The easiest way to learn something is with a teacher by your side.  Our tutorial videos are the next best thing, but there may not be a video on exactly what you want to learn.  We love teaching people one-on-one.  It teaches us what people need to learn!  Then we translate that into our articles and videos. In our traveling lifestyle, we don’t often get the opportunity to sit with people one-on-one.  Yesterday we did.

We’re currently parked at an RV service lot and the person parked next to us happens to be a Geeks on Tour member. She took the opportunity to come ask us a couple questions about her new Samsung Galaxy S5 phone.  I recently bought the same phone, so I was happy to help.  Later, one of our members asked a question on our forum that I couldn’t answer without seeing her screen.  I called her on the phone and we set up a remote session where I could see her screen and tell her what to do. We use several different tools for that, Google+ Hangouts, Join.me, Teamviewer, and more. Sometimes it’s easy to get set up, sometimes not, but it’s always valuable once we get it going.  It’s not like having the teacher sit beside you, it IS having the teacher sit beside you … just thru the magic of the Internet!

Since our RV was in the service shop (Master Tech in Elkhart) for the afternoon, I took the opportunity to spend the afternoon with our good friends Nick and Terry Russell of Gypsy Journal fame. They were parked at Elkhart campground and I knew that Nick just bought the same Galaxy S5 phone and we could probably both learn a few things by comparing notes. He says he enjoyed the session, and I picked up a couple of pointers. The main thing I’m always on the lookout for is what are the important things that people need to learn. In many of my recent sessions with people on their smartphones, a recurring issue has been their contact lists. Smartphones can gather contacts from many different sources including contacts entered directly on the phone, Facebook friends, and Google account contacts.  This means that many people will see lots of duplicates, and have a royal mess on their hands.  I decided long ago to limit the contacts seen on my phone to only my Google account contact list.  That way, I can manage them on the computer, and when I get a new phone all I have to do is enter my Google account and I have all my contacts.  I’m putting that on my list of tutorial videos to make!

Most of our personal learning sessions are informal and spontaneous for friends, but we do offer it as a service. Sessions can be either in person or online remotely. See our Store for pricing information. Use our Contact page to schedule a session.