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The Cost of Computer Naivete

Posted by CmdrTaco on from the stupid-costs-a-lot dept.

wiredog writes "What happens when you put an unprotected Windows 98 box on a broadband connection? Two perspectives from two reporters for the Washington Post (frr,yyy): The User's " an odyssey that has taken $800 and roughly 48 man-hours over nearly three weeks" and Digital Doctor's "Her PC was in such bad shape, it required 10 1/2 hours of surgery to restore it to working condition.""

9 of 917 comments (clear)

  1. Slow computer! by NeoFunk · · Score: 4, Funny

    Geez... it takes 10 1/2 hours to install Linux these days? Have all distributions gone the way of Gentoo?

    1. Re:Slow computer! by jimicus · · Score: 4, Funny

      or reinstall Windows 98 or any OS...

      Yeah, but you know what happened:

      Tech: Heck, this is a mess. Best to reinstall the whole lot from scratch. You do have backups, right?
      User: B... Back--ups?
      Tech: (sigh)

  2. Mantra by wbav · · Score: 5, Funny

    Whatever happened to:

    Format, fdisk, re-install do da, do da?

    Pull all the useful data off onto a spare disk and clean the machine. Just don't be like my neighbor, and wipe, then install your new os on the spare disk.

    --

    =================
    Unix is very user friendly, it's just picky about who its friends are.
    1. Re:Mantra by aelbric · · Score: 5, Funny

      Format, fdisk, re-install do da, do da...

      Thanks. Took me a minute to put that to the tune of "Camptown Races". Then I started laughing. Sonn as I get mod points you get one.

      --
      nos laetus epulor qui would domito nos
  3. Re:To be fair to Microsoft by sw149 · · Score: 4, Funny

    Mac OS 7 secure and stable as ever.

  4. Similar idea to what I wanted to try by British · · Score: 5, Funny

    I wanted to take a 98(non-second edition) box, no patches, no firewall, and no updates and visit a frew pr0n sites with IE, and see how much I could get it to be 0wned with spyware, plugins, popups, etc before it was rendered unsuable. Make it a competition to see how quickly it would bring the system down.

    The screenshots would have been hilarious. If I only had VMware.

  5. Re:To be fair to Microsoft by Throtex · · Score: 5, Funny

    If you wanted to be really fair, I could say that I could put my Commodore 128 on the Internet and let anyone who telnets to it run anything they damned well please, and I still wouldn't have problems...

  6. Re:To be fair to Microsoft by JJahn · · Score: 4, Funny

    I think Jane should spend that $100 on some bottles of decent wine, instead of that crappy box wine.

  7. Old joke alert by plover · · Score: 4, Funny

    Q: What's the difference between a used-car salesman and a computer salesman?
    A: The used-car salesman knows when he's lying.

    --
    John