[HN Gopher] Ask HN: What tips and hacks do you have for the less...
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       Ask HN: What tips and hacks do you have for the less tech-savy?
        
       Thanksgiving is coming up, a lot of us will be visiting family, and
       we'll undoubtedly end up doing tech support.  What have you done to
       reduce how much support you give or help people remember things
       better? It could be specific hardware, teaching tips, or anything
       that makes tech more usable.
        
       Author : worker767424
       Score  : 5 points
       Date   : 2021-11-21 21:04 UTC (1 hours ago)
        
       | bansuian wrote:
       | Get them a Mac and iPhone - tech support is available via Apple
       | stores, via iMessage and you can call. A before folks bring in
       | lock in, limiting discussion to tech savy. Forget about ecosystem
       | lockin etc, you are optimizing for your family not for you.
        
         | Wowfunhappy wrote:
         | > A before folks bring in lock in, limiting discussion to tech
         | savy. Forget about ecosystem lockin etc, you are optimizing for
         | your family not for you.
         | 
         | People who aren't tech-savvy likely won't _realize_ what they
         | 've given up by locking themselves into a single ecosystem, but
         | the cost is still there.
         | 
         | (I don't necessarily disagree with your end-point, just the
         | argument.)
        
       | talkingbird wrote:
       | What? A wooden baseball bat (USN) HILERICH & BRADSBY
        
       | h2odragon wrote:
       | Tell people to write their passwords down. In a book. That they
       | keep. Its actually possible to login to most services _without_
       | doing a password reset.
        
       | smackeyacky wrote:
       | Get them to use OneDrive or Google drive or iCloud to back up
       | their laptop and phone. It doesn't happen often, but
       | unrecoverable files on a laptop are the cause of great concern
       | when they happen. OneDrive and iCloud are sort of "opt in" and
       | normally you'd be suspicious about it, but the cost of losing the
       | photos and documents far outweighs the security concerns for most
       | non-tech people and having to waste hours trying to recover a
       | busted drive in a laptop is both frustrating and heartbreaking.
       | 
       | Tell them they need to stop clicking on everything in their email
       | and to be very cautious about visiting a lot of places offering
       | anything "free". Make them aware that their circle of friends
       | doing "forwards from grandma" type emailing can unwittingly send
       | you something malicious. It's nobodies fault, but stop clicking
       | on that stuff.
       | 
       | Two surprising vectors of infection seem to be the ad networks on
       | a lot of faith based websites and niche dating websites (i.e.
       | targeting older folk), please note I do not wish to stop people
       | visiting faith based websites or trying to find love on the
       | internet but for some reason the people who visit these sites
       | seem to be more trusting/click happy and the malicious ad
       | networks know this.
       | 
       | Try to explain to them that "helpful" toolbars are usually
       | malicious software.
       | 
       | Do your best to make sure the update system on laptops is
       | functioning.
       | 
       | Try to set up some remote help for them i.e. Chrome remote
       | desktop that doesn't require them to do much after the install
       | other than let you manage their machine in an emergency.
       | 
       | On a windows machine, make sure Defender is enabled. If they have
       | more than 1 virus blocker installed, get rid of everything else
       | except defender, especially if it take pre-loaded on a laptop
       | they just bought. I don't have anything particular against the
       | other virus software companies except they all seem to lard up
       | laptops with a pile of un-needed nonsense that generates a lot of
       | scary dialog boxes and notifications, and this is just confusing
       | for non-technical people.
       | 
       | I don't think simply telling people to buy a Mac and and iphone
       | is terribly helpful, a lot of older folk still have some strange
       | software they prefer to use for their word processing or an old
       | printer they don't want to replace, and the cascade of trying to
       | get them to switch to the apple ecosystem will be more trouble
       | than it's worth.
        
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       (page generated 2021-11-21 23:02 UTC)