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My parents learned to not ask me for tech support that isn't for them without proper consideration. After I asked my dad how he felt when people asked him for medical advice for their friends, it kind of clicked in his mind.
For extended family, I changed my phone number and email address then refused to share it with anyone who didn't respect my time. Same went for people who shared my number with those same relatives. Sort of extreme but after the umpteenth phone call about connecting the digital camera to the PC using USB turned into how to edit them and send through email but oh the email client isn't working and that is what the real reason for the call, it felt justified.
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My dad doesn't ask lightly, he either thinks it'll be easy for me, or he's tried everything there is to try.
Other than that I never get asked for computer support 
I got asked a few times, but my answer is usually "I don't know much of computers. I can write kick-ass software, but whenever the computer doesn't do what it's supposed to do I call support too."
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And so a another Code Project rule of Software Development is born: Never let your relatives know you're a software developer.
Or several more!
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People: "So what do you do for a living?"
Me, sweating, thinking of a lie: "I'm a male prostitute!  "
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Sander Rossel wrote: "I'm a male prostitute!
Go for Gigolo - Wikipedia - it's more sophisticated. 
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kmoorevs wrote: I've got almost two decades in CR
Why haven't you switched careers yet?  
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My sincere condolences on the loss of your weekend.
My rule is that is anyone asks me about Crystal Reports, my response is always "What is Crystal Reports? I've never heard of it", even if doing so will make me look like an idiot. In my mind, it's better to have people think I'm an idiot than to solve a problem like this for them.
Because if you help, and you succeed, then they'll see you as a Crystal Reports expert, and they'll come to you with all of their future Crystal Reports problems. And they'll also tell all their friends and cow-orkers you're a Crystal Reports expert, and pretty soon you'll be doing an extra 20 hours a week of off-the-books Crystal Reports work.
Now, if that sounds like your idea of a good time, then go for it! To each their own. I'd rather be seen as a bumbling oaf.
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Yeah, I could do that, but this is my dad and he knows I know about CR and he also raised me and all...
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We are in the process of converting to DevExpress reports from Crystal which has caused a plethora of problems over the years. After the initial pain and other than a couple of very complex reports yet to be converted, it has all been fairly straightforward. Again, there was pain at the start but easier now.
Keep your friends close. Keep Kill your enemies closer.
The End
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The company where I used CR switched to DevExpress for a couple of reports.
I never had the pleasure of working with their reporting tools, but I remember the problem was that our users couldn't create their own reports, while with CR they could.
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Always a trade off. You could give them MS Access...
Keep your friends close. Keep Kill your enemies closer.
The End
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For as long as Crystal Reports has been around, all I've ever heard are horror stories. I've never heard anyone who was enthusiastic about the product. The anecdotal evidence has been so damning that, whenever I've needed a printable report, I've generated HTML into a file and ShellExecute'd the document with the verb 'print'.
I admit I've never used Crystal Reports myself. Is it really that bad? If so, how does it keep selling? Is it a case of "it's the only game in town, so we're stuck with it"?
Software Zen: delete this;
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Yes, it's really that bad if you're a programmer.
The designer works well enough.
You install CR and you can create beautiful reports, even if you're not a programmer (which is exactly the problem).
But as soon as you need to implement it in your software you're in for a world of pain.
I once had a piece of code that worked, I was setting some properties and then printed the report.
Or at least I thought it worked, until we had two tables with the same name, but in different schema's.
Turned out one of the properties I set made CR forget the schema.
I had to drill into a whole new API just to set the schema.
Also, changing the order in which I set the properties made a huge difference.
Setting A then B resulted in a working report, doing it the other way around made the report forget it's table names, schema's, everything.
And then there's the issue of getting it to work on the computers of people who don't have CR installed...
It's all old COM stuff, so they need to install something, but neither the website nor the documentation are very clear on what that is.
I believe it also matters if you build x86 or x64 and which runtime you install.
All things considering, avoid it like the plague.
Why we still use it is because programmers don't make the choice, but the business does.
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A member this morning can't get an article to work, so he posts a QA question. I suggest he ask the author.
He gives the author fifteen minutes to reply before he's back wanting me to fix it. I check and it's 03:00 where the article author lives.
Now I know that the modern generation expect immediate gratification, but ...
When I started, you had to physically go to the library, wait until it opened at 09:00, spend a few hours finding the right book, and then read it. All of it. Because there was no "text search" in a paper based book in those days. Then if it wasn't clear, you could write to the author - care of the publisher - and you might (if you were lucky) get a response in a month or so, if he wasn't too busy.
Sometimes I think the speed of information availability is eroding the ability to think and reason about a problem. 
Sent from my Amstrad PC 1640
Bad command or file name. Bad, bad command! Sit! Stay! Staaaay...
AntiTwitter: @DalekDave is now a follower!
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TLDR. GIVE ME CODEZ NOW PLZ!
98.4% of statistics are made up on the spot.
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Can't you just be glad that rudimentary skills of reading and writing are still there, instead of communicating with grunts and jerky gestures?
I have lived with several Zen masters - all of them were cats.
His last invention was an evil Lasagna. It didn't kill anyone, and it actually tasted pretty good.
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CodeWraith wrote: instead of communicating with grunts
I recently read Einstein did that too and he's a genius!
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Just work too much for the government and you will have grunts (= army men) around you all day.
I have lived with several Zen masters - all of them were cats.
His last invention was an evil Lasagna. It didn't kill anyone, and it actually tasted pretty good.
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Give it a while, emoticons will soon replace the longer words and phrases. Imagine - an entire datalayer in one (or two if dealing with Oracle) little smiley faces!
A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, navigate a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly. Specialization is for insects! - Lazarus Long
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I sense a new programming language coming in the near future using only emoji.
if (Object.DividedByZero == true) { Universe.Implode(); }
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ποΈππ©
Sent from my Amstrad PC 1640
Bad command or file name. Bad, bad command! Sit! Stay! Staaaay...
AntiTwitter: @DalekDave is now a follower!
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I thought two would be enough for even Oracle - is this for the script whose name shall not be mentioned? And which I am currrently working in (and researching Michael Anderle' Kutherian Gambit series, gathering many-lettered and imaginative curses to apply to the efforts of those before me. Read one or two, you will get a much fuller appreciation of imaginative cursing)
A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, navigate a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly. Specialization is for insects! - Lazarus Long
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I agree - programming ( and a lot of other things ) has become a cut and paste job , I do use the web to research something new to me but never use anything I don't understand - I admire your ( and others ) patience on Q & A - I couldn't do that - you must have a library of stock answers for a lot of them
We canβt stop here, this is bat country - Hunter S Thompson RIP
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Same here, mostly, except I had the obligatory book case full of manuals in binders. And, if you couldn't find it in the manuals, and you were super desperate, you were forced to track down that one person, either in the office or by phone (at the vendor), who "knew the answer" and beg for their time.
Or, more likely, you weren't quite that desperate and simply found a workaround for the issue by yourself.
Fun stuff...don't miss those days 
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