Tech Support For Everyone

April 1, 2011 8:07 AM

showmewhatswrong. downforeveryoneorjustme. LetMeGoogleThatForYou.
posted by Bora Horza Gobuchul (25 comments total)

What are two useful and one passive-agressive websites?
posted by Aizkolari at 8:12 AM on April 1, 2011 [10 favorites]

Thanks for the reminders!
posted by ardgedee at 8:15 AM on April 1, 2011

Oh man, showmewhatswrong is going to vastly improve the relationship I have with my grandmother. That's awesome. I spent 20 minutes last week on the phone trying to (I'm pretty sure this was what was wrong) click the x to close a popup ad.

But what's up with the "processing video: 102%"?
posted by phunniemee at 8:15 AM on April 1, 2011

I recently "upgraded" from WinXP to Win7. Anyone know Bill Gates' address?
posted by ZenMasterThis at 8:17 AM on April 1, 2011

http://goo.gl/MY7jP
posted by panaceanot at 8:18 AM on April 1, 2011

Thanks to that second link, I know it's not just me that can't access a site I've been trying to get into for the past hour.
posted by Anima Mundi at 8:23 AM on April 1, 2011 [1 favorite]

I can imagine my older clients still having a hard time grasping what to do with showmewhatswrong, but it's a great idea, especially for people who might be nervous about using LogMeIn or some other remote control software.
posted by briank at 8:35 AM on April 1, 2011 [1 favorite]

Too bad I can't watch the demo on showmewhatswrong. :/

Maybe it only works in IE, for the old people?
posted by desjardins at 8:39 AM on April 1, 2011

Whoops... in link form http://goo.gl/MY7jP. It's my passive aggressive "just use Google" mashup.
posted by panaceanot at 8:39 AM on April 1, 2011

Too bad I can't watch the demo on showmewhatswrong. :/

It's a youtube video in a popup. Works fine in FF4.
posted by synthetik at 8:43 AM on April 1, 2011

Ah, then it's a "don't watch youtube at work" thing. Usually I get a message if I click on a YT link.
posted by desjardins at 8:52 AM on April 1, 2011

How is that showmewhatswrong site capturing local windows and events?
posted by DU at 8:57 AM on April 1, 2011

Two useful sites that I had not seen. Interesting. Will have to play around with that first one...

How is that showmewhatswrong site capturing local windows and events?

Probably with screen capturing software. *ducks*

(But it doesn't have to capture anything but the video output, right?)
posted by mrgrimm at 9:00 AM on April 1, 2011

I usually respond to Let Me Google That For You links with this:

http://lmgtfy.com/?q=go+fuck+yourself
posted by electroboy at 9:05 AM on April 1, 2011 [1 favorite]

It's a youtube video in a popup. Works fine in FF4.

Works fine in Chrome 11 as well. It does not really demonstrate an actual use case; more of a "how it works" video.
posted by mrgrimm at 9:08 AM on April 1, 2011

How is that showmewhatswrong site capturing local windows and events?

You could actually like click a link or two and find out pretty easily. It's done with an Applet embedded in a web page. See http://screencast-o-matic.com and click "Start Recoding" if you want to try it.
posted by ericost at 9:09 AM on April 1, 2011

I didn't see a link, but since you lmgtfy'd it for me I followed it...and learned nothing. "an Applet" doesn't explain anything. Flash and Java aren't supposed to be able to get outside of their sandboxes. So...how does it work?

(On my machine, it didn't. I just got an endless "loading...." message.)
posted by DU at 9:29 AM on April 1, 2011

"an Applet" doesn't explain anything. Flash and Java aren't supposed to be able to get outside of their sandboxes. So...how does it work?

Java applet. When I tried it I got a pop-up saying "An applet from 'screencast-o-matic.com' is requesting access to your computer. The digital signature from 'Big Nerd Software, LLC' has been verified." and asking to allow/deny. Didn't go further myself.
posted by bobo123 at 9:34 AM on April 1, 2011

It's not well advertised, but Windows 7 comes with a neat tool called Problems Steps Recorder (psr.exe) which will record screenshots and input and zip it all up into a single file for emailing. The reports list all actions in plain English like: "Problem Step 1: User left click on "Internet Explorer (menu item)" in "Start menu" along with screenshots of each step.

Also, Windows XP and above support Remote Assistance, which is particularly useful when it comes to helping friends and relatives.
posted by rh at 9:55 AM on April 1, 2011 [1 favorite]

If somone already linked this I missed it:

http://www.teachparentstech.org/

Provided by Google
posted by WerewolvesRancheros at 10:36 AM on April 1, 2011 [1 favorite]

electroboy: "http://lmgtfy.com/?q=go+fuck+yourself"

This is the kind of thing that hex escapes were designed for.

(url above is
http://lmgtfy.com/?q=%67%6F%20%66%75%63%6B%20%79%6F%75%72%73%65%6C%66
for thos who can't be bothered to hover and reveal it)
posted by idiopath at 10:42 AM on April 1, 2011

err, well I guess browsers automatically unescape the url for the hover, but the source still shows escaped if you view source - I guess that technique only works for copy+paste linking, not clickable
posted by idiopath at 10:44 AM on April 1, 2011

Why Would You Click That?
posted by gwint at 11:40 AM on April 1, 2011

LOL of course my computer won't let me get to show me what's wrong....when I try all browsers say I'm not connected to the internet....or is it just cause it's today?
posted by nile_red at 11:41 AM on April 1, 2011

This might be overly nerdy to point out, but it looks like downforeveryoneorjustme interprets a redirect from http to https as "down" so it's not very useful for checking sites that require ssl but allow http requests for the sole purpose of redirecting them to https.

I only mention it because every site that I would recommend it for does that, so it's actually worse than useless - because it would convince someone in the "just you" camp that they were in the "everyone" camp.
posted by illovich at 8:42 PM on April 1, 2011