superflippy's Journal: Giving the Gift of Tech Support

It's time to go home for Christmas, and time for the annual overhaul of my relatives' computers. Used to be that it was just my mom's ancient Mac that needed an annual going over to make sure it could lurch along for another year. My husband, Mac genius that he is, always handled that.

Then my mom got a nifty new iMac at work which she brought home over Christmas break for a tune-up and Q&A session as well. Not long after, my dad got a Dell laptop so he could work from home. My grandfather also got a Dell. Since George doesn't do Windows and my brother doesn't do tech support, I ended up supporting those by default.

So I'm heading home with a CD loaded with goodies: Windows XP SP2 (just in case), Ad-aware, Spybot, Firefox, and Bruce Schneier's recent article on PC security. (Grandpa's internet connection is glacial, so I don't want to make him download anything more than necessary.) Dad's laptop is going to be a breeze, but Grandpa's desktop is going to be a challenge. Who knows what junk has accumulated in there since last year?

I'm happy to do it, though, if it means that Grandpa is still willing to use his computer. Technological progress always comes at a price.

Thanks for the link

[nizo]

I like that link about security, thanks for posting it. I keep hoping to convince my mom to move to Linux, or maybe someday I will break down and buy her a mac. I figure after she gets infested with crap a few times she will be more open to the idea :-)

At the annual family Xmas party

[frankie]

Dad asked me for advice about replacing his 5 year old blueberry iMac. I went surfing (on said iMac) and printed some options: Sony, HPaq, iMac, and Shuttle [shuttle.com].

I told him they're all decent computers, but if he wants tech support from me then he should buy the iMac. Or possibly the Shuttle, at least until I get my fill of poking at the innards. Oh how I wish Apple would make a Mac like that.

Two things to include:

[FortKnox]

AVG Antivirus and Zone Alarm firewall. Both are free and work very well.