The ultimate techie problem....

[MarillionFan]

"He's lucky he's my dad..."

Couldn't one of the nurses in the home help him out. I put my parents into a home the second they turned 50. The old duffers.

[Paddy]

No but did get stung for a load when I had to make a half hour international phone call via my mobile to my folks in Ireland talking them through sending an email.

Thank God it's not just me then. You are lucky it was just half an hour

[Cowboy Bob]

I think on average I spend more time fixing my parents PC / ridding it of spyware than I do on my own plethora of dual core beauties....

That's why I insisted that my parents had a Linux PC. They only surf, write letters, e-mail and print and never need to install anything so it was perfect. They had it for nearly 5 years and I very rarely had a tech support call - and even then it was for hardware failure (the PSU in the box went).

They needed to upgrade when my mum's bank wouldn't let her log in with Mozilla 1.0.1 anymore (the machine was older than Firefox). I gave her my old G5 Power Mac tower, which she seems happy with.

Interestingly, when they moved house last year, they used my sister's PC whilst theirs was in storage. I was forever getting phone calls and even had my mum say "this Microsoft stuff is rubbish, it keeps crashing. I can't wait until we get our Linux machine back".

Switch the old folks away from Windows. They'll hardly notice the difference and you'll save on the support calls.

[mcquiggd]

Agreed....

I set them up with no-ip.com so I could remote into the PC and sloooowly (56k) do battle with the latest malware ridden cover cd used on the machine... wasted more hours of my life deleting spyware than I want to count.

I admit I lost patience with my dad tonight, having given him over the years 4 computers, 5 modems (2 ADSL in the last two weeks), 2 printers, 2 fax copiers, paid for their heating and telephone bills on ocassion, paid the mortgage a couple of times, and given them a grand so they felt happier to have some cash in the bank so they would 'turn on the heating in winter'.

Then I hear they have the money to retarmac the drive for a couple of grand, buy a brand new car, and im still calling them back on my phone!

Well, whenever they mention how much my education cost, I guess I can point to their car and say 'yep, lucky you paid for that, or you'd be going to Tesco's by taxi'.....


P.S Ive also done telephone support for a friend you uses an Italian version of XP... yes, she lives in Italy, and yes, it was my phone bill...

I hate to think what doctors put up with...

[hyperD]

My parents seem to be struck down with some sort of cyber-parkinsons whenever they grab hold of a mouse and routinely phone me up to complain that various menus, icons and toolbars have disappeared.

After many agonising, frustrating phonecalls with them I certainly had a little more respect to the poor souls on IT helpdesks.

[mcquiggd]

Luckily I have 500 inclusive minutes a month so used the moby... I think on average I spend more time fixing my parents PC / ridding it of spyware than I do on my own plethora of dual core beauties....

[BoredBloke]

No but did get stung for a load when I had to make a half hour international phone call via my mobile to my folks in Ireland talking them through sending an email.

[mcquiggd]

.. ever tried helping an aggressive 70 year old to install a USB ADSL modem over the phone, then to reconnect the mouse as he needs that, then not to unplug the printer, just the old modem, then put the mouse back in again, and then make sure he hasn't disconnected the ADSL modem.... is there still a red light from the mouse... right, reconnect the mouse... sigh... 1 hour 40 minutes, missing four calls from agents for contracts.

He's lucky he's my dad...