tech support

Being a father involves copious amounts of self-confidence.

Sometimes, though, that self-confidence can merge with other traits, such as arrogance and bloated self-regard.

I mention this, on Father's Day weekend, merely because a fine and erudite survey has revealed the Grand Canyon between dads' view of their tech prowess and their family's views of dad's tech prowess.

The survey, conducted on behalf of TeamViewer -- a company that stunningly provides helpful remote control software -- reveals that 93 percent of dads think they are the family's go-to guy for tech.

You will be stunned into solitary … Read more

A lot of instant messaging or tech-help software includes a feature for sharing your screen with other people. Unfortunately, not everyone uses the same applications, which requires one or more parties to download something in order to see the shared computer screen. Instead of worrying about creating new accounts or downloading software, ScreenLeap offers a super easy way to share your screen to any device, or look at someone else's shared screen. 

Note: This service requires Java Runtime Environment (JRE), which most users will already have. If not, it's a free download that is useful for other … Read more

As long as there are computers, there are likely to be mothers and fathers, aunts, uncles, cousins, siblings, and assorted thrice-removed ne'er-do-wells asking for PC help.

Israeli startup Soluto has a new way for all the tech-savvy helpers of the world to disseminate their knowledge, the company announced today. The new Soluto app is currently in closed beta, although the company has offered CNET readers early access.

The company is keeping its name and the stylized look, but it has abandoned its prior focus, a Windows utility that would analyze and help prevent program crashes leveraging a cloud-based database … Read more

As PR stunts go, this one is pretty cool. So cool, in fact, that it's ice.

Inbay, a new U.K. tech support company, placed ice sculptures of laptops around London today to promote its online and telephone customer support services. Its first walk-in shop has also launched in London's Kingsway.

So where do the frozen laptops come in? Well, Inbay notes that frozen laptops hamper many a worker's productivity. So please stop sticking yours in snowdrifts OK?

The company offers a bunch of basic anti-freeze tips for mobile devices that we probably don't need to tell Crave readers: keep up on software updates; don't toss your clothes on top of fans or air vents; and restart your device once in a while to clear the cache and allow "forgotten" running processes to stop. And, of course, if you're typing on a keyboard made of ice, consider wearing gloves.

… Read more

Apple outscored both Dell and Hewlett-Packard in overall satisfaction with tech support by phone, though its problem-resolution rates took a bit of a hit in a study released today by consumer feedback firm Vocal Laboratories.

Based on interviews with customers from July 2009 to December 2010, Apple's lead in phone support over Dell and HP dipped a bit in the second half of last year compared with the first half, according to the study from Vocal Laboratories (Vocalabs).

But Apple customers seeking tech support still proved the happiest, with 66 percent saying they were "very satisfied" with … Read more

Sometimes different generations look at each other as if they are from an entirely different space and time.

The conversation might be about sex, drugs, or rock and roll. Or it might just be about the Web, computers, iPhones, and all of those gadgets that, to some, seem natural.

A video with animation by Guy Collins, first posted to Reddit, offers a deep and artistic impression of what it feels like when you, the computer natural, encounter someone who is a byte troglodyte.

The things that seem so simple to you don't even translate to some minds that find … Read more

This week, as we gear up for holiday travel, we have a special show on preparing to help out your less-than-geeky parents, brothers, sisters, in-laws, and assorted relatives. You know they're going to ask you for tech support. How do you talk to them? Do you fix their computer? With what tools? We're joined today by special guest Seth Rosenblatt of CNET.com, who can fill us in.

If you have a tech question for CNET to the Rescue, e-mail rescue@cnet.com or call us to get on the next show: 877-438-6688. No question is too basic.

… Read more

Strange things can happen when you call tech support.

But perhaps not quite as strange as what allegedly happened to Tara Fitzgerald. According to News10 in Sacramento, Calif., Fitzgerald wanted to send some pictures of herself to her boyfriend, but she couldn't find them on her Dell computer.

Her urgent need to find these pictures drove her, quite naturally, to call Dell tech support. Her call was answered, she said, by a gentleman in Mumbai, India, named Riyaz Shaikh.

Shaikh, who, by the time you finish this tale, might not turn out to be a gentleman, after all, offered … Read more

Updated 8.34 a.m. PDT Thursday with more information about the call.

Many of you, on listening to this conversation, will have sympathy with Brian from Tech Support. Some of you may, indeed, be Brian from Tech Support.

But this tech support phone call, one that feels all too real, is a fine description of the gap between the way the real world sometimes sees tech and how tech always sees tech. It came to me from Techland, who got it from Topless Robot who got it from Gorilla Mask. (Ultimately, who knows where it came from, so please … Read more