“My daughter’s personal computer, she uses for school work, came up with needing a BitLocker recovery password.”

Over the weekend I was contacted by a dad on the other side of the country trying to locate the BitLocker key. This is a very common problem. Microsoft’s position is, “Don’t worry, we store you BitLocker keys for you in your Microsoft account!” Microsoft’s attitude seems like: “I know you’re in water over your head, and you can’t swim, and you’re drowning and choking, but don’t worry, we have life preservers right here on the boat. Come get one!”

The reality is that many people have no idea what to do when faced with this challenge.

You must protect yourself. Get your BitLocker recovery key for every BitLocker device, and store it safely yourself. You can find information on how to get your recovery key by searching for “find my BitLocker recovery key,” or a similar phrase, using any search engine.

If you don’t want to do that, contact me, and I’ll help you get your BitLocker key(s) for a very reasonable fee.

#CallMeIfYouNeedMe #FIFONetworks

This year, I’m placing a renewed emphasis on growing the residential tech support part of my business. The evolution of my attitude toward residential tech support is an interesting story. Read on…

I licensed my company in 2003. In those early days I was desperate to generate income and find clients. I advertised on craigslist, mostly intending to get small business clients, but a lot of the calls I got were from residential users. I needed the money, and I was happy to make the appointments. Keep in mind that in 2003, these were house calls. I didn’t yet have a subscription to professional remote access software.

Cluttered homes. Dusty computers. Loud and aggressive dogs. I learned that residential clients often had unreasonable expectations about cost. I used to say, “Residential clients want hundred dollar service for ten dollars.” On the upside, though, residential clients expected to pay at the time of service. I’d walk out of their house with a check in hand, and in the startup days, cash flow was critical! So I kept doing it.

Later, as my business grew, I stopped doing residential work entirely. I had enough business clients that I didn’t need the residential business anymore.

Somewhere about that time, I had enough business clients with remote locations that I started paying for professional remote access software. A gray area developed: I was doing remote tech support for business workers in home offices. I asked myself, “Could I make money with remote tech support for non-business users at home?”

No toys to trip over. No nippy dogs. Hmmm… So I started advertising residential tech support again - remotely.

And I gotta tell ya, it’s fun. I totally enjoy it. It brings the customer such satisfaction and relief, and it’s like fixing a problem for a friend.

I’ve always charged my residential clients the same hourly rate as my business clients. No difference at all, and if you want to do this, it’s important to keep your rates up. Residential prospects often start by asking what it costs. My hourly rate is a filter that eliminates a lot of problems.

Anyway, I’m going to do a lot more marketing on the residential side and home office side. I added a new page to my website just for this purpose.

Did you or a loved one get a new computer for Christmas? Having problems with it in any way? I do residential and small business remote tech support. Sole proprietor, business licensed in Washington, insured. I'm your own personal help desk. More personal. Less frustrating.
8am to 5pm, US Pacific Time Zone.

#HelpDesk #TechSupport #RemoteSupport #Residential #HomeOffice

https://fifonetworks.com/help-desk/

Discover RustDesk! A free, open-source remote support app with easy setup and strong privacy. Features encrypted connections and the option to host your own server. Download now: https://rustdesk.io #RustDesk #RemoteSupport #Tech

My residential clients don’t pay me $10,000 to $40,000 for a few days on site. On the other hand, my large enterprise clients don’t enclose their checks in handwritten thank-you notes.

The day after this remote support call, I called the client to make sure everything was still working. When she said yes, I emailed the invoice. A few days later, the client sent the payment. The end of the note says, "Still working fine." She knows that I offer thirty days of customer care support at no additional charge on every service call, and that’s why she mentioned that it’s still working.

“Thirty days? Bob! Isn’t that excessive?”

Occasionally I’ll have trouble getting fully done with a “sticky ticket,” where the customer calls back over and over, but it’s rare. And those customers sometimes make the most enthusiastic referrals – “He really helped me!” – and you get your money from the additional business they generate for you.

#callmeifyouneedme #fifonetworks

Kinda nice to see #AnyDesk actually do something against #Scammers abusing their #RemoteSupport tool...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jUHFpfVPUYc

The scams can be very convincing. This client is college educated, owns a business employing several dozen people, and has homes in two different states. A couple of years ago he was duped by one of those pop-ups that said, “Your computer is infected! Call Microsoft for assistance at 1-800-xxx-xxxx.” He called the number and the person who answered said, “Microsoft Technical Assistance, how may I help you?” Before it was all over, his credit card had been charged – twice! – for a total of $459.00.

Two years later, they are still calling him, trying to get more money! He told me about their most recent attempt on June 13.

He’s been a client of mine since 2011. I maintain his business computers and his family’s personal computers. A couple of years ago when he saw the pop-up which led to his computer being infected by the fake tech support company, he told me, “I thought about calling you instead of the number on the screen, but it seemed so urgent, and it really looked like it was from Microsoft, so I decided to call them.”

The thing that strikes me the most about this story is the brazenness of the cybercriminals. They keep coming back, and have no fear of arrest or prosecution.

It’s up to you to be cautious.

#callmeifyouneedme #fifonetworks

Don’t be embarrassed about your server room. I’m talking to small business owners and the IT employees who love working there.

The reality for a lot of small businesses and retail locations is that there is no server room. There’s one server on the floor next to the shift manager’s desk, or up on a shelf in a supply closet. One bar that’s a client of mine has the Internet Gateway, the firewall, a switch, and a server in the attic crawl space. I have to climb up a ladder and go through a hatch in the ceiling to get to it.

If the business is a little larger and has an in-house IT person, the server room is often still a multi-purpose room that happens to have a couple of racks in it. The Ethernet cables go up and out through a hole in the corner of a ceiling tile in the drop ceiling.

Every time I visit one of these locations for the first time, the IT person or business owner apologizes to me and feels like they’re somehow not living up to my expectations. But really, this is pretty normal.

Your equipment isn’t generating enough heat to need additional air conditioning. You’re making enough money to run the business and cover payroll every month, but it’s not like you have a safe full of excess cash begging you to spend it on antistatic flooring.

So please, relax. Whatever you’ve got, I’ve seen worse. It’s not as bad as you think. (Well, unless you’ve got mouse droppings inside the server case, and rats have chewed the insulation off your Ethernet cables – then you’re getting close to the bottom end of what I’ve had to deal with).

I’ll fix what you’ve got so you’re up and running again, and I’ll make some recommendations for ways we can make your network less prone to another failure. It’s your business. You know your budget and your needs. You decide how much we do from there.

#callmeifyouneedme #fifonetworks

#RemoteSupport & #PhoneRepair available

Help Desk workers: protect your users’ privacy. Notepad tabs expose information. Here’s a (temporary) solution.

BACKGROUND: Yesterday I was installing a new instance of QuickBooks remotely on a CPA’s computer. They were in front of their computer for the installation, and we were in real-time communication via telephone. At one point I opened Notepad on their computer to make some quick temporary notes. Oops! It’s Windows 11, and they had several tabs open in Notepad. (If you’re not familiar with it yet, the newest version of Notepad has tabs. If you have unsaved data in one or more tabs, those tabs are preserved, and the next time you open Notepad, they’re all there).

THE PROBLEM: The information in the top tab is immediately visible. For all I know, that note may have included the Social Security number of a client. Maybe it was just a recipe for chocolate chip cookies – the point is, I have no way of knowing whether I’m opening sensitive information or not.

THE (TEMPORARY) SOLUTION: I did some research last night to see if there’s a way to open a new instance of Notepad, so I don’t see the client’s unsaved work. As near as I can tell, opening a new instance with no other instance open isn’t possible. Please comment if you know a way to do it! So, my solution – use Wordpad instead of Notepad on client computers with Windows 11.

WordPad doesn’t immediately show up in the All Programs menu, but it’s easy to open. To open it, click Start, and begin typing "wordpad." When the app appears as the auto-complete option (along about “wordp…”), press Enter. WordPad opens much faster than Word, and it also protects the privacy of the user’s Recent Files list.

Why is this solution temporary? Because Microsoft is in the process of discontinuing WordPad. It won’t be available much longer.

If you know a way to open a clean instance of Notepad on a client’s computer without previous access to its settings, please let me know. I want to preserve the privacy of my clients’ information.

#callmeifyouneedme #fifonetworks
#helpdesk #remotesupport #onsitesupport

How to check the status of the battery on a Windows laptop:
Open the Command Line Interface.
Type:
powercfg /batteryreport

The report on your battery will be generated and saved as an html file to the folder from which you ran the command.

I had totally forgotten about this until someone mentioned it yesterday. I don’t think it’s all that well known, so I’m sharing it with you now.

It’s worth doing powercfg /? to get the full list of options that work with this command.

#callmeifyouneedme #fifonetworks

Small Business Owner: “Bob, I’d like to add a firewall to my network.”
Me: “Okay, but we’ll also need to add at least one wireless access point.”
Small Business Owner: “Why?”
Me: “Because your cable modem’s Wi-Fi will be on the wrong side of the firewall.”
Small Business Owner: “What do you mean? You’re speaking English, but I have no idea what you said.”
Me: “Maybe this picture will help you visualize what I’m saying.”
Small Business Owner: “Okay, let’s have a look.”
Me: “In the new configuration, whether a device connects via Ethernet cable or Wi-Fi, they’re protected by the firewall.”

Disclaimer: The picture shows devices with familiar brand names. This is so that most people can quickly understand the devices and their relationship. No brand endorsement is intended.

#callmeifyouneedme #fifonetworks

I designed and taught a course at Bellevue College called “Advanced Desktop Support.” The outline for the quarter went something like this:

1) Determine: is it hardware or software? If there’s a hardware issue, fix it before checking for other issues.

Labs: hardware and software tools and tests to answer #1.

2) If there’s a software issue, determine: is it operating system or application? If there’s an operating system issue, fix it before checking for other issues.

Lab: slow operating system manifesting as an application problem.
Labs: software tools and tests to answer #2. Cover Task Manager and Event Viewer.

3) If there’s an operating system issue, determine: is it files or configuration? Repair corrupted or missing files before working on configuration.

Labs: software tools and tests to answer #3.

4) If there’s an application issue, determine: is it files or configuration? Repair corrupted or missing files before working on configuration.

Labs: troubleshoot corrupted file issues in Adobe Reader.

Labs: troubleshoot configuration issues in Microsoft Word and Outlook. Include Trust Center and Add-ins.

5) Problems with peripherals: is it the computer, the peripheral, or the connectivity?

Labs: troubleshoot drivers on the computer, troubleshoot peripheral hardware, troubleshoot peripheral configuration, troubleshoot connectivity. Order to be determined by symptoms. Labs should include printer, second monitor, and sound system with its own amplifier.

Remote testing and customer interaction were discussed throughout. Many labs involve working in teams of two, where one student is the “hands and eyes,” and the other student is Tech Support.

Section 1 was the shortest section, because CompTIA A+ was a prerequisite and we covered hardware troubleshooting pretty thoroughly there.

The longest part of Section 2 is becoming fluent with using Event Viewer.

Corrupted files were the shortest parts of Sections 3 and 4. In general, the solution is to reinstall. But cover licensing in this section, because you don’t want to inadvertently burn a second license with the reinstallation.

It was a good course, but we only ran it one year because it didn’t get very high enrollment.

If you think you can make it fly at your college, there’s the outline – modify it as you see fit and run with it.

connected to a friend's compy remotely sorting out their Doze which has got stuck applying updates. I hate having this knowledge. Yuk. #RemoteSupport #WouldRatherSawOffMyKnees

Happy #Rimiversary!
One year ago saw the release of the latest iteration of an application that truly broke the mold in the #assistiveTechnology space: the world's first all-inclusive, fully accessible #RemoteSupport solution. That software is our much loved #RemoteIncidentManager, and it's had quite a year already! Time flies when you’re breaking barriers, and the milestones RIM has seen are nothing short of historic. What exactly has RIM been up to, you might ask? Let’s pull back the curtain on this ground-breaking year for our product.
https://pneumasolutions.com/happy-rimiversary/
#accessibility #inclusiveDesign

TODAY is Launch Day!

You can find links to my newsletter (free and paid posts), and information about the limited Remote Support services I offer (System Cleanup, Monthly Tune-Ups and Updates)!

Full site, including Quick Tips, will be live in the weeks to come!

https://kevinthetechguy.ca

Hmmm.... ich ärger mich schon wieder rum. #Schwarmfrage: Wenn ihr per Computer #Remotesupport für ein mobiles #Android-Gerät leisten wollen würdet, welche #Software würdet ihr nehmen?

Ich habe #Teamviewer getestet, aber die Software bricht die Verbindung nach ner Minute oder so ab bzw. friert ein. Vielleicht ist das ja auch gewollt?

Ich suche eine einfache Alternative, wo man beim #Smartphone/#Tablet den Screen freigeben und remote sehen kann. Jemand eine gute Empfehlung?