I do a lot of free tech support for friends and family. However, I take the time to educate them on what not to do and give them the tools they need to help protect themselves.
For example, when I find someone is prone to visiting lots of websites with "fun stuff" to download and play with (such as card-making programs and other crap like that) I find oodles of spyware and adware on their computer bogging it down. I explain to them that the sites they visit and the software they're downloading in installing this junk on their computer and that's why it's slow. Refraining from downloading these things will help prevent this in the future.
and make sure their AV software (which most have) is up-to-date.
Finally, for the worst offenders, after giving them tips (writing them down even) and explaining it over and over again, I limit them to 5 - 10 fixes. After that, they cannot ask me for help unless it's a completely different problem (if I find it's the same old same old, I leave and tell them to fix it).
You can be nice, but you don't have to be a pushover. Developing a methodology for helping others simplifies the process and helps alleviate the frustration on a case-by-case basis.
As much as we all hate cliches sometimes they apply: Give a man a fish and he is not hungry for a day; teach a man to fish and he is not hungry for a lifetime
...or the other less well known proverb: Give a man a blanket and he is warm for a night; set him on fire and he is warm for the rest of his life.:-)
It's too bad you couldn't code it so if they clicked on the attachment it:
sent you an email
locked out their account
forced a reboot of thier PC
This way, the user who was an idiot, must now call you and confess as much (even though you already knew). Additionally, you could take the information and collect it for presentation to your superiors suggesting that your organization is in dire need of some anti-virus education because clearly they are posing a threat to the operations of your company.
If your superiors objected to the test in the first place, compare it to a fire drill.
Re:Microsoft says: Don't click URLs anymore...
on
Another Serious MSIE Hole
·
· Score: 4, Insightful
Sure, but what "normal" user is going to type in a 300 character URL from an email or website link?
HyperText Markup Language was created in part to *link* documents quickly (i.e. so the user doesn't have to type in the document location manually). If we're supposed to just give up hyperlinks, why not just kiss the World Wide Web goodbye?
Did you by any chance ask them if Spirit and Opportunity use the same code, or if they were coded independently by two separate teams working on the same requirements?
Now that we know Spirit has a software problem, the answer to this question may make a lot of difference as to whether or not Opportunity is going to have the same problem(s).
I might have agreed with you in the begining when they were just annoying IBM and everyone else with not-so-subtle hints that a buy-out would solve everything. But at this point it seems more like some sort of demented crusade against an operating system they couldn't give away (Caldera/Linux).
No reasonable company (or individual) with deep pockets is going to buy SCO. They'll wait to see how the case turns out. Assuming they are crushed in court and possibly demanded to make some ammends for all their badmouthing Linux and others, they'll be filing Chapter 11 in short order. Soon thereafter I anticipate SCO will slip into Chapter 7 and be forced to sell off any of its remaining assets (such as the Unix copyrights and trademarks).
It's at this point, a smart company will buy up the valuable assets and leave the rotting corpse of SCO itself on the curb.
As I gather, nearly everyone outside the United States. When I was in Germany for a few weeks I went to a nearby swimming pool with my German friend (their swimming pools beat the crap out of most U.S. swimming pools by the way!). I'm quite sure every other man except myself and one other American was wearing speedos. My German friend thought my swimming trunks looked funny.
That axiom implies that no one should ever be given a second chance. Even in the Boy Who Cried Wolf, the boy fooled the others more than once before they gave up on him.
I think the axiom you stated has to do with a situation that hasn't changed.
e.g.
"Your shoelaces are untied."
*looks*
*gets flicked in the nose* ...
"Your shoelaces are untied."
*looks again*
*gets flicked in the nose again*
but I do think [Crystal Pepsi] tasted a little different
That was it's best feature!:-) Dreamcast was very cool as a friend of mine had one (Dead or Alive is one of the better games to come out for it as was Power Stone), not sure why it didn't catch on....probably the controllers (but the memory packs had their own little games on them that played independantly of the system).
I was just snooping around the KDE website today and I think the 3.1 version is definately making a move towards encroaching on Windows' "prettier" category. However, I still give the "Prettiest OS" award to Mac OS X and it's Aqua interface... B. E. A. -utiful.
I was one of the few people that actually liked Crystal Pepsi, though I wouldn't claim to be the person you describe.
I'm curious, what made you choose Crystal Pepsi? Did you like it and you're just covering your own good name with the "God forbid" or was it just one of those things that popped into your head?
I'm not trying to troll, I'm genuinely curious because I think it's one of the products that disappeared quickly and was never talked about in "civil society" again.:-)
And just to stay on topic, a better argument about the money would be to say it's depriving the economy of millions of dollars as they're being tied up in the Microsoft Mechanism(TM) where it will be put to use in supporting poorly constructed software and perpetuate itself without beneficially contributing to the betterment of society. Unfortunately, sheep^H^H^H^H^HAmericans aren't predisposed to thinking for themselves anymore which is why the better laywer wins the case instead of the facts. I think that's also why Flash is so prevelent on the web, because it gets and holds people's attention when those people are easily distracted by flashing banners that suggest their computer may be infected.
Microsoft could wait until SCO declares bankrupcy and has to sell off all its assets including the rights to the UNIX trademarks and copyrights. Then all MS has to do is step in with the highest bid and now they own all the secrets to UNIX to incorporate into Windows.
Not to mention, they'd be able to collect license fees from current licensees such as IBM, HP, and Sun -- nothing like a little extra pocket money.
Ted would not help us out at all in this matter. Recall his Manifesto and the whole "technology is bad" part of it? He may be sitting in prison, but if he's aware of Alan, I'm sure he's having a hearty laugh and waiting for the end of civilization as we know it by way of the Great Internet Implosion.
I'm not saying they're moral. I'm just saying that in our legal system they own the copyrights of the artists (through contract law and a transfer of copyright) and they have the right (legally) to sue your pants off if you copy a work of their artists without their permission.
On the other hand, I also agree that copyright law in the United States is in severe need of a large magnifying glass thrust upon it and scrutinized. It's ludicrous that copyrights can be sold and commoditized (and artificially extended). Finally, the damanges for copywrite infringment are way out of line with realistic damages.
But my beef with the RIAA is their tactics and approach to the problem.
Namely, their approach is you are guilty until proven innocent. This really sucks for those poor saps who are fingered by the RIAA as a theif to be proven innocent, only that person (or family) does not have the means to present themselves in court to proove their innocence. Therefore, they aren't left with much of a choice of action except to pay what they can (usually a hefty amount of their livlihood) and hope the RIAA will leave them alone.
Certainly there are people abusing the systems, but witch hunts have never been the solution. The RIAA also has not attempted to work with the P2P networks (to my knowledge) to resolve this is a civilized way. "Civil" to the RIAA is always followed by "Court". Just as I oppose Microsoft's business practices, I oppose the RIAA's and TicketMaster's and other monopolistic businesses that abuse their power.
Just because a monopoly exists doesn't mean I'm opposed to it straight away. Take the US Postal Service for instance. It goes without saying most people who send snail mail letters (not packages) use the USPS. In that way, the USPS is an effective monopoly. (do we not all go buy a bunch of 1 cent stamps when they bump up the cost of postage?) But aside from bumping up the postage three times in rapid succession in years past, they've been quite good about not *thoroughly* abusing their customers (some may argue when trying to send a package, but I'm talking about letters here).
In the end: does the RIAA have a right to sue copyright infringment? Yes. Do they even have a right to subpoena ISPs for the infringing user's contact information: Maybe (yes, under the Damn Merciless Corruption Act). Is their approach to this technology and even finding out the real infringers severly flawed? Hell yes. (a 12 year old, a Mac owner, and an old couple w/o a computer come to mind.)
By all means call me a geek. I'm also a dork. But I am not a nerd and never have been. While the Revenge of the Nerds was a mildly entertaining film, I did not see myself fitting in what that crowd. However, Real Genius is much more the crowd I want to be in! Geeks with power and charisma!
I'd always hoped college would be like that. And I guess I'm fortunate it was closer to that than RotN.
Zapp Brannigan: You see, killbots have a preset kill limit. Knowing their weakness, I sent wave after wave of my own [lawyers] at them until they reached their limit and shut down.
Am I to understand you're a proponent of a wire jungle in the back of your PC?
Besides, managing four USB devices in a dark alcove under my desk is bad enough. It's nice to have a separate place to plug everything in, but how many USB devices do you really need all plugged in a the same time?
Of that list I'd say the first three stay plugged in all the time (if you don't have a print server for your home network). And the fourth USB port (since most PCs have four these days, can have a USB hub that extends the location of the USB port to somewhere other than the backside of your computer for easier swapping of the remaining devices as needed. I don't think hubs are that expensive.
Slashdot Mirror
For example, when I find someone is prone to visiting lots of websites with "fun stuff" to download and play with (such as card-making programs and other crap like that) I find oodles of spyware and adware on their computer bogging it down. I explain to them that the sites they visit and the software they're downloading in installing this junk on their computer and that's why it's slow. Refraining from downloading these things will help prevent this in the future.
Additionally I give them:
- Spybot Search & Destroy
- Mozilla Firebird
and make sure their AV software (which most have) is up-to-date.Finally, for the worst offenders, after giving them tips (writing them down even) and explaining it over and over again, I limit them to 5 - 10 fixes. After that, they cannot ask me for help unless it's a completely different problem (if I find it's the same old same old, I leave and tell them to fix it).
You can be nice, but you don't have to be a pushover. Developing a methodology for helping others simplifies the process and helps alleviate the frustration on a case-by-case basis.
As much as we all hate cliches sometimes they apply: Give a man a fish and he is not hungry for a day; teach a man to fish and he is not hungry for a lifetime
This way, the user who was an idiot, must now call you and confess as much (even though you already knew). Additionally, you could take the information and collect it for presentation to your superiors suggesting that your organization is in dire need of some anti-virus education because clearly they are posing a threat to the operations of your company.
If your superiors objected to the test in the first place, compare it to a fire drill.
<http://www.lsp.steelpharm64v.com/host/index.asp?I D=019102309840v0h0293jf8o998239p8valiu23nf8qoa8329 nor87fahl9w8n4fl98q2l938nf97va0283p97thrl9q274g >
Yeah right.
HyperText Markup Language was created in part to *link* documents quickly (i.e. so the user doesn't have to type in the document location manually). If we're supposed to just give up hyperlinks, why not just kiss the World Wide Web goodbye?
Don't shoot! It's only a joke!
Now that we know Spirit has a software problem, the answer to this question may make a lot of difference as to whether or not Opportunity is going to have the same problem(s).
-- This post has been brought to you by the letters 'S' and 'arcasm'
No reasonable company (or individual) with deep pockets is going to buy SCO. They'll wait to see how the case turns out. Assuming they are crushed in court and possibly demanded to make some ammends for all their badmouthing Linux and others, they'll be filing Chapter 11 in short order. Soon thereafter I anticipate SCO will slip into Chapter 7 and be forced to sell off any of its remaining assets (such as the Unix copyrights and trademarks).
It's at this point, a smart company will buy up the valuable assets and leave the rotting corpse of SCO itself on the curb.
Just like Fox News... balanced and fair!
*dons flame-proof suit and ducks*
...now we need to change the Linux penguin category icon to a Borg penguin like the Borg Gates one?
Ummmm....think about who we're talking about for a minute before you finish. :-)
...by a cadre of trial lawyers
I held my tounge.
I think the axiom you stated has to do with a situation that hasn't changed.
e.g.
...
"Your shoelaces are untied."
*looks*
*gets flicked in the nose*
"Your shoelaces are untied."
*looks again*
*gets flicked in the nose again*
That was it's best feature! :-) Dreamcast was very cool as a friend of mine had one (Dead or Alive is one of the better games to come out for it as was Power Stone), not sure why it didn't catch on....probably the controllers (but the memory packs had their own little games on them that played independantly of the system).
I was just snooping around the KDE website today and I think the 3.1 version is definately making a move towards encroaching on Windows' "prettier" category. However, I still give the "Prettiest OS" award to Mac OS X and it's Aqua interface... B. E. A. -utiful.
I'm curious, what made you choose Crystal Pepsi? Did you like it and you're just covering your own good name with the "God forbid" or was it just one of those things that popped into your head?
I'm not trying to troll, I'm genuinely curious because I think it's one of the products that disappeared quickly and was never talked about in "civil society" again. :-)
And just to stay on topic, a better argument about the money would be to say it's depriving the economy of millions of dollars as they're being tied up in the Microsoft Mechanism(TM) where it will be put to use in supporting poorly constructed software and perpetuate itself without beneficially contributing to the betterment of society. Unfortunately, sheep^H^H^H^H^HAmericans aren't predisposed to thinking for themselves anymore which is why the better laywer wins the case instead of the facts. I think that's also why Flash is so prevelent on the web, because it gets and holds people's attention when those people are easily distracted by flashing banners that suggest their computer may be infected.
And just for the record, I am an American.
Not to mention, they'd be able to collect license fees from current licensees such as IBM, HP, and Sun -- nothing like a little extra pocket money.
Ted would not help us out at all in this matter. Recall his Manifesto and the whole "technology is bad" part of it? He may be sitting in prison, but if he's aware of Alan, I'm sure he's having a hearty laugh and waiting for the end of civilization as we know it by way of the Great Internet Implosion.
- Homer Simpson
On the other hand, I also agree that copyright law in the United States is in severe need of a large magnifying glass thrust upon it and scrutinized. It's ludicrous that copyrights can be sold and commoditized (and artificially extended). Finally, the damanges for copywrite infringment are way out of line with realistic damages.
Namely, their approach is you are guilty until proven innocent. This really sucks for those poor saps who are fingered by the RIAA as a theif to be proven innocent, only that person (or family) does not have the means to present themselves in court to proove their innocence. Therefore, they aren't left with much of a choice of action except to pay what they can (usually a hefty amount of their livlihood) and hope the RIAA will leave them alone.
Certainly there are people abusing the systems, but witch hunts have never been the solution. The RIAA also has not attempted to work with the P2P networks (to my knowledge) to resolve this is a civilized way. "Civil" to the RIAA is always followed by "Court". Just as I oppose Microsoft's business practices, I oppose the RIAA's and TicketMaster's and other monopolistic businesses that abuse their power.
Just because a monopoly exists doesn't mean I'm opposed to it straight away. Take the US Postal Service for instance. It goes without saying most people who send snail mail letters (not packages) use the USPS. In that way, the USPS is an effective monopoly. (do we not all go buy a bunch of 1 cent stamps when they bump up the cost of postage?) But aside from bumping up the postage three times in rapid succession in years past, they've been quite good about not *thoroughly* abusing their customers (some may argue when trying to send a package, but I'm talking about letters here).
In the end: does the RIAA have a right to sue copyright infringment? Yes. Do they even have a right to subpoena ISPs for the infringing user's contact information: Maybe (yes, under the Damn Merciless Corruption Act). Is their approach to this technology and even finding out the real infringers severly flawed? Hell yes. (a 12 year old, a Mac owner, and an old couple w/o a computer come to mind.)
I'd always hoped college would be like that. And I guess I'm fortunate it was closer to that than RotN.
with apologies to Matt Groening and Futurama
but the damn flash kept getting stuck in the beam we were taking a picture of!
If you've got enough USB devices to fill a normal 4 port PC, then you're not poor, you're just penny-pinching and can probably afford a hub anyway.
Besides, managing four USB devices in a dark alcove under my desk is bad enough. It's nice to have a separate place to plug everything in, but how many USB devices do you really need all plugged in a the same time?
- keyboard
- mouse
- printer
- scanner
- digital camera patch
- mp3 player patch
- PDA link / IR reader
- compact flash/memory card reader
- host of thinkgeek USB toys
Of that list I'd say the first three stay plugged in all the time (if you don't have a print server for your home network). And the fourth USB port (since most PCs have four these days, can have a USB hub that extends the location of the USB port to somewhere other than the backside of your computer for easier swapping of the remaining devices as needed. I don't think hubs are that expensive.