If I had a nickel for every time I got one of those calls, I think I'd be able to buy Future Shop. Really my mom is great with computers and doesn't call me often, but this leads in to the age old question of how to geeks help our friends with their computers.
We run away.
No, seriously it all comes down to listening and trying to get to the source of the problem. While I think a lot of folks might try to suggest the remote control option, you know, where you set up a remote connection to the other person's computer to help them, I'm not big on that. I know, and you can disagree with me in the comments, but I've found that trying to get the **bleep** remote connection set up is often more hassle than it's Worth. I have had good success with CrossLoop, but unfortunately the process of getting someone to download and install one of the apps, much less getting it to punch through their firewall.
So this is what I do.
I listen.
Carefully.
This can be a lot harder than it sounds because often our friends and family don't speak geek, and sometimes our on board universal translators don't translate human back to geek very well. So we often work on the basics. How many programs are running? What were you trying to do when whatever went wrong went wrong?
Occasionally it's something simple like a loose cord (very rarely really), but most often I've found that problem is a badly worded dialogue box or even just too quick on a mouse click.
So if you can back up a few steps, trying to assuage the panic because computers sense stress and know this is when they should misbehave the most, and replay the whole scenario you can often get to the root of the problem.
What if you can't over the phone? Yeah that's the tough part, for my far-flung friends and relatives I often have to punt to someone who can be there in person, for close by folks I make a house call.
This is where the next important lesson comes in--when to stop. Most important of all, know when to stop and either take a break or hand it off to someone else. I've gotten to the "we have to reinstall Windows" point a couple times and rarely does it take less than a few hours and sometimes it ends very, very badly.
The moral of the story here is when you're having a problem with your computer and are asking for help, write down what you did, write down what the error messages said, and don't panic. I can count on one hand the number of catastrophic computer problems I've run into. There isn't a ticking clock that says if you don't fix the problem by a certain time all hope will be lost.
For those of us solving the problems. After walking through on the phone what the problem is and this doesn't help, banging your head against the wall is certainly acceptable.
Message Edited by Julez on 07-29-2009 05:23 PM
Message Edited by Laura on 08-21-2009 02:23 PM
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