Today Dan (host family guy) was having problems with his computer and his connection to work. I heard him talking on the phone with Technical Support when I got back from grabbing lunch from Safeway.
After a couple of minutes he called us out there to take a look at the picture on the new HD TV with the DVD player. It’s quite impressive.

So anyway, he was sat there on hold and he showed me his problem. I discovered that he is usign Citrix, something I’ve never seen before in my life and I only have a vague idea of what it does.
I noted the error message and came back to my bedroom. I searched on Google and found numerous links with information on how to fix the problem. Shortly afterwards I went out to the landing where Dan was sat at the computer and he was told by Technical Support to re-download/install part of Citrix so he could connect and download a file or something.

BULLSHIT!

Google told me that IE stores a shitload of data in Temp Internet Files and this means that the file that Citrix needs can’t be retrieved in time for the connection to avoid timing out.
Solution? Delete the Temporary Internet Files and make it use less disk space in future.

Now, that was simple, it worked and I was glad.

But if Dan hadn’t mentioned it to me then he would have spent half an hour downloading and installing some Citrix software to end up with the exact same problem as before… Then he’d spend another half an hour on the phone to technical support while they racked their tiny little brains for an answer.

All of this problem solving, especially ahead of paid tech support people, made me really miss being technical support for other people.
I was good at that stuff, better than people who are still doing it professionally now.
I want a job. Continue reading →