Most people working in the IT industry (and I do still count myself as doing so) have a group of people they provide support to gratis – family, friends, girlfriend’s parents, the bloke down the pub etc… This is often quite difficult and frustrating for people who work most of the day in a technical environment who have a good idea of the technical level of the people they support day to day.
Take the example of the bloke down the pub. He’s been wittering on in your ear for weeks now about his new laptop and how he plays the latest games, he’s ripping his entire music collection to this PC, he’s just bought Microsoft Office and he’s looking for a new job, he seems to have a vague idea what he’s doing right? Guaranteed a few days later the phone call will come; “I was just working on doing up my CV for this job I liked the look of, and err… it err… well, just disappeared.”
Of course, the first things you ask are “What were you doing at the time?”, “Have you saved?” and “Are there any error messages on the screen?” I’ll lay odds that you won’t get a coherent answer, or not in a form you are used to dealing with – was he talking to a techie from his own company he’d possibly have been able to describe it. However, from personal experience:
“Hi Rob, I was just working on doing up my CV for this job I liked the look of, and err… it err… well, just disappeared.”
“What were you doing at the time?”
“I was playing about with the new internet I downloaded from Google”
“You mean you were on Google’s website ?”
“No I was using their new faster internet”
“Ah you just downloaded Google Chrome?”
“that’s what I said!”
At this point you know how difficult it is going to be to get a clear idea of exactly what he’s been doing. So to make my and his life easier I really want to be able to see what he’s doing on his screen.
To do this I now use a free product, (for the first 25 licenses, if this isn’t sufficient then I suggest you start a freelance support business and start charging.) The product I use is Kaseya, this allows you to see the resource usage remotely, open up a video chat session, and remotely control the computer.
Once you’ve signed up you can add a computer by clicking on the Add Computer link on the front page. Of course if you’re not in the same room as the machine this could be an issue, luckily Kaseya provide the oportunity to send an email to the unlucky caller or IM the details:
Adding a computer to your support group
Once the client is installed it is immediately listed on the front page of the Kaseya portal and you can opt to control it there and then.
With luck that’ll be a free pint in gratitude next time you’re in the pub. Be warned, the recipient of your expertise now knows how easy it is for you to connect up and fix their machine … Might be best to get them to organise a bar tab.
