Copilot 2.0 supports Macs

I love my mother, which is why I gave her my old G5 iMac (the last of the G5 iMacs) but she isn't really all that tech savvy. To her credit she has gotten much better with surfing the web, and doing email but if a problem crops up on her iMac (which is rare, but it does happen) she calls her own personal tech support agent: me.

I'm not the only person who knows the joys of trying to talk a frustrated parent through some troubleshooting technique. I have often thought about installing VNC, or Apple Remote Desktop on her machine, but I she lives in VA and I live in PA. When I visit her I want to spend time talking and not fiddling with her computer so I can make sure I'll be able to connect remotely when needed.

Enter Copilot, the Fog Creek online 'assistive service' that allows you to connect to a remote computer using a small app and a website. Copilot 2.0 now supports OS X 10.2, and later, as well as both Safari and Firefox. No configuration is required, and the pricing structure is very interesting. 5 bucks will get you 24 hours of unlimited access, and if you find yourself using Copilot more than that there are subscription plans available that should suit your needs.

You can read more about Copilot at this post on Joel On Software, and to get a glimpse into the Mac dev side of things check out this post on Red Sweater blog.

Next time my mom runs into a problem I know who my copilot will be (see what I did there?).