Readers who have been following The lost outpost for a while will remember that I’m our family’s nominated technical support person (as I’m sure many of you are), and have been managing some remote PCs via VNC.
This weekend took things to a new level. My sister-in-law bought herself an iPod nano 2G in Poland, but the PC was reporting that the device was damaged. After exchanging a few SMS messages on the subject, I got her to connect across and let me take a look at the box. She’d downloaded and installed iTunes OK (although her own account doesn’t have admin rights, so we’d got another family member to sort that out).
I suspected another conflict with the printer, but after unplugging that the device was still not recognised. So there I was, never having installed an iPod on a PC before, hunting through Apple’s website, trying to translate stuff for a Polish Windows user interface, troubleshooting some hardware that I couldn’t physically touch. Joy. In the end, a reset of the iPod managed to get it recognised, and I was then tortured by rewarded with the sight of iTunes merrily syncing music to an iPod on a remote machine. Did I mention that I still don’t own one?
Finally, I ordered the basic Sky broadband package for my mother last night, since I noticed that it was available in her area. For a small activation fee it looks like she gets the same wireless router that I have (Netgear DG834G rebadged for Sky), and no ongoing costs, since she’s an existing subscriber. Now to see how long it all takes to go through – either way, this should make life significantly easier for both her and us.
Technorati tags: iPod, VNC, remote administration, technical support, Sky, Sky broadband
