Re: I really don't understand this one !
Posted: Mon Jan 10, 2011 8:10 pm
Someone recently brought over an Acer notebook that belongs to a friend of hers & asked me to look it over and see if I could make it run
more stable. He bought it used. I'm making the story short here. There was a lot more to the situation. The first time I looked it over it ran displayed
the battery icon, though it was plugged in. I've never looked over an Acer before or Vista Home Basic, the dog of dog Windows Vista O/Ses.
I found a lot of things wrong, beginning with absolutely no security --no anti-virus, no firewall. The last defrag or registry maintenance was
run four months ago. The owner did not get the either the Windows disc or a driver disc, no user guide. He doesn't know to look on Internet
for information about the Aspire or to get the user manual, specs. He didn't know th drive came from Acer with two virtual drives (or what
that is) and a third (sub) partition on the C: virtual drive that has the "one button" factory restore software (Windows, drivers, etc).
As I was telling my friend that the notebook has a number of problems and even more possible problems, it shut down. I looked at the
adaptor cord and flipped out. What's with this cord typed to the box and the box says "Dell". I pulled the plug fast and told her I would not
touch it until he gets the proper adaptor\power cable. Meanwhile., I told her to tell him what i said, to not plug it in again until he has
another adaptor, the proper one. This guy is an extreme case but his ignorance of computer basics is not and his unestrainable desire to
do everything, go on Internet, use P2P limewire and download pirated software, watch movies, do Facebook, etc but not hear about adaptors, lithium batteries, how PCs are complex systems, from the hardware system to the O/S and productivity software. He especially did not want to
hear about virus and firewall software, registry and disc maintenance, etc. He just wanted to focus on the notebook worked fine until "she used it".
He did not want to be reminded that there were lots of problems, constant reminders popping up that Windows was way behind in updates (six months), that updates failed to install, that the computer was at risk, that my scan found several Trogans, viruses, spyware, tracking cookies, that his
Internet Explorer had so many tool bars that there was not much space left, despite the 15.4" LCD, to see Internet pages, etc.
In a very extreme way, this man represents an awful lot of computer users. Fortunately, he is the first that I had to refuse to speak with or
have any of his computing property near me. While hundreds of others over the years were polite and respectful, I think they were not totally different.
Young novices just learned some basics much faster than older folks but I find most just want to go to Faceboo, email, music, Hulu, play games.
It is for this reason Sony, Nintendo, and Microsoft (Xbox) has a brisk business in dedicated gaming computers.
A lot of boys I find want to toss off learning anything real by saying you can make big money playing games. It does no good to tell them
that people who do that learned far more than how to play games. They modify and repair their game consoles, can program, understand how
a computer works, etc. The only difference between these ghoto-ized middleclass kids and dirt poor ghetto boys who want to play 24\7 is
the 5'5' ghetto basketball boy or the 6' 325 pound football boy thinks he can be a pro ball player.
Observe what goes down on our campuses. Why don't the students who are racking up huge school debts riot and demand the administration
curb professors spewing out propaganda and pure bull, instead of real education so they just might be able to compete in the job
market with third world foreign students, who dominate campus libraries on Friday nights, Saturday and Sunday mornings. They attended dirt floor
classrooms, not air conditioned palaces, and many had to share books and use caulk boards to write on.
The problem with switching to Linux is simple as I see it. Western people are something new. They are part of the first people where nearly entire
national populations were born and lived in spender, considering how most other people live. Ever been to rural South America? Anywhere in Indonesia,
Thailand, India, rural China? In those places, even today, our welfare (dole in Europe) population is rich. Yes, rich. They get food three times a day, the young get plenty of candy and junk food, many are obese, they have western medical care, have been to clinics that look like castles to most people of
the world.
What we have here is a huge number of intelligent people who are functionally retarded; physically healthy but physically non-functional. We have 35 year olds who are no different than 16 year olds.
So decadent is the situation In fact, it amazes young people when they read my war record, the part where I was a 19 year old combat officer, making life and death decisions everyday. I really blow their minds when I tell them before the 1900s, the average European man was doing good if he lived past 35 and that the famous French Aristocrat military advisor to General Washington, General Lafayette, was only 16 years old. They do not believe me when I tell them when I was 16, it was not uncommon for 16 to 21 year old men to get their girlfriend pregnant. They quit school. He got a full time job and they got married. She usually stayed home and he supported the family. Most went to night school when they could and EARNED their high school diploma. Today, dropouts find it too much to stick to a year of BS night classes to be handed a GED diploma, a social promotion document.
When I was young most teens and their dads had hobbies, playing an instrument, building models, building and racing electric slot cars, making furniture.
Today, its very hard to find a real hobby shop or Tandy Leather Shop. Ceramic shops have trouble staying in business. Observe the difference
between US or European born computer science majors and the foreign strudents from third world countries. They come here with hands on
experience. I remember my shock when Ann Arbor based Digi-Tax software company asked me to teach their new 4.0 GPA computer science Masters degree field rep how to format a hard drive!!!
...But I could well be all wrong about all of this.
--Bruised
more stable. He bought it used. I'm making the story short here. There was a lot more to the situation. The first time I looked it over it ran displayed
the battery icon, though it was plugged in. I've never looked over an Acer before or Vista Home Basic, the dog of dog Windows Vista O/Ses.
I found a lot of things wrong, beginning with absolutely no security --no anti-virus, no firewall. The last defrag or registry maintenance was
run four months ago. The owner did not get the either the Windows disc or a driver disc, no user guide. He doesn't know to look on Internet
for information about the Aspire or to get the user manual, specs. He didn't know th drive came from Acer with two virtual drives (or what
that is) and a third (sub) partition on the C: virtual drive that has the "one button" factory restore software (Windows, drivers, etc).
As I was telling my friend that the notebook has a number of problems and even more possible problems, it shut down. I looked at the
adaptor cord and flipped out. What's with this cord typed to the box and the box says "Dell". I pulled the plug fast and told her I would not
touch it until he gets the proper adaptor\power cable. Meanwhile., I told her to tell him what i said, to not plug it in again until he has
another adaptor, the proper one. This guy is an extreme case but his ignorance of computer basics is not and his unestrainable desire to
do everything, go on Internet, use P2P limewire and download pirated software, watch movies, do Facebook, etc but not hear about adaptors, lithium batteries, how PCs are complex systems, from the hardware system to the O/S and productivity software. He especially did not want to
hear about virus and firewall software, registry and disc maintenance, etc. He just wanted to focus on the notebook worked fine until "she used it".
He did not want to be reminded that there were lots of problems, constant reminders popping up that Windows was way behind in updates (six months), that updates failed to install, that the computer was at risk, that my scan found several Trogans, viruses, spyware, tracking cookies, that his
Internet Explorer had so many tool bars that there was not much space left, despite the 15.4" LCD, to see Internet pages, etc.
In a very extreme way, this man represents an awful lot of computer users. Fortunately, he is the first that I had to refuse to speak with or
have any of his computing property near me. While hundreds of others over the years were polite and respectful, I think they were not totally different.
Young novices just learned some basics much faster than older folks but I find most just want to go to Faceboo, email, music, Hulu, play games.
It is for this reason Sony, Nintendo, and Microsoft (Xbox) has a brisk business in dedicated gaming computers.
A lot of boys I find want to toss off learning anything real by saying you can make big money playing games. It does no good to tell them
that people who do that learned far more than how to play games. They modify and repair their game consoles, can program, understand how
a computer works, etc. The only difference between these ghoto-ized middleclass kids and dirt poor ghetto boys who want to play 24\7 is
the 5'5' ghetto basketball boy or the 6' 325 pound football boy thinks he can be a pro ball player.
Observe what goes down on our campuses. Why don't the students who are racking up huge school debts riot and demand the administration
curb professors spewing out propaganda and pure bull, instead of real education so they just might be able to compete in the job
market with third world foreign students, who dominate campus libraries on Friday nights, Saturday and Sunday mornings. They attended dirt floor
classrooms, not air conditioned palaces, and many had to share books and use caulk boards to write on.
The problem with switching to Linux is simple as I see it. Western people are something new. They are part of the first people where nearly entire
national populations were born and lived in spender, considering how most other people live. Ever been to rural South America? Anywhere in Indonesia,
Thailand, India, rural China? In those places, even today, our welfare (dole in Europe) population is rich. Yes, rich. They get food three times a day, the young get plenty of candy and junk food, many are obese, they have western medical care, have been to clinics that look like castles to most people of
the world.
What we have here is a huge number of intelligent people who are functionally retarded; physically healthy but physically non-functional. We have 35 year olds who are no different than 16 year olds.
So decadent is the situation In fact, it amazes young people when they read my war record, the part where I was a 19 year old combat officer, making life and death decisions everyday. I really blow their minds when I tell them before the 1900s, the average European man was doing good if he lived past 35 and that the famous French Aristocrat military advisor to General Washington, General Lafayette, was only 16 years old. They do not believe me when I tell them when I was 16, it was not uncommon for 16 to 21 year old men to get their girlfriend pregnant. They quit school. He got a full time job and they got married. She usually stayed home and he supported the family. Most went to night school when they could and EARNED their high school diploma. Today, dropouts find it too much to stick to a year of BS night classes to be handed a GED diploma, a social promotion document.
When I was young most teens and their dads had hobbies, playing an instrument, building models, building and racing electric slot cars, making furniture.
Today, its very hard to find a real hobby shop or Tandy Leather Shop. Ceramic shops have trouble staying in business. Observe the difference
between US or European born computer science majors and the foreign strudents from third world countries. They come here with hands on
experience. I remember my shock when Ann Arbor based Digi-Tax software company asked me to teach their new 4.0 GPA computer science Masters degree field rep how to format a hard drive!!!
...But I could well be all wrong about all of this.
--Bruised