Panic Button - support help for the clueless

Filed under: Business, Developer, Internet, Text, Utilities, Windows, E-mail, Productivity, Microsoft, Freeware, Open Source

Panic Button - support help for the clueless

by Jason Clarke Oct 3rd 2006

Running the risk of making assumptions about our readership, I'd venture to guess that most of the people reading this blog have been in a position of having to support some of their less computer-savvy friends and relatives with the use of Windows and software in general. If you've ever been in that position, you probably understand the frustration the creator of Panic Button was experiencing when they decided to make this program.

Panic Button is a simple program that sits in a user's system tray innocuously, doing nothing. Where it becomes useful is at the moment where the computer displays an error message that is bewildering to the user. Rather than clicking OK or Cancel on the error and continuing on until they run into more trouble then calling you up and saying "I got some kind of error, I'm not sure what it said. Was it important?", the user simply clicks the Panic Button in the system tray while the error message is on the screen. It takes a screenshot of the error message, then offers the user a simply dialog to type out a brief description of what they were trying to do, and what problem they might be experiencing. When the user clicks Send, the screenshot and message get automatically emailed to a pre-determined email address.

It's so slick and just makes sense.

Tags: email screenshot, email support, EmailScreenshot, EmailSupport, Panic Button, PanicButton, screen shot, ScreenShot, software support, SoftwareSupport

Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

Diddle said 3:01PM on 10-03-2006

FINALLY! I have SO many clients who can make use of this. I'm going to send the author a donation! :D

derrick said 12:08PM on 10-04-2006

OMG I think my life finally got just a little easier. I support two people that have honestly never used computers before in their lives and the amount of problems I get from them is ridiculous.

Richard said 12:57PM on 10-04-2006

Neat utility. I have lots of clients for which this will be perfect.

Utter Doul said 5:50PM on 10-04-2006

PrtScn, open Word/Wordpad/Outlook, Ctrl-V.

That said, yes this might be easier to teach to really dense users, but if they are that dense, well...

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