Tech tips -
Are you the IT guy for your family and friends? Does everyone depend on your technical savvy to get them through all the spyware and viruses they accidentally downloaded?
Then you know what it is like for someone to try and describe to you what has gone wrong with their box and then you trying to walk them through clicking here and clicking there to get the problem resolved. The difficulty of the job is directly proportional to the skill level of the person on the other end of the phone line. Not much fun!
It would be so much easier if the computer was right in front of you! That, unfortunately, is not always possible especially if say the relatives are in Toronto or Alberta. What you need is a way to log right onto their computer from your computer over the internet.
Through the years, I have used many programs to connect myself to other computers. Windows XP and Vista come with a remote desktop program and there are many third party products available for free such as real vnc and ultravnc that do a wonderful job at displaying the screen of a remote computer and allowing you to control that computers mouse and keyboard. It's just like you are actually sitting right in front of that remote PC.
However, if you have a real techno flunky on the other end off the phone, you want a really simple way to get access to their machine. I don't think that it comes any simpler than a product called TeamViewer. Available at www.teamviewer.com (obviously), the multi platform TeamViewer is free for non-commercial personal use.
Get your buddy to go to the website and click the Join a Session button and click run when prompted. Your buddy will get an ID number and a password that you will use to connect to his PC after you download and run the full version (you don't have to install, but you can if you want).
TeamViewer is nice because you don't have to worry about accounts, ip addresses, firewalls or anything else. It is so simple.
You might want to check out www.ammyy.com . Really simple to use, just click the "Run Ammyy Admin" button in the middle of the webpage. Have your buddy do the same and give you the id just as with TeamViewer. Now, have your buddy click the start button.
You will be the operator of course and will enter his id on the operator tab. Now you just have to click the connect button and your buddy will have to click to authorize your connection attempt.
There are many of these types of programs. Two more you might what to check out are www.showmypc.com or www.crossloop.com .
At crossloop.com you can also solicit the services of a helper. A helper is someone who will connect to your PC and repair your problem, but not for free. Say you think you have a virus on your computer, you can just type virus in the "find a helper" box and those who have listed virus as their area of expertise will show up in the results panel. Their rates and track record is usually listed in the short description of the helper.
toddmusseau@gmail.com
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