My mom is so non-technical that she can't plug in a USB plug because it only goes in one direction. I have to support her computer problem even though I live at the other end of the country. To get around her various issues, I use google remote desktop to access her computers, and teamviewer to access her phone and tablet. I also never buy any hardware i can't remote to. My sister lives nearby and while she is not technical, she can get by following instructions over the phone.
With Corvid-19, my sister can no longer visit, because she works in the medical field. It's just too risky. Recently, mom had a bad slew of issues.
* Her external hard drive started beeping loudly like a fire alarm, which I have never heard of (why would a hard drive even have speakers!). In any case, I google it and it said that the drive is basically dead. Her computer is down too, but this happens every couple of months when Windows 10 do their update and trash the computer, I get around this by restoring from backup and then disabling update. Eventually Microsoft fixes the issue and it goes away in a later update.
* I have several backups There's one sitting on her desk, My sister has a copy, and there's an extra copy online. I send her a picture of the hard drive and she said she has never seen it. I have her take a picture of her desk and it was sitting next to her keyboard. The drive is even the same brand and model but she did not recognize it because the logo was facing the other way.
* Unfortunately, the hard drive isn't even useful, The computer won't response to keyboard, so it must be dead. It's 10 years old, so it has served its duty with honor. I decided to setup her tablet so she can access the web instead, but the Teamviewer is no longer connecting. Turns out an security update has blocked the app (curse you Samsung Knox). I had to reinstall it, but she doesn't understand and is bad with description.. To get around, this, I had her take pictures of the screen, and tell her or circle items she should be clicking and send the picture back. This takes 4 hours. With Teamviewer back in place, I enabled her password manager she can access her Social security, banks etc
* I had install the password manager because she kept calling me for the password to her bank accounts. For some reason if the password is more than complicated than 12345 or something, she can't seemed to type it in..
* The next day she calls in a panic because there was now a cartoon dinosaur on the screen and she doesn't know what to do. She manged to put the tablet into kid mode, which I did not realize the tablet had a kid mode. It took another hour to take it out of kid mode because we had to send pictures back and forth.
Paul
With Corvid-19, my sister can no longer visit, because she works in the medical field. It's just too risky. Recently, mom had a bad slew of issues.
* Her external hard drive started beeping loudly like a fire alarm, which I have never heard of (why would a hard drive even have speakers!). In any case, I google it and it said that the drive is basically dead. Her computer is down too, but this happens every couple of months when Windows 10 do their update and trash the computer, I get around this by restoring from backup and then disabling update. Eventually Microsoft fixes the issue and it goes away in a later update.
* I have several backups There's one sitting on her desk, My sister has a copy, and there's an extra copy online. I send her a picture of the hard drive and she said she has never seen it. I have her take a picture of her desk and it was sitting next to her keyboard. The drive is even the same brand and model but she did not recognize it because the logo was facing the other way.
* Unfortunately, the hard drive isn't even useful, The computer won't response to keyboard, so it must be dead. It's 10 years old, so it has served its duty with honor. I decided to setup her tablet so she can access the web instead, but the Teamviewer is no longer connecting. Turns out an security update has blocked the app (curse you Samsung Knox). I had to reinstall it, but she doesn't understand and is bad with description.. To get around, this, I had her take pictures of the screen, and tell her or circle items she should be clicking and send the picture back. This takes 4 hours. With Teamviewer back in place, I enabled her password manager she can access her Social security, banks etc
* I had install the password manager because she kept calling me for the password to her bank accounts. For some reason if the password is more than complicated than 12345 or something, she can't seemed to type it in..
* The next day she calls in a panic because there was now a cartoon dinosaur on the screen and she doesn't know what to do. She manged to put the tablet into kid mode, which I did not realize the tablet had a kid mode. It took another hour to take it out of kid mode because we had to send pictures back and forth.
Paul