When the boss says “I have a problem,” my ears perk up. Lifehacker is fine; we haven’t been blown up by PAM. However, Melissa can’t get her Gmail to load no matter what she tries — an issue that’s been plaguing her for months. It’s a peculiarity that makes me go “hmmmm,” since I never have issues loading Gmail.

About 10 per cent of women have difficulty getting pregnant or staying pregnant, so chances are good that someone you love is facing or will face infertility. But if you haven’t experienced it yourself (or even if you did but your circumstances were different), it might be hard to know what to say or do to support them.

When a friend is trying to open up to you about their depression, anxiety, or other mental health issue, it can be hard to know how to respond. We’ve come a long way, but there is still considerable stigma to admitting that you’re coping with mental health issues. If your friend is talking to you at all, they’re taking a huge step.

Close to 30 per cent of pregnancies end in miscarriage, by one estimate. And yet so many mums and dads still suffer in silence. How do you support a friend or family member who has lost a baby? October is Pregnancy and Infant Loss Awareness Month, and in a powerful Reddit thread, people shared what you can really do to help.

Getting diagnosed with a serious illness that requires a lot of medical intervention is an extremely stressful experience. There’s a lot to navigate, and as the friend, family member or even casual acquaintance of someone going through a difficult health scenario, you want to help ease the burden, not make it worse. Here’s what you should and shouldn’t say to someone who is ill.

The circumstances surrounding death are always a surprise. Even when it isn't sudden, when it has been expected for weeks - months, even - there is always the shock of absence and loss, and the overwhelming feeling that comes with all of the details that need to be tended to while in the throes of grief.

It's in those moments that people tend to neglect their own well being, as self-care often ends up as a last priority after taking care of children and sorting out funeral arrangements.

Today's release of security updates for Windows XP, Windows 8 and Windows 8.1 signals an about-face by Microsoft. In the wake of the WannaCry outbreak, the intention was to stem the spread of a virulent and damaging ransomware attack. But should the company keep patching an operating system that has been out of mainstream support for over eight years and extended support for three?

Windows Vista will disappear from Microsoft's list of supported software in just four weeks. As the successor to Windows XP, Vista promised a lot but delivered little.

Group texts can be annoying sometimes, especially if you got added to a conversation with people you don't know. But they can also be a great way to reach out to your closest friends all at once and bring you closer together.

Reliable Android updates are a key selling point of Google's Nexus line of phones. Even Nexuses have an expiration date, though. Now, Google has a published list of when you can stop expecting updates for your Nexus phone or tablet.

We've talked about using the public to motivate you before, but a recent meta-analysis of 138 different studies and experiments suggests it may, in fact, be the best method for making any real progress toward your goals.

When you boil things down, your relationships with others are a support structure. If you wonder from time to time how you can be a better partner, or be a better friend, it's incredibly simple: support their dreams.

Working in the IT department is often a thankless job. You're like the invisible behind-the-scenes worker who is only noticed when something breaks -- and then you're blamed for it. Here are seven misconceptions about tech support reps and the IT department you should know so you can work better with the IT guy or gal.

We all know those people who run into technical trouble with their devices and just want them fixed. They're not interested in learning to help themselves, and you don't have time to help every time they get an error message. Luckily, there are ways to get them help they can turn to -- help that isn't you. Here's how.

Does this kind of conversation ring any bells? "It says it's connecting now…oh hang on…are you in yet? No? I'm sure it said it was connecting…let me try this, wait a second…are you in?"

Between call centres and endless phone menus, it's no surprise more of us turn to social media when we need customer service. Some companies are responsive . . . others, not so much. Getting the best, fastest help over social media is part art and part science. Here are some tips to get the best results, from someone who helps people over social media for a living.

We've all been there: You call customer service, get bounced around, transferred, and dropped. Or worse, your issue never gets resolved even after you talk to someone. You probably know you can escalate to a manager, or even higher, to "executive" support. But at that level, there's an art to getting what you want. Here's what you need to know.

Whether you do it professionally or just for friends and family, tech support can be frustrating sometimes. Maybe you've tried getting out of it or convincing people to do it themselves or maybe you really enjoy it. Either way, you probably have some horror stories to share.

Support roles often pay peanuts, but in tech companies they do expose you to the workings of your product in a way that's hard to replicate elsewhere. That seems to be one of the key reasons Facebook makes all its senior engineers perform "oncall duty", where they fix urgent problems with the site, for a two-week period multiple times a year.