Hacker Newsnew | past | comments | ask | show | jobs | submit | MoonWalk's commentslogin

But still nice to hear. Really timely, too, since my 83-year-old mom called me the other day to help her E-mail a document she prepared in LibreOffice. I installed it on her (seldom-used) computer years ago. So I talked her through E-mailing it with Thunderbird.

And I say "talked," because the jagoffs at Microsoft REMOVED Remote Assistance from every version of Windows used by people who are likely to need it. And MS Office is trash; the more people abandon it the better.

If I can get my mom on Linux... hey now!


>And I say "talked," because the jagoffs at Microsoft REMOVED Remote Assistance from every version of Windows used by people who are likely to need it.

https://rustdesk.com/

But also, you'll notice that giant banner on the linked page. It's because the people "most likely to need it" are also those most likely to fall victim to the increasing number of remote assistance scams.


What's the issue of getting her on Linux? I bet she wouldn't see a difference, especially if its GUI is similar to Windows, like Linux Mint.

If she's anything like my mom, i.e. someone who has been using computers for a while now but never had the confidence to experiment with it, any small change will freak her out and there really is a long tail of those. It's not a matter of Linux not being good enough, being different is already a real problem.

>because the jagoffs at Microsoft REMOVED Remote Assistance from every version of Windows used by people who are likely to need it.

when did they remove quick assist? i thought i used it recently (within a month or two), but maybe im misremembering. a quick google still shows it as available for home installs.


I use Google remote desktop with my mother. It's not perfect but it's adequate.

To continue further down the IT family support software, I use DWService because it seems like it's almost impossible for my sweet friends and relatives to accidentally break it. It's like a cockroach once it's in there and i've been very thankful for that

RustDesk can be self-hosted.

"more than anything it was the incessant push to associate my OS account with an online Microsoft account"

Absolutely. Obnoxious and unacceptable. Then there's the fact that Windows has regressed into a clinic on UI incompetence and defective design.

I put Mint on my 2014 27" Intel iMac and it's slick.


Site blocked as "not secure."

Oh well.


To be fair, iTunes suffered from the same defect at one point. Microsoft is now a clinic on defective design, execution, and attitude. But back then it wasn't that bad.

The iTunes case was also a classis UI 101 blunder combined with stupidity. If there was no iPod plugged in, the "Sync on connection" toggle in iTunes simply disappeared. First of all, when something is inapplicable, you grey it out. You don't just make it disappear.

But in this case, even greying it out would have committed the same blunder, because the default state for this behavior was YES.

So if the hard drive in your computer went bad and you installed the OS fresh on a new one, thinking that all your music was backed up on your iPod, you were right... until you plugged it in.

So, so dumb.

And finally: Apple never addressed the lack of "computer overwrites mobile" and "mobile overwrites computer," which Palm OS syncing nailed in the '90s.


This weeks fun example of 'What will Windows 11 do today?' is that it suddenly wants to max out the Ethernet adapter with nothing. No packets are actually going anywhere but it just ends up hogging the entire data bus until you restart it once or twice.

This is the kind of nonsense we have been putting up with for years.


It never ends. So much of my day is wasted on Windows's defects and clumsiness.


Yep. Your time is FREEEEE!


Paywalled garbage, even if you waste your time "signing up."


You are in good company. I went into Darktable enthusiastically and with willingness to learn its workflow.

What I found was crippling bugs and a piss-poor UI. I've even gone back to it after a few years to see if I'd soften my stance, but nope: It blows.

Part of my beef with it is discussed below; people are acknowledging that it sucks at organizing (and, I submit, browsing). But it purports to do it, so you waste time wrestling with its ineptitude.


The lack of easy browsing is an issue, but Darktable has never purported to provide an image browser / organizer. Quite the contrary, the devs have always been crystal clear that they hate the concept with a fiery passion.


Did they specify why?

The lack of good open-source image browsers has, oddly enough, become a major problem. Only recently did someone float a pretty good one for Mac (FlowVision). I don't know what options there are on other OSes at the moment.


Is what?


Agree. I see it as informative to newcomers as to what they should do themselves.

This is how people learn.


Right. Dude even included the prompt. Exemplary for this community I would hope.


Why is this garbage on the front page?


Guidelines | FAQ | Lists | API | Security | Legal | Apply to YC | Contact

Search: