October 2004
One of the perils of being the family geek is the near-certainty that Uncle Carl, Aunt Min, and even Aunt Min's across-the-street neighbor, will look upon you as their personal tech support guru. As such, you will receive panicky phone calls, and hear statements like "I think I broke the Internet." You could, of course, decline to take on these support chores, and leave your friends and family twisting in the cyberwind. But you won't, for yours is a noble soul; the soul of a superhero.
When those calls come, we're confident that you'll don the mask and cape and head into the night on your mission of mercy. When you do, though, you'd better be carrying more than just a head full of knowledge, bolstered by good intentions. You'll also need tools. Given the mask-and-cape reference, you might expect us to recommend a utility belt, but that would be silly. The tools you need won't fit in a utility belt, and besides it would ruin the drape of the cape. What you want is a serious "go" bag, fully stocked and ready to accompany you at a moment's notice. Here's what it should contain.
Hand Tools. When it comes time to work inside the computer, you don't want to rely on the contents of Uncle Carl's kitchen junk drawer. Instead, buy an inexpensive computer-oriented tool kit from outfits like Cyberguys (www.cyberguys.com), or assemble one yourself. If you choose the latter course, here's a list of the bare minimum it should include:
T15 Torx driver
3/16-inch nut driver
1/4-inch nut driver
1/8-inch flat screwdriver
3/16-inch flat screwdriver
#1 Phillips screwdriver
#2 Phillips screwdriver
Tweezers
Three-claw part grabber/holder
If you're really serious about assembling an all-purpose Go Bag, buying a more elaborate tool kit is the easiest way to be sure of having all the necessary hardware on hand. Belkin's A8E070 65-Piece Tool Kit lists for a non-trivial $77.99, but won't leave you looking for something that isn't there.
Suck and Blow. Opening the ailing system's case will almost certainly expose a large family of dust bunnies that need to be evicted. It's probably safe to assume that Uncle Carl owns a vacuum cleaner, and that he'll be able to ask Aunt Min where it's stored. Of course, if it's an upright model, using it to vacuum the PC's interior will be comical, and then disastrous. In fact, even if it's a canister model, poking its hose into the case's various nooks and crannies is probably a bad idea. Now, carrying your own vacuum cleaner is a bit of a stretch, but you can move the dust to where the household vacuum can effectively remove it. A few gusts of canned air, such as photographers use to clean their lenses, will do the trick. Belkin sells a 3.5-ounce can of the stuff, called the Blaster, for $5.99. It comes with a detachable nozzle that can direct the flow into even the narrowest cranny, and is also part of the A8E070 Took Kit, described above. Alternatively, you could carry Metropolitan Vacuum's $45 ED-3 Electric Duster, which never goes empty as long as AC power is available.
Cables and Adapters. If Uncle Carl is having trouble with a peripheral device, it's very possible that the culprit is a bad cable. Your Go Bag should include VGA, parallel, USB, and FireWire cables, along with adapters to cover the various plug permutations of the latter two types. If the problem is with internet access, working phone and CAT-5/RJ-45 cables could come in handy as well. Round out the section with a USB extension cable, and adapters that allow PS/2 mice and keyboards to connect to the USB port, and vice versa. (If the problem is with a serial device, suggest to Uncle Carl that he buy a replacement built during the present century.)
Flashlight. Even in a well-lighted room the interior of a PC is a dark place. To shed light on its shadowy corners you'll want a flashlight. As a technogeek you'll be tempted to opt for one that uses LEDs instead of a conventional bulb. These are very cool, and you should definitely have one as your everyday flashlight. For occasional use in the Go Bag, it's an unnecessary extravagance. Instead, for a little more than ten bucks get the tried-and-true AA-powered Mini Maglite. Its lens adjusts from flood to spotlighting, and can be removed completely allowing the light to be used as a very bright candle.
Magnifying Glass. The next sentence is printed in four-point type. Pretty hard to read, isn't it! Many of the computer's internal components are labeled with type that's equally tiny. If it turns out that you need to know a serial or part number, a magnifying glass might be essential.
Antistatic Wrist Strap. Like a medical doctor, one of your guidelines should be "first, do no harm." Now, you know better than to shuffle across Aunt Min's wall-to-wall, and then grab hold of the PC's RAM chip, but why take a chance. Grounding wrist straps have been available for years, but our preference is for the newer cordless type. Selling for $13 at Cyberguys, it uses the corona principle to harmlessly discharge static electricity. Note that you have to wear the strap for at least 15 minutes it becomes effective.
Compact Keyboard. Remember what happened the last time you spilled coffee on your keyboard? Did you tell anyone about it? Well, Uncle Carl isn't going to come clean either. He'll just say "It stopped working all of a sudden." A generic compact keyboard costs little more than chump change, and having it on hand can save hours of troubleshooting.
Optical Mouse. Some of that coffee, or even a build-up of dust and grime, could have wound up in Carl's old mechanical mouse. If he's complaining about it being unresponsive, that's probably the reason. To play it safe, put a decent optical mouse in the bag. When it proves to be the solution, unplug it and see how much Carl offers to have you leave it with him. Don't be greedy.
Diagnostic PCI Card. Some problems defy easy detection. If the system refuses to start, the problem could be in one of the core hardware components. The easiest way to determine where such a problem lies is by plugging a diagnostic card into one of the system's PCI slots. One example is the TechAID Diagnostic Card from Soyo. For $65 list, but $35 on the street, it can save hours of troubleshooting time. The result of the test is displayed numerically on a digital readout that's visible on both sides of the card, as well as on a remote display. The numeric codes are decoded in the manual that's part of the package.
USB Thumb Drive. And not just because it's cool. You're going to load the thumb drive's memory with all of the utilities mentioned in connection with the CD-ROM disc that follows.
Utilities on CD-ROM. Many of the problems you'll encounter as a tech support guru working with--how shall we put this--civilians will relate to the system's lack of protective utilities. If it came with anti-virus software, the definitions are probably ancient, and it's almost certainly infected with dozens of adware and spyware files. With that in mind, your software toolkit should include recent installation files for several free programs designed to deal with such gremlins.
To get rid of conventional viruses we recommend the free version of Grisoft's highly regarded AVG Professional Single Edition. It can run a conventional full system scan, both on demand and under the control of a scheduler, and has several background routines that provide active protection from incoming trojans, worms, and other invasions that try to sneak in as part of an e-mail.
If Uncle Carl is complaining about a sudden increase in pop-up ads, or that his Internet Explorer home page keeps changing, the problem is probably rooted in adware and spyware. Those are blanket terms for files or code written to the drive while the system is on line. At best, the results are annoying. At worst, they can facilitate identity theft. Your software toolkit should contain two programs to deal with this menace. The first is Ad-Aware, from Lavasoft. It will find and get rid of most of the adware, and what it misses is likely to be found by the second program. That one is Safer Networking's Spybot - Search & Destroy.
Handcuffs. It goes without saying that the Go Bag itself should look serious enough to contain the Launch Codes. To reinforce that notion, handcuff it to your wrist. Bear in mind, though, that much of the impact will be lost if you arrive at Uncle Carl's and turn out to have left the key at home.