I was able to successfully remote into and resolve an issue on my friend Debbie's computer while she is in Poland...4,189 miles away!!
Debbie couldn't reach the Geek Squad, so emailed me for advice. Unfortunately, since I wasn't able to call/talk with her, all symptoms described by her, every probing question of mine to determine underlying problem, and instructions on how to get connected with her remotely, were communicated via email.
Email may seem quick, but in comparison to being able to talk with someone on the phone it is much slower and VERY frustrating method of communication particularly when a computer is not working well! I'm proud of my Friend for pushing through the pain-in-the-ass factor and standing with me while this fire was put out. You learn about a person in stressful situations :)
Back many years ago when I worked on the help-desk at Comcast Communications, I took calls from customers for issues with their computers which ranged from virus infestation to simple power issues. As a help-desk technician, I had the advantage of being able to talk via phone with customer. With my voice, I was able to direct the customer as my hands and eyes to resolve their issue. But today, not being able to talk or see the computer, I was working blindly had to find a way for me to reach Debbie if I had any chance to to assist her.
At first we tried connecting via "Remote Assistance" through her Vista OS, but there was connectivity issues that I surmised may have been between our Vista and my Windows 7 not communicating clearly. And after all, Debbie was in Poland learning the language...maybe HER laptop had learned the language too and didn't understand English anymore, LOL!!
So me being me, I started to think outside the box. One thing I learned growing up on a farm is, "If it can be broke, it can be fixed". Since she was able to get online with her computer, I knew it was not a connectivity issue. If I could reach her computer, I knew could help her.
I sent her an email describing one of the programs, Team Viewer, which I have used with many clients successfully. Team Viewer is lightweight, free for personal/non-commercial use and as I discovered by the end of working with her computer, also compatible with Vista.
Once Team Viewer was installed, I was able connect remotely to her computer, I ran a few diagnostics and quickly determined that her Internet Explorer was corrupted. Since IE is part of her operating system, when she returns home stateside, I'll run deeper diagnostics to determine extent of OS corruption and most likely recommend re-installation.
Thankfully her computer was still able to connect to the internet even with IE gimping along and this allowed her to install Team Viewer, allowed me to connect to her remotely and to install Chrome browser as alternate way (and I'll add my own endorsement of much more stable and quicker way) of reaching the internet.
When she opened up her Gmail to test whether the issue was resolved, the results were immediate! In Debbie's words, "It is working lighting fast!" and she officially gave me the title of "International Geek Superhero"....
I don't care what anyone says, I'm putting THAT on my resume! :)
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