The Grandmother Paradox

[Daniel]

my $0.02
ad aware (http://www.lavasoftusa.com/products/ad_aware_free.php) helps too

-Daniel

On Wed, Apr 23, 2008 at 9:31 AM, Kimball Larsen
<kimball at kimballlarsen.com> wrote:
>
> On Apr 23, 2008, at 7:16 AM, Dennis Muhlestein wrote:
>
>
> >
> > >
> > >
> > > Does anyone have any suggestions for a good light weight, easy to use,
> easy
> > > to configure, easy to manage, desktop oriented OS for someone in the
> > > situation?
> > >
> > >
> >
> > Here's my .02
> >
> > Keep her on Windows 98 and purchase a linksys (or whatever)
> firewall/router to set between her machine and the Internet.  As long as you
> train her not to run email attachments I think she'll be fine without
> protection on the machine itself.
> >
> > I've tried to get Grandmas (or others) to run Linux in a similar situation
> but my experience has been:
> > 1) You become their support person and whether or not you like to do that,
> you're stuck with it forever.
> > 2) When older people are used to something, change is hard.  She's been
> using 98.  No matter how much better (and I don't think anyone will argue
> that pretty much any linux distro is better than Windows 98), She'll want to
> know who to do things that she was doing the 98 way and it will be difficult
> to teach and accomplish.
> > 3) Nobody else knows how to use the machine either.  At least in my case,
> my Grandparents have lots of children/grandchildren/friends etc whom all
> have a bit of computer advise when they visit.  They mess with
> settings/hardware and everything else.  At least with Windows, they all can
> keep the machine on the Internet and functioning (all be it they do a pretty
> bad job of it sometimes).  With Linux, they're bound to break things.  See
> #1
> >
> > -Dennis
> >
>
>  I second this opinion.  I would do whatever it took to leave her
> comfortable user interface alone, but provide a working, firewalled
> connection to the internet.
>
>  I would only add that in my experience, Avast! antivirus has been MUCH
> lighter weight than Norton and it's ilk (and, it's free for home use!), but
> I do not know if it will run on 98 this old.
>
>  Good luck.
>
>
>  - Kimball
>  http://www.kimballlarsen.com
>
>
>
>
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