Family Technical Support... How May I Help You? 

Being the computer expert in the family has it's perks and it's pit falls. When I say "the computer expert"... I should probably qualify that. I have two brother-in-law's who both write software and are definitely computer experts. So I should probably say the family computer expert in Wisconsin.

My Uncle Tom for instance sells antique silverware for someone on eBay. I'm actually pretty damn impressed. In the beginning I had to help him quite a lot. There's a lot involved, including photo editing, transferring files with FTP, and all the usual internet stuff. However, he picked it all up pretty quick, and now I rarely hear from him any more. The only time I hear from him now, is when my Aunt goofs something up. I love my Aunt dearly, but she always manages to do something to their machine, and can never tell me how she did it. I'll get a call from my Uncle...

Tom: "I don't know how Carolyn did <insert problem here>, but how do I get it back?"
Nick: Well, you need to do the following 5 things.
...
Tom: So how did she do this in the first place?
Nick: Well, she did those 5 steps in reverse.
Tom: How could she do those 5 things and not know it?
Nick: You're asking me?

My Mom on the other hand is a completely different story. She knows how to do two things on the computer, and that's it. She can write a letter using Word (saving is a whole different story), and she can send and receive email. God help me if some box pops up that she's not expecting.

*Cell Phone Rings*

Mom: Nick, there's a strange box on the screen. I don't know what to do!
Nick: What does it say?
Mom: I don't know.... I didn't read it. Umm, it says... yada yada.

*Long Pause*

Nick: Well, based on what it says, what do you think you should do?
Mom: Well, I guess I would click OK, and then try to check my mail later.
Nick: Very good! Now, why did you need my help to figure that out?

So you can imagine my frustration when I read the following post on Mike Hall's blog:

The error message dialog contains a link which, when clicked links to Microsoft's Support site, the following Knowledge Base article is displayed - this explains that Hotmail "free" accounts can no longer be accessed through Outlook or Outlook Express.

As luck would have it, this is exactly how my Mom uses her hotmail account. *sigh* Now I have to teach her how to send and receive email all over again. Believe me... it will be like teaching her from scratch.