K-Squared Ramblings » Screenshot

Thoughts on Screenshots for Tech Support

Kelson — Mon, 12 Jul 2010 14:30:12 +0000

I used to get annoyed when someone would send a complete screen shot along with their tech support request. I thought it was a waste of bandwidth when a simple text message would do just as well, and be faster to send, receive and display.

But the thing is, screenshots have their advantages. For one thing, they’re exact. There’s no risk of an error code being mistyped.

More importantly, a screenshot can tell you other information that the user hasn’t thought to mention. This is critical, because the reason people call tech support is because they don’t know how to solve a particular problem…and that often means they don’t know which information is relevant.

Like, say, the fact that they’re running another program which happens to conflict with the one that they’re calling about.

Still, I wish Windows would create a file instead of copying the screen to the clipboard. Users need to paste it into something, so they paste it into what they’re most familiar with: Microsoft Word — something even less suited for sending images by email than a .BMP file created by Paint.

The Perfect 404

Kelson — Thu, 13 Sep 2007 16:32:52 +0000

Digg has a link to a story on creative 404 error pages. Amazingly enough, I managed to look at the page at the exact moment that it had 404 diggs.

How perfect is that?

Full screenshot below:

Digg: Collection of Awesome 404 Pages.

Surviror: Mac OS X

Kelson — Sat, 30 Apr 2005 05:33:13 +0000

In checking my pre-order status for Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger, I noticed this customer recommendation:

I assumed it was yet another book about the OS timed to come out just as people would be interested. No, it’s the 1982 rock album by Survivor, featuring the well-known Rocky III theme…which has now lodged itself firmly in my head.