Cy Guy's Journal: NEWSWEEK: Turkey Day Tech Support

The Tech-Support Generation
Millions of young Americans will head home next week to give thanks, eat turkey ... and fix their parents' computers

I already have been asked to set up the WiFi router at my cousin's house. Fortunately his brother who will actually be staying at his house this week is also a geek and so that should limit requests for routine stuff. I also have the benefit of a geek brother-in-law who will be at my inlaws' place for our 2nd Thanksgiving to handle most of the tech support issues there. Of course at my Mom's for Xmas I'm really the only serious geek in the family* so I will have to do a lot of regular maintenance on her machine over that week.

How's the tech support workload look at your 'rents (or other relatives') house this holiday season?

* My older brother, however, is practically a textbook definition of a middle-aged nerd: mid 40's, never married, plays a lot of video games, attends Anime Film Festivals, Mensa member, ABD PhD candidate in Mathematics for about 20 years now doing database administration. We're getting him an EyeToy for his PS2 this Xmas so maybe he'll get his weight backdown to a healthier level.

Re:

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Re:Pretty heavy, I fear.

[gmhowell]

Not sure about today but ca. System 6/7, tech support on Macs was easy.

I, OTOH, have to do a clean install of Win98 on a laptop for my parents, then set up the wifi on it.

Re:

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

No Thanksgiving. No Problem!

[MonTemplar]

No Turkey Day here in Blighty. :)

-MT.

Re:No Thanksgiving. No Problem!

[jawtheshark]

Exactly...

Besides, I set up their network so that no problems can occur. If I have stuff to do, it usually is because my brother wants a new game to be installed or so.

Re:No Thanksgiving. No Problem!

[tomhudson]

Besides, I set up their network so that no problems can occur.

... yeah, but don't you think removing the ethernet cable and nic is kind of cheating ... :-)

Re:No Thanksgiving. No Problem!

[jawtheshark]

Tsss.... OpenBSD firewall (outgoing and incoming), restricted users, 5-seat AntiVirus, and everyone is disallowed to run Internet Explorer and Outlook (with the exception of my dad who has to use IE for some of his ebanking, but he really only uses it for that)
That and there is Adaware and spybot on every machine, but they never detect a thing.

Of course, I admit this is not 100% secure... you have to admit it is pretty hardened for a home system. I've seen company systems that were less secure.

A lo

Re:No Thanksgiving. No Problem!

[tomhudson]

Actually, I think it's great :-)

Of course, I admit this is not 100% secure... you have to admit it is pretty hardened for a home system. I've seen company systems that were less secure.

... not to mention government systems ...

Me, I'm going the cheating route for the time I see people - just dropping off a bunch of bootable SuSE 9.2 DVDs. If they use them, fine ... if they don't don't bother calling me :-)

Re:No Thanksgiving. No Problem!

[jawtheshark]

Actually, I think it's great :-)

I take that as a compliment :-)

OT: Your sig. I had seen your sig before, but I didn't take the time to reply. It's a very moving story, and it looks like it was a great dog. I'm sorry he had to leave, but you had 12 years together. Many pet owners can't claim that long.

no problem

[elmegil]

We have hosted Thanksgiving for several years running, and that keeps it minimal. Dad has brought up his PC a couple of times, but that's about it.

I'm prepared

[trmj]

I already have one of these [thinkgeek.com].

Did you submit this?

[jawtheshark]

Because it made the frontpage... [slashdot.org]?