#techsupport

Bob Young @fifonetworks@infosec.exchange · Aug 03, 2026

Over the weekend a residential client asked, "Can I pay you with Zelle?" I said yes. Then, I immediately logged into my US Bank business checking account and enabled Zelle payment processing. Years ago when I asked my CPA if I should start taking credit card payments, he said, "Bob, if someone wants to give you money, find a way to say yes." Since then, in addition to credit cards, I've added PayPal, Venmo, and now Zelle. #entrepreneurship #techsupport

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狐ヴィクシー @KitsuneVixi@sakurajima.social · Jan 12, 2026

All computers are beautiful and deserving of love. ❤️ Please do not abuse or neglect your computer's needs: Computers are warm volted, this means they generate their own heat. To avoid overheating they need to respirate, so please make sure your computer has adequate ventilation and clean air. In the summer, please do not leave a laptop in the car without shade or ventilation. Please do not overfeed it. Too much voltage may make it sick and die. Make sure to groom your computer and give it the occasional air blower bath, otherwise the heat-sinks will become matted from dust build up and your computer will get hot and uncomfortable. Please do not force your computer to do evil things. Some programs are poisonous to computers, if you're unsure about a program, you can submit it to virus total for nutritional analysis. Treat your computer with loving care and it will love you back. ❤️ #PC #computers #petgrooming #petcare #techsupport

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dinozombie🌵🦇 @dinozombie@metalhead.club · Jul 28, 2026

my @jellyfin@mastodon.online instance has been fucked beyond repair for weeks now and I've run out of ideas. I've scanned my media folders, rescanned, replaced metadata, rescanned again, updated versions (running 10.11.11), uninstalled jellyfin from the server, wiped cache and config files, reinstalled, checked disk health (drives are good), and still no dice. Jellyfin only finds like half of the things in there. And not always the same things, so I'm pretty sure it's not file naming it's getting tripped up on. Any ideas, suggestions or #Jellyfin alternatives appreciated. #techsupport #selfhost

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Bob Young @fifonetworks@infosec.exchange · Jul 27, 2026

Over the weekend a man in Oregon called for tech support (I’m in Washington). “Bob, I can’t get my printer to work.” I connected remotely to his computer while we talked on the phone. He’s running Windows 11 Home, 25H2. I opened “Printers & Scanners” to see what’s up. He has one printer, and it had an error message. I started from the beginning: downloaded and installed the current driver package directly from the HP website, power cycled the printer, and rebooted the computer. I tested printing from “Printers & Scanners” with the normal test page, then tested from Microsoft Word – oops! – it’s coming up in fax mode! I set the printer as default and tested again. Then I asked the client to try printing something, whatever it was that he couldn’t print before he called me. He opened Outlook, opened an attachment, and printed it. Success. You see, a lot of this isn’t hard. They just need a friend. He’s a residential client. I looked in my records, and he’s been a client since May of 2019. This was the eighth invoice in seven years. The last invoice before this was in October, 2024 – 21 months ago! But he remembers me, and when he does need help, I get the call. THE LESSON Repeat business matters. But you also need to have a large, dynamic, growing customer base, because everyone doesn’t need your help every month. Does this seem insecure? Never knowing if, or when, a client will call back? No. It’s not insecure at all, if you build your client base. The beauty of this business model is that no one person can ever fire you. No one can take away your income. You’ve got to do the work, though, of providing consistently good service, and always be marketing. Continually be about the business of nurturing and growing your customer base. #CallMeIfYouNeedMe #FIFONetworks #RemoteSupport #TechSupport #HelpDesk

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thehole @thehole@dasforum.org · Jul 26, 2026

What remote desktop tool do you all use if you are doing family tech support? I'm using linux (CachyOS/Arch), my family mostly uses windows, so it needs to be a tool which is available on both platforms. (bonus if it is available on macOS, android or iOS) Edit: there were a couple of suggestions for RustDesk, so I will look into it. If you have any suggestion, feel free to add that. 🔄 boost welcome #linux #windows #remoteDesktop #boost #techSupport

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seanpm2001 🇺🇦️🇬🇱 @seanpm2001@techhub.social · Jul 25, 2026

I am having severe technical issues today. I was going to restart my media player laptop, as the SWAP file was filling up, and had to cancel my backup, due to this memory issue, but upon restarting, the system began to fail severely. It was working perfectly fine prior to restarting, but now gnome-shell appears to be corrupt. CPU usage is constantly between 28% and 64% for this one process (across 20 CPU cores) all transition fade effects (such as when searching for a file, opening a dialog box, or taking a screenshot) are not showing, and there is considerable lag at all times, with the cursor being burnt into the screen at random places. The CPU is constantly spiking. Tracker-miner-fs was uninstalled years ago. Over time, I noticed more and more issues. I have restarted 6 times, but have not had any relief, I even ran the battery completely dead, and held the power button down for 30 seconds. Several terminal commands, such as systemtcl did nothing, the system is unable to connect to the Internet or bluetooth (it is acting like the network adapter is fried, it asks me to plug in a dongle, but it won't recognize my Wi-Fi dongle, nor will it accept Ethernet) I have even tried directly pinging my router, it cannot even do that. I suspect that the ports are blocked, but it seems more complex than that, as airplane mode doesn't show up as an option, it won't accept my Aux port headphones, and I can't change the brightness. When clicking on the battery in the top right corner, there are only 5 options: audio (which doesn't work) battery, settings, lock, and power off/log out. The Wi-Fi, brightness, and Bluetooth options are missing. The speakers aren't working, they just call themselves by the device name "dummy" and audio won't play, however video works fine (although CPU usage for video playback is much higher than normal) screensavers also now cause the CPU to reach a constant 90% usage rate, then immediately drop to a constant 16-20% upon turning the screensaver off. Thankfully, I can still connect USB drives to my system, and copy files to/from this drive. I also tried going to the BIOs and booting from a different kernel, but the option doesn't show up, as this is the only Linux kernel version installed. I would like to get this fixed, as I can't access the majority of my music and sound effects now, and I now no longer have a backup device to go to when I repair my current system. I really wish I just didn't restart today. Help online hasn't worked so far, articles are too lengthy, and don't get to the point. It would be easier to reinstall gnome-shell if I had an Internet connection, but it looks like I am going to have to do this manually. Any help would be appreciated. I have system logs (generated from the System76 driver tool, which unfortunately doesn't give me the option to repair drivers) but I am unsure how to safely share these, as I don't know what parts are needed, or if it contains anything confidential. #Help #TechSupport #Ubuntu22 #Linux #GNOME #GNOME-Shell #Corruption #Ubuntu #Networking #Repair

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Bob Young @fifonetworks@infosec.exchange · Jul 20, 2026

A man passed away recently. He had eight different email addresses, including a couple that belonged to his wife before she died in 2019. His family is paying me to close down his social media presence and close out the email accounts. I just closed an AOL email account that he opened in the 1990s. A couple of the other old emails (anyone remember Juno?) had no MFA, and the passwords consisted only of uppercase and lowercase letters. These old email addresses are a spammer’s dream. Easy to crack into, well established addresses, and the deceased person won’t complain or tighten security. If you have a loved one who passed away, make some decisions about their email addresses. Add MFA that you control if you’re going to keep the email active. And when it’s time, close the account. I know that’s a big emotional step. It seems so final. On the other hand, your loved one probably doesn’t want their old email address used for cybercrime. #CallMeIfYouNeedMe #FIFONetworks #RemoteSupport #TechSupport #HelpDesk

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Kyle Reddoch (CybersecKyle) @cyberseckyle@infosec.exchange · Jul 16, 2026

New by me: Tech Support Is Mostly Trust Support https://www.kylereddoch.me/blog/tech-support-is-mostly-trust-support/ #TechSupport #DigitalSafety #Cybersecurity #InfoSec #IT

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jwt @jwtownshend@toot.wales · Jul 04, 2026

Usually like to use librewolf but for some things need a chromium based browser, which ones have support full privacy/ad blockers, no ai, but are otherwise feature comparable with chrome… auto update is a bonus but not essential, windows, mac, and linux versions needed… Thanks in advance! #linux #macos #browser #techsupport

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Bob Young @fifonetworks@infosec.exchange · Jul 02, 2026

A couple of weeks ago a new small business client signed up for firewall monitoring service. After I got set up with remote access, I started poking around and discovered that they were paying for licenses for features that had never been enabled. I didn’t cost them any more money – I just had to flip the toggles on the dashboard and activate the features. Then, for a couple of those features, there were some choices to be made and settings to adjust to refine the operation. THE LESSON Buying hardware or software to protect your system is only the first step. That hardware appliance or app has to be configured correctly in order to do its job correctly. #CallMeIfYouNeedMe #FIFONetworks +1 206-465-2422 #email #TechSupport #HelpDesk Cybersecurity - Networks - Wireless – Telecom – VoIP

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Michael @Michael1@social.tchncs.de · Jun 27, 2026

Kennt jemand ne Person/ne Stelle in Berlin wo man nen AM4 Mainboard/CPU testen kann? Mein PC geht seit paar Tagen nicht mehr an, laut Status LED beim CPU Initialisieren. CPU neu einsetzen, anderer RAM/nur einzelne Slots, Mainboard Batterie raus rein, BIOS neu flaschen. Alles nicht geholfen, bleibt beier CPU Status LED hängen... und würde gerne wissen ob wirklich mein Ryzen 3900 einfach so aufgegeben hat oder mein Asus B550 Mainboard :/ Oder wer noch Tips? #PC #reperatur #repaircafe #TechSupport #AMD #Asus

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Bob Young @fifonetworks@infosec.exchange · Jun 25, 2026

“Bob, one of my employees can send email from his iPhone, but he’s not receiving any emails.” Well, that’s backwards – usually I see problems the other way around; they can receive, but not send. I tried working with him on a phone call yesterday morning, but when you can’t see the screen, tech support is more difficult. The client’s main business location is in a town less than an hour from my office, so I went to their location after lunch to work on it in person. Oh, so many details were left out! It turned out that he wasn’t receiving emails on his iPhone, his iPad, or his laptop – but he could send from the phone and the laptop. And... the problem started in March, and was continuous from then until now! Okay. First things first. Let’s log into Outlook on the web and see whether that works. I’m starting to have a hunch that I’ve seen this problem before, with other clients. Outlook on the web looks the same. So I went into the Rules settings, and there was the culprit. The rule was named “....” That’s it, the only rule, and the rule name was just four dots. I clicked the drop-down arrow to expand the rule. And the rule said, on incoming mail, move it to the Deleted Items folder and mark it as read! So he was receiving email all along, he just didn’t know it. I looked in the Deleted Items folder, and there were more than 1,300 messages, including my two test emails from earlier in the day. I moved everything back to the Inbox. Here’s what happened. In March someone had started sending email pretending to be this employee. He changed his email password, and the outbound spam stopped. That’s all the company did. They thought the problem was solved. Well, that locked the cybercriminal out, but it didn’t delete the rule that the cybercriminal had created to cover their activity. That rule didn’t get deleted until yesterday, June 24. THE LESSON If you believe your email has been compromised, after securing your account, log into each device, and especially the web instance, and look for rules you didn’t create. If a device was compromised, the malicious rule may be in Outlook’s rules on the device. This scenario can also happen in other email apps, like Thunderbird, and in other web-based email accounts, like Gmail. Whether it’s web-based or app-based, look for rules or filters that you were unaware of, and delete them. #CallMeIfYouNeedMe #FIFONetworks #email #TechSupport #HelpDesk Cybersecurity - Networks - Wireless – Telecom – VoIP

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Bob Young @fifonetworks@infosec.exchange · Jun 27, 2026

“Bob, my printer quality is low. Please come fix it.” I drove to the client’s office. It’s a small business, about a dozen employees. The VP fills multiple rolls, something that you’ll understand if you’re in a small business yourself. She’s Head of HR, and also Senior Accountant. When I got there, she said, “I can’t print the employee insurance cards. Look at this mess. They’re illegible.” Thanks, Delta Dental, for issuing insurance “cards” as PDF files where the text on the back of the cards is in about 3-point font. Love you for that. Anyway, to start, the black toner on the laser printer was out. She replaced it with a toner cartridge that was OPEN, out of its wrapper, laying on a counter. When the first cartridge was installed, the printer had a “low toner” message. With the replacement cartridge, the one that was already open, it showed zero black toner. Now it wouldn’t print the insurance cards at all. She looked around and found a box with new toner cartridges in it. All four: black, magenta, cyan, yellow. The box still had the form fitting Styrofoam package filler, and each toner cartridge was sealed in plastic. I thought, “Now we’re getting somewhere!” But no. No, we were not getting closer to a solution. We put the new black toner cartridge in the printer, closed the top, and the LCD screen said, “Insert the black toner cartridge.” It didn’t even recognize it. Can you guess now? They bought a box of off-brand of toner cartridges to save money. I said, “Okay, there’s nothing more to do here until you get good toner cartridges. I recommend sticking with the manufacturer’s cartridges for the most reliable print quality.” The VP said, “Those cost too much! I’m not paying for those cartridges!” So I didn’t fix the company’s printer problem, and I’m fine with that. I correctly diagnosed the problem and prescribed an effective cure. There comes a point when you can’t blame your problems on Tech Support. You have to own your decisions. It’s your responsibility when you decide that you won’t take action, or won’t spend money on proper repairs. THIRTY MINUTES LATER... While I was working on a different problem for one of the other people, about thirty minutes later the VP came out of her office and said, “I just ordered two brand-name black toner cartridges. They’ll be here Monday.” She just had to mull it over for awhile, I guess, and wrap her head around the idea that quality is worth paying for, if it brings the desired results. THE LESSON It’s not always about fixing the technology. Sometimes, it’s about fixing the decision maker. #CallMeIfYouNeedMe #FIFONetworks +1 206-465-2422 #email #TechSupport #HelpDesk Cybersecurity - Networks - Wireless – Telecom – VoIP

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konstruct @konstruct@woof.tech · Apr 30, 2026

can a VPN allow me to "simulate" LAN connections to my home devices without using the wifi? #AskFedi #DuckDuckFedi #TechSupport

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Windy city

@pheonix@hachyderm.io · Apr 12, 2026

Is this something IT people deal with regularly? Or is this an outlier? 🤔 #askfedi #sysadmin #it #technology #email #techsupport #linux #windows

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Dima @dima@dol.social · Apr 10, 2026

I finally defeated the final boss of my backup migration to Proton Drive. For months, I have been trying to sync my 500GB media library (around 80k files) to Proton Drive. Every single time, the sync crashed with the exact same error: "1 item failed to backup." The only clue I had was a blurry thumbnail named "Asset 1". No date, no metadata, no search tags. I was so frustrated that I even asked Proton support to completely wipe my encrypted volume so I could start from scratch. The result was exactly the same. Finding this file became a manual protocol. I spent months periodically scanning through thousands of files just looking for a visual match to that tiny thumbnail. I finally found it today. It was an old scan from 2017. It was completely frozen - uneditable, unindexed, and gave an error when I tried to export it from my phone. I managed to track it down via macOS. When I forced an export there, the truth came out: it was not an image at all. It was a .pdf file somehow saved into the photo gallery, and it was silently breaking the entire upload queue. Removing it fixed everything. The sync is finally 100% complete. The relief of finally closing this mental background process is unmatched. #ProtonDrive #SelfHosted #DataHoarder #TechSupport #Backup #TechPhilosophy #DataMigration #Fediverse

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Josh (I fight for the users!) @josh@hactivedirectory.com · Apr 03, 2026

Me: Hello hi yes I have evidence that your system is not working. Support: Interesting, could you please provide evidence of something else entirely? Me: Er, uh, I mean sure, maybe? Did... I think you misunderstood yourself? #techsupport #it #tech #infosci #infotech

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My Actual Brain @my_actual_brain@fosstodon.org · Feb 26, 2026

If I am all in on the Apple ecosystem, is there any reason to keep using Firefox over Safari? I’m going to combine my personal and work user account (self-employed) and I was thinking of using Firefox for work and Safari for personal to keep certain things seperate. Is this a dumb way to handle what I am doing? #apple #firefox #TechSupport #foss

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