Protecting Our Parents' PCs?

Frustrated Son asks: "I assume that many Slashdot readers must serve as the IT staff for their parents. My folks get my old machines and just enough software to be productive. I try to protect my parents from the forces of evil by installing automatic OS updates, virus checkers, spyware blockers, pop-up blockers... But still I find that my parents end up with unwanted applications and dangerous software. What software or strategies do you use to protect your parents' PCs? Is it possible for inexperienced users to surf the net in safety?"

Diagnosis Tools

[Earl The Squirrel]

While this might not stop the problem, it is useful to load VNC [realvnc.com]. up on their box so you can remotely clean up things. In a lot of cases parents and children don't live in the same town, so no only do you have this problem, but you may not get to the machine for a while. Assuming they have a reasonable network connection, this can be a lifesaver. And prevents you from getting frustrated while you try to explain to them "....move the mouse to the toolbar"

One simple approach

[Anonymous Coward]

I make an lmhosts entry for things like gator
as 127.0.0.1. That way, the parents can't
surf to the malware site anyway. I have a
fairly comprehensive list of sites. It might
not always be uptodate, but it blocks the random
gator install.

Yea, yea, yea. I'm restricting the rights of
the end user. Who cares. My parents have no
interest in visiting gator anyway.

Win 2k/XP

[blystovski]

I would highly suggest Windows 2K/XP, auto updates and all the goodies you suggest, and a good remote desktop package such as TightVNC. Then make sure to keep the administrator password under lock and key, and give them restricted user accounts.

This way they have the ability to use the machine and the installed software, but are not allowed (or rather - simply can't) install any additional software. I thought about doing this with my parent's PC, but realized my sisters would flip out when they realized they wouldn't be able to download the latest file sharing programs. So - if there is any way you can get them to live with such a PC, I would highly suggest it.

Oh - and don't forget to teach them how to keep important data safe (maybe even set up one of those nifty new external backup hard drive devices with backup software), so that if things do go south you can just come over and reload things without any worries of lost data. Just some ideas...

Dealing with this now

[Anonymous Coward]

A couple of years ago I gave my Dad his first compy. It was an old one of mine. He got online, and enjoys it. The problem is, the beast is running Win2K and he is not experienced online. Nothing is realy seen as a threat, so his mailbox is full of spam and the like all the time. Compy slows down from spyware, and I have to rebuild it.

Lately, he has been using a linux box at my house when he visits and seems comfy enough with it. That is what I am building for him now. He will get an old compy from me with Fedora installed. I will include apt and run it from a cron-job, enable ssh from my IP for those help requests, and he can surf safely and play with his digital photos. That is the plan here, if your parents are older and you cannot buy them a Mac, hook them up with an older PC running an easy linux distro and set them free.

You can't miss what you ain't never had.

[Lost Technology]

My solution was to install Mozilla, set it as the default browser, lock the rest of the box down, etc. and then just lie lie lie when asked why funnyjoke.exe that they got in their email isn't working.

"Sorry, mom, sometimes stuff just isn't compatible with blah blah blah."

"Oh, that webpage isn't working? Yeah, it's probably a problem with their server. Stuff on the Internet isn't always reliable."

Sure, they miss out on a lot of "content," but nothing they can't live without.

Do I feel bad about lying? Yeah, kinda, but it's better than making them feel stupid for Window's design flaws.

Perhaps eventually they'll move on to something better and gain the expertise to avoid these perils themselves, but I'm not going to cram lectures and lessons down their throats. I'm patient enough to let them learn on their own pace.

And like I said, they're really not missing out on anything important so far.

How I fixed my father's PC woes

[El Cubano]

What software or strategies do you use to protect your parents' PCs? Is it possible for inexperienced users to surf the net in safety?

I demoed him my laptop (with Debian). He liked it, so I got rid of WinME that had become riddled with spyware and installed (this was about a year ago) Woody, a GNOME2 backport, a 2.4 kernel, Firebird, Thunderbird, OOo, and Shoreline firewall with rules to deny all incoming connections expect for SSH from my personal machine's MAC address. Never had another problem. In fact, his job issued him a laptop (Compaq w/ XP) that he hardly uses because he finds Debian so much easier. To keep him up to date, I log in remotely and do the apt-get upgrade for the security updates.

I also did something similar for my brother with an old Dell P-II laptop he had with Windows 2000 that kept getting viruses and spyware. Only, since my brother is on the road alot, I taught him how to do the security updates himself.

The number of support calls I get from my family has dropped from one a week to almost none.

Re:Get mom an iMac

[Pxtl]

Under windows, the frequent complaint I get from users is the difficulty in installing plugins into FireFox. For example, I some versions often don't come with some of the Macromedia products that are pretty much necessary tools these days. Users consider that pretty much required.

The only other trick is explaining if a site has pop-ups that you actually want, you have to click the little "unblock site" icon.

And thunderbird has its problems. I still don't find it as nice as OE (OE has better IMAP support, I find), and any user can still run attachments under t-bird.

iBook

[mj_1903]

I simply bought my parents an iBook and visit it every 6 months to make sure their software is up to date (aka Mac OS X 10.3, updates to Safari, etc.)

They have yet to have any major problems with it and my mom is astounded that she is achieving things with her computer that she never thought she could, like organizing her photos and e-mailing them off to friends.

Re:Get mom an iMac

[Daytona955i]

I did that for my in-laws... We got them an iMac and the only questions I've had to answer are one's like "How do I burn a cd?" It's not bad... no more virii and they've gotten used to it. I did get Word because switching them to a Mac AND OO I think would have been a bit much.

I've told everyone "I don't do windows!" I have caved in once or twice but only to set up a wireless network and then it was only to install a wireless card. Now when people get the latest virus I just sit back and say "That sucks..." I mean, I kindof feel bad for them but if they don't listen to my suggestions to buy a mac/ use linux (I've offered help) then it's what they get. They know it's a problem and choose to use it anyway.

Grandma Runs Linux.

[robochan]

And has for quite some time [linuxbeginner.org].

Re:VNC

[Like2Byte]

I just did the same thing for my parents. I set them up with the latest tightVNC, AVG Antivirus (which they'll have to register), adaware, zonealarm and Moz 1.6.

They live 800 miles away and as much as my father *thinks* he knows what he's doing you can tell when someone does not. I bought them both new computers and told each of them that if the other's PC breaks that *no one* (including them!) is allowed to try to fix it. Surprisingly enough, they don't mess with the other's computer; but, my father does teach my mother how to use some of the applications she uses.

I've got to say that the best advice to tell your parents is to not tell the other when they are having problems with their PC. Fathers usually like to fix things - lets face it, it makes us feel usful - but when parents get older they get testy. And two testy people arguing over a PC is an ugly affair.

My advice to the parent topic: buy your parent's their own individual PCs - you'll never have been happier!

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Re:Get mom an iMac

[Mr. Sketch]

That's nice until they take it somewhere to get it fixed because they don't want to bother you. I setup my grandmas computer with netscape and removed the IE and outlook express icons from the desktop. She was so happy she wasn't getting 100+ spams a day anymore, but she said some settings changed or something for her e-mail provider and she took it in to get fixed, and they removed netscape told her it was only for businesses and put IE/OE back on there and then she was back getting all of her unwanted junk mail again and probably now has who-knows-how-many viruses/worms, etc. Sigh.

Laptop, Laptop, Laptop

[MDMurphy]

Regardless of the OS, applications, security features, if your parents aren't very local, try to get them a laptop. Even if they use a monitor, mouse, keyboard and such, it's much easier working on it at home with more resources than in their den.

My Mom's in Hawaii, I'm in AZ. FedEx ground is cheap enough that if it can't be fixed in a 10 minute phone call I'll have her send it to me, get it spruced up, send it back. When she was out for Christmas, she brought it with and I updated things then also.

Next time, if we still go the Windows route, I'd put on XP Pro just for the remote access feature.

Default: User

[Sheepdot]

I setup a WinXP box and set my parents up as "User". I would suggest using remote administration software like UltraVNC. I actually created little link that says "Something is wrong" and they click on it and it does a reverse connect from their machine (getting around the NAT on their router, no need to open a security risk) and connects to a VNC client in listen mode on my machine.

It's always surprising when a desktop just pops up in a window on my computer, esp when I'm on thehun.net, but there's no mistaking who it is or if there is a problem or not. Thank god they can't see MY screen.

I usually get a phone call 5 seconds later with a message of "sorry it was a mistake" or "yeah, X won't install." where X = Kazaa or some other P2P app.

On the other hand, I'd be interested in hearing what kinds of monitoring (packet sniffing) people do on their parent's machines to make sure they aren't cheating on each other or younger siblings aren't goofing around with Yahoo/AIM/ICQ/ETC. I'm not so much interested in the privacy issues as I am in finding out who "bigcack4u" is on my mom/sister's Yahoo friends list.

A Tale of Two Parents

[timothy]

My parents (not in same household, as me or as each other) ask me about computer stuff sometimes, but do different things with that information.

1) When my mom needed a computer for college homework, around the time my sister decided my cast-off P100 was not sufficient and *she* needed a college computer, too, I told her that the smartest thing to do was get an iBook, because Apples are well-built and have a better-than-Windows interface. Or maybe I suggested it first to my sister, point is the same -- soon *they* both had iBooks, and since I was looking for a laptop at the time and was likely to be Mom's tech support (however woefully unequipped I am for that), I ended up getting one too. So, three iBooks, extra memory soon in sister's and mine (it was cheap! $35 for 256 megs, 3 years ago), airport card in Mom's and mine. (Sister didn't need it as much, college ethernet etc.)

All three of them are still working great, have been updated infrequently but without incident, no virus problems, no dead screens, etc. The occasional lockup, the occasional crash (only on my machine that I know of), but mostly, good workhorses. Once in a while my mom calls to complain that her Mozilla icon has disappeared (why? I do not understand what could have happened to it -- couldn't have gotten far on foot ...), but for the most part, they works well. Cheap laser printer from Samsung, Bang, works.

It's not my *favorite* laptop -- I dislike the keyboard, esp. the lack of a real page-up / page-down key, among other shortcomings -- but it seems the most robust. Strong hinge, a screen that's survived some rough treatment, a battery that's on the way out but still working as well as one can expect in a 3-year-old battery.

(The other reason it's not my favorite is that I like Fluxbox, KDE and Gnome at least as well as I do OS X, and Linux distros come with a lot more included software that I actually use -- so I like the Toshiba I'm typing on more than I do the iBook; maybe I'll put Linux on the iBook and like it better ;))

2) Dad, on the other hand, pays for cheap, low-end computers, then keeps paying and paying and paying ... he ignores the virus warnings, because none of the several anti-virus programs he's put on seem to fully cleanse his PC. The machine crashes frequently with Windows 98, but he thinks about like I do of Windows XP's required registration stuff. (On another one of his machines, a laptop that came pre-loaded with XP, it asks you to register every time you start up; he's tried to register several times, to no avail. It works fine other than that, though, so it seems less broken than if that part *did* work!) I pointed out to him that this could mean he's sending personal documents all over the internet, that his machine could be a zombie for DoSes, that he's probably spreading viruses to everyone with Windows in his address book. He sort of shrugs and winces, and every few months says "Y'know, maybe you're right and Apple is the way to go ..." Twice a year, he pays some local guy to expunge viruses -- if he'd just save the money from that, he could better justify getting an iBook or Powerbook and not worrying about those things so much. His Compaq laptop (my advice had been "OK, if you're going to get an Intel-type laptop, just make sure to avoid Compaq!" was of course studiously ignored ;)) has had numerous hardware problems, compounded by inadequate repair service and piss-poor customer service. What I should do is tell him "OK, just make sure not to get an Apple ..."

Ah, well.

timothy

Deep Freeze

[phorm]

Where I work, we use Deep Freeze [deepfreezeusa.com] to keep people from installing unwanted software. You can freeze some sections of the hard drive (such as C:\windows), and unfreeze others. I find it useful to have an unfrozen D:, and set "my documents" etc to point somewhere there.

Of course, this doesn't work well with XP (needs updates for those nasty worms), but in that case you'd just have to make your family members underprivileged users.

My aunt is getting a new computer and High Speed. I'm putting strong consideration into turning their old box into a 'nix server/firewall... maybe with a proxy that blocks .EXE or .ZIP files (and a special username to download the ones they need). That gives me SSH access to their network, a way to have it call my server to update dynamic IP's, and I can tunnel VNC as needed. Email could also be fetched through here and stripped of nasties using mailscanner/spamassassin/others

Interesting Solution for Windows

[The Raven]

Install XP, Win2K, whatever... anything that has real permissions.

Setup your parents as limited users, but create a user called 'Installation' that has Administrative rights.

Make sure the visual theme for 'Installation' is so horrid to use (high contrast works well usually) that they will never accidentally use it. Lock down the theme with a policy.

Review their software and remove bad software that requires root access (ie, Administrative rights) to run.

Install nonMS alternatives for the core net Apps. Install alternatives for IM apps if necessary. Install alternatives for major content apps (like QT or Real) if you don't want them installing it themselves.

In other words, give them the power to install things, but make it inconvenient, and make sure that they don't have to install much themselves because you already covered all the bases with software you approve of.

That's my solution. And my Mom is still spyware and virus free for two years, with only a dozen or so 'help!' calls. Father's computer is, unfortunately, less healthy... but he bought a Compaq against my recommendation, so I give it up as a loss. :-)

Re:Get mom an iMac

[tobycat]

It worked for my 91 year old blind grandmother. The VA tried teaching her how to use a PC and after she got home from the 3 week course she then left a the following message on my voicemail: "This windows is good for nothin'. Terrible. Just worthless. I can't make computer go." We set her up with a Mac under Simple Finder and now she can "make computer go" just fine. If a 91 year old blind woman who is new to computers can figure out a Macintosh, I'd say it's a damned good solution!

I've got yer widgets right here

[BiggerIsBetter]

IE theme [mozdev.org] for Mozilla [mozilla.org]. This might even be parent proof.

Move away.

[jafac]

I moved away. 2000 miles.
My mom refused to get a Mac. My brother in law, an educational consultant specializing in Lotus Notes talked her out of getting a Mac.

Guess what? He talked himself into supporting his mother in law. SUCKER!

Fortunately, he's fairly clueful, and does a reasonably good job of keeping the machine's virus defs updated, and keeping spyware at bay. But I haven't convinced him yet on how Mozilla will save him many hours of headaches each week.

Oddly enough - the #1 problem seems to be ongoing issues with her crappy HP printer driver. Which is also the #1 issue with my wife's iMac! (seems as if the only way to fix it sometimes is to uninstall and reinstall the damn thing.) Note to self: next time, buy ANY printer brand but HP. well, last time it was buy any printer brand but Epson. hm.. . . .

Re:Ghost the system

[slaker]

I set up an old Motorola StarMax with an 18GB drive, running NetBSD. I put Samba on it, and configured samba to do roaming profiles.
Once a week, my mom clicks an icon that reboots her machine and restores a ghost image from a DVD.
When the PC reboots again, she presses "1" to start windows, and all her email and stuff is where she left it, on the BSD machine.

Let them do it

[soccerisgod]

I learnt from painful experience is that it's best to let parents learn to handle their machines themselves. Do not raise them to depend on you. That's the solution. Let them get a clue about what's going on and how to solve problems themselves. It's the only way :|

Re:No on Mozilla, stick with Safari

[BW_Nuprin]

I agree for the most part, but Mozilla's evangelical department has done quite a good job on contacting offending sites. It is 99% mom-friendly now (as in my mom uses it, and only complains like once every two months). Case in point, Capital One. The dedicated folks behind Mozilla's evangelism campaign pestered them for no less than a year, and they finally broke down and started permitting Mozilla-based browsers. Also, for my part, I contacted mwave.com, and they fixed their screwy product forms... although they later broke it again, but they changed their site layout anyway, so its all good, yo.

Re:Get mom an iMac

[Brandybuck]

She would ask everyone she knew for help, not just me. All her kids, sons-in-law, neighbors etc.

So let them do all of her support tasks. When my mom got bad advice from her neighbor and trashed her harddrive, she came to me to fix it. I finally had to "law down the law". I don't fix mistakes made by her friends, neighbors or relatives. She looked hurt, but I made it stick. She's stopped asking me for support.

So if you buy your mom a Mac, and her neighbors say to get Windows, then make her neighbors provide her with technical support.

There's always Linux...

[Trolling4Dollars]

...depending on how invested you are in your parent's computing. :)

My parents had the luck of having me network their house before I moved out after college. So the Cat 5 went to every room. Originally my parents had two Windows 98 machines that I stuck behind a linux firewall which certainly made life pretty easy for them for a while. But was Windows got targetted more and more, my parents were getting fed up with the maintenance they had to do to keep their systems up. Finally, this year my Mom said, "We'd like to try Linux. We don't want to buy new PCs to run Windows XP, so can we try Linux"? Of course I took them up on the offer

The plan was that my Mom would get the Linux PC and my dad would keep his Windows box for now. That way if they wound up not liking Linux or not being able to use it, they'd still have access to one machine they were familiar with. But, I had a little surprise for them. I took my mom's machine
back to my place and found that it was a little too slow for RedHat 9. No matter, I had two Pentium II 233s in the basement that weren't being used at the moment. So, I took both of them and the iMac-wannabe cases I didn't need any more and threw together two new systems.

I installed RedHat 9, but left off the bundled versions of Mozilla, OpenOffice.org, Xmms, and a few other apps. Then I worked on custom compiling the kernel to get smoother operation out of the boxes (including the pre-emptive kernel patch). The latest Samba went on for file sharing and interoperability with their Windows box. I also designed a few very professional looking icons for the OpenOffice.org suite, and "M" icons for Mozilla and Mozilla Mail (to mimic the "e" for Explorer). I layed out a custom Gnome Panel with all the possible buttons and drawers they would need. I installed the latest CVS W.I.N.E. and brought over a few of the Windows apps that they still wanted. I built the latest MPlayer for video and Xmms with MP3 support. Put a nice logout/shutdown button on the Gnome Panel at the far right and imported all the old Windows documents (Word, Excel, IE Favorites and some BMPs and GIFs). The simplest, but nicest (according to my dad) touch was some really nice desktop backgrounds of scenic shots from Australia that I took myself. To make things easier for them and myself, I also set them up with ssh connections to my server at my house that automatically log in with Public Key Authentication and set up tunnels for the x0vncserver and ssh. This makes remote support of their systems very easy. All they have to do is click on an icon when their dialup connection is up and I have access to their machines. They also have access to my private Jabber server and mail server over the tunnel as well.

I started on the project in late October and polished it through to X-Mas. My parents were only expecting one computer, but I brought both of them and boy were they happy. I told them that they could try them out for a few months and if it didn't work out, I had no problem helping them look for new Windows XP machines. I also told them that I coud provide "tech support" any time they needed it as long as I was near a computer. So far, I've only had a ew remote support sessions because the machines are easy enough for them to do most of what they need. After I got them set up with a Netgear TCP/IP print server, RedHat's printing setup mechanism got things going in less than 15 minutes. So my dad has been working with OpenOffice.org's Calc spreadsheet app and printing out what he needs. He told me, "This is just like Office"!

My birthday is coming up at th end of the week. I got a birthday card from my folks that they printed up using Mozilla on Linux to access a web based card designing app hosted by American Greetings (I think). So far it's ony a few months in, but my parents are happy. About the only problem they've had is the occasional IE only web site. They love the fast performance and stability of their new systems compared to their older

Re:Get mom an iMac

[tolan-b]

We just got a new housemate who works for our local cable supplier (hello half price broadband!). After setting up a Linux router / fileserver and LAN, the first thing I did was insist he install FirefoxBirdEonix, AVG, and Adaware, cleaned all the trojans and dialers off his machine and set up XP auto-update (yeuch.. but if he's going to have XP's 'lovely' new features, they may as well be to date).

Regarding my folks PC, they live in Ireland, although I'm in the UK, and after many a long tech support call, I'm seriously considering putting Fedora on their box, setting them up a webmail account on my server (spamassassin, clamav, several DNSRBLs), and installing Firebird, OO.o, some basic utils (GPDF etc), and locking down the desktop as much as possible.

That way, if they want stuff installing they can just mail me, and it's 2 mins with apt-rpm to set up whatever they want (I'm online about 12 hours a day on weekdays anyway).

In the mean time, there's far less chance of them breaking things with a mis-click here and there, and far less maintenance required because no more trojan cleanup is required, and my younger brother and sister are pretty much completely protected from porn spam.

I'm seriously tempted :)

Re:Exactly what I was going to recommend

[robtheauditor]

Well, um, actually I gave her Knoppix.

(Knoppix is a no-instllation needed version of Linux for all you poor MS afflicted hermits...Live cd, no hard disk space really needed...and free, of course!)

With a cable modem in place, allowing dhcp, web based email, she's set. One (well a few times) showing her how to start her browser. Open office is there, but all she really does is email anyway.

Power down at night, and every morning is a clean new machine. I even left her a spare cd.

No muss, no fusss!

Back in the day

[Trejkaz]

Back in the days of the Windows 95/98 systems there was this program called Trialblazer which would intercept any disk access done via DOS or Windows API calls, and make backups of any files which got screwed over. The end result was you could jump into the Trialblazer next boot and revert every setting back to whatever you had snapshotted, and everything would work exactly as normal.

Some of the best tests for it were installing a whole set of viruses and spyware, and deleting large quantities of the Windows directory. The next reboot would just restore it back to working condition.

Basically it ends up being like Ghost but where all the backed up data is stored on the same disk.

Of course these days we have Windows NT-based systems, which Trialblazer never supported (the guy who was writing it probably rightly decided rewriting an entire application to intercept a completely different set of OS calls was too much work.)

But these days, there are hardware devices you can get these days which are PCI IDE devices of the same type. You plug the card into the PCI, you plug the hard disk into it, and somehow they do exactly the same thing. Whereas this smacks of evil hardware RAID solutions, using this sort of thing as an idiotproofing system sounds like a damn good idea to me even now. These people don't need disk writing performance, they just need the machine to work, and this sort of backup makes that relatively easy without needing much user intervention at all (you have to perform the original snapshot when the system is working, and how many times you choose to do that is up to you.)

Alternative OS is the only real solution

[X-Nc]

As many (most?) other posts have said, you should really look into non MS options. If money is not a critical issue you would likely be best getting a Mac. Otherwise I would strongly recommend either Xandros or OEone's HomeBase. The former for people who are very used to and like the WinXX interface and the latter for people who actually want to do something on their computer [linuxjournal.com].

My parents use linux and they're computer clueless

[imr]

I installed mandrake 8.2 on a pc I built for them. They hadnt touched a computer before, they just stared blankly at me the first time I said "press escape".
They use it ever since, I did an upgrade with 9.2, they thanked me because "it became faster" (new kde). They also thank me whenever a virus wave hit their friend, because ALL OF THEM are hit in some ways every time and SOME OF THEM even disappear from the net for weeks "until their computer is fixed".
The praises I get for a simple install once a year, and a few updates here and then: PRICELESS!

Windows is an option...

[McBeer]

I find that most people's parents a) Do not know how to use Linux or Mac OS b) Have little interest in learning them c) Require even more tech support if you do get them to switch somehow As a result, I find its best to just make do with windows. In some cases, products such as Deep Freeze [deepfreezeusa.com] and other such apps will do a fine job of preventing a computer from being messed up. Other times just configuring the computer properly and explaining a thing or two to the users will suffice. I have my folks on windows 2000 using the administrator account. Other then a hard drive failure (hardly their fault), they have not had a lick of trouble despite not being technologically inclined. Simply dismissing because they won't switch to operating systems doesn't do anybody any good.

Bad Idea

[magnum3065]

Yeah, I know this was meant to be funny, but actually it'd probably be a bad idea for him to have children who is also quite technically-oriented. My mom is a special education teacher and she's constantly telling me that I can't marry anyone technical since it strongly increases the chances of autism in children. This was partly discovered by Microsoft who started looking into why they were having so many insurance claims for autistic children amongst their employees. It seems that with more women in technical positions now that more co-workers are getting married. Then, when you combine the genes of two very analytical people the child's genes may be too strongly concentrated with this analytic thinking which results in Autism or Asberger's syndrom. They may be very intelligent, but have many difficulties dealing with everyday social situations.

So, go ahead and marry someone intelligent, just not too technical.

Asking this on slashdot?

[ReNeGaDe75]

You're actually asking a question like this on slashdot? You know you're going to get Linux as your answer.

Seriously, when I first ran Windows 98 on my mom's computer, she got so frustrated with Outlook Express refusing to check her mail that she gave up using a computer several times.

After convincing her to go back, she managed to obtain a virus. She freaked and refused to use a computer again. So I installed Linux, and she has been happy ever since.

The tech support calls have been cut into a third. And when she needs help, often it's just an ISP-related problem.

Now people claim that Windows is idiot-proof and Linux is hard. Well, my mom hasn't had any problems with Linux, but was constantly frustrated with Windows. So, perhaps Linux is "idiot-proof" and Windows is difficult to use.

To many people this may be considered a troll, but I'm being serious here and the guy asking the question should take this seriously.

Re:Get mom an iMac

[EngMedic]

It's partly in fear of this that whenever i do significant work on my parent's computers, i leave a rather conspicuous "maintenance readme.txt" somewhere obvious, so that whoever else touches the computer after me to try and fix it doesn't do exactly that.

Re:Back in the day

[Associate]

I either had XP backup a piece of malware I was trying to get rid of. Or the malware decided to hide in the backup. Solution, turn off the backup.

Re:Bad Idea

[McDutchie]

Unbelievable. I was sure this was a troll, but discovered that Wired Magazine [wired.com] ran a story in December 2001 called The Geek Syndrome [wired.com] addressing this phenomenon. Amazing.

It's a crock of shit. I happen to have Asperger's syndrome (i.e.: "high functioning" autism), diagnosed and all, and my parents are not particularly technical. There are also plenty of completely non-technical people who have autism and related conditions, I am helping one of them with his computer, he is as clue-resistant as my NT [autistics.org] co-workers. The idea that autistic people are statistically better with computers and technology than the general population is a myth.

In addition, the idea mentioned in the grandparent post that you should not have children if you have a slightly elevated chance of having a child with a disability smacks of eugenics and is reprehensible. Even on the off chance that it does happen, a disability is not the end of the world, although it can be the beginning of a different world.

Re:Yes, but what about the CHICKEN?

[LinuxHam]

OMFG it was the nastiest thing I had ever smelled. I opened the door and nearly puked on the floor (I have a weak stomach and have puked from cat shit in a litter box). I thought someone broke into my house while I was gone and died in there. It was in June in NJ. A hot June.

I opened a bunch of windows elsewhere in the house before making it into the kitchen. I leaned over the sink and opened the window over the sink. There were hundreds of flies and hundreds more maggots crawling ALL OVER it. It must've taken half an hour to get up the strength to reach in there and throw it away in a trash bag. Then I went to the supermarket and bought fly spray and a couple bottles of Clorox Cleanup. I went through all the Clorox, but god damn that kitchen was clean when I was done.

I also went to pour out the milk, and the quart emptied as two big chunks so there I went with the weak stomach all over again.

Ahhhhhh, bachelor livin'