
Show HN: Fun tool that cut my family and friends tech support time in half - fiesycal
http://itsupport.grammable.me/
======
koliber
Regarding the "is it plugged in?" question. A great anecdote I heard was that
the support person on the phone asked if the power plug was clean. The user
was confused. The support person told them to unplug it, blow the dust out of
the holes, and plug it back in. This fixed the problem!

The issue was that the power plug was in the socket, but too loose to connect.
Somehow, the support person figured this was the case (prior experience?) and
knew that if he asked "is it plugged in?" he would get a "yes". Taking the
power plug out and putting it back in ensured that it would be in properly.
But just asking the person to do that can be faced with push-back or even a
lie that they did it (since the power plug _obviously_ was already connected).

I always chuckled at the story but did not think it was true. I worked tech
support while attending university. One time, I had an on-site where the
monitor just stopped working. We went through the standard question on the
phone, including asking if it is plugged in, and of course it was. Could not
get it fixed over the phone. Once on-site, it turned out it was a loose power
cable.

I could have avoided an on-site had I only asked them to blow the dust out of
the power cable. Maybe this should be added to the questionnaire.

~~~
arethuza
Many years ago in my first job (1988) I was diagnosing a Unix printing problem
on a machine remotely (dialed in via modems).

There was an IBM engineer on site who insisted it was a software problem - I
was on the phone to him and he was getting rather annoyed with me and I asked
the inevitable "Is it actually plugged into the power?" which got him very
angry that I would have the cheek to suggest that he hadn't checked that.

Then the phone went silent for a bit and he said "Try now".

Power supply was plugged into the power but the power cable from the supply
wasn't plugged into the printer.

Edit: I'm sure I've been the guilty party in similar scenarios myself a few
times, though hopefully not more than once in any particular context.

~~~
Noseshine
To give a story from a different field so that it's not all IT stories here:

When I served in the German army as a battle tank weapons systems front line
mechanic I didn't know all the tricks of the tank crews from the start
(obviously) - nor that they _did_ have tricks that they used to get out of
training exercises and to (our) fresh coffee.

One common trick was to turn all the dials for brightness and contrast for the
passive heat-sensor (night vision) all the way down. Then they told their
commanding officer they had to go to the "Inst" (German "Instandhaltung" =
maintenance depmt., in our case right behind the battle field - with power
generator and attached coffee maker) because their screen had gone out. Which
was quite important

The first time I went to such a tank I fumbled around for a few minutes, not
finding anything, before admitting defeat. I called in a more senior colleague
of mine. He went in, turned up the dials and that was all, case closed.

It was sooo embarrassing (to me, I don't think the other people gave it much
thought) - that's the reason I still remember it even though it's been 16
years or so by now.

------
Deestan
I would add a "I don't know" option. Family members who need tech support from
me are generally unable to answer things like:

> Is your device up to date?

First, they aren't familiar with what is considered a "device". Does it mean
the calendar app on the phone (where they see observed problems)? Surely it
can't mean their iPad, because that's an iPad and not a "device". The "device"
must be the charger thingy. What does "updated" mean? The clock and date are
correct, is that what it means? The SIM card is just a week old, so that means
device is updated, right? Or they updated their calendar app, so then all is
good. Or maybe "device" refers to the internet box at home? If they correctly
identify it as "probably not updated", the next instruction is equally opaque:

> Update it.

This needs a "how?" answer, in addition to "okay".

~~~
sspiff
Most commonly, people coming to me for help make a blanket statement like "X
is broken", where X could be their phone, computer, an application or website,
the Internet as a whole. X is also generally inaccurate.

For instance, if the browser icon on my parents computer is moved for whatever
reason, they will say that "the Internet is broken". If my mother can't figure
out what button to press in a mobile application to get what she wants, "her
phone is broken".

~~~
Zelmor
Maybe you should start with the basic concepts next time you are around.
Explain things like computer, internet, operating system, programs. Just in a
Feynman style of explanation, very brief and easy to understand.

Once my mother called that the tablet said it had a virus and should scan
immediately. I asked what she saw on the screen, what she was doing when it
occurred. It was an aggressive pop-up in an app she was using. I explained to
her the intent of these pop-ups, which she understood and said that it did
look fishy, hence her call. Next time I was around, I rooted their device and
put an ad-blocker on it.

~~~
Ziomislaw
If only it was that easy. Most of the ppl having simmilar problems will only
pretend to listen and remember your explanations, only to run to you with the
exact same problem in a couple of hours.

~~~
sspiff
Exactly. They just want their problem solved, they don't care about
understanding the underlying system.

It's not even about not wanting to listen, it's about the amount of
information they have to absorb to understand the problem.

Also, most of us are not Feinmann-level teachers who can explain complicated
systems in simple terms.

~~~
MaulingMonkey
It's not even about them failing to learn, necessarily - it's them failing to
internalize _deeply enough_ to recall how to solve their problems _the next
time_ they crop up. They're being handed answers from up high instead of
experimenting - no practice, no wonder they can't solve it the next time
either.

Even techies can run into this problem - the only reason we might do better,
on average, is that we experiment with more things, and perhaps pursue more of
this knowledge for it's own sake. We got sick of being on hold for tech
support, we encountered issues tech support couldn't help us with, so we spent
more time experimenting and internalizing the solutions to our problems.

To some degree this suggests an answer: Give people some time to try and solve
their own problems. "I can take a look when I'm over there next" instead of
spending a lot of time trying to remotely troubleshoot the problem over the
phone. "Sure - let me just finish this up and I'll swing by" instead of
dropping everything to troubleshoot a problem in-person for a coworker.

I still help my mom out some with various tech problems, but I think we've
_both_ benifited from letting her (re)develop some independence and self-
sufficiency when it comes to technology.

~~~
hectormalot
Lack of experimentation might also be because they are afraid to break
something. I remember my (completely non digital) parents being unusually good
with their car navigation system. Turns out the sales rep had told them: "its
impossible to break this system, just try and it will be ok", and so they had
trial and errorred their way to understanding how it worked.

~~~
brokenmachine
100%. All too often with our software it is too easy to break stuff in an
unfixable (to a newbie) way.

Just an anecdote: I organised an Android phone for my gf's mother. After a lot
of training, she was using it to send and receive photos to her family and
loving having it.

If she took a photo and wasn't happy with it, she would want to delete it. In
the Samsung gallery app (Galaxy S4), you long-press on the thumbnail of the
photo, then choose delete.

Problem is, the thumbnail of the Album itself is actually the last photo that
you've taken. So she has inadvertently deleted the whole album (all her
photos) by accident twice now!

I can't blame her because the icon she is deleting looks exactly the same as
the picture she's trying to delete, only the message is a tiny bit different
("would you like to delete this album?" versus the usual "would you like to
delete this photo?"), easy to not read the last word of the message if you've
seen it 1000x before and done it safely.

I blame Samsung 100% for these accidential deletions. These phones and
software just aren't designed with the non-confident user in mind, and in my
opinion that's a broken UI.

Deleting an album containing hundreds of photos is something so dangerous and
something you'd probably want to do so rarely that such an operation should at
least warrant an extra message saying, "you are about to delete an album
containing $number photos, are you sure?" And why not have a recycle bin?
There are many ways this could have been easily avoided.

I can totally understand why a user like that would be nervous about pressing
buttons they're not sure about. Especially after accidentally deleting all
their photos!

Also there's no way to use a better Gallery app, the camera app always uses
the IMO broken Samsung Galley app to review photos, and there's no way to
change that.

Unfortunately I can't tell her "it's impossible to break this system" with
that phone. I wish I could.

Sometimes I think that I'm just lucky I didn't have an experience like that
when I was first starting with computers, because I might have been so scared
after that that I wouldn't have continued to explore and learn. Nowadays I
basically think that there's no problem with computers that you can't fix
given the time and motivation.

~~~
MaulingMonkey
Agreed on all points.

> Sometimes I think that I'm just lucky I didn't have an experience like that
> when I was first starting with computers,

Oh dear - tell me you've learned to make backups anyways! ;)

~~~
brokenmachine
No, still haven't learned that lesson properly.

I have become _very good_ at data recovery though. Never lost anything I
couldn't later recover!

But yeah, don't do that people!

------
nathancahill
So the first 2 are rebooting and making sure it has power. The third is "up to
date". I do quite a bit of tech support for my family and neither of those
issues are really issues. The #1 issue for me is "this free app I installed
wanted to install a browser addon and now I see ads everywhere". The #2 is
"this free app I installed hijacks everything on my Mac to show ads".

I've spent countless hours educating them about malware, but how can they know
that the app that promises to make their computer fast again is malware?

~~~
ekianjo
The best thing I ever found to reduce the risk of malware is to move them to a
Linux distro. The risk is not zero but from a user perspective I install the
software they need from package repositories remotely, and that more or less
settles it.

Of course this is not for everyone, but for folks who for the most only need a
browser a Linux distro is a good choice.

~~~
sgk284
For folks who mostly just need a browser and for whom malware is a risk, you
really can't do better than an iPad.

I love Linux, but there really is no beating an iPad if you need a PC-
approximate that is absurdly low maintenance.

~~~
beefsack
An iPad is an expensive solution if they've already got a PC, and Linux is a
great free way to resurrect computers that the commercial operating systems
have left behind.

~~~
adav
That depends on how much you value your own personal time setting their system
up and maintaining it. An iPad might have a greater up front cost, but the
time savings could make it a comparative bargain over the lifetime of the
device.

~~~
brokenmachine
iPads are not maintenance and support free.

I would personally rather support a linux machine that I can remotely connect
to, give them icons on the desktop, etc, than an iPad.

------
howderek
I think this needs a "I don't know" option that leads to links to support
pages. I've certainly dealt with friends and family who don't know how to
check if their software is up to date and update it if it's not.

I also think the "Did this fix your problem?" prompts after saying "Yes" are
redundant.

~~~
diziet
The "Did this fix your problem?" interrupts the flow and forces people to pay
attention to the question instead of blindly clicking, and it is certainly
there on purpose.

------
anotheryou
Well... usually the device works somehow and they are incapable of giving a
good description of the problem. That's the real problem.

I used the tool like my mother would and had these Problems:

1\. the device is on! Of course I know it's plugged in!

2\. "is the device up to date". What does that mean? The clock seems to be
going correctly! It's not the newest model, but fairly recent...

3\. I now have the google results for "the titles don't work anymore"

-

I think far more helpful would be a simple form helping writing a report:

\- What is the name of the program where the problem occurs (you can find that
here [screenshot showing a title bar])

\- Describe step by step what you did when the error occurred. Once done,
please do these exact steps again to see if the problem still occurs.

\- What did you expect to happen?

\- What did actually happen?

\- Did it work before?

\- If it did, when did it work the last time? Did you change anything since
than?

\- Any further guesses on what might be relevant to the problem or what might
cause it?

\- When we solve the problem, what do I get? (multiple choice: nothing - still
owed me one, a beer, a hug, other [ ])

------
givinguflac
Neat. Personally I would say "turn it off and on again" while this says the
reverse. If it's targeted at a non-technical user, it needs to be foolproof. I
have helped users before that would see this and literally turn their computer
on and off, and wonder why the computer isn't working while off as instructed.

~~~
rosstex
This is the funniest part of the whole tool

------
chirau
I can't believe that some people here think that it is better to move your
relatives, who are scared/prone to malware but don't think to restart their
computer first, to Linux. What a joke really. Linux is good and all, but come
on people, among iOS, MacOS, Windows, Chrome and Linux, it's the least usable
and least user friendly.

~~~
kriro
My dad (>60, not exactly tech saavy) has been using Lubuntu for 2 years now
(actually I don't even remember when we installed it might be 4 years :P). For
many parents who only surf the web and do some non power user office (he uses
Libre Office now) and check their mail it's the perfect solution.

For his use case it's more user friendly than the Windows install because of
the lack of constant update requests and antivirus stuff etc. etc. It's also
faster on the same machine and the computer doesn't clog down every n month. I
still remember that he asked me about 6 month in why the computer doesn't get
slower :P

I'm fairly confident that a switch from Windows to macOS would have been a lot
harder for him btw. Same for a switch to Windows 10 without making it look
like the old Windows actually (not as confident in that statement as I don't
know enough about Win10).

~~~
BozeWolf
This! Well... not this! Every time the (linux) desktop discussion comes up, at
least a few geeks have this "linux+my mother" argument which should prove
linux desktop is totally usable for everyone. Just wait until they discover
"alternative program X" for "windows program X" is not the same as the program
they saw at the computer of the neughbours mom. Or libre office fucks up the
layout again.

Come on guys, why always the linux + mother argument. Do not do it. It is
silly.

Besides that: most of the time you probably have to give support on apps they
use instead of os related issues.

~~~
mosselman
So it is ok to generalize based on 0 cases that Linux will be too hard for
older less tech-savvy people, but it is not ok to generalize based on 1-many
successful cases that for some people it might work?

I agree that Linux might not be great for our parents. As for my own mother, I
moved her to a Mac mini years ago and that has reduced my support time solely
to explaining how specific websites work. She can do lots of things on her own
now, like debugging the wifi (shitty telco router), she creates her own
booklets for the classes she teaches, etc.

With windows she'd be stuck on non-task related issues 80% of the time, which
made it impossible for her to learn how to use the computer at all.

------
grecy
I'm a software engineer, and I have no idea what "is your device up to date?"
means.

Does that mean do I have the latest iPhone, or do I have the latest device
drivers (I _think_ I have heard that from Windows users).

Not too sure there.

~~~
djsumdog
My exact same thoughts. I was like, "Where's the button my parents would
click?"

~~~
econnors
The thought of my mom calling me for help answering a question on the
debugging tool I gave her made me laugh.

------
wishinghand
I thought it was just going to be an amazon affiliate link to a Chromebook.

------
src3
The last step should be replaced by some sort of autogenerated
[https://lmgtfy.com](https://lmgtfy.com) link. :)

~~~
24gttghh
An automatic lmgtfy link? How meta :) I find this tool to be subtely-less-
insulting to the end-user than lmgtfy, especially if they don't happen to read
the blog post where it says[0]: "Just send the link to anyone who takes up a
bit too much of your valuable time."

[0][https://www.grammable.me/blogs/news/grammable-it-support-
too...](https://www.grammable.me/blogs/news/grammable-it-support-tool-gist)

------
ars
When you type in a problem, don't open google in a different window.

I'm technical, and I didn't notice the new window (tab actually) till much
later - I just thought the site was broken and ignored what I typed.

Someone non-technical is for sure not going to notice it.

------
rudedogg
I think you may as well say "Sorry, I'm not going to help you. Search Google.
Bye."

It's annoying being asked to help with support, but if it's someone I care
about I would never send them this.

Maybe I'm missing the joke?

------
panorama
One thing I'd particularly like when dealing with my parents' issues is an
_easy_ way to set up remote screenshare and access. It's one thing when the
problem is that their computer isn't booting (in which this site would
definitely help ;)), but another if the problem is that they can't find a file
they downloaded or something like that.

I'd pay for a tool like this that was easy to set up and use that didn't have
to involve my parents installing TeamViewer, coordinating a channel, and so
on.

Edit: Thanks for the advice all, will install one of these suggestions when I
head home for the holidays.

~~~
an_account
If you both have macs, it's built in, but sort of hidden.

Just open up messages on both computer -> go to your parents' contact -> click
details -> click the button next to their name that looks like two screens
(it's next to the video chat button). It'll ring on their computer, all they
have to do is accept.

Edit: Apparently you can just spotlight search for the "screen sharing"
application and just type in their apple id.

------
nrki
FYI it's "power cord" not "power chord".

Power chord is a music thing.

Power cord is a cord that supplies power.

------
Yizahi
Tech support for my family is usually "WiFi is not working", "WiFi is working
only on his device and not mine", "WiFi is turning on and of randomly and
constantly". I hate WiFi :) . It is almost impossible to debug and usually
ends in rebooting all involved devices, sometimes it helps.

------
PostOnce
I looked at grammable.me to see what it is.

Looks like instapainting.com arbitrage, I wonder how long that will be viable.

~~~
edelans
I thought about it too. I checked the WHOIS record :

Domain Name: GRAMMABLE.ME

Registry Domain ID: D425500000001103903-AGRS

Registrar WHOIS Server:

Registrar URL: www.namecheap.com

Updated Date: 2016-11-25T10:04:27Z

Creation Date: 2016-11-25T10:04:19Z

grammable.me was registered a few weeks after the [indiehacker article on
instapainting]([https://www.indiehackers.com/businesses/instapainting](https://www.indiehackers.com/businesses/instapainting))
buzzed on HN about a month ago :
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12798767](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12798767)
.

Don't know what to think about it, looks like a bit unfair to me to copy cat
someone who decided to share so much of his experience.

I would love to know what Chris Chen (instapainting founder) and Courtland
Allen (indie hacker founder) think about it. Personally I really enjoy reading
indie hacker stories, I find it very inspiring. It would be a shame people
stop sharing their success because some guys copy cat them...

------
JoeAltmaier
Anybody else find this too cute and patronizing? Its the guy saying "You're an
idiot and I'm too smart and busy to be bothered by family. Your problems don't
matter."

~~~
dark_ph0enix
No, not really. Deal with a handful of end users and all of sudden this makes
a heap of sense.

~~~
JoeAltmaier
Whether it makes sense or not is beside the point. Its insulting to be treated
like a child. That's unarguable.

------
amelius
You should add an option to add questions. If you crowdsource it, you could
end up with a giant support-question tree!

Then it could be fun AND useful :)

See [1] for a similar idea, but applied to guessing animals.

See [2] for a more serious approach.

[1] [http://www.animalgame.com/](http://www.animalgame.com/)

[2]
[http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/09521976929...](http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/095219769290052L)

------
QuercusMax
I'm not sure why "No" is dark; it almost looks like it's pre-clicked. Is the
idea to trick them into doing what it asked?

------
saycheese
Another common issue is if the device needs to be plugged in that the outlet
or power strip is not receiving power.

------
arikrak
This reminds me of [https://xkcd.com/627/](https://xkcd.com/627/). I think
both both these 'tools' could be expanded a bit to be more useful (though
maybe less humorous). Though one issue with less tech-knowledgable people is
that they may have trouble following some instructions from Google and the
like.

------
morgl
>Have you tried turning it on and off again?

It seems that the tool is inspired by the 'IT crowd'. IRL, unfortunately
people may skip the first steps thinking that they are taken as idiots.

------
vacri
This didn't help me with my high-load mongodb server issue... :(

~~~
nathancahill
Honestly turning it off and back on again usually helps the mongodbs :/

------
sturmeh
90% of my family support requests are caused by updating software.

------
cgvgffyv
Fun machine that will cut your family and friends tech support time
completely:

An iPad.

/thread

------
known
You fixed
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pareto_principle](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pareto_principle)

------
owenwil
The easiest way to fix my family and friends' tech support time was buying
them a Mac. Even better, moving the trickier ones to Chromebooks. Nobody calls
anymore.

------
wyldfire
Obligatory XKCD: [https://xkcd.com/627/](https://xkcd.com/627/)

------
julienmarie
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nn2FB1P_Mn8](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nn2FB1P_Mn8)

------
oliv__
I wasn't sure what to expect when it asked me to type my problem in: when that
tab opened that gave me a good laugh haha. So true.

------
sabujp
Is my system up to date? Yes I'm running the latest vanilla kernel and latest
atheros firmware and my wifi connectivity still sucks.

------
catshirt
nice work.

would be cool (albeit maybe difficult), to summarize the best result instead
of taking them to Google directly. i suspect anyone using this page who gets
to the Google results page will have no idea where to stat when they get
there.

a less interesting solution would maybe be to provide a video that explains
how to Google solutions for technical issues & error messages.

~~~
fiesycal
Yea that would be awesome. Maybe I can work on it in the next version.

------
z3t4
It's interesting that the nr1 most common problem with a computer is the
internal state, so it has to be restarted.

------
Tempest1981
But you still need a paper/offline version, for when they call to tell you
that the Internet is down.

------
marvin
This site is blocked by Fortiguard at my workplace, just FYI.

------
sharemywin
can I suggest a question to ask what software they are using. Then append it
to your google search. So, it would look like "Excel copy and paste"

------
rcdmd
Equal parts tongue-in-cheek and time-saving.

------
madshiva
I did all and it's still not working What is not working? I don't know but
it's not working

(╯°□°）╯︵ ┻━┻

------
sornaensis
> Have you tried turning it on and off again?

Um. Joke on the first question? Or typo?

------
jkfhdslk
I put "[expletive] everywhere" as a joke for describing the problem with the
phone, and then it google searched that, resulting in a hard command + W.

lame.

