This holiday season, the best gift you get could be the best gift you give: a reprieve from being the help desk. A subscription to an online tech support service could do a world of good for the less PC-savvy people in your life, and get you off the hook at the same time. While you're at it, why not make it easier to help others by setting up remote access to their computers?

Many of us take pride in never having spent a dime on a PC technician. But if your relatives are anything like mine, you know that this trait doesn't necessarily run in the family. My father refuses to learn how to program the DVD player/recorder, never mind troubleshooting a software conflict. To him, a malfunction isn't a grudging invitation to figure out how technology works: It's a nuisance, period.

Even if Dad's equipment is under warranty, a third-party tech support plan might still be a good idea: When malfunctions involve products from different manufacturers, calling multiple tech support staff can lead to a back-and-forth of incriminations like a hall of mirrors.

Some support services offer help via phone and instant messaging; others rely on e-mail or postings to their Web site. That may work fine for folks who understand the workings of a computer, but for a technophobe like my father--for whom electronics manuals are a never-ending maze of bad instructions--I'm partial to the idea of a service that uses screen sharing. That way, he can watch the technician take control of the PC and fix the problem, without having to know which menus are what, or understand what the Registry is. Of course there's the "wow" factor of watching someone far away take control of your computer--not to mention a bit of Big Brother paranoia. But my hope is that even my dad can follow the visual breadcrumbs and learn to fix a few problems for himself. Plus, there's no chance that he'll delete critical files (though I'm sure he'll do so later).

Two services that use screen sharing are Tech24 and PlumChoice. Tech24 charges $30 per half hour. PlumChoice charges $25 per month, but allows only a half hour of help per month for that price; an extra 15 minutes costs $23. In contrast, Ask Dr. Tech, which doesn't use screen sharing, charges a more reasonable $89 a year for phone and e-mail support, but doesn't offer a monthly plan.

Give Yourself Remote Control

Once my father's gift subscription runs out, he'll likely re-enlist me as his PC's doctor. But he lives too far away for me to make many house calls. So this holiday season I'm setting up remote access to his computer. It won't be as fancy as what the techs at PlumChoice use, but it should be enough to help him in a pinch.

PlumChoice uses a customized version of GoToAssist. This is a Web-based tech support application developed by Citrix, the company that makes GoToMyPC, the popular remote access program. But unless you plan on starting a tech support business or becoming your company's IT help desk, it's unlikely you'll plunk down the cash for this professional app.

A happy medium might be the company's GoToMeeting, which costs $49 per month, or $39 per month if you make a one-year commitment. As its name suggests, GoToMeeting is designed for holding online get-togethers. But you can use its remote access feature to take control of a troublesome PC. If you're the meeting organizer, an attendee can give you control of their PC's keyboard and mouse while you both view the screen in a browser window and talk on the phone, or communicate via the app's text chat window.

If you'd prefer a one-time expense over a monthly fee, you could buy remote access software like Symantec's PCAnywhere for $140 or Netopia's Timbuktu for about $170. Neither of these applications is browser-based like GoToMeeting, which could make it more difficult to navigate through a router or firewall. And if you have multiple people enlisting your computer expertise, it can get expensive. For $170, you get two seats with Timbuktu; the next step up costs $600 for ten seats. At the other end of the spectrum, a 30-day license for PCAnywhere costs $20.

Whichever way you go, you'll gain the convenience of being able to fix problems from afar, without the frustrations of walking people through menus and commands over the phone or in emails.

Thanks for Reading

This will be the last installment of The Human Element. In its place, I will be writing a new monthly column about printing technology and digital imaging. We hope you'll enjoy our additional coverage of these topics; there's a lot of exciting developments to talk about.