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Show HN: Fun tool that cut my family and friends tech support time in half

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Re: Show HN: Fun tool that cut my family and friends tech support time in half

#171

Post by MiddleEndian »

seanp2k2 wrote: post #143
jakub_g wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Indeed, here's the link (though the details of the anecdote are slightly different): https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/oldnewthing/20040303-00/?p=... > Here's the trick: Don't ask "Are you sure it's plugged in correctly?" > If you do this, they will get all insulted and say indignantly, "Of course it is! Do I look like an idiot?" without actually checking. > Instead, say "Okay, sometimes the connection gets a little d…

"How does dust get into the outlet if it's more or less sealed" yeah it's a good tip

"Some outlets are not perfectly flush internally even though they may appear to be fine."

Re: Show HN: Fun tool that cut my family and friends tech support time in half

#172

Post by funnyfacts365 »

mhurron wrote: post #162
andrepd wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Cripple their ability to install anything? What are you suggesting?

How do you install TurboTax on Linux? None of the software they have, none of the software anyone they know uses will install on their Linux machine. Very quickly most will get the idea that the computer is broken and you need to come and fix it because you were the one that broke it.

Then you charge them money and do as they ask. Or they can go ask someone else to do it for free, maybe that friend who recommended the software that doesn't run on Linux, given that they know better than you...

Re: Show HN: Fun tool that cut my family and friends tech support time in half

#173

Post by okreallywtf »

koliber wrote: post #115

Regarding the "is it plugged in?" question. A great anecdote I heard was that the support person on the phone asked if the power plug was clean. The user was confused. The support person told them to unplug it, blow the dust out of the holes, and plug it back in. This fixed the problem! The issue was that the power plug was in the socket, but too loose to connect. Somehow, the support person figured this was the case…

I used to work as an installer for a wireless-isp and we supported some very rural areas as well as an urban area. I typically did the urban area but I grew up in one of the very rural areas so I could appreciate how badly people wanted their internets out there.

At one point I had to service some of the rural areas when the installer for that area quit and had one service request that I was sure would be fixed by a simple power cycle but wasn't. "Are you sure you unplugged the right thing?" I asked, and "If I come all the way out there and power cycle it and it works I'll have to charge you, do you understand?" I warned, he understood but wasn't worried because he knew that wasn't it.

After a nearly 2 hour drive out into the utter boondocks, I go inside and check the POE injector, unplug it and plug it back in. 20 seconds later I check his internet through his own router: golden (or as golden as you can be over a waverider 900Mhz link). He had just been unplugging his own router and plugging it back in over and over. In retrospect I could have made him physically trace the power cord but there was still a good 10% chance the unit actually had a problem.

People in the rural areas were really nice about everything though, being on 56k until 2010 makes you appreciate whatever broadband you can get. He just laughed and got his checkbook, in the city people complained when you told them the bill an hour after telling them what the charge would be over the phone.

Re: Show HN: Fun tool that cut my family and friends tech support time in half

#174

Post by heartbreak »

BozeWolf wrote: post #78
kriro wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My dad (>60, not exactly tech saavy) has been using Lubuntu for 2 years now (actually I don't even remember when we installed it might be 4 years :P). For many parents who only surf the web and do some non power user office (he uses Libre Office now) and check their mail it's the perfect solution. For his use case it's more user friendly than the Windows install because of the lack of constant update requests and ant…

This! Well... not this! Every time the (linux) desktop discussion comes up, at least a few geeks have this "linux+my mother" argument which should prove linux desktop is totally usable for everyone. Just wait until they discover "alternative program X" for "windows program X" is not the same as the program they saw at the computer of the neughbours mom. Or libre office fucks up the layout again. Come on guys, why alw…

Perhaps because my mother's use of a computer literally never ventures out of the web browser? A Chromebook would be great for her, but she does not have one. Instead she has a desktop that has been "linux + my mother" for 6 years.

Re: Show HN: Fun tool that cut my family and friends tech support time in half

#175

Post by arethuza »

koliber wrote: post #115

Regarding the "is it plugged in?" question. A great anecdote I heard was that the support person on the phone asked if the power plug was clean. The user was confused. The support person told them to unplug it, blow the dust out of the holes, and plug it back in. This fixed the problem! The issue was that the power plug was in the socket, but too loose to connect. Somehow, the support person figured this was the case…

Many years ago in my first job (1988) I was diagnosing a Unix printing problem on a machine remotely (dialed in via modems).

There was an IBM engineer on site who insisted it was a software problem - I was on the phone to him and he was getting rather annoyed with me and I asked the inevitable "Is it actually plugged into the power?" which got him very angry that I would have the cheek to suggest that he hadn't checked that.

Then the phone went silent for a bit and he said "Try now".

Power supply was plugged into the power but the power cable from the supply wasn't plugged into the printer.

Edit: I'm sure I've been the guilty party in similar scenarios myself a few times, though hopefully not more than once in any particular context.

Re: Show HN: Fun tool that cut my family and friends tech support time in half

#176

Post by intrasight »

jethro_tell wrote: post #29
intrasight wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

iPads are great. But what beats it is a Fire HD8. I got one for me and for my mother-in-law on CyberMonday for $56 each. That's about 1/10th the price of an iPad. I did not login to Amazon. I did install Chrome and VLC so she has music, videos, and the web - all one needs on such a device. Hopefully it gets rooted soon so I can install a generic Android ROM.

What sort of OS support updates is that getting?

OTA OS updates still occur on Fire tablet even if you don't register. I've disabled them via OpenDns in case the current OS version becomes rootable.

Re: Show HN: Fun tool that cut my family and friends tech support time in half

#178

Post by MaulingMonkey »

sspiff wrote: post #169
Ziomislaw wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If only it was that easy. Most of the ppl having simmilar problems will only pretend to listen and remember your explanations, only to run to you with the exact same problem in a couple of hours.

Exactly. They just want their problem solved, they don't care about understanding the underlying system. It's not even about not wanting to listen, it's about the amount of information they have to absorb to understand the problem. Also, most of us are not Feinmann-level teachers who can explain complicated systems in simple terms.

It's not even about them failing to learn, necessarily - it's them failing to internalize deeply enough to recall how to solve their problems the next time they crop up. They're being handed answers from up high instead of experimenting - no practice, no wonder they can't solve it the next time either.

Even techies can run into this problem - the only reason we might do better, on average, is that we experiment with more things, and perhaps pursue more of this knowledge for it's own sake. We got sick of being on hold for tech support, we encountered issues tech support couldn't help us with, so we spent more time experimenting and internalizing the solutions to our problems.

To some degree this suggests an answer: Give people some time to try and solve their own problems. "I can take a look when I'm over there next" instead of spending a lot of time trying to remotely troubleshoot the problem over the phone. "Sure - let me just finish this up and I'll swing by" instead of dropping everything to troubleshoot a problem in-person for a coworker.

I still help my mom out some with various tech problems, but I think we've both benifited from letting her (re)develop some independence and self-sufficiency when it comes to technology.

Re: Show HN: Fun tool that cut my family and friends tech support time in half

#179

Post by dark_ph0enix »

JoeAltmaier wrote: post #177

Anybody else find this too cute and patronizing? Its the guy saying "You're an idiot and I'm too smart and busy to be bothered by family. Your problems don't matter."

No, not really. Deal with a handful of end users and all of sudden this makes a heap of sense.

Re: Show HN: Fun tool that cut my family and friends tech support time in half

#180

Post by sidarape »

mhurron wrote: post #162
andrepd wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Cripple their ability to install anything? What are you suggesting?

How do you install TurboTax on Linux? None of the software they have, none of the software anyone they know uses will install on their Linux machine. Very quickly most will get the idea that the computer is broken and you need to come and fix it because you were the one that broke it.

>How do you install TurboTax on Linux?

FYI, since a few years, TurboTax has an online version that I use on Linux.

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