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Spam and Spyware Too Much for Some Users
stewart_maximus writes "Spam and spyware is annoying to everyone, but some users are giving up on the Internet (mirror). Any Slashdot readers know someone who pulled the plug in frustration? Any advice for frustrated users, especially non-technical users?"
It's even worse when you encounter the opposite... Those who refuse to give up the Internet even though they've got hundreds of virii and spyware programs on their system.
A couple of months ago, I went into my dry cleaner and they said they couldn't take credit cards that day. The reason? Their credit card system (PCs on the Internet) wasn't working because of a virus. I thought about giving them a lecture on keeping credit transactions off the public Internet, but knew it wouldn't do any good so just paid cash and left.....
Easy Instructions:
:)
a) Download Firefox.
b) Download anti-spyware (ad-aware, Spybot)
c) Get off the internet.
d) Run the anti-spyware to make sure your machine is 100% virus and spyware free.
e) Activate your winxp firewall.
f) install Firefox.
Ta-da!
Incidentally, just FYI, you can actually add 3rd-party RAM to the Mini yourself without voiding the warranty. Take a look at this:
Clearing up confusion about the Mac Mini
[quote]
While it is strongly recommended that you only have an Apple Authorized Service Provider crack it open and install RAM, hard drives, Airport and Bluetooth, it will NOT void your warranty if you do it yourself. As is standard operating procedure, however, anything you break while attempting anything on your own is not Apple's responsibility and will not be covered under warranty. I think that is pretty much common sense.
Among other things, the Mac mini boots headless too.
I've been using Windows and Linux for years. Last September my school gave me a Mac to use. After 4 months of use I've realized just how much better a Mac can be for people without a CS degree or similar experience. Nothing bad has happened to anyone I know using the Macs.
Next time my parents and friends of a less geek-ish persuasion decide to upgrade, the new Mini Mac is going to be the only one I will continue to provide free tech support for - which means, as I've learned, hardly any tech support at all.
I am surprised at how many windows users browse the web (among other things) while logged in with administrator privileges.
... except that heaps of software for windows expects to be run as administrator. The amount of problems she's run into simply through running as a non-privileged user is astonishing, and it often seems as though MS is the worst offender of them all.
I'm not. I recently supervised the purchase of a new laptop for my mother, and since it was a fresh machine I set up a separate administrator account, told her never to use it except when installing software and/or windows updates. I installed firefox and t'bird, explained about spyware and that unless software is open-source there's no such thing as a free lunch. And she took it all in and that was fine
The moral is: if you want to run without root privileges on Windows, you're going to have to put up with a heap of annoying crap. And that's assuming that the user is informed enough to even realise that there's such a thing as "administrator" and that they're set up by default to run as that - there's nothing under the WinXP setup that I saw that alerts users to the need to run as a non-privileged user.