5 ms·

Have you ever considered installing remote screensharing software rather then having to troubleshoot over the phone? That's how I help out my parents.

Declanomous 10y ago
Yeah, I've used it at times. It's great when it works, but getting remote desktop working is always a bigger pain than just trying to explain the problem over the phone. The individual issues aren't that big, but it means a 20 minute phone call turns in to a 1 hour phone call because we spend 20 minutes trying to get screen sharing working. For one thing, I'm generally away from my computer when they call me, and all I have is my phone. If that isn't an issue, then port forwarding is an issue, or the desktop sharing they have on their computer is out of date, or they only have RDC, and I can't find a Windows computer. Sharing the desktop via chrome works pretty well, it still can be an exercise in frustration. For instance, my dad is a trader, and has 8 monitors. Getting him to share the correct screens takes forever. (I don't know how Windows decides where to open a window, but it seems like it tries to find a monitor my dad isn't looking at and opening it behind a window marked stay-on-top.) I might use it if the problem was extremely urgent and extremely complicated, but I live about 30 minutes from them, so I'd just head over to their house if it was that bad. Screen sharing software was just one more thing to go wrong on their computers. This way, I don't have to worry about whether they have a version with a critical vulnerability, or if they'll fall for a social engineering attack and click on a teamviewer invite. This software solves my concern about not being able to see what the hell my parents are doing when I'm telling them shell commands. This makes it really easy. They'd already be using Linux if I knew I'd always be able to use desktop sharing to look at their computer, and port forwarding/security/etc wasn't a concern, because connecting to a remote X server is incredibly easy. I already fix internet issues by SSHing in to the router (with key-based authentication) and then connecting to whatever piece of hardware needs to be tinkered with. I could probably do the same thing for an actual desktop, but I've fixed misbehaving servers via ssh on my phone before, and typing commands on a phone keyboard is an exercise in frustration. In any case, I sat down with my dad and created a clean image of his desktop a while back. When he really messes something up he just reimages his computer. He likes the fact that I gave him the ability to bring his computer back from the dead himself. All his files are installed on a separate disk, which is constantly backed up, so he never loses more than about 20 minutes of work.
- jjawssd 10y ago
  > getting remote desktop working is always a bigger pain Easy as cake with TeamViewer
  - Declanomous 10y ago
    >Screen sharing software was just one more thing to go wrong on their computers. This way, I don't have to worry about whether they have a version with a critical vulnerability, or if they'll fall for a social engineering attack and click on a teamviewer invite.
    - radnor 10y ago
      You can lock down Teamviewer pretty tight, including a whitelist that allows only you to log in.
    - pbhjpbhj 10y ago
      It's no more of a risk really with TeamViewer installed. An attacker can use gotomypc or similar or just send a TeamViewer invite binary (or link to download it and give the attacker access).
      - detaro 10y ago
        Wasn't there some story a few months back about TeamViewer accounts being hacked in some unknown way and their access used to infect machines? Was that ever clearly resolved? (I remember speculation of TeamViewer themselves being compromised, or just a massive password-reuse attack, or ...)
        bb611 10y ago
        It's never been clearly resolved, but also hasn't developed. So far it looks like TV was correct and the breaches were the result of password reuse from other sites who did have passwords compromised.
- 10y ago

Declanomous 10y ago

Yeah, I've used it at times. It's great when it works, but getting remote desktop working is always a bigger pain than just trying to explain the problem over the phone. The individual issues aren't that big, but it means a 20 minute phone call turns in to a 1 hour phone call because we spend 20 minutes trying to get screen sharing working. For one thing, I'm generally away from my computer when they call me, and all I have is my phone. If that isn't an issue, then port forwarding is an issue, or the desktop sharing they have on their computer is out of date, or they only have RDC, and I can't find a Windows computer. Sharing the desktop via chrome works pretty well, it still can be an exercise in frustration. For instance, my dad is a trader, and has 8 monitors. Getting him to share the correct screens takes forever. (I don't know how Windows decides where to open a window, but it seems like it tries to find a monitor my dad isn't looking at and opening it behind a window marked stay-on-top.) I might use it if the problem was extremely urgent and extremely complicated, but I live about 30 minutes from them, so I'd just head over to their house if it was that bad. Screen sharing software was just one more thing to go wrong on their computers. This way, I don't have to worry about whether they have a version with a critical vulnerability, or if they'll fall for a social engineering attack and click on a teamviewer invite. This software solves my concern about not being able to see what the hell my parents are doing when I'm telling them shell commands. This makes it really easy. They'd already be using Linux if I knew I'd always be able to use desktop sharing to look at their computer, and port forwarding/security/etc wasn't a concern, because connecting to a remote X server is incredibly easy. I already fix internet issues by SSHing in to the router (with key-based authentication) and then connecting to whatever piece of hardware needs to be tinkered with. I could probably do the same thing for an actual desktop, but I've fixed misbehaving servers via ssh on my phone before, and typing commands on a phone keyboard is an exercise in frustration. In any case, I sat down with my dad and created a clean image of his desktop a while back. When he really messes something up he just reimages his computer. He likes the fact that I gave him the ability to bring his computer back from the dead himself. All his files are installed on a separate disk, which is constantly backed up, so he never loses more than about 20 minutes of work.

jjawssd 10y ago
> getting remote desktop working is always a bigger pain Easy as cake with TeamViewer
- Declanomous 10y ago
  >Screen sharing software was just one more thing to go wrong on their computers. This way, I don't have to worry about whether they have a version with a critical vulnerability, or if they'll fall for a social engineering attack and click on a teamviewer invite.
  - radnor 10y ago
    You can lock down Teamviewer pretty tight, including a whitelist that allows only you to log in.
  - pbhjpbhj 10y ago
    It's no more of a risk really with TeamViewer installed. An attacker can use gotomypc or similar or just send a TeamViewer invite binary (or link to download it and give the attacker access).
    - detaro 10y ago
      Wasn't there some story a few months back about TeamViewer accounts being hacked in some unknown way and their access used to infect machines? Was that ever clearly resolved? (I remember speculation of TeamViewer themselves being compromised, or just a massive password-reuse attack, or ...)
      - bb611 10y ago
        It's never been clearly resolved, but also hasn't developed. So far it looks like TV was correct and the breaches were the result of password reuse from other sites who did have passwords compromised.
10y ago