Posted on 01/24/2007 6:33:13 PM PST by Swordmaker
I received a few e-mails over the weekend from readers who took issue with advice I recently gave to a Web chat participant who asked what he should do to help an elderly friend who was having PC trouble. The questioner said the woman knew nothing about computers and that her Windows machine was besieged with pop-up advertisements.
I probably get two or three variations on this question in the course of each Web chat, and I usually ignore them in favor of more targeted questions because of the difficulty in diagnosing what precisely may be ailing the questioner's computer.
In this case, I bit, and here's what I recommended: "Yes. You can spend many, many hours trying to diagnose the problem, or you can spend perhaps a bit less time backing up any documents and pictures she'd like to keep and then re-installing the operating system."
One reader wrote in to say he thought my advice was jumping-the-gun; another called it "overkill" and said I should have referred the questioner to one of the myriad online forums that try to help people in such situations.
I read both comments several times and after much reflection came to the conclusion that I would give that same advice again to anyone else who asked. But I also decided that I could have offered a bit more of my rationale behind my recommendation, and a bit more instruction on how to do it.
Allow me to explain, but with a caveat: This post represents the fruit of much personal reflection onthe topic. After reading this entire entry, I hope some readers may look at the appearance of problems on their Windows machines (security related or not) as an opportunity to start fresh and set up their computers to block most online threats.
(Excerpt) Read more at blog.washingtonpost.com ...
That's because lots of those get started by some doctor in their "spare time" and end up getting used, passed around, hacked on, etc. Doctors may be smart people, but they aren't software engineers.
That being the case, it's been my experience, that once an application gets in place and is being used it is almost impossible to transfer an organization on to something else.
Reminds me of the old joke:
Q: What's the difference betwwen a doctor and stock broker?
A: The stock broker knows he's not a doctor.
"infinitesimal fraction" LOL!!! You need to learn what a core2duo can do! You mac-boys are wasting them! they can overclock like mad!
Actually, Battle Chess was created originally for Amiga-OS.
22,000,000 Mac OS X users. That's "hardly anybody?"
Find some positive articles and post them Echo. This article doesn't seem to me to be about Vista... its about issues with Windows and the Tech Columnist for the Washington Post recommending people buy Macs.
You want an article about Vista? Try CNET Editors Review of Windows Vista Ultimate. They are not impressed either.
Once you've gotten the majority of the potential to overclock, anything further to be accomplished by "tweaking the clock," to use your quaint term, is merely to get the last "infinitesimal fraction" of a Megahertz out of your already maxed processor.
Usable for what? When I install Linux, it comes with choices of several browsers, a full-featured office suite (word processor, spreadsheet, presentation, and project management), sophisticated graphics manipulation and management programs, money management programs, web, ftp, and dns servers if I want them, tools to allow me to efficiently find, filter, and manipulate data, a choice of full-featured databases, a choice of email clients, web authoring software, development IDEs, multiple desktops, choices of window managers, and more. What do you get with MS-Windows? Notepad, IE, Outlook Express, solitaire? WooHoo!
And the main reason they aren't a problem for Mac's is hardly anybody owns a Mac.
How often to maladjusted egomaniacs attack the little guy? Oh, sure, they go after the occasional windmill but only because they think they are a giant.
Both of the above FUD points are well dealt with HERE.
Not that I'm all that happy with MS but for years they've had games and programs that run on their system.
See above for programs that run on the system.
I don't know of anyone who is "happy with MS" and their spyware/worm/virus magnet. OTOH, I know many satisfied Linux and Mac users who are happy to be able to just use their computers, without having to worry about what today's virus may happen to be.
I find it to be amazing that in 2007, you can still save documents in a system directory with MS-Windows.
When I back up my MIL's and Wife's laptops, all I do is tar (dar actually) the /home directory, and I know I've saved off all files for all users.
Don't really know where you've been, but I use Linux daily, and so do a majority of my associates and clients. One of my clients has a call center staff of over fifty employees that operates in a 100% Linux environment. Linux is quite usable.
Anybody with a library of audio/video files is going to have too much data to put on a thumb drive or upload to a remote server (unless they have a very fast broadband connection). This is a job for an external hard drive.
Yes, that's what I'm referring to. I don't mean some hosted server at a company somewhere; I mean a hard drive box stuffed in a closet somewhere, connected to the local network via wifi.
I've heard that Vista is supposed to solve that problem -- it stores data in My Documents or My Application Data where it belongs, but it looks to a legacy app like the data is stored where the legacy app insists on having it.
However, the average Mac user needs to know how to reinstall the OS about as much as Clark Kent needs to know how to treat a paper cut on his own right hand.
I am so sorry I missed the Amiga. It is Legend. And it did the FX for Sea Quest DSV. Digital Toaster, I remember that.
I attempt to use it almost every day. It just isn't as nice as Windows.
I still have my Amiga 3000. Don't know if it still works because I haven't booted it in over six years.
The Video Toaster did effects for Sea Quest DSV, also Deep Space Nine, Star Trek Voyager, and Babylon Five. Some of the special effects in movies as well as TV. The Amiga by itself, without the Toaster, did Max Headroom animations.
I got a kick out of the PC and Macintosh Video Toasters... they were complete Amiga 2000s with the NewTek Video Toaster card and a cable that connected them to the PC or Mac and allowed the PC and Mac to act as keyboards for the Amiga. We Amiga users referred to them as the most expensive dongles in the world.
"That's because lots of those get started by some doctor in their "spare time" and end up getting used, passed around, hacked on, etc. Doctors may be smart people, but they aren't software engineers."
Run into that from time to time as well. Most Docs have no problem taking out a mortgage for their setup.
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