On top of that you're saying the majority of pirates are "Grandma", "Mom", and "starving college kids". Sure College kids, but Mom and Grandma??? they bought the packaged dell computer in the first place with the legal copy of windows.
One computer store actually sold people pre-built computers with illegal copies of Windows on those computers some time ago. I can't remember which, though. If the place you bought your computer from put an illegal copy of windows on your computer, it entirely is possible for the "mom" and "grandma" to end up with illegal copies of windows.
I don't know all the details, but didn't some old bioses let you get past that boot sector write warning by inserting the appropriate character into the keyboard buffer before attempting the write and therefore fooling the bios into thinking the user had pressed the key to allow the write?
It's funny how, in the first example, the words "Top Secret" are thinly blacked out on each page. What exactly does blacking out those words accomplish?
Daily backups are the key. And not Whole Fucking Hard Drive Backups like most insane backup programs want to do. Backup your damn documents and data.
The problem in Windows is even knowing where your documents and data are stored. Some programs still store settings and documents created under them in their program folder. Without a whole hard drive backup, most non-expert computer users would probably miss some of their important documents and data in their backup.
About your #1 (backup anything and everything), be sure to also include the testing of backups. Imagine trying something new out on your system and screwing it up, thinking you are 100% safe from that screw-up by a backup and finding out when you are trying to restore that backup that it was corrupted.
It seems like, in that case, a debug log of some sort would be useful. The log should be easily enabled by the user (or enabled by default) and that log should contain every step/action done by the user along with other relevant information such as the program's version number, their distribution's name and version number, etc... (excluding any private information). The user could still give their basic description "[task] doesn't work" and be instructed to upload the debug log after doing the task into their problem report on the program's site.
That sounds like a great idea, but how can all that be accomplished without a noticeable performance decrease of nearly everything a user runs inside the guest OS?
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You must be new around here...
One computer store actually sold people pre-built computers with illegal copies of Windows on those computers some time ago. I can't remember which, though. If the place you bought your computer from put an illegal copy of windows on your computer, it entirely is possible for the "mom" and "grandma" to end up with illegal copies of windows.
So you'd know not to watch them.
[laugh]AHAHHAHAAHHAHA[/laugh]
I don't know all the details, but didn't some old bioses let you get past that boot sector write warning by inserting the appropriate character into the keyboard buffer before attempting the write and therefore fooling the bios into thinking the user had pressed the key to allow the write?
How do I sign up?
How does having closed source software hold anyone accountable for mistakes made in it?
I am not completely sure, but don't some mobile providers have something in their contracts against using them for only checking voicemail?
Thanks for the info! I didn't know that.
It's funny how, in the first example, the words "Top Secret" are thinly blacked out on each page. What exactly does blacking out those words accomplish?
The problem in Windows is even knowing where your documents and data are stored. Some programs still store settings and documents created under them in their program folder. Without a whole hard drive backup, most non-expert computer users would probably miss some of their important documents and data in their backup.
About your #1 (backup anything and everything), be sure to also include the testing of backups. Imagine trying something new out on your system and screwing it up, thinking you are 100% safe from that screw-up by a backup and finding out when you are trying to restore that backup that it was corrupted.
It seems like, in that case, a debug log of some sort would be useful. The log should be easily enabled by the user (or enabled by default) and that log should contain every step/action done by the user along with other relevant information such as the program's version number, their distribution's name and version number, etc... (excluding any private information). The user could still give their basic description "[task] doesn't work" and be instructed to upload the debug log after doing the task into their problem report on the program's site.
That sounds like a great idea, but how can all that be accomplished without a noticeable performance decrease of nearly everything a user runs inside the guest OS?