Helping you help others with their tech
YOU’RE READING TECHLIFE right now, which probably means that you’re the go-to guy or gal when anybody you know has technical problems. It might be your kids, your parents, your neighbours, your extended family... when something weird starts happening on their techno-things, they call you. And that usually means going to another person’s computer and trying to figure out what is wrong. Or not, if you install the tools we’re going to be talking about this month.
Below, we look at three tools we find invaluable for managing other people’s PCs. They’re not enterprise class management tools — they’re just simple apps you can install on your PC and on the devices that you find yourself (willingly or not) in charge of managing.
TEAMVIEWER
www.teamviewer.com FREE FOR NON-COMMERCIAL USE There are any number of remote control and remote viewing apps available, but TeamViewer stands head and shoulders above nearly all of them. It’s easy to use and understand, has built-in communication tools and works across platforms. It will work with Windows, Mac, ChromeOS and Linux PCs. It will also work PC-to-mobile and mobile-to-PC. To use TeamViewer for remote support, you just need to install the TeamViewer Host application on all the devices you intend to control. That can include mobiles, as well as PCs — yes, you can remote control Android mobiles with TeamViewer (you can also control PCs from mobiles).
There’s also a downloadable app called TeamViewer QuickSupport that requires no installation on the part of the user — they can just download and run it. Once you’ve got control of the computer using QuickSupport, you can use that control to install a permanent Host that can be set up for anytime access.
To control the remote device, you need to install the main TeamViewer app. This app includes both a viewer and a host.
Typically, the process looks something like this: Over the phone, you tell the other person to download and run TeamViewer QuickSupport. When they do, they will be given an ID and a password. They can read these out over the phone to you. In TeamViewer on your PC or device, you type the ID into the field under Control Remote Computer, click on Connect, then enter the passcode. They will get a confirmation popup and then remote control should immediately start. If you click on the ‘Files & Extras’ menu while remote controlling, you can install TeamViewer Host and set it up for permanent access.
KASPERSKY SAFE KIDS
www.kaspersky.com.au/safe-kids FREE OR $20 PER YEAR FOR PREMIUM When it comes to managing the online activity of children, the new breed of cloud-managed parental controls is the crèmedela crème. They are so much easier and more powerful than the old method of installing big client apps on individual devices and then having to constantly access those devices to manage them.
With cloud-managed parental controls, you just install a small host on the PCs or mobile devices that your kids use. Then to manage it, you log into a website to set policies for the devices and users. You can control what sites the kids can visit, when they have internet access, what they can do on social media, what apps they can use and when, and when they can make and receive phone calls. They also often have location tracking as well.
There are a number of cloud parental control system around now, and we recommend Kaspersky’s Safe Kids Premium. We should note that we actually don’t think Kaspersky Safe Kids is the best cloud parental control software. ContentWatch Net Nanny 7, Symantec Norton Family Premier and Qustodio are arguably better services.
But Kaspersky has two big things going for it: the low cost and unlimited device support. You can install the client on as many devices as you like, and it won’t cost you extra.
There’s also a free version of Safe Kids that has site filtering and online time management, but lacks social media and mobile communications controls. (Our previous favourite free service, Norton Family Free, is no longer available).
MICROSOFT MANAGEMENT CONSOLE
FREE IN WINDOWS Unless you’re a sys admin by trade, you may be only dimly aware that there’s this thing built into Windows called the Microsoft Management Console, or MMC.
MMC is a console into which you can “Snap-in” various system management tools. You can Snap-in the Windows Defender, Task Manager and Services control, for example. Once you do that, you can quickly access those features from the MMC without having to dig for their individual settings.
Here’s the thing — it’s not just your own computer’s management tools that you can plug into the MMC. You can plug in the management tools for other people’s systems as well. So you could Snap-in the Task Manager and Windows Defender controls for your mother’s system, for example, so you can perform a quick check on her PC just from the console. Obviously, you will need permission — an admin account on your client PC — but once you’ve set that up, controlling it should be very easy. Here’s how it all works: Start MMC. Just go to the search bar in Windows and type “MMC” and press Enter. MMC will start, and by default, the console is empty. It does nothing until you add Snap-ins. Go to ‘File > Add/Remove Snap-in’. A list of available Snap-ins will appear. Select one you want to add to the Console and click Add. When you add a Snap-in that supports remote control (such as Task Manager), you’ll get a popup. Select the computer you want this Snap-in to manage. It’s here you can select a different computer to manage. Click on the radio button for ‘Another computer’, and then browse the network to find the computer. You can also type in an IP address, which allows remote management over the internet (though the other person will need to have a static IP, as well as proper firewall permissions set up to do that). If the admin user account you set up on the other PC is different to your current account, you’ll also need to check the ‘Connect as another user’ box, then Set User to enter the username and password. Once you’re done adding and clicked OK, the Snap-in will appear in the main window, listed under the name of the remote computer. Clicking on it will give you access to the controls for that computer. You can continue to add as many Snap-ins as you like — although some may not have remote control options or be available in every version of Windows.
As you can see, MMC can get a little technical, and it may not be for everyone. But even just the basics, like adding Windows Defender, Task Scheduler (for backups) and Services can make support quite a bit easier. And making the job of being ‘the family tech support person’ easier is what we’re all about.