Mythical sister can't Googlemail in Edge. Stuck on a page.

Hi,
my legendary, near-mythical Idiot Sister called with an issue.

She opens up Micky's Edge [I'm guessing, here but she doesn't seem
to have Internet Expploiter on her laptop] [please don't ask why. I
did and regretted it.].

She goes to Google mail. No, I can't decipher *how* but I think
she just uses either a bookmark in her history or "mail" in the search
field. She doesn't use an address field, not *ever*.

She logs in. A page appears. It is a "Teachers' Assistant
Management" page or something of the like. Sorry, I can't be more
specific, she's none too good with the words.

Apparently, her instance of Edge (if that's what it is) does not
have a toolbar, menu-bar or an address field so she can't kill the
page.

She has killed her Edge window. She has rebooted her lappy. She has
tried (I *think* she has, I tried to talk her through "Windows-key_R"
and "iexplore.exe" but she may have just restarted Edge again) using
Windows' Internet Explorer to Goo-mail but all she sees is that same
damnable page.

She doesn't seem to have Cortana, Siri, Alexa or anything else
helpful in her toolbar at the bottom of her desktop.

She *does* indicate (how, I have no idea) that she may have several
"desktops" open at the same time but I am rather dubious about this
being so as she calls a browser window "my desktop".

The "hamburger-bun" on the right-hand of the browser window does not
offer her anything useful.


Yes, I know I am being bloody frustratingly inexact but I'm trying
to convey complex ideas gleaned from a linguistic and technical numpty
from a distance and doing a ****-poor job of it.

Does any of this sound familiar to anyone? Can anyone decipher her
gibberish to envision what is *really* going on? Can anyone *help* the
poor girly?

I know *I* can't.

I can't even really follow what she's trying to tell me.

Any aid would be appreciated, thank you.

J.

On 20/02/2020 17:37, John wrote:


Any aid would be appreciated, thank you.

She can go back to her old job of being a street hooker. I'm sure
she'll find plenty of aid (and AIDS) there.



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From: John
Newsgroups: alt.comp.os.windows-10
Subject: Mythical sister can't Googlemail in Edge. Stuck on a page.
Date: Thu, 20 Feb 2020 17:37:21 +0000
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J.


--
With over 1.2 billion devices now running Windows 10, customer
satisfaction is higher than any previous version of windows.

On Thu, 20 Feb 2020 17:37:21 +0000, John wrote:


Hi,
my legendary, near-mythical Idiot Sister called with an issue.

She opens up Micky's Edge [I'm guessing, here but she doesn't seem
to have Internet Expploiter on her laptop] [please don't ask why. I
did and regretted it.].

She goes to Google mail. No, I can't decipher *how* but I think
she just uses either a bookmark in her history or "mail" in the search
field. She doesn't use an address field, not *ever*.

She logs in. A page appears. It is a "Teachers' Assistant
Management" page or something of the like. Sorry, I can't be more
specific, she's none too good with the words.

Apparently, her instance of Edge (if that's what it is) does not
have a toolbar, menu-bar or an address field so she can't kill the
page.

She has killed her Edge window. She has rebooted her lappy. She has
tried (I *think* she has, I tried to talk her through "Windows-key_R"
and "iexplore.exe" but she may have just restarted Edge again) using
Windows' Internet Explorer to Goo-mail but all she sees is that same
damnable page.

She doesn't seem to have Cortana, Siri, Alexa or anything else
helpful in her toolbar at the bottom of her desktop.

She *does* indicate (how, I have no idea) that she may have several
"desktops" open at the same time but I am rather dubious about this
being so as she calls a browser window "my desktop".

The "hamburger-bun" on the right-hand of the browser window does not
offer her anything useful.


Yes, I know I am being bloody frustratingly inexact but I'm trying
to convey complex ideas gleaned from a linguistic and technical numpty
from a distance and doing a ****-poor job of it.

Does any of this sound familiar to anyone? Can anyone decipher her
gibberish to envision what is *really* going on? Can anyone *help* the
poor girly?

I know *I* can't.

I can't even really follow what she's trying to tell me.

Any aid would be appreciated, thank you.

I know this bit is really going to help [sarcasm mode *ON*]: she
mentioned that this issue has been going on for "a long while".

About then is when I thought about banging my head against the wooden
desk top. Had she called immediately after the issue started, or at
least on a day close thereto, she may have been able to re-assemble
some bits from her scrambled 3.5-byte memory cache so she could have
told me what she was doing *before* it started. As is, there is no
damned point in asking.

Another point to note, Idiot Sister has, for *decades* enjoyed the
practice of clicking on offers of Browser Hijacking Objects, Toolbar
Installers and other egregious failures of human intelligence. My very
first thought was that one (or fifty thousand) of those may have done
"something" to ****-up her Goo-mail home-page but I don't know enough
about Goo-mail or Edge to be able to track it down.

Again, any aid is welcomed.

And, no, she probably doesn't have "System Restore", backups or
factory reset disks nor would she know how to use such things were
some benevolent sprite [probably me] give them to her.

I'm not being very helpful, am I?



J.

John wrote:
Hi,
my legendary, near-mythical Idiot Sister called with an issue.

She opens up Micky's Edge [I'm guessing, here but she doesn't seem
to have Internet Expploiter on her laptop] [please don't ask why. I
did and regretted it.].

She goes to Google mail. No, I can't decipher *how* but I think
she just uses either a bookmark in her history or "mail" in the search
field. She doesn't use an address field, not *ever*.

She logs in. A page appears. It is a "Teachers' Assistant
Management" page or something of the like. Sorry, I can't be more
specific, she's none too good with the words.

Apparently, her instance of Edge (if that's what it is) does not
have a toolbar, menu-bar or an address field so she can't kill the
page.

She has killed her Edge window. She has rebooted her lappy. She has
tried (I *think* she has, I tried to talk her through "Windows-key_R"
and "iexplore.exe" but she may have just restarted Edge again) using
Windows' Internet Explorer to Goo-mail but all she sees is that same
damnable page.

She doesn't seem to have Cortana, Siri, Alexa or anything else
helpful in her toolbar at the bottom of her desktop.

She *does* indicate (how, I have no idea) that she may have several
"desktops" open at the same time but I am rather dubious about this
being so as she calls a browser window "my desktop".

The "hamburger-bun" on the right-hand of the browser window does not
offer her anything useful.


Yes, I know I am being bloody frustratingly inexact but I'm trying
to convey complex ideas gleaned from a linguistic and technical numpty
from a distance and doing a ****-poor job of it.

Does any of this sound familiar to anyone? Can anyone decipher her
gibberish to envision what is *really* going on? Can anyone *help* the
poor girly?

I know *I* can't.

I can't even really follow what she's trying to tell me.

Any aid would be appreciated, thank you.

Teamviewer ???

Ducks under desk...

For people whose sole skill is clicking on stuff,
maybe you'd make more progress that way, than playing
"20 questions" which you don't seem to enjoy.

https://community.teamviewer.com/t5/...port/ta-p/4795

Note that, Teamviewer is a commercial application. They
"police" the community usage of the tool a bit too much,
and people who are only helping relatives, have their
"service" turned off. It's pretty hard to convince Teamviewer
they're not a "commercial user" who is using Teamviewer
for personal gain (work usage).

Still, try to get her to follow the instructions,
and perhaps, even if it's a Mac, you might be able
to connect and determine it's a Mac.

Teamviewer should be machine to machine over the Internet.
Where the Teamviewer server comes in, is authentication,
figuring out the IP addresses and the like, so a "session"
can be established. As far as I know, the session data
is not recorded at Teamviewer headquarters.

*******

On Windows 10, there are several ways to do mail.

MSEdge
MSEdge (Chrome Edition) - optional, unlikely choice for your sister
iexplore.exe (IE11)
Mail App

The Mail App is a piece of work, likely intended by
Microsoft, just so they could scrape accounts and passwords.

In the picture here, the Mail App is connected to the local
email server I run on-node. When I send test emails, they
don't leave the computer.

https://i.postimg.cc/9fHKmKRx/tool-photo-win10.gif

Paul

On Thu, 20 Feb 2020 19:06 +0000 (GMT Standard Time),
(John K.Eason) wrote:

In article , oard (John)
wrote:

I'm not being very helpful, am I?

Are you sure she isn't using a Mac rather than a Windows machine? :^)

Oh, *YES*!, of this I *can* be sure. The way she describes stuff that
she sees on her screen makes that clear and unambiguous, also, I've
worked on her laptop in years gone by. It is most definitely a
Win-box.

But thank you for the suggestion.

And, if you were trying to be funny, jesting at her expense
considering her technical incompetence, I doubt she'd be offended. She
isn't teched-up enough to know what "Operating System" means so asking
her which one she's using isn't going to garner any useful
information.

I know this as I've tried.

Thanks for trying to help.
J.

On Thu, 20 Feb 2020 15:31:58 -0500, Paul
wrote:

John wrote:
Hi,
my legendary, near-mythical Idiot Sister called with an issue.

She opens up Micky's Edge [I'm guessing, here but she doesn't seem
to have Internet Expploiter on her laptop] [please don't ask why. I
did and regretted it.].

She goes to Google mail. No, I can't decipher *how* but I think
she just uses either a bookmark in her history or "mail" in the search
field. She doesn't use an address field, not *ever*.

She logs in. A page appears. It is a "Teachers' Assistant
Management" page or something of the like. Sorry, I can't be more
specific, she's none too good with the words.

Apparently, her instance of Edge (if that's what it is) does not
have a toolbar, menu-bar or an address field so she can't kill the
page.

She has killed her Edge window. She has rebooted her lappy. She has
tried (I *think* she has, I tried to talk her through "Windows-key_R"
and "iexplore.exe" but she may have just restarted Edge again) using
Windows' Internet Explorer to Goo-mail but all she sees is that same
damnable page.

She doesn't seem to have Cortana, Siri, Alexa or anything else
helpful in her toolbar at the bottom of her desktop.

She *does* indicate (how, I have no idea) that she may have several
"desktops" open at the same time but I am rather dubious about this
being so as she calls a browser window "my desktop".

The "hamburger-bun" on the right-hand of the browser window does not
offer her anything useful.


Yes, I know I am being bloody frustratingly inexact but I'm trying
to convey complex ideas gleaned from a linguistic and technical numpty
from a distance and doing a ****-poor job of it.

Does any of this sound familiar to anyone? Can anyone decipher her
gibberish to envision what is *really* going on? Can anyone *help* the
poor girly?

I know *I* can't.

I can't even really follow what she's trying to tell me.

Any aid would be appreciated, thank you.

Teamviewer ???

I've tried. She's not the most co-operative of Helldesk customers.
She tires easily, gets frustrated when my "English" isn't the
"English" she uses in her daily life and has difficulty explaining
what she sees and following suggestions, orders, demands or hints.




Ducks under desk...

I'm not offended or annoyed, it was a good suggestion and I'd love to
be able to do it.


For people whose sole skill is clicking on stuff,

Oh, she has others, all equally annoying. Installing Browser
Hindrance Objects from emails and the first link to appear on her
search-page results are two of them.



maybe you'd make more progress that way, than playing
"20 questions" which you don't seem to enjoy.

Well, "enjoy" isn't the point, "helping" is supposed to be, but I
take your point.

And I often *do* like to help her, it's just that this time I've got
completely stuck and I have no idea how to proceed. I can't even "see"
what she's trying to describe as being on her screen. That is highly
unusual for me.


https://community.teamviewer.com/t5/...port/ta-p/4795

I'll have a go but I don't like my chances of enlisting her help in
installing *useful* programs. It's not one of her strong suits.

Toolbars in her browser, yes, Firefox instead of Edge, not so much.

Thank you for trying.


Note that, Teamviewer is a commercial application. They
"police" the community usage of the tool a bit too much,
and people who are only helping relatives, have their
"service" turned off. It's pretty hard to convince Teamviewer
they're not a "commercial user" who is using Teamviewer
for personal gain (work usage).

That sounds a little odd, not to mention draconian and Apple-style
restrictive. All the other fora I've used, and I've used *lots*, have
allowed for threads on just about anything, even rival softwares. To
police a forum for anything apart from the obvious illegals strikes me
as petty but it's their server, their software and their game, they
can do what they like with them.

I've never paid for Teamviewer so they don't owe me anything. I don't
think they would even had I done so.


Still, try to get her to follow the instructions,
and perhaps, even if it's a Mac, you might be able
to connect and determine it's a Mac.

It ain't. I've worked on it. Yes, I should have installed TV and
LogMeIn and all of the other goodies but I never had the time to do
so. I was too busy clipping the wings of all the crap she had on it.

It's most definitely a Win-ten box.


Teamviewer should be machine to machine over the Internet.
Where the Teamviewer server comes in, is authentication,
figuring out the IP addresses and the like, so a "session"
can be established. As far as I know, the session data
is not recorded at Teamviewer headquarters.

It wouldn't matter were it so, I'd never fiddle with her files, save
to clear her desktop so I could see it. I do that whenever I get hold
of her box. She seems to have the notion that "save to" only works
when the target id the screen, that "file systems" are for nerds,
geeks and me.

I'm not sure she could *find* the clicky-icon for TV after she
managed to download it, assuming she got that far but it's possibly
worth a try.

Thanks.


*******

On Windows 10, there are several ways to do mail.

MSEdge

Yerp, that's her tool of choice. Probably because it's the first
"clicky" on her screen which is so probably because she uses it.
Win-ten is *ever* so bloody helpful when your desktop is packed full.

MSEdge (Chrome Edition) - optional, unlikely choice for your sister

To put it mildly.

iexplore.exe (IE11)

I tried this. I think she managed to use the Wuin-R combination to
open yet another Edge window. How, I have no idea. She says that her
machine tells her that it doesn't (*have* Internet Exploiter. I find
that difficult to accept but, it being her, just about possible.



Mail App

Yer kidding, yes?

I *once* (actually more than once) tried to give her Thunderbird
instead of, or in addition to web-mailing, both on-board and
PortableApps versions. Even with typed instructions, she couldn't do
it.

Whether that's just bloody-mindedness or sheer lack of ability I have
no idea.


The Mail App is a piece of work, likely intended by
Microsoft, just so they could scrape accounts and passwords.

I've never tried it; I've never needed to and I have little curiosity
for such things these days. I'll keep it in mind as a nuke-the-planet
option if she can't do anything else.


In the picture here, the Mail App is connected to the local
email server I run on-node. When I send test emails, they
don't leave the computer.

https://i.postimg.cc/9fHKmKRx/tool-photo-win10.gif

Thank you.

It seems easy enough, maybe even within her grasp. I may have a go
with it.

But ... why the ****ing *HELL* do the doodyheads at Microsoft use the
same bloody "e" icon for Edge and Exploiter? They are even roughly the
same *colour*. Counld they not have used a cliff- or table-edge for
their new baby?

Okay, that was a little excessively over-reacted to but have you
*ever* tried to distinguish between the two when talking to an Idiot
Sister? Have you ever *managed* it?

No, don't suggest "Menu-bar, Help, About". She doesn't seem to *have*
a menu-bar and I'm not entirely sure she follows me when I try to get
her to customise Edge so one pops up.

She's *difficult*.


Thank you for all of your help.

J.


Paul

On Fri, 21 Feb 2020 15:50:49 +0000, Chris wrote:

On 20/02/2020 20:31, Paul wrote:
John wrote:
*Hi,
*** my legendary, near-mythical Idiot Sister called with an issue.
*** She opens up Micky's Edge [I'm guessing, here but she doesn't seem
to have Internet Expploiter on her laptop] [please don't ask why. I
did and regretted it.].
*** She goes to Google mail. No, I can't decipher *how* but I think
she just uses either a bookmark in her history or "mail" in the search
field. She doesn't use an address field, not *ever*.
*** She logs in. A page appears. It is a "Teachers' Assistant
Management" page or something of the like. Sorry, I can't be more
specific, she's none too good with the words.
** Apparently, her instance of Edge (if that's what it is) does not
have a toolbar, menu-bar or an address field so she can't kill the
page.
** She has killed her Edge window. She has rebooted her lappy. She has
tried (I *think* she has, I tried to talk her through "Windows-key_R"
and "iexplore.exe" but she may have just restarted Edge again) using
Windows' Internet Explorer to Goo-mail but all she sees is that same
damnable page.
** She doesn't seem to have Cortana, Siri, Alexa or anything else
helpful in her toolbar at the bottom of her desktop.
** She *does* indicate (how, I have no idea) that she may have several
"desktops" open at the same time but I am rather dubious about this
being so as she calls a browser window "my desktop".
* The "hamburger-bun" on the right-hand of the browser window does not
offer her anything useful.

* Yes, I know I am being bloody frustratingly inexact but I'm trying
to convey complex ideas gleaned from a linguistic and technical numpty
from a distance and doing a ****-poor job of it.
* Does any of this sound familiar to anyone? Can anyone decipher her
gibberish to envision what is *really* going on? Can anyone *help* the
poor girly?
* I know *I* can't.
* I can't even really follow what she's trying to tell me.

* Any aid would be appreciated, thank you.

Teamviewer ???

Ducks under desk...

Or zoom, then screen share. Requires very little effort from the other
end. Might still be too much, but who knows.

It might be too much but I'll have another go at it.

I'll get back to you.

Thank you.

J.

On 21/02/2020 17.54, John wrote:
On Thu, 20 Feb 2020 15:31:58 -0500, Paul
wrote:

John wrote:


maybe you'd make more progress that way, than playing
"20 questions" which you don't seem to enjoy.

Well, "enjoy" isn't the point, "helping" is supposed to be, but I
take your point.

And I often *do* like to help her, it's just that this time I've got
completely stuck and I have no idea how to proceed. I can't even "see"
what she's trying to describe as being on her screen. That is highly
unusual for me.

Does she have a smartphone? Ask to take photo and send it to you. But it
can be another can of worms to get that done, I know, you may have to
guide her to install suitable app for doing this. BTDT.


--
Cheers, Carlos.

On Sat, 22 Feb 2020 00:01:59 +0100, "Carlos E.R."
wrote:

On 21/02/2020 17.54, John wrote:
On Thu, 20 Feb 2020 15:31:58 -0500, Paul
wrote:

John wrote:


maybe you'd make more progress that way, than playing
"20 questions" which you don't seem to enjoy.

Well, "enjoy" isn't the point, "helping" is supposed to be, but I
take your point.

And I often *do* like to help her, it's just that this time I've got
completely stuck and I have no idea how to proceed. I can't even "see"
what she's trying to describe as being on her screen. That is highly
unusual for me.

Does she have a smartphone? Ask to take photo and send it to you. But it
can be another can of worms to get that done, I know, you may have to
guide her to install suitable app for doing this. BTDT.


That, sir, is a clever thing I hadn't thought of. Thank you. I'll
have a go at convincing her it's a good idea.

Then I'll have a go trying to convince her it's a *possible* idea.

Which of the two will be more onerous is a guess.

Thank you.
J.

On Fri, 21 Feb 2020 15:50:49 +0000, Chris wrote:

On 20/02/2020 20:31, Paul wrote:
snipped

Or zoom, then screen share. Requires very little effort from the other
end. Might still be too much, but who knows.

So, as promised, I'm providing an update to the results of your
suggestion, and the update is ...........

......

Oh, right, *silence*.

I've sent two emails and two texts she can read on her phone and I've
left voicemails. So far, Idiot Sister has yet to have the grace to
bother to respond.

Were she a paying customer, I'd close her account with *extreme*
prejudice. As she's a relative, I don't think she ever even considers
paying for my efforts.

30-odd years of Helldesky type stuff [mostly as an add-on to my
"real" jobs but once you're the fix-it guy you're the fix-it guy
forever for everyone] and she's the *least* co-operative client I've
ever suffered.

Sod her, I'm off to make tea, watch videos or possibly sleep. Maybe
all three at once.


Thank you for helping.

J.

On Sat, 22 Feb 2020 19:02:40 +0000, John wrote:

On Fri, 21 Feb 2020 15:50:49 +0000, Chris wrote:

On 20/02/2020 20:31, Paul wrote:
snipped

Or zoom, then screen share. Requires very little effort from the other
end. Might still be too much, but who knows.

So, as promised, I'm providing an update to the results of your
suggestion, and the update is ...........

......

Oh, right, *silence*.

snipped

So, I got her on the phone. She agreed to read the emails and texts
but I doubt her intention. She was nonplussed when I suggested her
trying to read her Goo-male on her daughter's machine. I think she
sees this as some sort of iffyness with a security risk flavour
because she definitely sounded very reluctant to try it.

She also sounded hesitant to let me play with her toys and she wasn't
enthusiastic about sending me smart-phone images of her screen.

I'm not encouraged by her responses. I doubt she will allow this to
progress towards a solution any time soon so I'm sorry to have
bothered everyone.

Thanks for trying to help.

J.

On Thu, 20 Feb 2020 15:31:58 -0500, Paul
wrote:

John wrote:
Hi,
my legendary, near-mythical Idiot Sister called with an issue.

snipped

Thanks for trying to help.

Not a phrase legendary Idiot Sister is often heard to use.

No response from texted nor emailed suggestions. Extreme reluctance
to even try to help herself when I finally managed to get her on the
'phone. She won't even try to access her Goomale on her daughter's
Win-ten box, though there is zero security implications to doing this,
as I have explained.

So, "Solved".

J.

On Sat, 22 Feb 2020 19:02:40 +0000, John wrote:

On Fri, 21 Feb 2020 15:50:49 +0000, Chris wrote:

On 20/02/2020 20:31, Paul wrote:
snipped

Or zoom, then screen share. Requires very little effort from the other
end. Might still be too much, but who knows.

So, as promised, I'm providing an update to the results of your
suggestion, and the update is ...........

......

Oh, right, *silence*.
snipped

Thanks for trying to help.

Not a phrase legendary Idiot Sister is often heard to use.

No response from texted nor emailed suggestions. Extreme reluctance
to even try to help herself when I finally managed to get her on the
'phone. She won't even try to access her Goomale on her daughter's
Win-ten box, though there is zero security implications to doing this,
as I have explained.

So, "Solved".

J.

In article , oard (John)
wrote:

I'm not being very helpful, am I?

Are you sure she isn't using a Mac rather than a Windows machine? :^)

--
Regards
John ) Remove the obvious to reply...