tech support

On the switchboard on Friday, I had a guy call in to find out about the computer store on campus to buy a new version of Office.  I told him that there wasn’t a physical store anymore but that he could find it online.  “Just go to the university home page, search on “computer store” and it will be the 4th item on the page.”

Which should have been more than enough.  But he didn’t have a browser open and wanted to do that while I was on the phone with him.  And then he couldn’t figure out the address when I gave it to him twice.  Then couldn’t figure out the search.

I would have been willing to hang on the line and guide him the rest of the way, but the calls were backing up and I needed to move on.

I apologized and told him that I had other calls coming in, but that I could transfer him over to the help desk.  He was okay with that and I got him transferred over and then got caught up.

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While visiting my folks this weekend, my dad asked if I could look at something on their computer.  It was a program neither he nor mom recalled installing – not a good sign – and it was trying to run a scan on the computer.  Also not a good sign.

There was an icon on the desktop that I looked up on my phone.  I saw the keywords of “registry cleaner” and a reviewing calling it “snake oil”.

We found the program in the add/remove programs and it un-installed cleanly.  Could have been a lot worse.  I’m guessing it came along with the software for the binocular/camera that dad got and was snuck into the installer.

I gave them some recommendations for an external hard-drive and upgrading windows.

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And while I’m good with the web and with windows, Jim’s Mac presented a challenge.

He needed to move some files from his mac to a flash drive for class and while the drive showed no files, it was still coming up as full.

I guessed a hidden trash folder, but couldn’t see it.  I did a little digging and found the instructions online to show those files.  It involved a terminal window and a command to the mac to change it’s behavior.

Now, I’m okay with command line stuff, but it’s not my native realm.  And I was a little nervous about changing his computer in a way that I wouldn’t know how to undo.

But, it needed to be done and when he went downstairs to check on something else, I opened up the terminal and carefully typed in the command. By the time he came back up I had the worried look off my face and we could see the files.

Except, we couldn’t get rid of them.  I messed around with a few things before deciding we needed to format the flash drive.

A little more digging and I found the format utility.

Again, Jim needed to go downstairs and I fired it up and oh so carefully selected only the flash drive.

One wrong click and it would have formatted his hard-drive, but I was careful and in a few moments we had a clean flash drive  – ready for new files.

Jim came back upstairs to find me all smiles, busily converting image files to a web format and moving them over to the pristine flash drive.

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And that’s really the key, I think, to working with technology.  There needs to be patience, deduction, and a little bit of bravery.    With that – and a little luck – I can fix all kinds of things.

As my friends and family would say, it’s good to have a geek on staff.