Panic Button - support help for the clueless

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, freeware, opensource, Panic Button, PanicButton, screen shot, ScreenShot, software support, SoftwareSupport