Keeping a PC Personal At School?

Berto Kraus writes "As one of the most tech-oriented students in my art-oriented institution, I'm usually the one with the laptop. This causes frequent requests from other students to read mail, check some site, or connect it to the projector to display a file from their Flash drive. For the sake of my privacy, the health of my laptop, and my own peace of mind, I'm reluctant. But telling my compatriots to go to our building supervisor and ask him for a desktop-on-a-cart, as they should do, is considered rude and unfriendly. Now, I could dual-boot Ubuntu, or carry around a Linux-on-a-stick. Or I could embed the computer in my skull. For many reasons, none of these solutions is ideal. So I'm asking you, insightful and funny Slashdotters, what would you do to keep your PC personal at school?"

Comments

Guest account with Fast User Switching.

[tpgp]

"As one of the most tech-oriented students

Tech oriented? Why don't you come up with a solution then? This is not a hard problem to solve.

in my art-oriented institution"

Aaaaaaaaah, OK. I see where you're coming from.

The most obvious solution I can think of (assuming you're on XP/Vista) is for you to set up a second user and Fast user switch whenever someone else wants to use your laptop.

Assuming your classmate's technical competence is below yours, that should be adequate security measures.

--

The Captcha is: Lars Traeger is full of shit.

Re:Guest account with Fast User Switching.

[broken_chaos]

And if you're not using Windows, both OSX and many Linux desktop environments integrate something similar. ...Though I suppose I'd have to guess your references to "dual booting Ubuntu" means with Windows, and not alongside another Linux distro or on a Macbook.

Re:Guest account with Fast User Switching.

[SausageOfDoom]

Or even better than switching users, install something like VirtualBox and install the OS of your choice on that, then create a snapshot of your clean OS installation. Disable auto-run for flash drives in your parent OS.

When someone asks to borrow your machine, run the virtual machine, make it full-screen and let them do whatever they want. When they're finished, restore to the snapshot of the clean installation.

Very minimal risk of your main OS being compromised by malware, and no access to your files and browsing history, unless they figure out how to get out of it - but even then I assume you'll be with your machine at all times to monitor usage. Otherwise, as the rest of the thread says, run virtualbox in a different user account to stop access to your files.

Uh, how about just different accounts?

[rolfwind]

I'm pretty sure even Windows Vista will keep your porn stash safe, if you log out of your account, and into a guest account for them.... all of 15 seconds. Just make sure you have to sign into your account and that your files are in your directory.

You probably also want to edit the bios so that it only starts from the harddrive, and that nothing in the bios can be changed without a password

Don't remember if XP Home enforces seperate directories.

(There's also the word "no" when people ask...)

Re:Sharing is bad

[clarkkent09]

Get a friend to pass around a rumor that he caught you watching a porn clip and masturbating onto the keyboard. Nobody will ask for it anymore.

Ubuntu guest mode

[RenHoek]

The most recent version of Ubuntu has a guest account that will let people do some web browsing and such, and after that person logs off, everything should be wiped clean automatically again.

So that seems like it could work..

Then again, you could just tell them to get their own toys. :)

Re:Use Dvorak Simplified Keyboard...

[Ihlosi]

the German keyboard swaps Y and Z for no apparent reason.

Compare the frequencies of the letters Y and Z in both English and German, and the reason becomes obvious.

Windows Steady State

[MulluskO]

Here is a real answer:

http://www.microsoft.com/windows/products/winfamily/sharedaccess/default.mspx

This is software from Microsoft which helps prevent unpriveleged users from altering your computer in any way. Install this, enable the guest account, and switch users when people ask to borrow your machine. You'll need a password on your account, of course.

Re:easy.

[Vu1turEMaN]

You forgot step 2.

1. Enable your guest account.

2. Make sure your account has a password on it that is always prompted, so when the fast user switching kicks in and they log off the guest account, they can't get into your account without a password.

My friend lent me his laptop once with a guest account, and i merely logged off of it and switched back to his account which wasn't password protected. Huge failboat.