That... that was kind of a nice reminder.

[kickaha]

Last night our downstairs neighbor knocked on our door, and asked if I could help her set up her printer. HP/Windows machine. Luckily, 'set up' meant "I can't remember how to connect it", so it took <60sec to do the physical cabling and basic setup. (Well, that doesn't include the removal of the old printer cruft that was left floating around...)

Except.

She booted her computer, which is connected directly to her cable modem. As soon as it came up, a taskbar monitor popped up an alert "Attack or intrusion detected. Block/Allow?" along with a vector name I recognized. Then another one. And another. And another. Web pages started popping up. Another. Then I noticed the alert was just cycling through vector names, one after another, sometimes a couple seconds between them, sometimes flipping by so fast the refresh on the CRT wasn't keeping up and they just flickered in and out.

This was just from booting.

I asked her if she wanted me to turn on her firewall, and they stopped once I did.

But HOLY SHIT. I <3 my Macs.

Comments

The only problems ...

[byrdie.livejournal.com]

-- I have with my PowerBook are:

• if more than one account on my machine is using iTunes while logging back and forth, the system will freeze.
  
  
• sometimes, for inexplicable reasons, I get the Gray Screen o' Death.
  
  
• there's no reboot button on the damn thing that I can find.

That's about it, really.

Re: The only problems ...

[kickaha.livejournal.com]

Shared iTunes library?

Kernel panics are usually a hardware problem... RAM can come loose and cause that.

Hold down the power button for several seconds to force an immediate emergency shutdown. :)

Some shared.

[byrdie.livejournal.com]

I'll see if I can figure out how to reverse that -- it's not necessary anymore.

I eventually figured out how to shut the thing off without yanking the battery, but it took a while.

[georgmi.livejournal.com]

It boggles me that this happens to people. In seventeen years of running Windows--and supporting various family members at various levels of computer experience--I've personally encountered one instance of malware on one of the dozens of systems under my control.

Yeah, Windows is not nearly as good as it should be for denying access to important system resources, but it's so. damn. easy. for the user to prevent that access him/herself, just by turning on the firewall (which is FINALLY on by default in Vista), or adding an off-the-shelf router, and then practicing careful email and Web usage.

On the other hand, it should be fairly easy to avoid electing someone to the Senate who is publicly known to be guilty of manslaughter, and the fine folks in Massachusetts have been failing at that one for almost forty years now.

[kickaha.livejournal.com]

Are you kidding? In this region, I swear having a felony rap sheet is a requirement for election to office. The constituents figure you're not tough enough otherwise.

I hear you as a techie, but as someone who's seen way too many people struggle with what I consider basic computer maintenance, it just seems like a poorly designed system that doesn't take those basic steps for you.

[georgmi.livejournal.com]

My basic feeling is, if you're not allowed to vote, people should not be allowed to vote for you. :)

Yeah, the system should do more. But the fact that it doesn't shouldn't result in a machine that's fsillied by default after six weeks. People can learn to have somebody change their oil every few thousand miles; they ought to be able to learn to turn on a firewall and install McAfee.

Oddly, Microsoft has had a hard time including their own antivirus solution with Windows because of complaints of anticompetitive behavior from Symantec and the like. Not that MS' solution is any great shakes, still, it is an unforeseen (I hope it was unforeseen) consequence of the antitrust situation that MS is prohibited, or feels it is prohibited, from providing the necessary solution.