!"
While amusing, I don't think that would really solve her or his problems.
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Re:The butterfly Parable (Score:5, Funny)
Dude, don't leave us hanging...
So what happened to the butterfly? Was it like Forest Gump and it went on to meet presidents and stuff?
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Re:The butterfly Parable (Score:4, Informative)
It has nothing to do with evolution. Plant tissues that experience pressures (say from bending in the wind) release hormones that make the tissue stronger, to better withstand that pressure.
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Only every 8 months? Lucky. (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Re:Only every 8 months? Lucky. (Score:5, Funny)
And before anyone starts bleating "but Macs can have problems too..." I'll tell you what I tell my family now when they call me with problems: "So what? I don't support Macs."
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You can't teach people who don't want to learn (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Re:You can't teach people who don't want to learn (Score:5, Insightful)
parents have said, flat out, they they "just can't learn".
Proper response: If you can't learn, I can't help. Sorry.
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Re:You can't teach people who don't want to learn (Score:5, Funny)
I agree. My long-time girlfriend is a veterinarian and always makes fun of my career choice when I am "on-call" or have an "emergency."
Obviously her on-calls, and emergencies deal with life-or-death situation (of animals...) and mine deals with thousands, and possible hundreds of thousands ($$) in lost productivity, revenue, etc.
Whenever I even mention the $$ argument as a way to back up my claim as my job is important - I get the "saving lives" is more important. One of our good friends is a doctor and uses the "save lives vs. save useless lives" argument with her...funny actually. The only reason why she did vet school instead of med school (truth be known vet school is more difficult to get into) is because she likes animals better than people.
Anyway, back to the story, whenever her computer screws up, I make it a point to note that I'm saving its life. It gets her all riled up, stating she'll just buy a new computer - to which I reply I'll simply buy a new dog when mine gets hurt - or even a new girlfriend when mine is broken.
It's this back and forth that makes me wonder if we'll ever get or stay married.
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Re:You can't teach people who don't want to learn (Score:5, Funny)
Anyway, back to the story, whenever her computer screws up, I make it a point to note that I'm saving its life. It gets her all riled up, stating she'll just buy a new computer - to which I reply I'll simply buy a new dog when mine gets hurt - or even a new girlfriend when mine is broken.
So how comfortable is that couch?
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You have the control, so use it! (Score:5, Informative)
Make them pay (Score:4, Insightful)
There is probably one major offender, and you could probably do some detective work to figure out who that person is if you tried.
The last time I had this problem... (Score:5, Interesting)
Oblig. XKCD (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Oblig. XKCD (Score:4, Interesting)
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Get a Mac (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Re:Get a Mac (Score:5, Interesting)
This. My 60-year-old father can tell the make and model of any car manufactured before the catalytic converter, just by hearing the sound of an engine. As a career veterinarian with 30+ years of experience and an interest in staying abreast, he is intimately familiar with the latest in small animal medicine. But when it comes to anything with transistors, he knows only the basics. He's always found them frustrating and irritating, and only started using email about 6 years ago when forced into it by an extended vacation my mother took alone. He only got a cell phone 2 years ago. I used to spend hours each month helping him maintain his slow-because-he-bought-a-P4-with-SDRAM Windows computer.
After being fed up with years of parental support, I convinced him with much prodding this past spring that instead of an HP, he should spend a bit more to buy a refurbished aluminum iMac with a full extended warranty and a Time Capsule. I was done with limited Windows profiles, spyware,Firefox with IE skins and changed icons, and all the rest. The Mac was a great decision. He's in love with it, and my Mom is now plotting her own mac purchase.
I spent the largest part of the two hours of setup copying files via thumb drive, configuring his Safari Top Sites page, and getting Skype turned on so he can talk to my brother in Italy. Haven't really thought about it since, but after years as a reluctant computer user, he's blossomed with the Mac. The iPod he never used to use is suddenly full of podcasts and music, and we'll talk about the Writer's Almanac show a couple of times a week. His digital camera no longer stores all of his photos for viewing on the little screen, and he doesn't go to Walgreen's to get help make prints anymore. - instead, they're in iPhoto with face tags, organized into events, and he uses his own inkjet with photo paper now. He never has to futz with the mic or camera when he's doing a video call with my siblings. He's an avid skier, so we put the snow reports for his season ticket resorts on his Dashboard, as well as the weather reports and clocks for various places around the world where we have family.
This is turning into a Mac ad, and I didn't mean that. Clearly all of these things can be done with Windows/Linux. My point is that the right combination of technology, in my case an iMac, managed to excite my father into an interest in my own passions, while simultaneously opening up all the really cool parts of the internet to him. And in the process, I no longer have to do any tech support for him. I don't have to worry about backups, I don't have to worry about viruses, I don't have to worry about email attachments, I don't have to worry about "How do I..." phone calls.
Instead, we have more things to talk about, and he's able to finally use these fantastic tools from which I've made my career. So: if the technology your family is using doesn't work for them, whether they're currently on Apple, Linux, or Microsoft OS's, try a different one. It's made all the difference for me.
Caveat: I really can't recommend buying a computer without a user-serviceable hard disk unless you also buy the extended warranty. Apple wants $450 to replace the 320GB hard disk on an out-of-warranty iMac with another 320GB. I found out the hard way on my own iMac. To replace the disk in an iMac you have to remove the glass and the screen. Get dust between those two during the repair, and it's game over. This is the rare case where the warranty is money well spent.
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Lock it down (Score:4, Insightful)
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.
The 9-year-old is the key (Score:5, Insightful)
Sounds like it's time to transition your support job to the next generation.
Lessons learned from too many years in that role (Score:4, Insightful)
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.
Re:Buy them a Mac (Score:5, Informative)
I completely agree. I did the exact same thing.
The most beautiful part? When I was convincing them to pick up a Mini to replace their dying PC, my dad's first question was (I kid you not): "But will it run Firefox and OpenOffice?"
I almost cried.
And if I do need to give them support? 99% of the time I can just have them fire up iChat and share their desktop with me. Quick and easy for them, and doesn't require messing with opening ports in any firewalls or NATs.
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Buy a Mac and Time Capsule (Score:4, Informative)
How much is your time worth, in any unit you care to name? If the answer is any amount greater than zero, then convincing friends and family to buy a Mac helps so, so much... I have several people I used to help all the time, and now I get a question maybe once a year. Not to mention that any frustration you are saving yourself, you are triply saving your friends and family who try to figure things out before they call you.
But I would add in addition to this advice, to buy a TimeCapsule for them as well. Yes it's a little more expensive than an access point and external disk combined. But refer back to my first point, the bit about time and so on? If they have a TimeCapsule set up they WILL USE IT, because it is on ALL THE TIME. If you try to make anyone connect an external drive they WILL NOT DO IT, and that means WHEN a drive failure occurs you will have to come help try and recover data. If the have a Time Capsule they can bring the system and TC into an Apple store and get the data back even if they can't figure out how themselves (which they probably will figure out).
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Re:Give Up (Score:5, Funny)
(No, I couldn't find a link to that PA comic. Somebody else will have to do that.)
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Re:Give Up (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
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Re:Give Up (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
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Re:Give Up (Score:5, Interesting)
"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.
No kidding. I still shudder when I remember what happened years ago to my aunt, who is over 70. I came to her house to visit and found a man in his 30s sitting in the living room drinking coffee. My aunt says "you remember so-and-so, I met him on the way to the grocery store and asked him in. Fancy that, he's now an antiques dealer and may be interested in buying some of my stuff." Well, this was NOT who she thought it was. It was a total stranger who realized she had mistaken him for somebody else and decided to take advantage of the situation. Now my aunt is a retired jeweler and "her stuff", some of which was exposed in the coffee table, consists of unique pieces and precious stones that she kept for sentimental reasons.
I didn't want to scare her by exposing the impostor, so I asked to have some coffee too. When she left I told the guy I knew what was going on and if he didn't want me to call the cops immediately he would show me his ID and, as soon as aunt was back, make an excuse and leave. Fortunately he was not a violent criminal, just a lowlife who saw an opportunity to scam an old lady. So he left and aunt never figured out what had happened.
When I read about old people giving thousands of $$ to Nigerian schemers, it reminds me of this story.
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Re:Give Up (Score:4, Funny)
And you picked a bad example. Dyslexics tend to be better with computers than the rest of the population. If you're practically illegible when using a pen like I am, you tend to develop fast typing (spellcheckers are pretty cool too).
And dyslexia doesn't stop one's family asking for tech support. Got all but one of them on Linux now though, which helps.
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Re:Give Up (Score:5, Interesting)
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Re:And I'm linux! (Score:5, Funny)
I've noticed that humans are illogical, Captain. They won't take the time to learn something that's free and can save them money, but they'll take the time to learn something that they spent money on and will continue to cost them money. Even tribbles act more logically.
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Re:Give Up (Score:4, Interesting)
I live six states away from my nearest blood relative. Of course, that didn't stop my sister (who lives on the other frickin' coast of the continent) from calling me up, asking me to help her troubleshoot an issue with qmail on one of her webservers (she owns a small webservice company).
She was mildly miffed when her company got invoiced at the 'family rate' ($75/hr) - but at least haven't had any further requests for pro-level help since. :)
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Re:just install linux the next time you reformat (Score:4, Interesting)
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Re:Reinstall is NEVER required... (Score:4, Informative)
If you think your only option is to re-install the OS, odds are you don't know how to fix the problem and do it in a timely fashion.
So, how do YOU deal with a corrupted registry, chains upon chains of hooked and rehooked system calls, apps without proper uninstallers, bad-neighbor applications that overwrite other apps' dlls, and rootkits? Are you really spending the time to one-at-a-time manually uninstall and replace bad associations with known-good ones?
To me, OS reinstall and repatch is more of a time saving device. Sure, I can spend hours on hours chasing dragons all over the place for hours on end to fix things and keep their precious desktop wallpaper and they could just click that Awesome Cute Videos bookmark and reinstall the same damn malware the very next day. I personally rather set an xml file and leave an unattended install on while catching a movie or otherwise getting on with my life.
I know if family ever got snippety with me about why I reinstall all the time, I'd probably throw the computer back right at them and wish them good luck.
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