Comments on: Tech Support For Everyone

Tech Support For Everyone

Bora Horza Gobuchul — Fri, 01 Apr 2011 08:07:58 -0800

showmewhatswrong. downforeveryoneorjustme. LetMeGoogleThatForYou.

By: Aizkolari

Aizkolari — Fri, 01 Apr 2011 08:12:36 -0800

What are two useful and one passive-agressive websites?

By: ardgedee

ardgedee — Fri, 01 Apr 2011 08:15:21 -0800

Thanks for the reminders!

By: phunniemee

phunniemee — Fri, 01 Apr 2011 08:15:56 -0800

Oh man, showmewhatswrong is going to vastly improve the relationship I have with my grandmother. That's awesome. I spent 20 minutes last week on the phone trying to (I'm pretty sure this was what was wrong) click the x to close a popup ad. But what's up with the "processing video: 102%"?

By: ZenMasterThis

ZenMasterThis — Fri, 01 Apr 2011 08:17:38 -0800

I recently "upgraded" from WinXP to Win7. Anyone know Bill Gates' address?

By: panaceanot

panaceanot — Fri, 01 Apr 2011 08:18:10 -0800

http://goo.gl/MY7jP

By: Anima Mundi

Anima Mundi — Fri, 01 Apr 2011 08:23:34 -0800

Thanks to that second link, I know it's not just me that can't access a site I've been trying to get into for the past hour.

By: briank

briank — Fri, 01 Apr 2011 08:35:18 -0800

I can imagine my older clients still having a hard time grasping what to do with showmewhatswrong, but it's a great idea, especially for people who might be nervous about using LogMeIn or some other remote control software.

By: desjardins

desjardins — Fri, 01 Apr 2011 08:39:09 -0800

Too bad I can't watch the demo on showmewhatswrong. :/ Maybe it only works in IE, for the old people?

By: panaceanot

panaceanot — Fri, 01 Apr 2011 08:39:59 -0800

Whoops... in link form http://goo.gl/MY7jP. It's my passive aggressive "just use Google" mashup.

By: synthetik

synthetik — Fri, 01 Apr 2011 08:43:03 -0800

Too bad I can't watch the demo on showmewhatswrong. :/ It's a youtube video in a popup. Works fine in FF4.

By: desjardins

desjardins — Fri, 01 Apr 2011 08:52:47 -0800

Ah, then it's a "don't watch youtube at work" thing. Usually I get a message if I click on a YT link.

By: DU

DU — Fri, 01 Apr 2011 08:57:24 -0800

How is that showmewhatswrong site capturing local windows and events?

By: mrgrimm

mrgrimm — Fri, 01 Apr 2011 09:00:48 -0800

Two useful sites that I had not seen. Interesting. Will have to play around with that first one... How is that showmewhatswrong site capturing local windows and events? Probably with screen capturing software. *ducks* (But it doesn't have to capture anything but the video output, right?)

By: electroboy

electroboy — Fri, 01 Apr 2011 09:05:52 -0800

I usually respond to Let Me Google That For You links with this: http://lmgtfy.com/?q=go+fuck+yourself

By: mrgrimm

mrgrimm — Fri, 01 Apr 2011 09:08:34 -0800

It's a youtube video in a popup. Works fine in FF4. Works fine in Chrome 11 as well. It does not really demonstrate an actual use case; more of a "how it works" video.

By: ericost

ericost — Fri, 01 Apr 2011 09:09:57 -0800

How is that showmewhatswrong site capturing local windows and events? You could actually like click a link or two and find out pretty easily. It's done with an Applet embedded in a web page. See http://screencast-o-matic.com and click "Start Recoding" if you want to try it.

By: DU

DU — Fri, 01 Apr 2011 09:29:16 -0800

I didn't see a link, but since you lmgtfy'd it for me I followed it...and learned nothing. "an Applet" doesn't explain anything. Flash and Java aren't supposed to be able to get outside of their sandboxes. So...how does it work? (On my machine, it didn't. I just got an endless "loading...." message.)

By: bobo123

bobo123 — Fri, 01 Apr 2011 09:34:59 -0800

"an Applet" doesn't explain anything. Flash and Java aren't supposed to be able to get outside of their sandboxes. So...how does it work? Java applet. When I tried it I got a pop-up saying "An applet from 'screencast-o-matic.com' is requesting access to your computer. The digital signature from 'Big Nerd Software, LLC' has been verified." and asking to allow/deny. Didn't go further myself.

By: rh

rh — Fri, 01 Apr 2011 09:55:48 -0800

It's not well advertised, but Windows 7 comes with a neat tool called Problems Steps Recorder (psr.exe) which will record screenshots and input and zip it all up into a single file for emailing. The reports list all actions in plain English like: "Problem Step 1: User left click on "Internet Explorer (menu item)" in "Start menu" along with screenshots of each step. Also, Windows XP and above support Remote Assistance, which is particularly useful when it comes to helping friends and relatives.

By: WerewolvesRancheros

WerewolvesRancheros — Fri, 01 Apr 2011 10:36:10 -0800

If somone already linked this I missed it: http://www.teachparentstech.org/ Provided by Google

By: idiopath

idiopath — Fri, 01 Apr 2011 10:42:11 -0800

electroboy: "http://lmgtfy.com/?q=go+fuck+yourself" This is the kind of thing that hex escapes were designed for. (url above is http://lmgtfy.com/?q=%67%6F%20%66%75%63%6B%20%79%6F%75%72%73%65%6C%66 for thos who can't be bothered to hover and reveal it)

By: idiopath

idiopath — Fri, 01 Apr 2011 10:44:22 -0800

err, well I guess browsers automatically unescape the url for the hover, but the source still shows escaped if you view source - I guess that technique only works for copy+paste linking, not clickable

By: gwint

gwint — Fri, 01 Apr 2011 11:40:57 -0800

Why Would You Click That?

By: nile_red

nile_red — Fri, 01 Apr 2011 11:41:16 -0800

LOL of course my computer won't let me get to show me what's wrong....when I try all browsers say I'm not connected to the internet....or is it just cause it's today?

By: illovich

illovich — Fri, 01 Apr 2011 20:42:30 -0800

This might be overly nerdy to point out, but it looks like downforeveryoneorjustme interprets a redirect from http to https as "down" so it's not very useful for checking sites that require ssl but allow http requests for the sole purpose of redirecting them to https. I only mention it because every site that I would recommend it for does that, so it's actually worse than useless - because it would convince someone in the "just you" camp that they were in the "everyone" camp.