Your point is not lost on me, certainly. However, I work in a large data center that VLANs large number of address ranges, and everything is remembered by its "VLAN number" or more accurately it's IPv4 address range, for example 10.0.208.* or 10.0.209.* where the 3rd octet represents the VLAN number. Then inside of that, certain well known servers are well known 4th octet addresses, like workstations are 35-39, domain controllers are 10&11, and so forth. I'd love it if I didn't have to remember all of those numbers, but I'm stuck with it, and the IPv4 system is simpler. IPv6 is harder and its overkill for our environment. If I can use IPv4 internally and IPv6 just on the Internet, fine. I don't need to remember my Internet address. That is most definitely a DNS name. It's all of the hundreds of servers internally that I have to track, and I have to give multiple clones the same exact IP address in each of the dozens of VLAN networks.
Yeah, how about technologies that don't use names, like firewalls for one. I've had to remember IP addresses a lot more than I've had to remember host names.
Once you plug a server into someone else's network, it's their server. IT has all kinds of accountability for anything plugged into their network. You plug your server into their network without their knowledge or consent, and you are basically operating a black box that they cannot control or audit for compliance.
So....I vote YES...give IT whatever they ask for.
If a simple non-root account is all they're asking for, consider yourself lucky that they are still granting you the privilege of operating a server on their network.
Maybe if the overseas businesses paid their fair share they wouldn't seem so dirt cheap compared to domestic businesses anymore, to include... fair wages and benefits, paying the same fees compliant businesses pay, buying their commercial software, and so on.
How ethical is it to send your business to a dirt cheap overseas company who then produces your product for you with unethical means and standards?
I have 2 Media Center editions of Windows, XP MCE and Vista MCE. They continue media center support through Win 7 and plan to keep going. But, don't let Windows stop you if you don't like it. Try Myth or Boxee or whatever flavor-of-the-year media solution there is. My media center not only aggregates all of my media together into one interface, it helps me sort it, present it and play it. The music section (which catalogs all of my MP3s from a NAS), let's me sort by title, artist, album, etc. The Recorded TV section lets me sort by date recorded, series name, etc. There's also a section for pictures and videos, which I use less often. It automatically re-catalogs "watched folders" on a regular basis, so if I add another album to my MP3 collection, it will automatically find it in time (or on a reboot if I'm impatient). If you setup a PC just for the purpose of media, it is often referred to generically as a Home Theater PC (HTPC). You can use such a PC with or without TV tuners to record shows. I have one such PC that controls my TV. My entire TV watching experience comes from the PC. I personally use mine with 4 tuners, 2 HDTV to record broadcast TV and 2 analog to record from 2 cable boxes (2 of each helps with time conflicts when you want to record 2 shows at once). Without these PCs, I'd never be able to wade through my collection of music effectively, and it is bar none the best recorded TV solution I have found.
It really can't help you with books, games and comics, because media center specializes in audio/video solutions.
The 2 most valuable math classes I ever had as it relates to my CS career: Logic and Arithmetic, in that order. Calculus? Never once used it, not in my CS career, and not in my personal life either. I've been a Systems Administrator and Systems Engineer throughout my entire career.
If I had been designing 3D simulation and mapping algorithms, OK maybe calculus would've been useful, but then I would have gone that route in college if I wanted to do that. As it is, getting a math minor (up through Calc III) to earn my CS major is a complete load of bunk!
If I could get back the time in my life that I wasted on Calculus classes and the heartbreak I felt struggling at every step of the way, I'd be a much happier man today. Calculus was by far the biggest load of crap I have ever had to deal with in my life in relation to its actual usefulness in my life (i.e. zero).
In the corporate world, it's always been a battle between productivity (less time to fix the problem) and accuracy (more time to fix the problem). It's a judgement call. In our environment, most of the troubleshooting is done by system integrators. The SysAdmins simply keep the back end up and running, and as quickly as possible.
I store a primary copy in a Pictures folder of an old computer that I keep running as a "file server". I keep a second copy on a NAS I keep in my basement. Regular pruning occurs off and on, and we may even go back several months or years ago to delete stuff we don't think needs to be kept any more. I use rsync in Cygwin to copy everything from the PC to the NAS, and I keep a backup folder with a date-time stamp of each rsync for everything that gets deleted/changed, and I keep more than 6 months worth of those change directories just in case we change or minds or it was an accident. To be especially safe, I regularly rsync a copy to a PC that my in-laws keep running, several states away from us. For this, I simply added a little USB powered disk to their PC, so I don't use up any of their PC storage. That way, if our house goes up in flames, taking our PC and NAS with it, we have a perfectly up to date off site copy of all of our precious memories.
I wondered the exact same thing, how those who bounce their legs regularly, sometimes called "bouncy legs", "restless legs" or "restless legs syndrome" for those who are bothered by it, figures into this?
If you are one to stay seated or sedentary a lot, but bounce your legs constantly, isn't that a kind of physical activity? I for one have never been bothered by my "bouncy legs", and I certainly don't consider it a syndrome. I tend to think of it more as a sign of a high metabolism (I sometimes tell people I have the metabolism of a hummingbird). My body knows it has a lot of calories to burn, and it habitually urges me to move my legs as a way of doing that. I wonder how many calories I burn by constantly (and sometimes rapidly) bouncing my legs, all day long.
...and in case you're wondering, I have a very high calorie diet, I stay seated just about all day due to my job and my lifestyle, I don't otherwise exercise, but I stay at a very consistent weight of 175 (I'm 6'2" tall). I haven't gained or lost more than 5 pounds in over 20 years....except one time I had a very nasty flu, and I dropped to 160 -- I called it the flu diet. I'm the type that tends to eat very large portions, like a whole box of mac & cheese (which is 4-5 servings), an entire soup bowl full of ice cream (I'm sure it's 5 servings at least), I eat the same size portion at dinner that my wife and 2 kids combined eat, and so on. But, I never gain weight.
The article in question specifically names Feit Electric bulbs.
My experience with that brand resulted in nearly an 80% failure rate within the first year of use, involving a pool of about 4 dozen bulbs, used in 4 different light fixtures, totaling 32 individual light sockets. At first, I took them up on their warranty, mailed back about half a dozen failed bulbs in exchange for new ones. However, I could see it would become cost prohibitive in the long run to continue paying for postage, if the same rate of failure continued (which it did). Other brands are far, far more reliable, and simply replacing the failed Feit bulbs makes more economic sense than continuing to pay postage for Feit warranty replacements.
I consider Feit bulbs to be the bottom of the barrel.
I don't have the option to tell my in-laws to re-install their OS. They bought the PC pre-installed with Windows, they're happy with the applications it came with, and they're content to leave it as is. If I suggest otherwise, I know I'll be turned down.
So, I choose to make the best of what there is. I use Cygwin to add Linux-like functionality to Windows, for my administrative purposes, I add security software to scan in the background and to aid me in troubleshooting, and I tweak the settings as best I know how to improve their overall experience, without sacrificing security or usability.
I think it's more productive to discuss how to use and secure Windows to stay on topic, rather than switching gears completely.
Unless they're visiting shady porn sites, installing loads of "freeware" or downloading from peer-to-peer networks, they're very unlikely to even encounter a virus.
...or so I've heard.;-)
Commenting in general to several posters...
My in-laws have been using the PCs that I've configured for them since the 486 days, and I've never had to take away Admin, IE or Outlook from them. If anything, they're safer computer users with Admin than any of us are, because they don't exhibit any risky user behavior. They don't go around installing loads of apps and going to the dark corners of the web.
My in-laws are not good with PCs. My mother is. They're all in their mid to late 60s.
The difference is that my mother worked in an office environment for 2 decades, where developing PC skills were essential. My mother-in-law is a nurse and my father-in-law (now retired) was a book keeper. It's not that they're unintelligent, it's just that their jobs never had them develop those skills. Now, in their retirement years, my in-laws just don't have much interest in learning PC skills.
Still, they have picked up all of the basics--Word editing, web surfing, Outlook e-mail, and even Yahoo IM chatting.
I really think they could do everything on their own, but they have PC-savvy children and in-laws that they can pursuade to do it for them. I'd say that's intelligent.
Oh, I forgot to add the following...
- I forgot, I use TightVNC, not RealVNC. TightVNC is free and it works very well.
- Coach them on how to right-click and choose "sort by name" in the start menu programs list (I think this is automatic in Vista). My father-in-law had a hard time finding his icons until my wife showed him this. Also consider setting up Auto-arrange by Name for folders and the desktop.
- Right-click the Taskbar and choose Properties, then Start Menu & Customize.
Start turning off stuff they don't need, like Control Panel, Network & System administrative tools. Also, check Use large icons.
- Related to the above, turning on "Hide Inactive Icons" might be a good idea and turn off some system icons that might bother them.
- I always turn off the "recently opened files" and "recently opened programs" lists, but that's just me, I suppose.
- Right-click the Taskbar and choose Toolbars. Turn OFF that damned language toolbar.
- For the Start Menu, instead of displaying icons by popularity, consider turning that off. Find icons that should always be there, right-click on them and select "Pin to Start Menu".
- Go to Windows Explorer > Tools > View, and make sure of the following...
[x] Display the full path in the title bar
Hidden files and folders
[x] Do not show hidden files and folders
[ ] Hide extensions for known file types
[x] Hide protected operating system files
There's just too much to keep writing about, unless I start my own blog...
My in-laws are in their 60's now. Technically senior citizens, but on the low end of the age range. Still, they are complete PC novices. My own mother is 68 now, but she is moderately competent with PCs because she used to work in an office as an executive assistant; so, the most she ever asks me to do is hardware installations, mostly involving her TV or game console (yes, my mom has a Wii).
I've been maintaining their XP Home Edition PC for several years now. They run it so each of them has an account (2 parents, 3 children and my own account). 2 of their kids have since moved out and their accounts are idle, but one has managed to stick around well into her 30s. Ah, but that's another story.;-)
Older people appreciate larger viewability. The best advice I ever gave them was to buy a larger monitor, NOT to increase the font or icon sizes and run at 640x480 resolution. They now have a 24" widescreen monitor, and it works well for them at 1152x720. At the higher resolution, they have enough space to use today's programs, and with the larger monitor, they can see it all better. BTW, running at a lower resolution can actually make things worse. For example, if they open up a document and want to view the whole width of it on screen, it will reduce the font into near nothingness to fit it all into the tiny area. Increasing Window's Font or Icon sizes are another tricky matter. Some programs don't know how to deal with larger system font sizes (because they make a bad assumption that the default font size is the only size) and the words will "spill out" of their boundaries, making it look horrible at least or make it so you can't click on something at worst. There's also the problem of dialog boxes that are too big to fit on a tiny resolution desktop. I've had incidents (too many to count) where a program's dialog box is larger than 640x480 and I can't click on its buttons or move it (i.e. I get trapped).
What concerns me most is both security and remote administration (I live 3 states away and visit only 2-3 times per year). The first thing I did was install AVG and set it up to auto-update and auto-scan at some late night hour. I also installed Spybot S&D, CCleaner (very nice for cleaning up Window's & IE's temporary folders), and TweakUI. I also have AdAware, Process Explorer, Trojan Remover, Security Task Manager, TuneXP and Tweak And Tune handy, just in case. I recently added a router to their setup, so now they have a hardware-based firewall (and it added the ability for me to connect my laptop when I visit).
If it were Vista (which I highly doubt that they'll ever get), I would heavily encourage TweakVI to make it bearable.
Now, onto remote administration. There are 3 main things I did for this. First & foremost, I installed Cygwin with OpenSSH (and many other tools). This allows me to ssh login or to do scp file copying. I also use rsync tunneled through ssh for data file backups (both directions--I use their PC to backup my files and vice versa). Most importantly, it allows me to use tunneling to open ports through ssh, so I don't have to poke many holes in their router's firewall. Second, I installed Real VNC to be able to remotely control their desktop from a distance. Lastly, I "tweaked" (a small hack) to get Remote Desktop working. I must say Remote Desktop is the best tool available for remote Windows administration. It's too bad I had to hack things to get it working. For VNC and RD both I use SSH Port Forwards to use them. The only port open through their router is 22 and everything I do is encrypted. One example, you setup local port 113389 to forward to their internal IP port 3389. Once I establish my SSH session, I can then use Remote Desktop client to connect to localhost:113389 and voila, I'm in. There are many things in Windows that require a GUI (running CCleaner, Spybot, etc; installing/updating apps, etc.). It's been essential for me to tunnel in and to get a GUI through VNC o
You have 2 systems, the system you manage and audit, and a second system that someone else manages. You periodically (daily, hourly, minutely) archive your log files to the second system. The second party can easily make it so that you can read anything you've sent there, write a file only once, but not modify it or delete it. They manage it, not you.
I like to do this in Solaris with syslog files. Those aren't audit files per se, but anything logged by syslogd can easily be sent to a host rather than to a log file, or both. There's nothing that says that other host has to be something you manage. It could easily be a host that your local security officer manages and won't ever let you touch or even get physically near.
For files that the Basic Security Module (BSM) generates, I haven't quite figured out how to have a WORM system, other than archiving them off of the server daily. Once they are archived by the local backup team, they are out of our hands at least...but there's nothing preventing them, other than ethics, from altering their copies.
I think the best you can hope for is a good 2 system setup as I describe above, but in order to check & balance both sides, you keep a checksum of the file before you send it and they checksum it after receipt. The checksums should always match on both sides, and neither party should have access to the other party's system.
Some ATSC (HDTV) tuner cards are coming out with Cable & Satellite support, so that you can keep it straight digital. However, that is leading edge right now (not quite bleeding edge, but not quite mainstream, either).
I don't subscribe to digital cable, myself, so I can't tell you. However, I have 4 HDTV tuner cards that record over-the-air from the antenna, and that is of superb quality. It even looks great on an analog, Component Video, TV. I just wish it didn't come with the occassional "No TV Signal" problem when a storm comes through town, but then that's a risk with any antenna setup. Digital Cable on a PC is quite possible very soon. I think recent Cable Card offerings for PC-based DVR setups will support full digital/HDTV. I think the main thing with them, however, is the new HDCP protection. Unless your graphics card and display both support HDCP (and DVI or HDMI by the way), your Cable Card isn't going to be of any use. Doesn't QAM support digital cable? I made sure my newest HDTV tuner cards had QAM support, but I can't try it, because I don't have digital cable.
Re:Media Center! Plus and minuses for technophobes
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The Trouble With TiVo
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My 77 year old father can operate a Tivo, not your setup.
Yes and no. There was a time I would've agreed wholeheartedly with you. It seemed like Win MCE was only a fanboy thing. But, lately, it's gotten much, much better. There are many outlets that sell pre-built MCE PCs, they load the OS, they load and configure the tuners, and most will even pre-setup MCE for you. All you do is take it out of the box, hook it up to whatever TV source you have (antenna, cable, satellite, other), and off you go. In my case, I had to go through MCE's setup myself, which had me specify my zip code, choose my TV source, set the resolution for my TV (HDTV 1080i) and my audio (toslink), but I wanted to do that myself. I could've easily had the tech guys at Puget Custom Computer do that for me. Another company I've used is S1Digital, which specializes in only media centers. There are many, many others that give you out of the box solutions. If they can setup a TiVo, they can setup a Win MCE box.
I'm thinking of getting a cheap $500 unit for my mother when over-the-air NTSC broadcasts discontinue in February 2009. She could easily keep using her antenna for HDTV and record 2 shows simultaneously. The interface for MCE is incredibly simple. It may not have as fancy graphics as TiVo, but it is certainly easy. My mother, wife and kid all know how to use it without any problem. Only occasionally, my kid will ask for help, but that's more because he's still learning to read.
My wife'll tell you stories, but that's only because I try to get this thing to do everything but make coffee (and that's only because I don't like coffee). I also use it as a full fledged PC server, it runs Cygwin with SSH server, and Remote Desktop, and I use it as a workstation occasionally. With all of that, we've had our fair share of headaches. But, when it comes to the basic operation, starting it, resetting it, navigating with the remote, choosing shows and setting up recordings, my wife'll be the first to tell you it's easy and she does it all of the time. My kid gets up at 6am every morning without us to turn it on and watch his cartoons. On weekends, my wife's rule is if he doesn't wake us up, he can watch as many cartoons as he can find on it. Plus, because they're all recorded, he never goes near live TV, easing our concerns.
As I understand it, Cable Card only allows you to have the cable tuner inside the PC. You can still get regular tuner cards and hook them up to a Cable or Satellite box.
Re:Three quick easy ways for TIVO to Dominate...
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So the user can violate the copyright/re-broadcast rules by taking the DVD to your friends' house? The broadcasters are the dictators there, not TiVo.
Not really. Anyone can do this on an MCE PC without legal ramifications. You can even store your recorded shows that have been branded (encrypted) with the nefarious Broadcast Flag, but you're still constrained to only playing it back on the same PC.
Bottom line: If the broadcaster doesn't set their Broadcast Flag to copyright your recording, you're free to copy it anywhere you want, show it to anybody, and play it back on any device you want that can play it. If they do set the flag, yes you can port them to DVD/Blu-Ray/HDDVD or other media, but it won't play back on your friend's PC. So, not really an issue here.
Yup, already in the market, and it has absolutely nothing to do with TiVo or the Cable companies. Whether it be Windows or Linux, a Media Center Edition PC does all that for you, and you can even buy a Windows one pre-loaded and ready to go out of the box, just like TiVo. They've been doing it all for years, ever since XP MCE came out in 2004 (was it 2003?).
On most MCE's, you can even tweak the settings to do what you want. Want a 40 second skip and a 15 second replay? Tweak it.
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Your point is not lost on me, certainly. However, I work in a large data center that VLANs large number of address ranges, and everything is remembered by its "VLAN number" or more accurately it's IPv4 address range, for example 10.0.208.* or 10.0.209.* where the 3rd octet represents the VLAN number. Then inside of that, certain well known servers are well known 4th octet addresses, like workstations are 35-39, domain controllers are 10&11, and so forth. I'd love it if I didn't have to remember all of those numbers, but I'm stuck with it, and the IPv4 system is simpler. IPv6 is harder and its overkill for our environment. If I can use IPv4 internally and IPv6 just on the Internet, fine. I don't need to remember my Internet address. That is most definitely a DNS name. It's all of the hundreds of servers internally that I have to track, and I have to give multiple clones the same exact IP address in each of the dozens of VLAN networks.
Yeah, how about technologies that don't use names, like firewalls for one. I've had to remember IP addresses a lot more than I've had to remember host names.
I know I don't. Could they have come up with a more hard to remember addressing scheme?
Once you plug a server into someone else's network, it's their server. IT has all kinds of accountability for anything plugged into their network. You plug your server into their network without their knowledge or consent, and you are basically operating a black box that they cannot control or audit for compliance.
So....I vote YES...give IT whatever they ask for.
If a simple non-root account is all they're asking for, consider yourself lucky that they are still granting you the privilege of operating a server on their network.
...to off-shore your business?
Maybe if the overseas businesses paid their fair share they wouldn't seem so dirt cheap compared to domestic businesses anymore, to include... fair wages and benefits, paying the same fees compliant businesses pay, buying their commercial software, and so on.
How ethical is it to send your business to a dirt cheap overseas company who then produces your product for you with unethical means and standards?
I have 2 Media Center editions of Windows, XP MCE and Vista MCE. They continue media center support through Win 7 and plan to keep going. But, don't let Windows stop you if you don't like it. Try Myth or Boxee or whatever flavor-of-the-year media solution there is. My media center not only aggregates all of my media together into one interface, it helps me sort it, present it and play it. The music section (which catalogs all of my MP3s from a NAS), let's me sort by title, artist, album, etc. The Recorded TV section lets me sort by date recorded, series name, etc. There's also a section for pictures and videos, which I use less often. It automatically re-catalogs "watched folders" on a regular basis, so if I add another album to my MP3 collection, it will automatically find it in time (or on a reboot if I'm impatient). If you setup a PC just for the purpose of media, it is often referred to generically as a Home Theater PC (HTPC). You can use such a PC with or without TV tuners to record shows. I have one such PC that controls my TV. My entire TV watching experience comes from the PC. I personally use mine with 4 tuners, 2 HDTV to record broadcast TV and 2 analog to record from 2 cable boxes (2 of each helps with time conflicts when you want to record 2 shows at once). Without these PCs, I'd never be able to wade through my collection of music effectively, and it is bar none the best recorded TV solution I have found.
It really can't help you with books, games and comics, because media center specializes in audio/video solutions.
The 2 most valuable math classes I ever had as it relates to my CS career: Logic and Arithmetic, in that order. Calculus? Never once used it, not in my CS career, and not in my personal life either. I've been a Systems Administrator and Systems Engineer throughout my entire career.
If I had been designing 3D simulation and mapping algorithms, OK maybe calculus would've been useful, but then I would have gone that route in college if I wanted to do that. As it is, getting a math minor (up through Calc III) to earn my CS major is a complete load of bunk!
If I could get back the time in my life that I wasted on Calculus classes and the heartbreak I felt struggling at every step of the way, I'd be a much happier man today. Calculus was by far the biggest load of crap I have ever had to deal with in my life in relation to its actual usefulness in my life (i.e. zero).
In the corporate world, it's always been a battle between productivity (less time to fix the problem) and accuracy (more time to fix the problem). It's a judgement call. In our environment, most of the troubleshooting is done by system integrators. The SysAdmins simply keep the back end up and running, and as quickly as possible.
I store a primary copy in a Pictures folder of an old computer that I keep running as a "file server". I keep a second copy on a NAS I keep in my basement. Regular pruning occurs off and on, and we may even go back several months or years ago to delete stuff we don't think needs to be kept any more. I use rsync in Cygwin to copy everything from the PC to the NAS, and I keep a backup folder with a date-time stamp of each rsync for everything that gets deleted/changed, and I keep more than 6 months worth of those change directories just in case we change or minds or it was an accident. To be especially safe, I regularly rsync a copy to a PC that my in-laws keep running, several states away from us. For this, I simply added a little USB powered disk to their PC, so I don't use up any of their PC storage. That way, if our house goes up in flames, taking our PC and NAS with it, we have a perfectly up to date off site copy of all of our precious memories.
I wondered the exact same thing, how those who bounce their legs regularly, sometimes called "bouncy legs", "restless legs" or "restless legs syndrome" for those who are bothered by it, figures into this?
...and in case you're wondering, I have a very high calorie diet, I stay seated just about all day due to my job and my lifestyle, I don't otherwise exercise, but I stay at a very consistent weight of 175 (I'm 6'2" tall). I haven't gained or lost more than 5 pounds in over 20 years. ...except one time I had a very nasty flu, and I dropped to 160 -- I called it the flu diet. I'm the type that tends to eat very large portions, like a whole box of mac & cheese (which is 4-5 servings), an entire soup bowl full of ice cream (I'm sure it's 5 servings at least), I eat the same size portion at dinner that my wife and 2 kids combined eat, and so on. But, I never gain weight.
If you are one to stay seated or sedentary a lot, but bounce your legs constantly, isn't that a kind of physical activity? I for one have never been bothered by my "bouncy legs", and I certainly don't consider it a syndrome. I tend to think of it more as a sign of a high metabolism (I sometimes tell people I have the metabolism of a hummingbird). My body knows it has a lot of calories to burn, and it habitually urges me to move my legs as a way of doing that. I wonder how many calories I burn by constantly (and sometimes rapidly) bouncing my legs, all day long.
What corner of the web will it go to? What forms will it auto-fill in for me? What charges will I find on my credit card at the end of the month?
The article in question specifically names Feit Electric bulbs.
My experience with that brand resulted in nearly an 80% failure rate within the first year of use, involving a pool of about 4 dozen bulbs, used in 4 different light fixtures, totaling 32 individual light sockets. At first, I took them up on their warranty, mailed back about half a dozen failed bulbs in exchange for new ones. However, I could see it would become cost prohibitive in the long run to continue paying for postage, if the same rate of failure continued (which it did). Other brands are far, far more reliable, and simply replacing the failed Feit bulbs makes more economic sense than continuing to pay postage for Feit warranty replacements.
I consider Feit bulbs to be the bottom of the barrel.
the story on Slashdot immediately preceding this one is The Science of Irrational Decisions?
It's a moronic editor problem. Everyone should know that you can't cite a source that was published later than the work that you are editing. DUH!
I think we may have to update the old adage "cite your source" to "cite your prior source".
I don't have the option to tell my in-laws to re-install their OS. They bought the PC pre-installed with Windows, they're happy with the applications it came with, and they're content to leave it as is. If I suggest otherwise, I know I'll be turned down.
So, I choose to make the best of what there is. I use Cygwin to add Linux-like functionality to Windows, for my administrative purposes, I add security software to scan in the background and to aid me in troubleshooting, and I tweak the settings as best I know how to improve their overall experience, without sacrificing security or usability.
I think it's more productive to discuss how to use and secure Windows to stay on topic, rather than switching gears completely.
Unless they're visiting shady porn sites, installing loads of "freeware" or downloading from peer-to-peer networks, they're very unlikely to even encounter a virus.
...or so I've heard. ;-)
Commenting in general to several posters...
My in-laws have been using the PCs that I've configured for them since the 486 days, and I've never had to take away Admin, IE or Outlook from them. If anything, they're safer computer users with Admin than any of us are, because they don't exhibit any risky user behavior. They don't go around installing loads of apps and going to the dark corners of the web.
My in-laws are not good with PCs. My mother is. They're all in their mid to late 60s.
The difference is that my mother worked in an office environment for 2 decades, where developing PC skills were essential. My mother-in-law is a nurse and my father-in-law (now retired) was a book keeper. It's not that they're unintelligent, it's just that their jobs never had them develop those skills. Now, in their retirement years, my in-laws just don't have much interest in learning PC skills.
Still, they have picked up all of the basics--Word editing, web surfing, Outlook e-mail, and even Yahoo IM chatting.
I really think they could do everything on their own, but they have PC-savvy children and in-laws that they can pursuade to do it for them. I'd say that's intelligent.
- I forgot, I use TightVNC, not RealVNC. TightVNC is free and it works very well.
- Coach them on how to right-click and choose "sort by name" in the start menu programs list (I think this is automatic in Vista). My father-in-law had a hard time finding his icons until my wife showed him this. Also consider setting up Auto-arrange by Name for folders and the desktop.
- Right-click the Taskbar and choose Properties, then Start Menu & Customize.
Start turning off stuff they don't need, like Control Panel, Network & System administrative tools. Also, check Use large icons.
- Related to the above, turning on "Hide Inactive Icons" might be a good idea and turn off some system icons that might bother them.
- I always turn off the "recently opened files" and "recently opened programs" lists, but that's just me, I suppose.
- Right-click the Taskbar and choose Toolbars. Turn OFF that damned language toolbar.
- For the Start Menu, instead of displaying icons by popularity, consider turning that off. Find icons that should always be there, right-click on them and select "Pin to Start Menu".
- Go to Windows Explorer > Tools > View, and make sure of the following...
Hidden files and folders
[ ] Hide extensions for known file types
[x] Hide protected operating system files
There's just too much to keep writing about, unless I start my own blog...
My in-laws are in their 60's now. Technically senior citizens, but on the low end of the age range. Still, they are complete PC novices. My own mother is 68 now, but she is moderately competent with PCs because she used to work in an office as an executive assistant; so, the most she ever asks me to do is hardware installations, mostly involving her TV or game console (yes, my mom has a Wii).
;-)
I've been maintaining their XP Home Edition PC for several years now. They run it so each of them has an account (2 parents, 3 children and my own account). 2 of their kids have since moved out and their accounts are idle, but one has managed to stick around well into her 30s. Ah, but that's another story.
Older people appreciate larger viewability. The best advice I ever gave them was to buy a larger monitor, NOT to increase the font or icon sizes and run at 640x480 resolution. They now have a 24" widescreen monitor, and it works well for them at 1152x720. At the higher resolution, they have enough space to use today's programs, and with the larger monitor, they can see it all better. BTW, running at a lower resolution can actually make things worse. For example, if they open up a document and want to view the whole width of it on screen, it will reduce the font into near nothingness to fit it all into the tiny area. Increasing Window's Font or Icon sizes are another tricky matter. Some programs don't know how to deal with larger system font sizes (because they make a bad assumption that the default font size is the only size) and the words will "spill out" of their boundaries, making it look horrible at least or make it so you can't click on something at worst. There's also the problem of dialog boxes that are too big to fit on a tiny resolution desktop. I've had incidents (too many to count) where a program's dialog box is larger than 640x480 and I can't click on its buttons or move it (i.e. I get trapped).
What concerns me most is both security and remote administration (I live 3 states away and visit only 2-3 times per year). The first thing I did was install AVG and set it up to auto-update and auto-scan at some late night hour. I also installed Spybot S&D, CCleaner (very nice for cleaning up Window's & IE's temporary folders), and TweakUI. I also have AdAware, Process Explorer, Trojan Remover, Security Task Manager, TuneXP and Tweak And Tune handy, just in case. I recently added a router to their setup, so now they have a hardware-based firewall (and it added the ability for me to connect my laptop when I visit).
If it were Vista (which I highly doubt that they'll ever get), I would heavily encourage TweakVI to make it bearable.
Now, onto remote administration. There are 3 main things I did for this. First & foremost, I installed Cygwin with OpenSSH (and many other tools). This allows me to ssh login or to do scp file copying. I also use rsync tunneled through ssh for data file backups (both directions--I use their PC to backup my files and vice versa). Most importantly, it allows me to use tunneling to open ports through ssh, so I don't have to poke many holes in their router's firewall. Second, I installed Real VNC to be able to remotely control their desktop from a distance. Lastly, I "tweaked" (a small hack) to get Remote Desktop working. I must say Remote Desktop is the best tool available for remote Windows administration. It's too bad I had to hack things to get it working. For VNC and RD both I use SSH Port Forwards to use them. The only port open through their router is 22 and everything I do is encrypted. One example, you setup local port 113389 to forward to their internal IP port 3389. Once I establish my SSH session, I can then use Remote Desktop client to connect to localhost:113389 and voila, I'm in. There are many things in Windows that require a GUI (running CCleaner, Spybot, etc; installing/updating apps, etc.). It's been essential for me to tunnel in and to get a GUI through VNC o
You have 2 systems, the system you manage and audit, and a second system that someone else manages. You periodically (daily, hourly, minutely) archive your log files to the second system. The second party can easily make it so that you can read anything you've sent there, write a file only once, but not modify it or delete it. They manage it, not you.
I like to do this in Solaris with syslog files. Those aren't audit files per se, but anything logged by syslogd can easily be sent to a host rather than to a log file, or both. There's nothing that says that other host has to be something you manage. It could easily be a host that your local security officer manages and won't ever let you touch or even get physically near.
For files that the Basic Security Module (BSM) generates, I haven't quite figured out how to have a WORM system, other than archiving them off of the server daily. Once they are archived by the local backup team, they are out of our hands at least...but there's nothing preventing them, other than ethics, from altering their copies.
I think the best you can hope for is a good 2 system setup as I describe above, but in order to check & balance both sides, you keep a checksum of the file before you send it and they checksum it after receipt. The checksums should always match on both sides, and neither party should have access to the other party's system.
Some ATSC (HDTV) tuner cards are coming out with Cable & Satellite support, so that you can keep it straight digital. However, that is leading edge right now (not quite bleeding edge, but not quite mainstream, either).
I don't subscribe to digital cable, myself, so I can't tell you. However, I have 4 HDTV tuner cards that record over-the-air from the antenna, and that is of superb quality. It even looks great on an analog, Component Video, TV. I just wish it didn't come with the occassional "No TV Signal" problem when a storm comes through town, but then that's a risk with any antenna setup. Digital Cable on a PC is quite possible very soon. I think recent Cable Card offerings for PC-based DVR setups will support full digital/HDTV. I think the main thing with them, however, is the new HDCP protection. Unless your graphics card and display both support HDCP (and DVI or HDMI by the way), your Cable Card isn't going to be of any use. Doesn't QAM support digital cable? I made sure my newest HDTV tuner cards had QAM support, but I can't try it, because I don't have digital cable.
Yes and no. There was a time I would've agreed wholeheartedly with you. It seemed like Win MCE was only a fanboy thing. But, lately, it's gotten much, much better. There are many outlets that sell pre-built MCE PCs, they load the OS, they load and configure the tuners, and most will even pre-setup MCE for you. All you do is take it out of the box, hook it up to whatever TV source you have (antenna, cable, satellite, other), and off you go. In my case, I had to go through MCE's setup myself, which had me specify my zip code, choose my TV source, set the resolution for my TV (HDTV 1080i) and my audio (toslink), but I wanted to do that myself. I could've easily had the tech guys at Puget Custom Computer do that for me. Another company I've used is S1Digital, which specializes in only media centers. There are many, many others that give you out of the box solutions. If they can setup a TiVo, they can setup a Win MCE box.
I'm thinking of getting a cheap $500 unit for my mother when over-the-air NTSC broadcasts discontinue in February 2009. She could easily keep using her antenna for HDTV and record 2 shows simultaneously. The interface for MCE is incredibly simple. It may not have as fancy graphics as TiVo, but it is certainly easy. My mother, wife and kid all know how to use it without any problem. Only occasionally, my kid will ask for help, but that's more because he's still learning to read.
My wife'll tell you stories, but that's only because I try to get this thing to do everything but make coffee (and that's only because I don't like coffee). I also use it as a full fledged PC server, it runs Cygwin with SSH server, and Remote Desktop, and I use it as a workstation occasionally. With all of that, we've had our fair share of headaches. But, when it comes to the basic operation, starting it, resetting it, navigating with the remote, choosing shows and setting up recordings, my wife'll be the first to tell you it's easy and she does it all of the time. My kid gets up at 6am every morning without us to turn it on and watch his cartoons. On weekends, my wife's rule is if he doesn't wake us up, he can watch as many cartoons as he can find on it. Plus, because they're all recorded, he never goes near live TV, easing our concerns.
As I understand it, Cable Card only allows you to have the cable tuner inside the PC. You can still get regular tuner cards and hook them up to a Cable or Satellite box.
Not really. Anyone can do this on an MCE PC without legal ramifications. You can even store your recorded shows that have been branded (encrypted) with the nefarious Broadcast Flag, but you're still constrained to only playing it back on the same PC.
Bottom line: If the broadcaster doesn't set their Broadcast Flag to copyright your recording, you're free to copy it anywhere you want, show it to anybody, and play it back on any device you want that can play it. If they do set the flag, yes you can port them to DVD/Blu-Ray/HDDVD or other media, but it won't play back on your friend's PC. So, not really an issue here.
Yup, already in the market, and it has absolutely nothing to do with TiVo or the Cable companies. Whether it be Windows or Linux, a Media Center Edition PC does all that for you, and you can even buy a Windows one pre-loaded and ready to go out of the box, just like TiVo. They've been doing it all for years, ever since XP MCE came out in 2004 (was it 2003?).
On most MCE's, you can even tweak the settings to do what you want. Want a 40 second skip and a 15 second replay? Tweak it.