Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

itsupport.grammable.me

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

91–100 of 226 posts

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

#91

Post by sandebert »

jamiecurle wrote: post #87
sandebert wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

About eight years ago I reinstalled my mother's laptop with Ubuntu (was WinXP). It was a mess before and I typically spent most of my time at my mom's actually with her laptop, trying to get it to decent speed and uninstalling miscellaneous crapware. Since I installed Ubuntu on it I actually spend my time with her, not her computer. And she's happy about that, obviously, but also that her computer just works and she…

I am curious about this. From 2005-2008 my mother ran Ubuntu from an install that I set up and I have to say, it was delightful in terms of "very little IT support". The problem however was that she always seemed to feel like an outsider with her friends. Do you experience anything similar. Granted this timeframe was pre-smartphone and tablet, but I am curious none the less.

Well, sort of, but not really. My mom's best friend was really jealous of mom because her computer actually worked. The friend was running WinXP, experiencing all the typical problems. So my mom didn't feel like an outsider, more like she had the luxury situation.

A couple of years later Iphones and Android appeared, and as I'm an Android user she picked one of those (to simplify potential support situations) and was very happy about her decision. (Because she liked the phone, not that she was getting support from me all the time.)

I'm sure some of her friends have Iphones, but that's never really come up as a thing. Maybe because the people my mom associate with aren't 8 years old with the need to flaunt their stuff in the face of everybody claiming "look my phone is so cool, woop woop, your phone sucks because you have a different brand!". ;-)

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

#92

Post by Deestan »

I would add a "I don't know" option. Family members who need tech support from me are generally unable to answer things like:

> Is your device up to date?

First, they aren't familiar with what is considered a "device". Does it mean the calendar app on the phone (where they see observed problems)? Surely it can't mean their iPad, because that's an iPad and not a "device". The "device" must be the charger thingy. What does "updated" mean? The clock and date are correct, is that what it means? The SIM card is just a week old, so that means device is updated, right? Or they updated their calendar app, so then all is good. Or maybe "device" refers to the internet box at home? If they correctly identify it as "probably not updated", the next instruction is equally opaque:

> Update it.

This needs a "how?" answer, in addition to "okay".

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

#93

Post by mosselman »

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…

So it is ok to generalize based on 0 cases that Linux will be too hard for older less tech-savvy people, but it is not ok to generalize based on 1-many successful cases that for some people it might work?

I agree that Linux might not be great for our parents. As for my own mother, I moved her to a Mac mini years ago and that has reduced my support time solely to explaining how specific websites work. She can do lots of things on her own now, like debugging the wifi (shitty telco router), she creates her own booklets for the classes she teaches, etc.

With windows she'd be stuck on non-task related issues 80% of the time, which made it impossible for her to learn how to use the computer at all.

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

#94

Post by pvg »

eli wrote: post #22
sgk284 wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For folks who mostly just need a browser and for whom malware is a risk, you really can't do better than an iPad. I love Linux, but there really is no beating an iPad if you need a PC-approximate that is absurdly low maintenance.

A chromebook is cheaper and, IMHO, better for most users.

What do you think makes it better? It's not unusual to see non-technical users of all ages using an iPad. You never see them using a chromebook.

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

#95

Post by ekianjo »

chirau wrote: post #40

I can't believe that some people here think that it is better to move your relatives, who are scared/prone to malware but don't think to restart their computer first, to Linux. What a joke really. Linux is good and all, but come on people, among iOS, MacOS, Windows, Chrome and Linux, it's the least usable and least user friendly.

> What a joke really.

I think you are the one making a joke rather. The overall Linux experience (when you choose the right hardware and when everything works as expected) is not bad, really. It's faster than a machine running on any other system, USB peripherals do not need tons of external drivers, you can choose the Windows Manager you prefer out of a dozen of them available, it has proper package management, user management with different levels of privileges, it does not need to reboot for every update like windows does, I could go on forever.

At best you can criticize some Linux distros for being unfamiliar for Windows or OSX users, but that's about it. The rest depends a lot more on what you do with it. If whoever uses it lives mostly in a browser, it makes basically no difference.

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

#96

Post by keithpeter »

morganvachon wrote: post #44
chirau wrote: post #40

I can't believe that some people here think that it is better to move your relatives, who are scared/prone to malware but don't think to restart their computer first, to Linux. What a joke really. Linux is good and all, but come on people, among iOS, MacOS, Windows, Chrome and Linux, it's the least usable and least user friendly.

It depends on the user, you can't make such a blanket statement and expect to be taken seriously. My non-techie wife wandered onto my Elementary OS installation one day while I was at work, and despite having never used anything but Windows on the desktop (not even a Mac) she navigated just fine without me there to guide her. She was able to use it to go online, find something she wanted to print, print it, and then…

Users below the upper quartile (if we can model computer competence along a single axis) are coping just fine with a range of OSes on mobile devices including tablets - Android, iOS. People are getting used to working out slightly unfamiliar interfaces.

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

#97

Post by sspiff »

Deestan wrote: post #92

I would add a "I don't know" option. Family members who need tech support from me are generally unable to answer things like: > Is your device up to date? First, they aren't familiar with what is considered a "device". Does it mean the calendar app on the phone (where they see observed problems)? Surely it can't mean their iPad, because that's an iPad and not a "device". The "device" must be the charger thingy. What…

Most commonly, people coming to me for help make a blanket statement like "X is broken", where X could be their phone, computer, an application or website, the Internet as a whole. X is also generally inaccurate.

For instance, if the browser icon on my parents computer is moved for whatever reason, they will say that "the Internet is broken". If my mother can't figure out what button to press in a mobile application to get what she wants, "her phone is broken".

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

#98

Post by aashu_dwivedi »

sandebert wrote: post #91
jamiecurle wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am curious about this. From 2005-2008 my mother ran Ubuntu from an install that I set up and I have to say, it was delightful in terms of "very little IT support". The problem however was that she always seemed to feel like an outsider with her friends. Do you experience anything similar. Granted this timeframe was pre-smartphone and tablet, but I am curious none the less.

Well, sort of, but not really. My mom's best friend was really jealous of mom because her computer actually worked. The friend was running WinXP, experiencing all the typical problems. So my mom didn't feel like an outsider, more like she had the luxury situation. A couple of years later Iphones and Android appeared, and as I'm an Android user she picked one of those (to simplify potential support situations) and was…

That's one reason I bought stock android phones for my parents even if they don't care about stock android or not. It's easier to tell them which setting to navigate to or what to tap looking at my phone since I too have a stock android phone.

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

#100

Post by ekianjo »

Taek wrote: post #66
loeg wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Linux hardware support is really good. Probably better than Windows and certainly better than macOS (which only has to support a very limited range of hardware).

I don't think you could call it better than Windows. A lot of wifi cards have issues, and my understanding is that printer support can be pretty bad too. If you are using a Linux machine I'd still recommend that you double check for driver support on any hardware you buy. You can expect it to be okay but you should still check. You generally don't need to check for Windows, you can just assume and you will be right e…

it is better out of the box. Go ahead and disconnect from the internet your computers, and do a simple A/B testing between Windows and a Linux distro and see how many can recognize your USB devices without installing anything. Linux wins hands down.
Post reply on HN